Mineola. What a name. It sounds like the name of a margarine or some other trans-fat. So what is it that induced me to travel out here? Well, one of my favorite publishers, Dover Books, moved out of their downtown Manhattan location to Mineola in 2001. I used to enjoy shopping in their half price book section in Manhattan where slightly damaged books were sold. I wanted to find out what their half price book section was like in Mineola.
There are some hurdles to getting to Mineola from Penn Station. You can buy your tickets easily enough from a machine (off peak $12.50 round trip), but it is left up to you to figure out on which track the train departs. My schedule showed that the train was due to depart on the Port Jefferson line in 15 minutes. However, none of the announcements showed trains departing for Port Jefferson. I had to find a customer service agent who told me to catch the train for Ronkonkoma on track 15. I somewhat dubiously followed her instructions and got to Mineola OK. I was dubious because Ronkonkoma is not even on the Port Jefferson line. Somehow the LIRR should organize things so that you can navigate without having to consult a customer service agent.
Arriving in Mineola, I was accosted by a man asking directions. I told him that he had the wrong man since I had just come from Manhattan and had never been in Mineola before. I then added that the place looked just like Queens. “That’s to protect he innocent”, he replied. “More likely it is to protect the guilty” I added. He laughed. “By the way”, I asked, “how are the corned beef sandwiches out here”? Pretty good but not as good as the Carnegie Deli” he commented.
Just outside of the station I spotted a nice looking coffee shop. This reminded me that I had not had breakfast yet, and I decided to give it a try. I asked the counterman if it was too late for breakfast? He responded that “it is never too late for breakfast”. I ordered my usual, eggs easy over, home fries, toast and coffee. The eggs yolks were completely runny and the home fries were perfection. And best of all, I was left alone without some jerk asking me every two minutes “how is everything”, like the way they do at Perkins Pancake House. My meal cost only one half of what it would have cost at Perkins. Why can’t Perkins run their operation the way this wonderful place does?
Getting to Dover involved a hike of some 6 or 7 blocks. And yes, they do have a half price book section. However, it only had about 1/5 of the number of books that the old location downtown had. It is really not worth the trouble of traveling all the way out here (unless you want to get a nice cheap breakfast).
At this point the problems posting on bubbleshare are continuing. In sheer frustration, I have not posted some of my pictures. I typed in my album description and bubbleshare lost it entirely. As we speak, I am retyping it in Word and will try to repost it
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