The senior citizen chess club had folded up their boards and put away all the pawns, rooks and bishops. Steam vacuums had freshened the fusty carpets. Workers had scoured the walls lily white.
The scene inside Great Neck House bristled with excitement as the visiting delegation from Singapore — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Tony Tan — pulled up in black Mercedes Benz cars and stepped into the Tudor-style town hall.
The mayors of all nine Great Neck villages had assembled.
Glee choirs from Great Neck North and South high schools lined the approach and sang covers from the Beatles, then Beyonce and then Beck as the dark-suited delegation strode into the hall.
A violin concerto then serenaded the hall with a perfect Bach medley.
All parents in the room beamed with grins, knowing this moment would make for perfect essay fodder on Ivy League college applications.
The Singaporean leaders took their place on the stage next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and president Joachim Gauck.
Bows, handshakes and pleasantries ensued for exactly 2.5 minutes as the agenda outlined.
At precisely 3:10 p.m., President Tan stood to address the crowd of exactly 300 people:
“Dear Friends in the global society of orderliness, I am delighted to be in your presence here in this fine place called Great Neck. I’m still not sure if this is an actual city, or a town, or a collection of towns, or a part of a township, or a town within a township.
All I know is that this is a place on Long Island. And doggone it. It’s an orderly place!”
Pausing for a perfect 10 seconds, he dabbed a bead of sweat from his forehead and swept three out-of-place hairs from the left to the right on his perfectly coifed noggin.
“Without further delay, our audit committee now gives you our assessment of this fine town, er, place… with regard to orderliness. We start with your swimming pool, the beautiful Parkwood Pool.
We were highly impressed that this pool has approximately 83 rules in its stated “2015 Parkwood Pool Rules” which didn’t encompass even more rules we found posted around the pool. A pool member had to check us in as out-of-town guests.
Frau Merkel and I suited up for a day of inspection at the pool to test the rigidity of the rules.
My tiger-striped speedos drew funny looks but no reprimands. Apparently the lifeguards are sticklers for rules but also culturally sensitive.
But Frau Merkel tried to go “Frei Korper Kultur” (free body culture) — a common practice in East Germany, where people lounge naked at the beach or swimming pool.
This went too far. Whistles started to blow. Merkel was quickly taken back to the ladies room and coached in proper swimwear.
She came back out in a vintage one-piece with tutu reminiscent of the great East German figure skater Katarina Witt.
Before we hit the Lazy River for strolling along to the classic rock tunes of America and the UK — The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen — Frau Merkel drew another whistle. She had violated the rule instructing her to “take a shower with soap and water before entering a pool.”
“Wunderbar!” she exclaimed. “Alles in ordung!” I guess that means she is happy that all the rules are working. Like me, she finds rules exhilarating. That’s why we are here, after all.
After making friends in the Lazy River over the course of 15 laps, we approached the diving board. This is where we saw rules and order attain reach a state of nirvana.
We were whistled once when I followed Frau Merkel onto the platform. I exited the diving platform right as Frau Merkel was whistled again for making two bounces on the board before her swan dive. Then I was whistled for doing my Singaporean cannonball before she had reached the exit ladder out of the pool. We were ecstatic with the rules of Parkwood pool by this point.
At the rinky-dink waterslide, we were whistled three times: Once when Frau Merkel slid headfirst, once when I slid on my knees and once when Frau Merkel tried to catch me at the bottom.
By this time, we had to sprint to the changing rooms to make our next appointment.
We were whistled three times in the process. But we made it to our limos for a tour of Steppingstone Park, the Merchant Marine Academy and then the downtown business district.
Overall, our committee was astonished by the cleanliness and orderliness of the city. The flowers and shrubbery at Steppingstone was pristine.
We found no traces of graffiti anywhere in Great Neck. Bravo! Police cars tailed us all through our drive. We were pulled over for stopping for too long at a stop sign. We got a ticket for leaving the turn signal on too long, for leaving it on too briefly another time and for not using it quickly enough another time. We received five speeding tickets, four parking tickets and two more tickets for illegal U-turns.
Wow. Chilling. This police state made me feel right at home, as if I was back in Singapore.
We paid a sum total of $1,657.42 in fines. Now I see where you get the money to keep the shrubs so nice at Steppingstone Park!
Before giving you a glowing final report card, I must highlight what President Gauck noticed on some of the walkways and alleyways of your town: Litter. Trash bags, boxes, leaves, soda cans and paper scraps behind strip malls and walkways.
We can’t tell you exactly what to do (although we wish we could) Great Neck.
But, in Singapore, you must be aware that we fine litterbugs. We spank vandals with bamboo canes (remember that case from 1994 the American youth Michael Fay got four spankings for vandalizing and stealing in our country?).
Well, Great Neck. That is our challenge for you today. It’s time to spank those hooligans that we hear are vandalizing parts of Russell Gardens.
To create a truly orderly society, you must take it to the next level. Corporal punishment for gum on the sidewalks, debris on the roadway and yik-yak on the outhouse doors. You can do it! You are halfway there!”
The room broke out in applause.
“Absolut richtig!” shouted Frau Merkel. “Viel Glück!”
The clock struck 4:15 p.m. The program was over.
The middle school orchestra played an evocative piece by Felix Mendelssohn. And the Mercedes sped away to make it to the airport with an exact amount of time to board the immaculate government jets of the most orderly governments in the world.
Glader, a Great Neck resident, is director of the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute and Associate Professor at The King’s College in Manhattan.
