Growing up in Roslyn Heights, I quickly learned very much about my surroundings and boundaries. While growing up many of my friends and neighbors would spend our summer afternoons at the Roslyn Heights Country Club. In this vastly populated public space, there were sections were I could go and places where I wasn’t supposed to go. Where I spent most of my time was in the playground. Here we would make countless castles, forts, buildings, and rivers, which we would flood with our frequent trips to the pool to get a bucket of water. “No running by the pool!” the lifeguards would always yell at us about. But we paid no attention because the quicker we could make whatever we were making, the quicker we could destroy it and build something even better. This constant loop was etched into my childhood routine. Eventually my mom would call me over to get some lunch, which, of course was chicken nuggets and French fries, loaded with ketchup. Again this was something I sped through because I would get ices after. Marinos ices with those wooden sticks that always split down the middle, causing me to revert to the boring spoon. I loved those ices cups, especially because it made your mouth the color of ices (Red- Strawberry, Blue – Blueberry, Green- Lemon/Lime) so you know which one your friends had. After lunch and another application of colored sun-screen, it was time for us to play bocce-ball. This simple game of who can come closer to the rock was a game played near the “old people area” of the club. We never played for very long before someone kicked us out. It was OK because it gave us time to digest and we were scared of the old people anyway. Next we went into the pool. BRRR, no matter how hot it was outside it was always too cold inside the pool. But again, that never impeded our progress to have our fun and continue our summer-long play date. From Marco-Polo to Tag or different races, the pool helped us cool off from our daylong excitement. However we always got in trouble when we would cross out of the shallow “free swim” area and into the lap area. This was fine because around this time it was getting to be late, the sun was lowering, and it was time to go home for a Barbeque with my parents or McDonalds and a nice night of play with the babysitter. Looking back, this was one of my fondest memories. And while all of my stories are pleasant happy memories from my childhood, there were some definite borders that identify the country club as a social location. According to the definition by Setha Low and Neil Smith (3), a social location is one with palpable tension. Here, the palpable tension line, which we crossed too often, was where the new younger generation would stay apart from the, in our eyes, grumpy old people, who looking back we should have respected more. These lines weren’t set boundaries, just where the radios and kids would fade to books and serenity for the older generation of members. We weren’t allowed into the club house where the nicer bathrooms were with the carpeted staircases and valet parking. Me , my family and our young generation friends would carry our clothing, towels, and toys across the parking lots and find the lounge chairs that didn’t have food or bird poop on them. As a kid this didn’t bother me because I wasn’t at the lounge chairs nor did using the less nice bathrooms give me and trouble , however looking back and speaking with my parents I definitely see how there were dimensions that were highly differentiated.
Roslyn Country CLub
Posted by derkatz 
