Ode to old Long Island

As we tooled around Boyds, Md., in early October, desperately searching for a Subway to buy lunch, I suddenly thought, My, Boyds is one very neat community.

Neat, as in symmetrical, with each home a carbon copy of those surrounding it. Acres of big split-levels, with colonial-style facades and neoclassical architectural details. The trees, mostly maples that were likely planted at the same time, were roughly the same size. The grass was green, the sidewalks new and level. Nothing seemed out of place.

Boyds, a relatively new suburb of Washington, D.C., is home to the Maryland Soccerplex, a collection of 19 immaculate synthetic-turf and natural-grass soccer fields surrounded by rolling hills, meadows and ponds. In the middle of the complex is the Discovery Center, with eight indoor athletic areas that can be converted to soccer fields, basketball courts or hockey rinks. Two miniature golf courses, a driving range and a swim center complete the package.

Boyds, you might say, is an obsessive-compulsive sports lover’s nirvana.

Early last month, my wife and I took our daughter, Alexandra, to Boyds to play in the Discovery Cup, one of the country’s biggest youth soccer tournaments. We took our son, Andrew, along as well.

Before the trip, we had traveled by plane to Europe and Florida a number of times, but hadn’t driven south of New Jersey. This trip was my first chance in two decades to get a glimpse of what the country has become “down South,” where so many of Long Island’s young, urbane suburbanites have lit out to in recent years in search of the promised land.

Property taxes are too high on Long Island. Home prices are too high. The price of gas is too high. The cost of blowing your nose is too high. These are the refrains so often heard here, not only from our young people, but also from just about anyone over age 18.

Moreover, the infrastructure here just isn’t what it is down South. Long Island, as is often said, is America’s first suburb, and as such it’s an aging community. That is, it’s old, with cracked sidewalks and outdated homes and buildings that leak heat in winter like water through a sieve.