Codger’s Column: A welcome home
It took Codger decades to realize that even with a home on Shelter Island he needed a vacation. How easy it once was, he says, to imagine the ferry ride as all the decompression necessary, the music outside the IGA as soothing as yacht rock, and the various Dan Calabro eyesores as quaint expressions of a simpler, better time.
Just being on the Island should be holiday enough.
Six years ago, however, when Codger and Crone became full-time residents, they came to understand how essential it was to vacation elsewhere, especially in the season when thousands washed ashore to vacation here.
They especially treasured their time in Oregon with Crone’s family at a beach house in a small town with second homes and water issues and debates over community housing. And, as Codger discovered last week, a famous eyesore.
Just off a charming little road where people walked three abreast with their backs to traffic, a rusting recreational vehicle sank into the weeds. It came with a story, of course.
The overgrown plot on which the trailer squatted was the only outlet to the road for the adjacent land on which a local man wanted to build some houses. He needed permission to build a bridge across a brook to link the two properties. The community rose up to prevent the development, and permission was denied.
And so, the story goes, as an unfriendly finger to the town, he dumped the trailer in plain sight. Passing the trailer eyesore several times a day on his walks, Codger wondered what the owner had in mind; did he think someday the community would cave, that laws would change, or was this his revenge? Who was this mystery man and what did he really want?
Airplane turbulence on the way home drove all such conjecture out of Codger’s mind until, just the other day, he came to realize that the phantom boatyard on Menantic and the scrubby lot in the Center had undergone a remarkable transformation. They were in the process of being cleaned up. What was going on?
Catching up on accumulated Reporters, Codger learned that Dan Calabro was at least toying with the idea of developing some of his properties or selling them. He alluded to his age (69, he told the invincible Julie Lane) and the burden of maintaining all his properties here and in Florida. He said he had considered — but then deferred — building a park for seniors behind his liquor store in the Center.
That would have won the heart of Codger, current president of the Shelter Island Senior Citizens Foundation. A place for geezers to booze and chill is just what the Island needs, certainly the antithesis of that rotting trailer on the Oregon Coast.
Maybe Codger is heat-addled (it was a refreshing 60 degrees on vacation) but he is puzzled by the clean-up. So are a lot of other people. Codger has been collecting rumors.
He has heard gossip, for example, that Calabro needs the money from a quick sale. But he’s heard that for years while Fedi’s and the In Between are still empty. He’s been told that it’s part of a plan by Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA) to extend beyond the West Neck Water District into thirsty communities including the Center.
And then that there’s a scheme afoot that has to be executed while Supervisor Gerry Siller is still in power, even though Siller says he might recuse himself from any official discussions concerning Calabro, the reported landlord of Siller’s garden center and nursery, which Calabro sometimes denies.
Siller’s involvement, even peripherally, makes it all more interesting. His surprising loss in the recent Democratic primary was a rebuke to the politics of stealth. Even when Siller’s goals are righteous — affordable housing, bringing in SCWA — his peek-a-boo tactics poison the well. Siller makes QAnon look transparent.
Siller plus Calabro is captivating. If only the Bard of the Rock, Lisa Shaw, could be convinced to devote her next hit musical to “The Mystery Men.”
Even Codger realizes that fact-free speculation over people’s intentions is a reckless and impossible mission. But these guys, especially in tandem, are irresistible. Siller once told Codger that his aversion to transparency came from hard experience; early on, when people found out what he planned to do, they often tried to stop him.
This was especially hurtful when a person he trusted derailed a plan for affordable housing. He’s kept everything close to his chest since.
Codger has no such obvious foundation myth for Calabro, but there have been clues scattered all over the Island from decaying speedboats to Tobacco Road lots to saloons sinking into the weeds like Oregon trailers. If only Codger knew what everything meant.
Maybe he just needs another vacation
