To Live and Die on L.I.
It was the place to be...
There’s a saying they use a few miles to the west in Staten Island that could pretty much apply to any Long Island town you can name: “Born on an Island, Live on an Island, Die on an Island”.
The obvious insinuation is that most residents who are born there don’t ever stray too far; they marry the girl down the street, buy a house on said block and live out the rest of their days in their happy bubble, the only one they’ve ever known. It seems a bit simple, very “Smalltown, USA” in its essence, though there is a certain beauty to it as well. (Adhering to this mantra doesn’t immediately make one a simpleton- I’d like to think I’m a pretty sophisticated guy, and about 98% of my life has occurred in the same county. As another old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke..”)
Long Island has always been a safe collection of bubbles onto itself, almost entirely unique social ecosystems existing side by side. A friend of mine from college (a very bright guy who hailed from western Massachusetts) always remarked Long Island was “the most segregated place he’s ever been”- not meant in a racial way, but rather culturally and socioeconomically.
Look, let’s be real- if a person from Long Island tells you what town they’re from you can confidently predict the following: their tax bracket, type of occupation, nationality, religion, etc. It isn’t stereotyping, it’s simply experience.
Thus, the Island lends itself to the mantra I mentioned above.
Every year, guys and girls from the Island get together, form relationships and settle down: kids from Cold Spring Harbor who knew each other’s family from the Yacht Club, Roslyn couples who met at summer camp, Long Beach couples who met as lifeguards in their teens, kids from that nowhere stretch in Suffolk County between Dix Hills and Riverhead who met at their 12 step program at the Phoenix House…the stories have all been written and oft-repeated. There’s beauty in both their regional uniqueness and well as their repetition. (Just teasing with that last one 😉)
Long Island has always seemed insulated from the madness occurring in the rest of the country. This is due to the fact that in large part, it has been. Yes, there’s been some grim moments. The attacks of September 11th greatly impacted many residents here and was an extremely solemn time. We’ve also had one of the nation’s worst aviation accidents with TWA 800 in the mid-90’s, as well as a notable prostitute-slaying serial killer in the beginning of the 2010’s.
Still, Long Island largely remained a bastion of beauty and prosperity. Nassau and Suffolk counties respectively have always been towards the top of the lists of the nation’s safest and most wealthy. You wouldn’t see Long Island featured on a national news spot as run down by poverty or suffering from a lack of clean water or plagued by the opiates crisis en-masse. Sure, certain pockets of the Island do suffer from these maladies, but they’re far outweighed by the properly functioning, more prosperous areas.
Honestly, for the better part of the last 30 years, you could get away with leaving your doors unlocked in most towns on Long Island. Despite the cost of living and other logistical headaches, it’s always largely been a safe and secure place to set your roots down and live out the rest of your life in happiness. Sadly, I’m afraid that this is quickly becoming less and less true by the day.
So, what happened?
First, let’s take a look at the carnage.
Almost every day in the news and on TV, it seems as if there’s a new story about death or violence or theft. I’m a big fan of News 12 Long Island, a local news channel that has been operating for over 50 years out of the town I grew up in. They advertise themselves as “hyper-local”, which is not a misnomer. (Admittedly, News 12 is a bit of a JV operation, but it was always nice to have a channel dedicated to the top stories and the goings-on in your own backyard). For most of my life, I remember the programming as a couple of top stories followed by a puff piece from one of the local schools, and then the weather. The whole production of content was (at best) a whopping 20 minutes of content shown on a loop. Currently, the programming has taken an entirely different direction. Seemingly story after story is pumped out about brazen robberies, sexual assaults, home invasions, drunk driving accidents, gang activities, etc.
It seems as if the Island has gone off the deep end.
Still not sold or need examples?
Alright, here we go (and this is just from the last couple of months):
A deadly DUI from this past Saturday
A gruesome drunk-driving accident that killed three women driving home from a Sweet 16
^ In broad daylight, nonetheless.
We also have numerous incidents of kids threatening to shoot up their schools:
There’s also incidents of rape:
like this guy, who lured a 13 year old he met on Snapchat to a playground
and
this 14 year old who raped and robbed a mother out in Suffolk County
even the best and brightest of our youth are dying:
**Really late edit**
Right before this article was scheduled to go out, a news story broke about 11 different businesses in my hometown were burglarized just last night. I’ll be frank with you- it isn’t a town that has those sorts of things happen really ever.
If it’s happening in Syosset proper, no place is off limits.
Things aren’t looking any better down by the water, either:
Need anymore proof we’ve gone off the rails?
Okay, one more (and some much-needed levity):
We’ve even got sharks!
I’m one swarm of locusts away from declaring this a Biblical reckoning.
I’ve showed you the “what”, which was easy. But how about the more important part…why?
