OF MILESTONES, ROADSTONES,
and
FIRESTONES
 |
OF MILESTONES, ROADSTONES,
and
FIRESTONES
|
|
It happened on Saturday evening March 5, 2005. The page counter hit 40,000. I knew it was coming this week so I had my camera ready, just like I did when I saw the number 1959 on it as it ended its first year on line in 2001....Now realisticaly, numbers like these in terms of world wide internet commerce, blogging , rumour mongering and what have you are very very small.... but consider that this story was never meant to attract much attention... much like the namesake family that anchors it. It was all low profile and just basicaly a short story about my growing up in the shadow of the Mastic Beach Knapp Mansion... I would learn that was just one of their many fine homes spread across New York , North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida etc. I would actually visit some of the ones that are still standing. 40,000 is really not any more significant to me than 1,959 was except 1959 was the year I watched Knapp's mansion burn to the ground. BTW I was briefly blamed for it by an over eager Brookhaven Town Policeman eager to close the case.
What 40,000 visitors has meant though, are many more little breakthroughs in tidbits of info about everything the website touches on and that's what grabs me... that and the many new friends I have made around the world and re connecting with the many long lost friends (some I never knew I even had )....That is what makes this truly rewarding for me.
And with that and the recent barrage of new info I have received in the past few weeks and months, I have decided there will now be FOUR ...count 'em FOUR BOOKS ...written about this little adventure I stumbled into on January of 2001 when I wrote the short story "The Mansion"..... Along with the "Buzz & Pee Wee, Butchie & Me" short stories, "The Knapps Lived Here" and " The Mastic's From Blue Blood To Blue Collar" there will now be "Milestones, Roadstones and Firestones" about the adventure I have been on and the people I have met since a certain Knapp sent me chasing the ghosts of his family in 2001 only to be as disappointed with my findings, as that Brookhaven Town Cop was when he discovered I wasn't the kid who started the *&&^# fire....and it went into his Cold Case File. I just hope I'm around long enough to put out the fire I did start five years ago!
So if your out there and you know anything about anything touched on in this website no matter how trivial you might think it might be , I would like to hear from you.... this website started with my just wondering about who the Knapps were .... eeee gads GeeBee Phoebe....and Geez Louise!
