So it is March, and I really need to organize my tax stuff because this year it is going to be a bit complicated. Well, this year it’s going to be really complicated. So I have to go get to it, but it’s Sunday and there are so many things to do on my honey-do list:

Clean the inside of the dishwasher

Clean the birdbaths

Rake the winter deadfall

Sharpen pencils

Go to the dump

Sharpen pencils

Pat the cat

Feed the birds

Go for a drive

Sort old photos

Stack magazines

Dust

Clean out the freezer

Make soup

Sharpen garden tools

Oil the squeaky wheel

Feed the birds

Sort laundry

Change the sheets

Do another load of laundry

Iron napkins

Take out the newspapers

Brush the cats

Dust everything

Shake out the rugs

Check emails

Check Facebook

Check Twitter

Look at Instagram

Take pictures of anything

Sweep the porch

Wash anything that will hold still

Trim some forsythia for forcing

Trim some forsythia

Watch the news

Watch the weather channel

Watch TCM, whatever is playing

Water the plants

Water the plants I missed the first time

Clean the oven

Clean the fridge

Tidy under the kitchen sink

Sew on a button

Hem those pants

Get the cat hair off the black clothes

Throw away old makeup

Hang that picture

Hang the other one too

First clean the glass

Find the nails and the hammer

Sweep the porch

Sweep the deck

Vacuum the car

Vacuum the house

Sort my photos

Go to the gym

Sweep the steps

Make a list of things that need doing

Call a friend

Call the tree guy

Call the grass guy

Pay bills

Call another friend

Check emails again

Check Facebook again

Find all the cat toys

Plump the cushions

Take a walk

Take another one

Oops, ran out of (fill in the blank); gotta get to the (fill in the blank) store

Make some tea

Drink the tea

Read the paper

Try to do the crossword puzzle

Take a nap

Look at the clock. 

Oh my, it’s too late to start on the taxes now. It’s getting dark, but, my, doesn’t the house look nice? They call it spring cleaning, but really it’s tax-avoidance cleaning. Maybe tomorrow I will call the tax guy and get an extension, because there is just no time. 

Durell Godfrey is a contributing photographer to The Star. 

One of the traditional, and rather old-fashioned, features in The Star, “The Way It Was,” is a look back at what people here were saying and doing 25, 50, 75, 100, and, yes, 125 years ago — or at least what the editors in those times took note of, because they expected readers to be interested. I never miss it. Take a look, for example, at these random tidbits from 1891:

January 17, 1891 

Saturday last, there were several parties eeling in Georgica Pond, and about three barrels of wigglers were captured for Sunday’s breakfast.

January 30, 1891

Mrs. Kate Gregory-Fox-Nugent-Petty-Next — now in Riverhead jail — has four husbands and she is only 21 years old. We think she is entitled to a belt.

February 6, 1891

There is one young man in town who will probably be “qui vive” when he goes to Wainscott to call upon his young lady again, as he has learned by experience that Wainscott’s sons do not like to see outsiders coming after her daughters. The young man in question drove to that village on Sunday night to see his best girl, and when about to return found that his buggy was gone, while his horse remained hitched to the post. It was a humiliating thing to do, to wake up one of the residents so early in the morning to borrow a vehicle, but it had to be done.

February 27, 1891 

Several parties were in our village last week looking for houses in which to locate next summer. We understand a large portion of the furnished cottages have already been taken.

March 13, 1891

There has been much talk for several years over a suggestion that a railroad would, some day, run through East Hampton to Montauk Point. Every time the subject has been brought up there have been scores of people who were ready to wager all they possessed that no present inhabitant would live to see it. . . . There is no question but that, with the immense fish factories just starting up at Promised Land, and the great amount of travel there is to our town every summer, the extension of the main line through our village would prove a good investment for the railroad.

