Fire Island…Life on an island or are you really living in suburbia?

Last winter there was a budget vote for some capital improvements at the Fire Island School in Ocean Beach. Although almost everyone on the school board is known to us, because our children are grown, we are not involved or familiar with what goes on at the Woodhull School. Furthermore, we know the board members and these are not people prone to spend money unwisely. If they felt that the money was needed and the assessments were proper, we were inclined to support the measure. When this vote came up, what we wanted to know was how the proposed spending measure was going to affect our tax bill.
The first time the vote was held, the voters turned down the budget request. It turns out there was a groundswell of opposition among some of the summer residents who submitted absentee ballots to oppose the proposals of the school board. This was not surprising.
There were two aspects of the opposition which did catch me off guard, however: the “Us vs. Them” attitude and the notion that the beach is not suburbia and that people who choose to live here have to do without the things that most people take for granted. Taking this attitude to the logical conclusion it was being suggested that the children who live here with their families on Fire Island year round do not have the same right to access a library that your children do. Because this is after all, an island, and not suburbia.
In fact, the quote which reached me via email was ….”that we (the summer residents) chose and like to think they (the year round residents) chose FI because of it’s being an island, not just another suburb.” This was cited as one of the reasons for opposing the capital improvement proposals.
Both arguments seemed unreasonable and were probably cloaking some other sentiment. So I scratched the surface a bit further to see the demographic of the opposition. I did not have to scratch too deeply. The summer residents who submitted those comments and those absentee ballots were not the homeowners with young children. The summer residents who took the time to send in the absentee ballots were people who have been on Fire Island for a long time and my guess is that they are among the people who say they oppose many of the changes which have taken place which make our communities seem so suburban.
On the other hand, I feel confidant that they probably enjoy many of the creature comforts which have made Fire Island seem more suburban than ever.
But the question remains, where does suburbia begin and end? What is acceptable if you live on an island and what items of modern living make our homes and our Fire Island lives seem suburban?
Is a ceiling fan acceptable? How about air conditioning?
How do you feel about fences? I hate them. But I do have a fence around my vegetable garden. As I recall, even Peter Rabbit could not easily access the carrots in the garden he stole from because of the fence. Which style of fencing is acceptable and which ones are not? I am very clear on what I find acceptable…none at all.
In the olden days here on Fire Island, there were no trees here at all. I have seen the pictures. There was nothing but beach grass. Does that make everyone with a tree on their property a suburbanite?
I have a refrigerator, too. Brian assures me that when his family started coming to Fire Island they brought over coolers with very large blocks of ice in them to keep the food from spoiling. Is everyone with a refrigerator on Fire Island a suburbanite?
Once these and other items of convenience were able to be transported and serviced here, every Fire Island homeowner who could afford them, wanted them. It is no more complicated than that.
So come out and be honest. We are all living a suburban life here on Fire Island.
It comes down to spending money and what you want to spend your money on. And you have a right to decide.
But don’t pretend that the kids on Fire Island have no right to a library because Fire Island is a suburb. Like it or not, Fire Island has become a suburban haven on a strip of sand for those of us lucky enough to have discovered it.