Perhaps you have wondered while making your way around why there appears to be next to no poison ivy in our fair village. That is not likely to be an accident, as this marks the 68th anniversary of the first annual Poison Ivy Eradication Week, declared for the first seven days of June in 1947 and each year thereafter by representatives of both the Town and Village of East Hampton.

Above the names of Supervisor Herbert Mulford Jr. and Mayor Judson L. Banister, as well as the town justices and village trustees and the respective clerks, officials issued a call to each landowner to “make a concerted effort to destroy poison ivy on his own property and to report to the Town or Village Clerk the location of ivy which is not being eradicated.”

It went on, “We also urge everyone to take the greatest precautions to protect himself from the poison ivy while spraying or destroying the ivy.”

My source for this, by the way, is the remarkable online archive of The East Hampton Star for the years between 1918 and 1968. Issues are searchable any which way from a link on the East Hampton Library’s website. There were some 180 references to poison ivy when I checked.

Poison Ivy Eradication Week in 1947 got off to a running start, The Star reported, with an objective to eliminate “this nuisance to summer vacationists.” The Ladies Village Improvement Society led the charge, with help from the Boy Scouts, American Red Cross, two garden clubs, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Ladies Auxiliary. Details about how they all went about the task were not provided, but the L.V.I.S. ran advertisements in several May 1948 issues of The Star reminding readers that it was time once again to spray for poison ivy and recommending the use of 2,4-D, a weed killer that is still on the market, although we now know it is more ecologically sensitive to avoid chemicals and pull it out by hand.

The effort begun in 1947 appears to have worked, at least in the village. I can think of no obvious patches of poison ivy along Main Street or any of the places my friends and I explored here as a teenager. Get north of the bridge, however, and it pops up in the hedgerows and can be seen climbing trees. Our family’s place, down by the beach near Promised Land, is nearly overrun with the stuff. That and ticks, which are a subject for another day.

So, what’s so bad about a man wearing a fedora? To listen to some, men in fedoras in the Town of East Hampton are a sure sign that civilization as we know it has come to an end.

“Here they come, with their fedoras.” You would think, the way people talk, that the fedora-wearing crowd was a bunch of weird cultists instead of young people having fun. I don’t get it.

Maybe it’s because I am older than many of the people I work and associate with. When I was a child, my father wore a fedora. The sight of a man in a fedora is not alien to me.

The subways that I rode when I was growing up used to have signs that warned men to hold onto their hats. One such sign was at the Third Avenue end of the I.R.T. station for the 7 train from Queens. (If I really wanted to date myself here, I would tell you that I.R.T. stands for Interborough Rapid Transit Company, the first subway operator in New York City, which opened in 1904, though I was not there for the opening.)

That sign showed a man holding onto his hat, as I recall. The reason for the warning was that every time a westbound train burst into the station, there would be a huge gust of wind that would blow straight up the long escalator to 42nd Street. Goodbye, fedora!

As I said, my dad wore a hat, as did most men. Just take a look at photographs of crowds from the 1950s or earlier. Practically every man is in a hat.

Then came the 1960s and beyond. My hair, as with that of most young men, was long, long, longer. A hat over that? Forget about it!

And so, the fedora disappeared, as did the cute signs in the subway. (My favorite sign, looking back, was the one in the cars that read, “Little enough to ride for free, little enough to ride your knee,” accompanied by a drawing of a happy mommy with an even happier baby bouncing on her knee.)

Hats are civilized. There are rules regarding hats. When you walk into the East Hampton Town Justice courtroom, you darn well better have that hat in your hand and not on your head or you will get a swift reminder from one of the guards.

Recently, I walked into White’s Drug and Department Store in Montauk and tried on a fedora. Nice. I plunked down the 15 bucks and went on over to the other side.

I am now one of them, and you can tip your hat to that.

T.E. McMorrow is a reporter for The Star who covers police and courts, among other things.