Skipping over 75 years, I also found 1966 particularly good reading:

January 13, 1966

Emotion on the subject of the aged — as all of us get a little bit older every day — ran away with an East Hampton Village Board hearing Monday on a proposition to give the Village Zoning Board of Appeals power to allow and control rest or nursing homes in any village zoning district. Comments ranged from an angry, “This whole Village will go to pot and real estate values with it if you allow this,” to a sad, “If this community can’t tolerate places for older people, I might as well just move out now.”

January 30, 1966

The Long Island Bridge Study Commission recommended a 10-mile long bridge, which would cost $206 million, from Rocky Point, East Marion, to Old Saybrook, Conn. And an Atlantic Expressway from the Nassau-Queens border to East Marion.

February 10, 1966

No sooner had Springs residents learned that they would have to decide Feb. 17 whether or not to build an $88,000 firehouse and buy a $24,400 fire truck than it was announced that a proposal to spend $335,000 to enlarge the Springs School would be voted on on Feb. 25.

February 24, 1966 

Erosion along the beachfront in East Hampton Village, which some observers suspect may have something to do with the two 650-foot jetties designed by the Army Engineers and placed east of Georgica Gut, has produced a narrower beach between the foot of Lily Pond Lane, at the old Coast Guard Station, and the Main Beach.

And then I found this more recent bit on the subject of erosion. Sound familiar?

January 24, 1991

A national debate among scientists and developers over regulation of oceanfront property could, depending on the outcome, result in less building on East Hampton beaches, and one skirmish in the larger battle is being fought on local stationery. Two East Hampton Village residents, both leaders with a stake in seashore management, have exchanged a series of erudite yet increasingly acrimonious letters about sand — specifically whether there is more or less than there used to be.

I am addicted to “The Way It Was.” 

If you aren’t in the habit of reading it, give it a try. It’s entertaining and sometimes enlightening. On one hand, this place has changed a lot; on the other, it hasn’t changed much at all. And if anyone can tell me what the word “belt” means in that item from Jan. 30, 1891, I’d appreciate it.

One of the real puzzles as our children get older and our tastes in reading change is what to do about all the books we have outgrown.

There are classics, of course, like my own copy of “Charlotte’s Web,” which was inscribed to me when I was small by a family friend. But then there are seemingly endless school book-fair purchases of dubious lasting value and duplicate paperback versions of such children’s series as “Little House on the Prairie.” 

As for novels, Lisa only recently began reading on a Kindle in earnest, but her previous years’ pile of contemporary fiction is considerable, as is my accumulation of biography, history, and duplicate bird books.

There is only so much room on our shelves. I tend to want to keep the true classics, as well as the nature guides, and what had been my father’s extensive collection of whaling and seafaring books — most of which I have read at this point. The rest deserve a new home. Besides, we need space for our new acquisitions. 

In addition to the personal books, this is a host of old review copies on the second floor of the Star building that no one looks at any more. Some of these unneeded volumes might go to the Ladies Village Improvement Society Bargain Books shop. However, as more than a few are dog-eared or missing part of a dust jacket, I hardly expect the L.V.I.S. to accept the lot. My mother and stepfather admit that from time to time they have left their unwanted books among others just inside the East Hampton Library’s back door. But I don’t think our voluminous volumes would be welcome there.

As an alternative or supplement, some of the books on The Star’s second floor might simply be brought down to be pawed through in the front office. I am toying with the idea of declaring Free Book Fridays at The Star, perhaps on the first or last Friday of each month. Readers and our friends on social media might be invited to stop in and help themselves. Those interested should watch this space for an announcement, though other ideas would be welcomed, too.

Before the Mexicans build a wall to keep us out, Mary and I are seizing the opportunity to visit Zihuatenejo once more — only for a week, but it promises to be restorative. 

There’s so much that needs restoring at our ages that maybe it’s meaningless to talk of a place as being restorative, but anyway. Her late mother, whose ashes we’ll scatter there, in the unruly Pacific, and her older sister discovered Zihuatenejo and the Las Brisas hotel nearby years ago, and then we came, and we loved it too.

