It’s been exactly a year since I left East Hampton for Maine. I always thought I’d leave all behind in starting a new life — especially inquiries as to “which Dayton are you?”
For the final time, let me pronounce that I’m not “an East Hampton Dayton.” My father’s family was from Bayside in Queens County. I landed in East Hampton in 1980 by circumstance with a surfboard under my arm.
The 1980s were a special decade for me: surfing Georgica and on to the Sea Wolf every Sunday for clams, $2 tall Budweisers and lousy sounding bands with no complaints from anyone. I found a local girl and married, then two boys came along. It was a mellow time — friendly mom-and-pop stores, places to park and no road rage.
But then sometime in the 1990s a cataclysmic event occurred. A weatherman in Manhattan started describing the South Fork of Long Island on television as “the Hamptons.”
It’s been all downhill since.
An invasion of uncouth people swarmed in. Soon, there were no parking spaces anywhere. So-called trophy stores pushed out the little guy, only to have Main Street bleak and barren in the winter.
Just recently, one popped up near the movie theater. I happened to pass by and glance in the window. A stern-faced security guard stared me down from inside, an obvious bulge at his side waist.
Welcome to the Hamptons.
Rainy days became nightmares for any and all. Total gridlock as people disembarked from packed Jitneys. The ever-present friendliness disappeared, store clerks became sullen, with phony smiles and “have a good day,” not really meaning it.
The police were no longer just keeping the peace but seemed to be everywhere ready to pounce. The old guard of the village force faded as young cowboys cruised to lover lanes to bust teenagers smoking pot, a soft target to boost their arrest records. Funny, marijuana is legal now.
The generations of weekenders, the 20-to-30-somethings, no longer were interested in America’s most beautiful village, nor the world-class bay beaches that they had no idea were minutes away. It was the Coney Island of Indian Wells, bodies packed like sardines, kegs of beer flowing to emptiness, then left behind as trash for the morning beach walker. But all for the good of bragging as to the severity of their hangovers: “I got so hammered last night!”
Fast-forward to the pandemic exodus from Manhattan. All of a sudden, joggers appeared in March, while Lamborghinis double-parked next to the endless socially distanced lines to the gourmet food store.
There are no gourmet food stores here where I am now. No trophy cars — I’ve forgotten what Ferraris look like. No caravans of black Land Rovers. No steady stream of white vans, ladders atop, with three illegal aliens across the front seat.
In one full year here, I’ve yet to experience one instance of road rage — not one. On Montauk Highway, it was an everyday common occurrence for me.
Up here, people drive fast on the two lanes but safely, with no humping. I was taught in driver’s ed: one car length for every 10 mph. But I guess most in a hurry to get out to the Hamptons never attended driving school.
Little things like that add up on the quality of life scale. Speaking of that, it’s a 9.5 up here. The state itself is genuine community. “Mainers,” we call ourselves. So many are so kind after I mention that “I’m new here — I just moved up from eastern Long Island, New York.” They look me in the eye and say, with heartfelt sympathy, “Welcome to Maine.”
I can feel that they mean it genuinely.
There are no gated houses anywhere here — well, maybe down in L.L. Bean country on the coast, but no buzzer codes to remember here. I live on a nice, quiet street with my own Riverhead just minutes away. A four-lane boulevard, rarely choked with traffic.
Back in the 1980s, a certain newly elected supervisor, a Lily Pond scion, declared with forcefulness, “There will never be a McDonald’s in East Hampton!” Well, let me tell you, I’ve got one just one minute from my house — and that’s quality in life. The food is that good (eat-in only; drive-through doesn’t work, the fries get soggy).
As to the absence of trophy stores, I’ve given up mentioning it to my new friends. They simply don’t know what it means, even after explaining.
But, admittedly, I do miss the spectacular nature in parts of East Hampton, especially Maidstone Beach, which in my opinion is a world-class bay beach. Luckily, it’ll never get crowded, because the yuppie crowd only likes a crowd.
As to the boating, East Hampton has hundreds, make that more than a thousand, $100,000 boats that sit idle in their slips every summer. It’s true, I’ve done the math so to speak.
My last summer was 2020. On the third Saturday in August, in perfect glorious, spectacular weather, I counted all the vessels in the entire Gardiners Bay, to the horizon: 14, including a very visible ferry leaving Orient Point.
Point made — I’ve never seen a new boat here. Lots of old vintage Evinrudes sit on the sterns of trailered Lyman lapstrakes.
Now, in winter, it’s snowmobiles on trailers everywhere, and not one snow ski on a car rack anywhere. That’s for the Massachusetts crowd who venture up, if they are not afraid of the unfriendly stares that a Mainer will give a “Masshole” license plate. Kinda like an East Hampton welcome to New Jersey plates.
But that’s about it for negativity. I could write a book about the preponderance of that in East Hampton, but this letter will suffice.
I’m just still in awe at how my life has fallen into so much good fortune. Sold our shack in East Hampton for a pretty penny and moved into a hundred-year-old colonial palace with those pennies. East Hampton had become a prison to me. I’m still astounded that I somehow escaped.
I did my 40 years. I’m never coming back. Not even a wedding or a funeral or anything.
Time now to put my pen down and crank up the snowblower.
Chip Dayton is a former resident of East Hampton who moved to Maine two years ago.
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