Somehow, when Tony the trip organizer said "shack", I pictured something much, well, shackier. I've heard the islands of Jamaica Bay used to have a lot of these, before it was turned into a wildlife preserve - my image of that has really changed now.

These are actually an old tradition - here in Hempstead Bay, no one is allowed to build new ones, but the families who've lived in these are allowed to continue that tradition. They pay the town a minimal yearly fee. We saw the gentleman who lived here - he drove up in a motorboat; invited me & Walter (who took this) to come up & take a look around, which we thanked him for but the rest of our gang had gone around the corner to the lunch beach already. As we were finishing, in fact, the young man and another gent pulled up on the beach, brought out some rakes & started doing some maintenance (no, he did NOT have to clean up after us!).

Now I might be a trifle envious of him. Neat life in the summer.