We plop under palapas and read and read and read and reflect and reflect and yes there are the margaritas, one so good once that I credited it with transcendental properties, though Mary said I shouldn’t have been so astonished given the fact that I’d drunk hers also.

I’ve read Seneca there and Shakespeare, though I’ll probably take Richard Fortey’s “Life: An Unauthorised Biography” with me this time. I’ve made it to the Devonian thus far, when we began creeping up onto the land. I’ve got about 360 million years to go. It’s fitting that I take his evolutionary history there for time stretches out there for us about as far as it can. 

To compartmentalize time so, as we do, is to trivialize it, Richard Fortey says.

Chapter II begins, “The earth was born from debris that circled the nascent Sun. . . .” I’ll not go on; you know the rest.

Goethe is quoted on the front cover as having said, “I am here to wonder.” And I find I am more and more in a state of wonder the longer I live. Henry Louis Gates’s genealogical researches fascinate me, Commander Kelly’s year in space fascinates me, the squirrels chasing each other up and down and around the trees fascinate me, penguins fascinate me, resilience fascinates me, and inspires me, and moments in millennia, such as this one on which we are about to embark.

When I read this winter that a town UpIsland had voted to prohibit solicitors from going door to door, I thought, send them out here. I’d have invited them in, served them coffee, asked about the family, and sent them home with a bundt cake. Of course, I would later cancel the very big order I placed, because, really, how many vacuums or cleaning fluids does a woman need? 

Yes, it was that dull out here this winter. More businesses were closed, and it seemed that fewer people were out and about over all. But this weekend brings out the green in all of us, and I’ll soon be eating my words.

I’m always a bit baffled when locals tell me they stay home instead of going to the Montauk Friends of Erin parade. When I spoke last week to Capt. Paul Forsberg, who is this year’s grand marshal, he told me he thought it was amazing that this little hamlet without one traffic light could hold such an elaborate parade, and I agreed with him. The parade attracts thousands of people, most of whom wear silly hats, makeup, or other green bits of clothing, all great for people-watching.

And, of course, there are always salespeople out and about, whether they be Girl Scouts selling cookies or others promoting store sales. I think I empathize with salespeople because my father was one. I’m sure it wasn’t his life plan to be a salesperson, but he didn’t have much choice after the incident with the police department.

After he left the Army, he became a mounted police officer in New York City, meaning he rode a horse rather than sit in a squad car. One night while on duty he tied his horse to a post and went into a shop for a doughnut and coffee. The horse got loose and somehow managed to get into a movie theater, where he scared the poor moviegoers to death. My father was fired and became a salesperson.

He sold Wyler drink products, which were similar to Kool-Aid, to supermarkets and smaller grocery stores. But Kool-Aid had already drenched the markets and had the bigger name, so when my father came home with his drunk face on, we knew sales weren’t too good. There was never a shortage of lemonade or cherry juice in our house.

There were times when I was a little girl when he took me to work with him, probably when I was faking illness to stay home from school. My mother always worked and someone had to watch me, so they piled blankets, pillows, and coloring books in the car for our ride up to Westchester County, which was his territory. 

I used to feel so sorry for him when I saw the managers shake their heads, no, no Wyler here. But then my father got smart and realized when I was with him the store managers were much friendlier and even placed bigger orders than usual. I must have had bedhead and been dressed in rags for them to have that type of reaction. My bedhead is pretty scary, so maybe they just wanted to get rid of us.

Anyway, we’ll all be drinking the Kool-Aid this weekend, no matter what shape or color it comes in. Green beer will be flowing, the bands will be drumming, silly floats will draw a laugh, and Montauk will wake up for the season. I, for one, can’t wait!

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The East Hampton Star.

Nothing upsets me more about the nastiness coming from Donald J. Trump and Ted Cruz, the presumptive front-runners for the Republican nomination for president, than their idea that Muslims should be barred from entering the country. Jews were virtually barred once, too, and it wasn’t all that long ago.