“All of a sudden, it got more exciting — don’t you feel that too?” I said the Friday of Memorial Day weekend to Jen Landes, our arts editor. “I mean, our chances of being in an accident have just increased a thousandfold! All of a sudden, the stakes are raised, the level of intensity has soared. As in wartime or in lovemaking, or in lovemaking during wartime, the blood is flowing, no longer congealed by winter’s icy clutch. In the next few weeks I’m going to be really alive, giving full rein to my emotions rather than simply going through the motions.”

And with that, I was out the door and wheeling into traffic just in time to see a woman who’d rolled through a stop sign near the flagpole remonstrating vehemently with blameless drivers heading east and west on Main Street. “It is you, madam, you who are at fault!” I was about to call out, but she, still raging, was gone, thus denying to me what Philip Roth has called the ecstasy of sanctimony. Choler interruptus.

And then, of course, there’s the local news of late: They say they own us, that they can do what they want with their property, they say they can make as much noise as they want on arriving and taking off. Oh, ecstasy of sanctimony! Does not the communal good exert a more worthy claim to conscience than the license invoked by “haves” equating license with liberty? The gorge rises, the heart pounds, the tongue lashes. This is really living, and whom do we have to thank for it, for having revivified our torpid souls? Them! So, I urge you, don’t rush to judgment — even though it’s fun. Rather than vilified, they are more to be pitied perhaps. Working so hard as they do, they have little time to relax and think of the greater good. And so I say, as the season begins, “Honk if you love peace and quiet.”

Having had a taste of excitement, then, we decided to go whole hog, and spend a day in the city. Soon we were swept up in it, in the huddled masses, yearning for falafels.

But, wonderful to tell, there was ease there, a calm we’d almost forgotten. The sun was out in the city and it was, we agreed, as we walked along, a nice place to be. We struck up conversations easily, wished others well in parting, and returned here at peace, our heart rates having returned to normal and our sense of brotherhood renewed.

What to do with the sunny Sunday of a long holiday weekend? 

Well, for starters, I had to coordinate with the workers who arrived bright and early to fix our dilapidated old picket fence and plant some privet to hide the back neighbors’ pool from view. Then I wanted to cut and bring in some lilacs before their bloom faded. Also, I needed a few flowering plants for the three ceramic pots on the patio, and that meant I had to make a run to the crazy-busy nursery — where everyone and their mother was out buying hydrangeas and roses, it seemed — to get more potting soil. And then I had to thumb through cookbooks to decide what salads I was going to make for a family birthday dinner . . . and then shop for whatever ingredients were necessary, then whip the salads up . . . then off to an early cocktail reception, and then, by 6:30, the birthday party itself.

Because of all these plans — which somehow felt like a lot to do at one time, even though it wasn’t really — I blew off my usual yoga session on Sunday morning, for the third time in as many weeks. The deep-breathing exercises, not to mention the “letting go,” just weren’t on the agenda last weekend.

I decided on pilaf, and — while taking inventory of the fridge — noticed we were lacking quite a few pantry basics, including milk and Ajax, so I started a grocery list. Roasted asparagus seemed like it might be a nice companion to the pilaf, and I also had to find fruit for the fruit salad my husband had signed on to make for the birthday. The shopping list grew.

It was no longer early when I set out for the supermarket. Trying to make the most of a dwindling day, I decided to forget the Ajax and go straight to Citarella. It was, of course, jam-packed, too. Anticipating mayhem, no doubt, the management had hired attendants to stand by the parking lot entrance, directing cars. One of them, a young man with a clipboard, encouraged me to edge into a very narrow spot. When did shopping turn into such a brouhaha? Somehow, the checkers at the cash registers were still smiling. They told me it had been even crazier there on Saturday.

Making my way home, I followed the loop past the post office to Egypt Lane and stopped in a line of traffic at the light. Unfortunately, that is when my car — to my horror — somehow slowly slid into the Jeep ahead of me! The driver jumped out and, running toward me, shouted, “What the hell are you doing?” I had jammed on the brakes in enough time to avoid any damage, however, and he seemed mollified when I answered meekly that I was sorry. 

