Smells Good To Me

Report Says Air Is Bad, But There Are Some Sweet Smells On The North Fork

By Phyllis Lombardi

Watch where you breathe! According to a report released a few weeks ago by the American Lung Association, except for Chautauqua County in western New York, Suffolk has the worst ozone problem in the state.

Just how bad is our air? Well, Queens County and the Bronx are rated quite a bit better than Suffolk. That should tell you. But how could this be? We’re in God’s country out here, aren’t we?

Now I certainly can’t solve the problem of soot and smog. Perhaps there’s no solution. Though I understand the folks at the Environmental Protection Agency are working on it. Just hold your nose!

But I offer a plan. It’s called deception and it might work here on the North Fork. We can search out good-smelling spots on our Fork and do all our breathing at those sites. If a place smells good, how can it possibly be harmful to breathe there? So follow your nose to fragrant locations and breathe away.

Those of you who require oxygen in the early morning might head to Aldo’s Too in Greenport for coffee. Simply jump right out of bed, pull on jeans and a T-shirt, and get going. Move quickly if you plan on not one noseful of air till you reach Greenport. Then, in front of Aldo’s Too, exhale, inhale.

If you’re lucky, you’ll show up at just the right time. Aldo will be grinding coffee beans in that marvelous red machine, The San Franciscan, and the fragrance will scent the air up and down Front Street. Fill your lungs. It shouldn’t be too long before you can breathe again.

Inlet Pond Park on Route 48 in Greenport is just a short drive from Aldo’s Too. We’re headed for a mid-morning hike and some sweet-smelling air. Inlet Pond’s trails are level and clearly marked – for minimum exertion. Park your car and walk the path to Long Island Sound. Don’t breathe till you see and smell the honeysuckle. So sweet and heady. Surely it must be safe. We’ll walk here for an hour or so, breathing all the time.

With so much good air in our lungs, we’re able to venture further away. All the way to Riverhead, without breathing. Now stop in any one of the new car dealerships. Buick, Honda, Chevy, Chrysler, Porsche, for starters. Kick tires, open and close doors, all the time inhaling that new-car smell. Leather, paint, wax. If a salesperson offers help, simply respond, “No thanks, I’m just breathing.”

Riverhead respiration allows us to go back east for lunch. If you’d like fish, drive to Braun’s Seafood on Main Road in Cutchogue. Their brand-new take-out facility will have you eating well – and breathing, too. Fried clams, chowders. Whatever it is that smells so good, be grateful to Braun’s owner, James Homan, and his finny friends.

You enjoy breathing but prefer chicken to fish? Then come to Cutchogue next August. Position yourself at the firehouse on New Suffolk Road and wait for the Cutchogue Fire Department’s annual chicken barbecue. The granddaddy of ’em all. Chicken for 3,000 breather-eaters is prepared on the tented field across from the firehouse. No question. This is the North Fork’s foremost good-smell spot. And in my hometown! I think it was a Cutchogue guy who, breathing deeply, said, “Fair is fowl and fowl is fair.”

After all this food and air, a little nap is in order. Stretch out on a blanket at Orient Beach State Park. There’s good breathing, thanks to Rosa Rugosa. No, that’s not some sea nymph or beguiling mermaid. It’s the salt-spray rose found near all our beaches. Pink and white and purple fragrance from June through October.

For winter breathing? Try Dart’s Christmas Tree Farm in Southold. Cut a tree and breathe through the whole holiday season. While you’re at Dart’s, gather a handful of pine needles that have fallen to the good earth. Tie them up in your handkerchief or put ’em in a plastic baggie. Carry them with you always. I’ll tell you why.

What if you must breathe and you’re not at a sweet-smelling site? When that urge comes upon you, dig Dart’s pine needles out of your pocket and inhale. Strangers may question your behavior but you just tell them you’re from Suffolk County. They’ll understand.