Senator Cruz thinks only Christian Syrians should be allowed in, and he has the nonsensical idea that the more than four million Syrian refugees “should be resettled in the Middle East, in majority Muslim countries.” I am frightened by even a hint of a religious test for who should be admitted to this country not only because it is immoral, but because I am old enough to remember World War II. 

During his long tenure as president Franklin Roosevelt was held in high regard by my parents and just about everyone they knew. What they didn’t know was his failure to open America’s doors to European Jews seeking to escape the Holocaust. The Great Depression and fears that Jewish refugees might alternately become financial burdens on the state or take away jobs have been described as reasons why the American public did not favor admitting Jews. You can decide for yourself if religion had anything to do with it. 

The civilized world may not have been aware of Hitler’s “final solution” when German Jews were stripped of citizenship in 1935 or when on Nov. 9, 1938, Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, occurred, in which Jews were viciously attacked through­out Germany. But surely it was a warning of what was to come. 

President Roosevelt and the State Department were not moved. More than 300,000 mostly Jewish Germans applied for visas in 1939. Only a little over 20,000 were approved under the federal quota. 

The president remained silent when the St. Louis, a ship loaded with refugees seeking asylum in this country, was turned away, with concentration camps the eventual destination for many of those aboard. Nor did mounting evidence about the death camps sway American policy even after we entered the war. 

It wasn’t until 1944, and because of the intervention of a Jewish secretary of the treasury, Henry Morganthau Jr., that Roosevelt finally urged Congress “to take all measures . . . to rescue victims of enemy oppression in imminent danger of death.” 

My maternal grandfather, who had emigrated from eastern Europe long before I was born, warned me that I shouldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t Jewish. As a child during the war years, I was sure he was mistaken, but I came to understand why he thought as he did after the war, when a couple with tattooed numbers on their arms who survived a concentration camp came to live nearby. 

The process by which refugees are considered for resettling in the United States today is more humane, I suppose, although it takes between 18 months and two years. The United Nations Refugee Agency first refers people for United States visa consideration. By November of 2015, it had referred 22,427 Syrians, although only 2,290 were admitted to this country since 2011. With more than 4 million Syrians among other refugees seeking new lives, even President Obama’s suggestion that we take in 10,000 is paltry. 

I wonder what those in future generations will think of that.

Despite the howler monkeys in the trees and 84-degree ocean, Playa Guiones, Costa Rica, seems a whole lot like a tropical version of Montauk. This thought struck Lisa and me early during our vacation at this up-and-coming Pacific Coast resort town.

The similarities are both superficial and serious. There are surfers and a yoga crowd in Playa Guiones who have made a commitment to spending months upon months chasing their dreams. There are short-term visitors like us, grabbing hotel rooms for a week or two. And, to longer-lasting effect, the area has resident expats and an active investor and developer scene. Indeed, it seems that every other conversation I have heard in our week here has been about real estate or the opening of some new business.

The only locals a visitor generally encounters work in the visitor trade, the beach town itself appearing to be almost entirely a gringo creation. Which is not to say that Playa Guiones is bad — nor Montauk — but that the idealized version of the place presented through its creature comfort-centric commerce can be misleading.

There is an English-language newspaper here and its recent coverage has included stories about the region’s water supplies. As new businesses open and vacation houses, most with swimming pools, are built, demand has increased rapidly. Between an extra-dry dry season and extra consumption, Playa Guiones and the neighboring villages have had to endure nightly water interruptions to allow the system to refill. At a recent community meeting a mostly expat audience debated whether and how to add a new public well to improve the supply.

Bolinas, a Northern California surf town I visited not long ago, responded to a similar challenge decades ago by permanently capping the number of water meters. Long Island, where all the drinking water comes out of the ground, probably should have done something similar, but policymakers have tended to act as if the supply were infinite. A new state study, announced by the governor last month, might clarify the situation — if we’re lucky.