The truth is that Memorial Day weekend has never been my favorite moment of the year, no matter how fine the weather or how sweet-smelling the lilacs. Everyone arriving in town en masse seems determined to play — I think the term is “frantically relaxing” — but, like many of us who live here, I’m not on that wavelength right now. Summer is coming, but, for us, it’s not the start of vacation season but the start of work, work, work season. Maybe we can relax in, say, October? Something tells me I should get back to yoga class. 

“He’s going to Little League?” our daughter asked somewhat incredulously, as if, I suppose, there were more important things to write about and photograph than that.

If she must know, I find it endearing. There is joy there among the 9 and 10-year-old boys, puppies leaping about, directionless but full of life, that is hard to find elsewhere. How the coaches manage to coach them I don’t know — they are unrestrained.

Most times, I think, they’re thinking of something else, their minds are wandering about — this, by the way, was something the late great basketball coach Ed Petrie used to speak of, with a bemused smile, when talking of some of his teams. But then, in rare moments, when they really bear down and concentrate, oh boy! It’s like Roy Hobbs meeting the Marx brothers.

And I think this giddiness, this joy of being a boy of 9 or 10 or 11, has a tendency to rub off on the crowd. I know parents are often accused of being overbearing, of taking the fun out of their children’s play, but those I saw seemed content just to be there the other evening at Pantigo in the sunset, and not overly concerned with the outcome.

(Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that by the end of that evening’s two games three teams, all at 9-3, could say they were pennant-winners, befitting my egalitarian view of this town.) 

And there were things, aside from that communal feeling, to marvel at: a terrific catch of a low, hard-hit line drive down the third baseline, a clout to the fence in deep center, a speared line drive near second that seemed as if it would be a base hit, relays that nailed runners trying to take an extra base. . . . There were miscues too, of course, as bases were overrun, as wild pitches, triggering a dash from third to home, were chased to the backstop, as cupcakes at times proved more compelling than the number of outs and the pitch count or a coach’s call to grab a bat and go hit for Johnny.

Why wouldn’t I want to go to a Little League game? It’s fun.

“Why are the flags out?” I asked Russell Bennett.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, if you don’t know,” I said, “it must be John Howard Payne’s birthday.”

And so it was! On June 9, in the year of our Lord 1791, in New York City. His grandfather’s house, where he spent his early years, has been preserved as Home, Sweet Home, a landmark down the street from this one.

With no further ado then, the lyrics:

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;

A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,

Which seek thro’ the world, is ne’er met elsewhere.

Home! Home!

Sweet, sweet home!

There’s no place like home!

There’s no place like home!

And that’s the song — “that one touch of nature which makes the world kin,” as Harper’s magazine put it in 1883, when the actor-dramatist-lyricist-poet’s ashes were returned to America from Tunis for reinterment in Washington, D.C.

What would Payne think now. . . .

Mid ghettoes and famined lands though we may roam,

Be it ever so massive, there’s no place like (our second) home;

A charm from the market’s rise seems to hallow us there,

Which seek thro’ the suff’ring world, is ne’er met elsewhere.

Home! Second Home!

Tax-sheltered home!

There’s no McMansion like home.

There’s no McMansion like home!

There are not all that many be-they-ever-so-humble homes left here anymore, and in the not-too-distant future, presumably, with the exodus of more members of the middle class, either to a less expensive place or to what Sydney Carton called a far, far better one, they may be very rare indeed.

And that has just given me an idea, though perhaps it’s a little ahead of its time. Why not, instead of the usual upscale house tours of summer, give the well-heeled a chance to see how the other half lives, offering ticky-tacky treks, perhaps plumping ticket sales with the prospects of pest sightings. Who knows? You might even see a roach! “There! There! I’m sure that’s one, there, by the sink drain!”

