Sagamore Hill
It is a crisp October on Long Island sound.
The wind makes the flag slap and shudder as it pushes me up the hill like a pair of invisible hands. The land around here is green and so rich, it’s easy to imagine those early days when this was king’s land and neighbor had yet to pick sides against neighbor.
On a day like today, a day golden with October’s sun, it is hard not to look around and imagine what it must have been like. It must have been rich. Fish. Deer. Cows grazing across inland pastures. Flocks of birds still speckle the sky.
Teddy Roosevelt raised his family in Oyster Bay amidst the gentle roughness of woods and bays such as these. The home of the 26th president, Sagamore Hill, was known as “the Summer White House.” This also is the place where the former president and Rough Rider died at the age of 60.
In some places, where woods remain, thin forests grow careless and unkempt. Strange names like Hauppage, Ronkonkomo and Nissequogue roll off the tongue likeheavy stones from forgotten languages of a people long removed.
