Three Little Punks
When I was 16, me and Teddy Weinberg 14 and Freddy Thunburg 15 decided to go on a camping trip on our bikes (bicycles not motorcycles). We all lived on 85th St on the upper East side of Manhattan. We had heard there was a nice camping area out on Long Island. So we loaded our camping gear on our bikes and started on our trip. When I say camping gear I mean a 2 man pup tent, a sleeping bag and a couple of blankets. You read that right 1 sleeping bag.We headed uptown to the Triborough Bridge and over the East River to Astoria Queens where we picked up Northern Blvd aka Rt 25A and headed Eastbound along the north side of Long Island. 87 grueling miles later we arrived at Wading River State Pk. We went to registration to get a camping spot. It was at this point we learned that at least 1 of us had to be 16 years old. Fortunately I was 16 so we were good to go. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I was only 15. Would they have refused to let us stay there?
We setup our tent and laid one of our blankets on the ground and used the sleeping bag like a blanket. Can you picture it? 3 teenagers under 1 sleeping bag. During the night we were so wound up from what we had just accomplished that we couldn't get to sleep, in fact we were giddy from excitement that we had just done the impossible. We were laughing and telling jokes and making so much noise that a man from a nearby camping spot came over about 1 AM and shined a flashlight into our tent and said repeatedly "Three Little Punks" "Three Little Punks". Well, we were scared what this grownup would do so we clammed up and he left and the rest of the night we didn't make a sound.
The adjacent camping spot was occupied by a male nurse and his wife in an 8X10 Wall tent. We made friends with them real quick and they even let us stay in their wall tent one night . I felt like I was staying at a 5 star hotel sleeping on a cot in their tent. I think they were really impressed with us, and probably felt sorry for us.
To be continued.
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On the way to NYC I kept thinking how lucky we were to meet such wonderful people. The ride from Wading River to Astoria was like flying in a first class airline compared to pedaling a bicycle for 80 odd miles.
We got to their house and unloaded our bikes and after lots of "Thank you's" we headed across the Triboro Bridge to Manhattan and headed south on 2nd Ave to 85th ST. and home. All the while I kept thinking how lucky we were, and how good it felt to be back in Manhattan.