And because they had become as rare as hen’s teeth, and thus by that time would have acquired a certain cachet, someone with foresight, someone with an interest in East Hampton history, would propose that a dedicated fund be established so that these few remaining rotted-shingle, lapstreak three-bedroom, two-bath flophouses of the fabled Hamptons — no more in number probably than you could count on the beringed fingers of your hand — be preserved, dustballs and all.

It is no longer a secret. Nicknamed Lip, he’s involved. Man knows some moneyed types. The mayor and town supervisor won’t say — they have guaranteed use of the old rescue boats stashed at undisclosed locations.

Why let perfectly good East Hampton rescue boats sit unused, then get stuck in yet another local museum? Let the lifeguards, the young at heart, the disabled, the striped bass pole wackadoodles, the aging delusional lifeguards command the boats to the oceanfront, launch them, sink them, retrieve them.

It is a crime to deny the young ’uns a ride in those old wooden boats. Enough with the stupid Jet Skis, plastic-composite goof paddleboards, the BZ so-called soft surfboards. Every man, woman, young ’un, maybe a dog or two should get something wood-planked under their feet on open Atlantic waters. Get out and live for once in your boring lives! The ink’s not dry! Some of the ink could be invisible? No doubt it’s a deal!

A couple of stealth lawyers are involved — people you know! To get on the movie or pilot TV payroll an East Hampton car registration must be presented. For those without car registrations — lots of people lose their licenses round here for driving offenses — two bona fide residents must vouch, “Said person lives here.”

A couple of 1960s surfboards will be needed, pre-2005 Ford trucks, a couple of older Chevy trucks. No Toyotas, GMCs, Mitsubishis, none of those awful trucks allowed in the production area camera line of sight. Traditional sunhats are required, no CVS or Waldbaum’s $10 Panama Jack hats are allowed. Bathing suits the East Hampton lifeguards wear will be de rigueur. Bathing suits that do not meet athletic requirements will be banned from all sets.

The “Baywatch Gone Bonacker” film extravaganza begins. First scene! Village of East Hampton lifeguards rowing past the second jetty at Georgica Beach headed for Main Beach in one of the surviving antique East Hampton rescue boats. A whale surfaces nearby: They’ve seen them before and don’t care. All kinds of bluefish gnarl around 30 yards from rescue boat. It is early fall and the guards are due back at school. It has been one of those fishy summers: Bluefish eating everything in sight was common this summer past.

Other fish surface. The lifeguards, male and female, don’t care. Their tans are dark enough; a couple of the lifeguards are slightly sunburnt, wearing pasty white sunscreen and large hats. An outsider might say, “What are they from ‘Gilligan’s Island’ or something?”

A few of the young adults are thinking back to critical rescues they pulled off under hurricane conditions. The water temperature is warm, 70 degrees. The young lifeguards row along, picking up the southwest drift headed north on the incoming tide toward Main Beach. “Stellar beauty” could best describe it.

The second sandbars are visible under the boat 120 yards offshore. The low tide is turning to incoming. Clear visibility 12 feet down to the offshore sandbar under the rescue boat. It’s a lunar tide. A bonita makes a showing; oddly enough a parrotfish swirls by under the boat. One of the lifeguards says to his female friend, “Saw one of those last week.”

A lot of stuff happened this past summer, from the first jump into the frigid last-day-of-May waters off their hometown of East Hampton until this September day. Thank God no one was seriously injured! Five tropical depressions and one hurricane made swirl off Long Island — Atlantic-bound July and August storms. An 18-year-old lifeguard was called on to make a complicated rescue of a pregnant 29-year-old who got pulled off the beach by a freak tidal surge. He had to make a fast 50-yard sprint-swim and grab onto her; she was panicking, the surf was eight feet, one tumble through the nasty shore break and the ambulance would have been called — a miracle it was.

On the other hand, amusing situations arose on the rainiest days early in June. “Ha-ha, you’ve got to be kidding.” Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls. “O.M.G., did you see what Francine and Thomas did? Ha-ha, oh no.” It was the song: “We’ve been through some things together . . . we’ve found things to do in stormy weather . . . rollin’ down that empty ocean road, gettin’ to the surf on time. Long may you run.” Sing it, Neil!

