I'm supposed to introduce a couple of short stories (they're really just vignettes) to explain their presence on this site and to encourage others to submit stuff in kind. Trouble is everyone has their own flavor of nostalgia, their own mental album of family pictures. So I'll just preface a couple of mine with a quick redux which you've probably heard before.

We were called War Babies, Boomers, followers of the Lost Generation... you name it, some journalist had a phrase for it. Basically we had to deal with a preceding generation, our parents, for whom the biggest single thing in their lives was a global war. Since we weren't really there, we built our own Interstate highways around and right past this pastoral, but never through it.

We made our own Oregon Trail complete with Cold War, Communists, Convertibles, Korea, Vietnam and television. We had our own favorite cereals, told our own favorite jokes, lusted after our own favorite sex symbols, and danced our own favorite jigs. Some of us actually remember life before cell phones, Velcro, botox and the Internet, before television became the coin of the realm, when Politically Correct was a typo. The rest will just have to take our word for it. Isn't that why we do this?

The magic of the Rockaways is, to us, the same as little towns in the mid-west were and are to those who grew up in them. Or to the children of Atlanta, Warsaw, Phoenix, Vienna or Seattle. The narratives and personal reminiscences are what set us apart. No part of the tapestry is the same as any other part. That's why it's worth a second look.

So I call out to the remembers, the archivists, the collectors of dusty memorabilia and great stories to come forward with your testimonies and help make this more than just a memorial park; make it a living landmark from the heart. Nothing will ever be as special to your lives as the first moments, the first years, the first time. Ask Skip or Carol for the rules, this is their passion and they're good at it.

Richard Herbst

Please feel free to submit your original literary works to this section of the website.  Letters are also welcome with comments about the content found on these pages.  Thanks to Richard for starting us off with several thoroughly entertaining stories.  Please send your comments and stories to Skip Weinstock at rockaway@astound.net

Tales From the Rockaways

The Algebra of Curves - by Richard Herbst

A Wish to Slumber - by a Rockaway native

Intimate Apparition  -  by a Rockaway native

Learning About Sex In the Streets by Richard Herbst

Sex in Junior High by Richard Herbst

The Beachcombers by Richard Herbst

The School Yard by Elisa Hinken

Unnamed Poem by Mark Coopersmith

My Internet 'Addiction' and Science Fiction by George Berger

Tales of the Hooded Man

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