It’s hard to say whether Playa Guiones is overrun with visitors the way Montauk can be on certain summer weekends. Yet all the real estate signs, Airbnb rentals, surfing lessons, overpriced food, and various other for-profit schemes seem the same, and they are on a worrisome trajectory. Too much really can be too much, and I hope that whatever passes for a power structure here at least takes it slow.

I have my doubts, though. The Times Travel section did one of its breathless takes on Playa Guiones on Sunday, which can only mean one thing: More is ahead, and it’s not necessarily going to be good.

Talking to my sister-in-law Linda the other day the subject turned to trip-planning.

“I leave that to John,” she said.

“It’s just the opposite with us,” I said. “I leave it [and many other things] to Mary. As you know, I can’t hear very well, and I’m not very good with computers. My finger might slip and we’d find ourselves booked on a flight to Afghanistan.”

That had her in stitches, which is good because she’s recovering from a painful ankle injury, and so I continued. “Last night, I was looking over the itinerary for Georgie and Mary’s flight to Raleigh-Durham this weekend, and I found that they were going to stop first in. . . .”

“In Baltimore?”

“No, not Baltimore, in Orlando! Go figure. It was the first Mary’d heard of it. She was not pleased. ‘They told us we wouldn’t be changing planes,’ she said, retrieving the printouts from me. ‘I knew something was strange when it said the flight would take five hours and five minutes. Raleigh-Durham’s not that far away as the crow flies.’ ”

“Then I looked at the rental car details. And I saw that they were to pick up the car at Islip at 1 p.m. Friday and return it there at 7:30 p.m. Sunday! That didn’t sound right at all, and I told her so. She was incredulous, and, once she’d seen that it actually said what I said it said, nonplussed. ‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! After flying down to Orlando and back, there would have been no car for us in Raleigh-Durham! They would have put us on a bus. What is wrong with these people!’ ”

“ ‘You can’t trust anybody,’ I said. ‘Nobody.’ ”

“After she’d gotten the car rental details straightened out, she thanked me profusely (which of course raised my self-esteem) and, reasoning that obviously she was now among those legions not to be trusted, said she would entrust me with the planning of our next trip. Brimming with diffidence, I said I would rise to the occasion . . . once the puppy we’re to get soon were raised.”

I ought to be able to find a travel agent by then. I trust the species is not utterly extinct. I think I heard someone say one had been spotted the other day at the Morton Wildlife Refuge. And there’s a rumor that there’s a mating pair at Mashomack.

For the past week or so, I’ve been hard at work taping and spackling my entryway, which was taken down to the studs way back in June when we had a new front door installed. It’s a 6-by-3-foot room, but it took me six months of stolen minutes and late-night hours just to hang the drywall. 

A pro would have had the room rebuilt and ready for painting in three days, tops, but, as is typical, we blew our budget for outside experts before we got to this phase. This time, though, I wasn’t going to leave the job only half done, no matter how long it takes me. 

By day I’m an editor, by evening a parent, by night a drywaller’s apprentice. I must have watched 50 YouTube videos on hanging and finishing drywall before I got started, and still more after I’d begun. Seejanedrill, askmediy, and TheCactus71 offered great tutorials on mudding inside corners and taping butt joints. My progress is slow, but there’s nothing quite so satisfying as learning a new home-improvement skill. 

While I may not want to drywall, tape, spackle, and paint an entire house single-handedly, I like knowing how it’s done; it makes paying someone else to do it all the sweeter. 

I imagine a day 3 or 5 or 10 years from now when I’ll look around my house and most of the projects I’ve dreamed of will be done. People might say, “Wow, I love your house,” and I’ll say, “You should have seen it when I first bought it.” 

Last summer I would sometimes stay outside until 10 piecing together the puzzle of our new stone walkway and low garden wall. These projects are my children’s biggest competition. 

One day last week, Jasper pushed his way between me and the Spackle bucket. “Let’s watch ‘Fixer Upper,’ Mama.” 

