Neighbors

Celebrating summer’s end at Cedar Creek

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Summer’s close brings back-to-school shopping, longer nights and an end to action-filled days in the Long Island sun. At Cedar Creek Park in Seaford, a Nassau County park enjoyed by residents from all over, friends and families looked back with nostalgia on the past few months spent together. They brought up somber endings while also discussing new beginnings the year would bring.

Father and son Anthony Franco, 42, and Anthony Franco Jr., 9, both of Merrick, practiced on the basketball courts with Shane Gatling, 17, of Baldwin. Gatling was Anthony Jr.’s basketball coach this past summer at Game 7 Elite Basketball Camp in Rockville Centre. Anthony Jr. shared his highlights of the summer as going to a water park in upstate New York and hanging out with friends. He said something he would never forget, however, is what he learned at Game 7 Elite. While his experience there was over, his time spent learning from Gatling would not be.

Across the street from the basketball courts are Cedar Creek Park’s grassy hills. Debra and Meir Ben watched as their niece and nephew, Rachel, 20, and Gabriel, 19, threw a soccer ball around with their kids, Lilly, 5, Sadie, 2, and Henry, 8, all of East Rockaway. “We’ve been here before with them, but it was much colder,” Debra said. She went on to discuss how much more they could enjoy the park in the summer weather.

Not to far from the hills, the Nassau Flyers was having its annual end-of-summer picnic. Smoke bellowed from a barbecue as Thomas Adams spoke about the joys of being a Flyer this past year. The group uses Cedar Creek Park’s aerodrome as its main hub for flying model rockets. Adams discussed how the process of flying is changing as planes become electric instead of methane based. What will never change, he said, is the enthusiasm of the people flying these planes at the aerodrome.

The same enthusiasm Adams discussed could be seen throughout the park the very same day. Three-year-old Henry “Hank” Zurita ran throughout the playground with his mother, Anna, of Wantagh. She chased after him as he scampered through a playhouse and up a slide. “His favorite thing to do this summer was play on the playground and go to the swimming pool,” Anna said. “Only he just started talking, so he calls it a ‘see-see pool.’”

Another parent who shared a final summer day with his children was Sal Storrello. He practiced throwing and hitting a baseball with his sons, Gianluco, 7, and Gio, 4, all of Oceanside. “We started coming to the park ever since we celebrated Gianluco’s birthday here one summer,” Sal said. He went on to discuss how his two sons’ birthdays are a month apart. This made for a perfect way to close the summer for their family.