Let’s dig into it and theorize how we got into this mess (I’ll never say “unpack”, not even with a gun to my head):
Bail Reform
We’ve all heard the phrase “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”, but what if there was no punishment at all for the crime? What happens then? Well, that’s what life is like in New York right now. In 2019, Democratic lawmakers (who else) passed “bail reform” legislation, eliminating cash bail for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. Take the rims off a ‘Benz at 10AM, get caught around noon, and you’ll be home for dinner and the Mets game at 7PM. Isn’t it beautiful? Couple this legislation in with the fact that the New York justice and correctional system is swamped with backup from the COVID pause as well as drastically understaffed with police in the wake of post-George Floyd rioting and violence, and you have the exact recipe for the disaster we’ve been seeing unfold here daily. It’s ugly, it’s a harsh reality, but it isn’t rocket science. It’s the real life embodiment of the “turn the cops off” cheat from Grand Theft Auto (RB, RB, B, RT, R, L, R, L, R, L- so strange how certain things linger in the brain).
Economic Decay
“From the same folks who brought you such classics as Bail Reform and Free Reign Rioting comes this summer’s smash hit, Unmanageable Inflation and $5 Gas!”
It’s no secret that financial strain is one of the most stress-inducing occurrences one can experience, and that such incidence often leads to outbreaks of violent crime, theft and desperation. People are still reeling from the economic impacts of the Draconian Covid lockdowns, only to get hit with unprecedented inflation as the back end of the one-two punch combo. Desperate times quite literally call for desperate measures. There’s a scene in one of my favorite films, The Big Short, in which Brad Pitt’s character offers some cautionary words to his colleagues who just bet against the American economy: “If we're right, people lose homes. People lose jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions. You know what I hate about banking? It reduces people to numbers — every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?" It’s a sobering and true statement that certainly accounts for a large part of the lawless behavior we’re witnessing.
Ok, and lastly:
Societal Division and Rising Tensions
Our friends in the media have been hard at work relentlessly dividing the citizenry of this country headline by headline, op-ed by op-ed. The Good Samaritan culture of yesteryear is far in the rearview mirror. At any point back in the “normal days”, if you saw someone broken down on the side of the road, you’d think to offer help. Now, the average American’s internal monologue would look something like this:
“Just keep driving, they could be crazy!’
‘What if they have a gun?!”
“Not my problem”
“What if they’re not vaccinated or not wearing a mask?!”
Sadly, with the exception of the last one, those are valid points in the current climate. We’ve completed the transition from “love thy neighbor” to “me and mine vs. the world”.
American society and basic public interaction feels tense and “on a knife edge” as they say across the pond. Unprecedented levels of political and social division have seeped into our daily interactions. Hostility and abrasiveness has become rampant. Situations that would’ve been an exchange of words even only five years ago now escalate into physical altercations. Add in the fact that people are walking around ticked off about cost of living and the state of the country and it’s no wonder we’re in this upside down dilemma. The meteoric rise in alcohol and substance abuse is the cherry on top of all of this pandemonium.
My biggest fear in the present day is that we’re one incident away from a “straw that broke the camel’s back” situation. All it will take is another police interaction with a violent criminal with lethal force, or a nationally televised hot-button court verdict with racial undertones to set off absolute hysteria and lawlessness on a grand scale. The pressure cooker can only get so hot before it bursts, and the last place I want to find myself is perched up on a building Rooftop Korean-style watching the beautiful Island burn.
(If you don’t know who the Rooftop Koreans were, I’ll break it down quickly- during the Rodney King riots in ‘92, the shopkeepers in the Korean community took to the roofs of their convenience stores with rifles to defend their livelihoods against the looters. Their many calls to the LAPD went unanswered, and they literally took matters into their own hands. Arguably one of the most badass and aesthetic militias to ever exist.)
Alright, I don’t want to go FULL Rooftop Korean, but I might bite that striped polo under the coach’s jacket style for the summer (sans-cigarette).
This piece wasn’t meant to come across as alarmist or a call for some type of doomsday prepping.
That being said, it would also be naive to ignore the massive shift in daily life here on Long Island. It would also be irresponsible not to be equal parts aware and prepared for the unpredictability of the current state of daily affairs.
To sum it up, I’ll leave with a little analogy- think of life in the U.S. right now like the neutral zone in hockey: you’ll likely get through it just fine, but if you’re skating with your head down and not paying attention, you just might get crushed.
Keep your head on a swivel and your wits about you, and you’ll likely be just fine.
Oh actually- one more hockey analogy before we part ways.
For the guys: it would help to be comfortable with the skills you need should you have to drop the gloves. Don’t go looking for it obviously, but you should have at least a few trusted moves in your arsenal. YouTube is your friend!
Stay safe, enjoy the beginning of summer, and talk soon.
Love always,
John
7 June 2022