It may of been that mass turnout by the kids at Floyd in November of '58 that started Doc's wheels turning about expanding his hospital. Or it may of been that rapid growth in the town next door called Shirley. Old W. T. Shirley was fulfilling older Fred Quimby's vision selling off all that former Smith land. Whatever it was Doc Frank Calabro saw the need firsthand and took action. In 1959 he put up a modern brick building that kind of resembled half of our school on the backside of the mansion and more than doubled his amount of beds. At the same time he bricked the outside of the homestead to match it.

One of his first patients in the new wing was my mother. She was working for William Floyd English teacher Mrs. Nelson back then, as a nanny for Dorice's three young children. She started in the fall of '58 when Dorice lived in one of those Shirley pre fab houses just down Lexington road from the school. Well that winter Dorice and her husband separated and Dorice wanted to move out of that place. At the same time my pal Larry Schulz's dad was renovating the old Knapp estate barn on Ramshorn making it into a house. An old guy named Mr. Clark had actually lived in it as a barn after the Knapps left . It was during the mid 50's that he passed away and the Schulz's bought the barn at his estate auction. A year or so later Dave Schulz who was a carpenter, turned it into a legitimate house. My Mom told Dorice about it and the rest is history. The Schulzs had there first tenant and my Mom had to only go around the corner to go to work.

One afternoon she had just put the twins to bed for their afternoon nap. They were around 3 or 4 and their older brother Steven was in Kindergarten or first grade. As my mom came back down the stairs she slipped and came all the way down. The fall did something to her back and she could not move. The twins Mikey & Lee never heard her cries and she laid there until Steven got home from school and ran next door to get Mars. Schulz. I remember the room she had on the second floor with a west window . It was the one closest to the homestead. She was in there for several days and we all spent a lot of time in the newest part of the Calabro Compound.

A year or so later I would be next. Although this was only a trip to the emergency room. But the story "Keeping Me In Stitches" of how I got there is a whopper. It's on the websight in the Buzz & Pee Wee Butchie and Me short story section. The story involves both Knapp's barn & some wild aqua batics that sent me off to Bayview where was treated by Doc's son Frank Jr. If you click on the story title you will be transported back to 1961 and 1954 too.

Doc senior as he was now known was always a man of the community and in 1962 they named him "Man Of The Year" In 1964 he wanted to expand again this time tripling the size of Bayview. He actually started to do the construction when Blue Cross threatened to yank his accreadidation. Blue Cross claimed that there was not enough need for a hospital that size in Mastic Beach. They wound up sorting it out in court but not before Doc had dug a huge hole in the yard and was about to lay the foundation. Very few remember it but Doc's nephew Gary Messinetti who was always a shutterbug took a photo of it before they filled the hole back in.

By the mid '60's Doc's son Frank Jr. was by now taking on more of the day to day running of the hospital, and his other son Joseph had a practice in nearby Center Moriches. I'm not sure exactly when Doc Sr. retired or if he ever did. I'm sure I will hear from someone in the family about that. I do know that in January of 1968 he passed away and a whole era of Mastic Beach history went with him. For twenty years he was a fine old country doctor from Brooklyn! which was where most of the new residents came from too.

In the late '60's or very early '70's Frank Jr. who was now director at the larger Brookhaven Memorial Hospital sold his fathers place to a Dr. Erol Caypinar in Center Moriches who first continued it as hospital then reduced it to a health clinic, finally closing the doors on it in 1982. What happened next is not very pretty, but if you got this far, you can find out by clicking here.