In addition, lots of heavy stuff happened. One of the lifeguard’s parents took ill and died. One lifeguard’s parents lost steering on his 28-foot sport boat — flipped it — and managed to swim away unscratched. “There’s a light over my head, my Lord, let it shine, let it shine”: Neil Young. Nieces and nephews were born to families. A few lifeguards fell in love: storied days of summer.

A couple of super-strange characters showed up at a Village of East Hampton beach one week in late July. The F.B.I. paid the lifeguards a visit to ask about a couple of things concerning these visitors. Of course this was all hush-hush! The agent said wait two years, and if you want to make a movie about it, go for it.

He told the lifeguards, “Keep it under wraps with a lawyer and a movie guy. In two years our end of it will be totally wrapped up. You kids deserve to make some real money. We’re not going to interfere.” The F.B.I. man continued, “Thanks for the help! You’re all good kids. Try to do well enough in school and keep your day jobs. Ha-ha. Summer lifeguard jobs.”

He smiled, gave spin to his tires a bit, and off he drove in new dark-colored Ford Mustang.

Morgan McGivern is The Star’s staff photographer.

In the spring of 2012, desperate for a change of scene, I lined up a bartending job in East Hampton and place to stay, but as moving day drew near I had still not addressed transportation. Money was tight, and I wondered if a scooter would do.

The New York Times website had been running an aggressive ad campaign for the two-seat, 106-inch-long Smart Fortwo, at just $99 per month, and I was intrigued. Smart cars had appeared in Brooklyn a few years earlier, and I thought they were fantastic. City blocks were already impossibly crowded, and it seemed that half the population drove grossly oversized and criminally fuel-inefficient sport utility vehicles.

The city-friendly Smart Fortwo fits virtually anywhere and, though the $99-per-month teaser proved misleading, its 41 highway miles per gallon would save me a small fortune.

Time was short; the due-at-signing figure to lease one was low. Thinking that I would need a car for a long summer  perhaps, I signed on for the 36-month miniumum.

Those months are in the rear-view mirror now, and I am still here. But, despite the persistent efforts of the good people at Smart Center Manhattan, the Smart Fortwo is not. My no-frills car had taken me near and far, and reliably, but I just couldn’t keep it.

It was just too damn small: I could transport music equipment, or a passenger, but not both. The previous winters had been marked by great vehicular adventures that included sliding across icy roads, searching for the (white) car among snowdrifts, and, once, frantically running alongside and leaping into it as it drove off, in reverse, in an icy parking lot.

But mostly I had grown weary of the wisecracks, the disbelieving stares often followed by laughter at what one onlooker described as a roller skate. As the lease’s expiration neared, I had a decision to make.

For months, I had been poring over the website auto.com, where a seemingly limitless supply of used cars beckoned from across the tristate area. To my surprise, many models I consider luxury were in an almost-affordable range. I searched and searched. Mistakes were made.

Late one afternoon, Cathy and I finally arrived at a “showroom,” the ancillary site of an East Flatbush tire shop, onto which scores of vehicles in various states of function were jammed nose to tail. I was to test drive a 2002 Mercedes-Benz C230. When, after much maneuvering and searching for the ignition keys, the car was finally produced, Cathy had to climb over the seat to get into the back, and, when touched, several interior components crumbled. Needing plenty of work, this once-sporty coupe would not do.

More searching turned up a few promising cars closer to home, however, and one sunny Saturday last month the Smart car delivered us to a dealer in Patchogue. And there she was.

Suddenly, I didn’t want a Mercedes anymore, or even the BMW that had lured me there. No, she was standing next to that one, top down, low and lean, all nautic blue pearl and granite leather — a Volvo C70 convertible.

As I ogled it, the relentless wail of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant filled my head: “Fully automatic, comes in any size / Makes me wonder what I did, before we synchronized.” Talkin’ ’bout love, indeed. Three weeks later, as Memorial Day weekend crowds assembled in East Hampton, I cycled to the train station and bought a one-way ticket to Patchogue.

