A Dark & Stormy Night Before Halloween

Photographs (C) 2009 Montauktheend All Rights Reserved

HALLOWEEN is the most important holiday of the year in Montauk and, except for fishing, beer and martinis are the hamlet's favorite past-times. A line of warm squalls blew in from the south on Saturday night and chased people off the streets and into the restaurants and bars, at least those that remain open in late October. The Shagwong's barroom and dining room were crowded and cozy as the wind howled and the rain beat down outside. Most of the town's store windows were decorated with ghouls, ghosts, spiders, sharks, black cats, bats, skeletons and gravestones to honor the New England witches who lived and died in these parts in the 17th and 18th centuries and whose descendants are clearly still among us.