Thank you, Ginny -
I guess we interviewed Hoving circa 1984. He was, indeed, something! He was very much as you might imagine him, I think, but perhaps warmer, more open, and, now that I think about, generous. Our credentials as filmmakers were limited. My had made one documentary. And I had a decade of reporting. We were young, that's for sure. And he freely gave us his time and thoughts. I don't remember him saying anything radical, but he would have had a prominent place in the film, because he had a wonderful knack for threading ideas. And, of course, he had a marvelous presence. I remember reading about some of the later controversies, but can't say I kept up terribly well. I did know of the Duke book, but I have not read it. Did you discuss it in the Books Gathering?
Robby's parents moved out to Islip when he was quite young and when Islip was still a very rural place, an hour and a half or more out on Long Island from New York. It was surrounded by great natural beauty, close to the Great South Bay. Robby has written a couple of detailed chapters of his own on his childhood, and what was particularly remarkable about them was the detail with which he remembered the town itself. I came away feeling very much as if I could imagine the growing, but sleepy town it still was in the late 1920s and early 1930s, in part because he rode his bicycle everywhere and for great distances. He seems to have been an intrepid explorer even as a boy.
Robby remembers the water pump for his house, the outhouse, and when electrification finally came -- as, I believe, part of FDR's Rural Electrification program during early 1930s. He loved school and embraced learning from a very young age; his mother filled him with encouragement. And she, herself, must have been a terrific model. She wrote poetry, journalism, and opinion, particularly on the plight of WWI veterans like Robby's father. Robby's father spent much time at the local VFW when he was growing up; he never worked. And I have a feeling that the contrast between Robby's mother's can-do attitude and her curiosity and her encouragement of all the things she had Robby doing -- playing the violin, singing in every choir around, regardless of denomination-- and his subdued, unenterprising and parsimonious father was formative. In addition to the music, the pigeons, and the school work, Robby explored the natural habitat around him like a young scientist.
He did, from time to time, get in trouble. And he was aware that his family was not on the same plane socially as his friends. But his mother's qualities and the friendships she established with women in town seemed to bridge that gap. He had one particularly close friend with whom he palled around most of his childhood, when they were young and in their teen years. Robby was also a good athlete.
As mentioned in the book, he got his nickname from the choir director, who was one of those important figures in his life. Robby was disappointed that he didn't rank among the top two students in his graduating class. But obviously, his skill as an orator and thinker were quite apparent even then -- enough so a contest was created to find an additional speaker for commencement among the seniors, perhaps as a way of having Robby speak. I love the story of his forgetting to bring his speech to the graduation, scaring the daylights out of the teacher who selected him. But, of course, Robby didn't need a text to deliver it, word for word as he had written it.
Robby got a fair dose of New York City, traveling in to visit with his paternal grandparents. The family had a great deal of pride in its roots in Sicily, and this can't be underestimated in Robby's investment in education. If I am remembering correctly, his paternal great grandfather was a superintendent of schools there.
I lived part of my adolescence on the South Shore of Long Island, in Long Beach, and used to travel out to East Hampton to visit with a great uncle. And so I have a pretty good sense of the area. And it helped me in imagining Robby's childhood to remember the history of the Islip area: it was once home to a branch of the Algonquins known as the Secatogues; it was settled by the English before the end of the seventeenth century; andthere was farming all around the area, by the time Robby's family moved out in the midst of the Great Depression, the fishing, clamming and oyster industries were prevalent. They employed thousands. Indeed, New York State passed a law that made it illegal to call oysters "Blue Points" if they came from anywhere else. Through the early part of the 20th century, it attracted wealthy tourists who big houses, lodges, and country clubs. So, rich man-poor man awareness permeated that area that part of the South Shore. During Robby's childhood, I doubt there were more than 35,000 people living there. But after WWII, the town Robby knew largely disappeared and was swallowed by cookie-cutter developments. I can't say for sure, but I'd guess more than 300,000 people live in Islip today.