“We could be our own ‘Fixer Up­per,’ ” I suggested. He wandered off to play with his Legos, a builder like his mama. 

We watch a lot of HGTV, so when I queued up another seejanedrill how-to last Sunday, the kids gathered round to watch, too. They’d rather watch “Fixer Upper,” a family favorite for over a year now. We like the good-humored hosts, Chip and Joanna Gaines, and their can-do approach to what are often full gut renovations, even if their style isn’t always what we might choose for our own house. We do get a little tired of their usual tropes — “Oh, no, not French country again!” my daughter will groan. Over all, though, their transformations are the most fun to watch. It’s amazing how far some vision and a little money will take you in Waco, Tex. 

I love “Tiny House Hunters” and “Tiny House, Big Living,” too. The kids like “Flip or Flop”; the hosts’ seemingly constant success with their flips bothers me.

“Love It or List It” can be fun when we’re in the right mood, but come on, how can a professional designer so often be surprised by the roadblocks to achieving what her clients really want in their original houses? 

My favorite is “Rehab Addict.” If the host, Nicole Curtis, lived here in East Hampton, I’d want to be her best friend. Her shtick is rehabbing historic houses in Detroit and Minneapolis, many of them condemned. It’s amazing what you can get for $1 in Detroit. 

Here in East Hampton, I’ll keep putting my dollars toward my own home rehab, one small project at a time. 

Carissa Katz is The Star’s managing editor. 

Throughout the drawn out 2016 election season I found myself puzzled about why candidates asked potential supporters for small contributions — $3 for various senatorial candidates, $1 for Hillary Clinton. Then it became evident. As Bernie Sanders has proved, it adds up.

As Super Tuesday approached this week, with 11 state primaries and caucuses taking place, Senator Sanders had achieved what he called an unbelievable amount of money in small contributions. He raised $33.6 million in the last three months of 2015, another $20 million in January, and, by Tuesday, his campaign reported having taken in $42 million in February alone, with a goal of $45 million.

By then, the Sanders campaign had announced that the average contribution had been $27, and with what almost seemed to be tongue in cheek changed it to $2.70. It would take some sort of political philosopher to explain why these $27 and $2.70 figures dovetail with the $2,700 federal limit on the amount individuals can contribute. At any rate, I have become something of an Internet junkie, searching for facts and figures.

Federal Election Commission results as of the end of January showed Hillary Clinton ahead of everyone else in both Democratic and Republican fund-raising, with $188 million taken in. Ted Cruz followed with $104.2 million, while the Sanders campaign closed at $96.3 million. (Donald Trump’s fund-raising isn’t evident on these comparisons because so much of his war chest comes from himself or his companies.)

I find myself getting lost in these figures on the Internet, even though I am not much of a numbers person. For example, looking back to 2008, I learned that in the first 21 months of  the Barack Obama campaign for the presidency, he had raised more than $750 million — more than the total amount raised by all the presidential candidates combined in 2004. Wikipedia reports Mr. Obama raised $778,642,962 by Election Day, while John McCain had raised only about half that amount, or $383,913,834. Did the dollar amounts make the results inevitable?

Senator Sanders calls his campaign a political revolution, which is fair enough, but his ability to raise most of his money in small contributions is part of a broader change in fund-raising made possible by the Internet. You might not find the word “crowdfunding” in your old dictionary, but it is a phenomenon, taking off from grassroots fund-raising for charitable causes, which has been in the lexicon for years.  It’s a brave new world and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention GoFundMe and Kickstarter, the top crowdfunding websites.

A GoFundMe account is under way to help Doug Kuntz, a photographer who has contributed to The East Hampton Star for many years, pay for his numerous flights to and from Europe, starting with Greece, to chronicle the refugee crisis and do everything he can do personally.

(“Defying All Odds a Cat Returns to its Refugee Family in Norway,”  a story in which Doug was a major player, can be found here.) Take a look.