PHOTO: Dawn Leone, Lisa Chris Swiedler, Kim Alyson Harris, Dana De Ruvo at the Plant Sale.
It was a memorable Memorial Day weekend. Seemingly like magic, American flags appeared on utility poles up and down most of our walks. It wasn’t magic, it was Kismet. Patriotic Kismetians put them up, like the neighbor I saw on my walk very early one morning, a ladder on his shoulder. The Marina and individual houses also marked the day of remembrance. What was truly magic was a three-day early season Memorial holiday with no rain, not even clouds. It was sunny and mild each day – warm enough for the young folks, visiting and native, to roam the streets in shorts, bikinis and bare feet. The breeze off the ocean was cold but that did not stop some hearty beachgoers. Meanwhile, some of the barefoot kids of yore pushed strollers. Casey Licari, Briana Romanzi and Nicolas V. for three were out visiting their parents and showing off their newborns.
It was a memorable weekend of activity. The second annual plant and potting soil sale, sponsored by the Kismet Fire Department Auxiliary (KFDA) was a monumental – and successful – undertaking. Volunteer organizers, remembering last year’s overwhelming community response (a complete sellout halfway through the first day) planned accordingly. A virtual pre-sale with customers picking up their orders the weekend before produced sales of over $5,000. Beginning Friday afternoon, the Fire Department Community room was completely filled with plants. The walk to the firehouse door was lined with 5-foot high stacks of potting soil. All the plants sold out with only a few remaining bags of soil leftover. A plant stand, christened Seymour, (think “Little Shop of Horrors”) was raffled off. Across the way Kismet League for Animal Welfare (KLAW) volunteers set up their table in Sam Wood’s driveway to sell tickets for the season’s first Raffle Wreath of Scratch Offs. Gary Guinta picked up his winning tickets Tuesday, donating the rattan wreath back to KLAW for the next raffle. There was a band downtown Saturday evening and the Dirty Vice Band played Sunday afternoon by the “La Famiglia” house on the bay.
Last fall 400 people came from all over the island and the mainland to Kismet to celebrate the memory of Jillian Metcalf and raise funds for the J.A.M. Foundation. One of the Foundation’s goals was to honor Jillian’s medical/nursing pursuits. Jillian’s mother, Bonnie, just announced that the first J.A.M. scholarship was awarded to a Bay Shore High School senior on June 1 and an additional one was to be given to an Islip High senior on June 8.
Last weekend Kismet celebrated the beginning of June with early April-like temperatures, clouds and blustery winds. This did not deter Kismet homeowners and long-term renters from gathering to celebrate Kismet’s New Year’s Eve in the Kismet Park downtown tennis courts. The standup affair was a Meet and Great for summer friends who, for the most part, celebrate that holiday miles away from each other. It was a time of warm feelings, a renewing of cherished relationships, a whiff of Kismet past, and a hope, in Krisha Lambe’s words, of a drift back to an older sense of community.
