Shhh! As teens, we once drove 95 on the LIE 

Recent articles about the Long Island Expressway got me thinking about a few things that happened over the past 50 or so years regarding that long stretch of concrete and asphalt.

My history with the LIE starts around 1963. I remember standing with a friend in the middle of the construction of what eventually became Exit 57. We were standing with our bicycles looking at something I don’t think we understood. It was vast and mysterious. That exit was for Motor Parkway and Veterans Memorial Highway, which was considered “way out there” on Long Island. We had nothing but two-lane roads in the area, so this was something!

I welcomed the LIE’s opening shortly after I began driving at the age of 16 in 1966. I hadn’t thought of what an important part of Long Island history it was to be. Hey, what did I care? I was a teenager! I frequently used Exit 57 after leaving my childhood home in Central Islip to venture out to . . . everywhere! It was convenient, less than a mile from home. How wonderful. Exit 56 brought you southbound right into the center of Central Islip, taking you past Wheeler Road School. That’s where my mother attended high school (Class of ’34) and I did when it became an elementary school. So very convenient, all in all.

I also remember riding on the LIE with a friend during my high school years heading west doing 95 miles an hour in his father’s 1963 maroon Pontiac Tempest. Yes, we were seeing how fast it would go. I remember being a bit frightened, I guess because of who was driving. I also remember being on the back of another friend’s motorcycle doing 105 mph! I didn’t realize it at the time, and when he told me, I almost rendered him unconscious. Both these instances happened in the vicinity of Exit 57.

Of course, over the years, I frequently used the expressway as most Long Islanders did, sometimes all at the same time. It became a way to get closer to anywhere you needed to go, then head north or south. My wife and I traveled it weekly to work from Selden to Deer Park until I was laid off in 2000. That was just short of the HOV lane opening, which we never had the privilege to experience when we worked together. Her job eventually was relocated to Amityville, so she then had to contend with the crazed drivers on Sunrise Highway.

I also remember getting a flat tire around Exit 60. I pulled way off the road and called AAA — paranoia prevented me from even attempting to change the tire myself. Bad things can happen to those who sit on the side of the LIE.

Now all I have to put up with is my teeth rattling as I drive over the patchwork that has now become I-495. Hopefully that will be remedied in a few months, especially near Route 112. It’s challenging trying to change lanes without hopping all over the road. Repairing the LIE is like painting a bridge. Once you finish, you just start all over again.

But where would we be without the LIE? On Sunrise Highway? Especially west of Babylon . . . yikes! On the Southern State Parkway where the road is too curvy for those folks who want to zip it up a bit? At least the Expressway is relatively straight.

So, thank you, Robert Moses, for making your vision a reality, traffic and potholes notwithstanding.

Reader Nick Connolly lives in Selden.