(photo courtesy Virginia Duffy)

Actually the good old days for Sheep's Pen Creek in Mastic Beach were 100s of years before the camera was even around (it's on maps going back to the colonial era) and longer still than when this snapshot of Tom Duffy and his Uncle Al Paskivic was taken in 1960. Still this photo captures for me and I'm sure any of you out there who come across it an essence of the Good Old Days of Mastic Beach and the carefree living it provided many of us who were fortunate enough to have grown up there in the era we did. It sure shows in both these guys faces.

My earliest recollection of this area was when I was about 5 years old in 1952 and my father took me to see a boat he was planning on buying that was moored here. It was an old 1930's era small cabin cruiser , but the deal sunk faster than the Titanic and our first family boat would have to wait another 8 years before it became a reality. However we did rent rowboats here from both Fred's and Captain Andy's fishing stations. In the early 60's, I spent a good part of my summer hanging around at Nick Chapman's outboard repair shop seen just down the dock aways and pumping gas for other boaters.