The day before, Cathy had driven the Smart car to Roslyn, site of the nearest dealer to which it could be returned, and I had followed her in The Star’s van. While I’d seen many a Smart car before, I had never before seen my Smart car, in motion, from afar, and I was mortified. It really did look like a roller skate, one that had somehow escaped the rink, never looked back, and was now single-mindedly weaving through myriad trucks, cars, buses, and trailers on the Long Island Expressway.

“My god,” I thought. “Is that what I’ve been driving for the last three years?”

Christopher Walsh is a reporter at The Star.

The menorah on the lawn of Chabad Lubavitch in East Hampton looks like a Han­uk­kah menorah because it has eight rather than seven branches. The eight branches represent the ancient miracle that turned oil for one day into enough oil for eight, after the Maccabees took back the First Temple in Jerusalem for the Jewish people. The ninth branch is the one from which the others are lighted.    

Christian and Jewish children know this story. What is lesser known, perhaps, is that menorahs are thought of simply as symbols of light. The Chabad menorah can be thought of this way, and as the congregation’s way of expressing the light of brotherly love. Be that as it may, its presence on the main thoroughfare into the village has made some people uncomfortable.

To me, on first reflection, it appears as harmless as the nativity scenes one sees on the lawns of churches during the Christmas season. Those are, like the menorah, on private (often church-owned) property and in no way raise any controversy over the constitutional requirement for the separation of church and state. In any event, the courts have addressed the topic of manger scenes and the like on public property over and over. For the most part, they have been permitted.

Of course, nativities — by necessity, I would think, as well as tradition — are taken down at the end of the Christmas holiday season, while the Woods Lane menorah is apparently intended to remain in place year-round. The public in general, I think, accepts it for what it is.

My husband and I got to thinking about this after reading back-and-forth letters to the editor of The Star from readers who disagreed with each other about whether the menorah was an inappropriate way to greet those entering the village. To us, the Chabad menorah is pleasantly decorative, in the way that the sculptor Bill King’s wooden heads are on Goodfriend Drive off Route 114, or as other large  sculptures have been for decades in front of Guild Hall. 

The only other specifically religious incursions into public consciousness here that we could come up with are the recorded hymns broadcast from the belfry of the East Hampton Presbyterian Church (or, perhaps, if you think of it in a certain light, the very spires of various Christian denominations here and there, which hold symbolic religious meaning, too). Like the menorah on Woods Lane, we find the hymns benignly pleasant and not an obnoxious religious imposition. My husband loves hymns; he grew up with them and can sing many with all the words at a moment’s notice. And I am also known to enjoy (and sing) religious music, even though I do not practice any religion. 

The crux of the issue here is expressions of faith that — while done on private property — are intended for public viewing (or, as the case may be, hearing). This touches on several issues at the heart of our democratic ideals: not just the separation of church and state but the almighty principle of free speech. Then, too, none of us likes to feel proselytized to. 

According to Google, communities across the country have grappled with all manner of incidents, both similar and more — how shall I put this? — amusing. According to the Pew Research Center, a Festivus pole of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans, in celebration of a holiday invented by the writers of “Seinfeld,” and a display dedicated to the Flying Spaghetti Monster made it into public religious displays in Florida last December. Perhaps we should all just accept the menorah on Woods Lane as I’m told it is intended — to shed light  — and lighten up.

By chance, my son, Ellis, and I became East Hampton 7-on-7 soccer fans last week. With time to kill before meeting the rest of the family for a dinner out that never happened, my 5-year-old suggested going to the playground.

We arrived a little after 7 p.m. There was a little chill in the air. I pulled on an old sweatshirt from the back of the car. Ellis did not want his, and ran in short shirtsleeves toward the climbing equipment and swings.

Ellis’s attention was quickly diverted to the game just ending on the big field just behind the Waldbaum’s supermarket, however. We watched as the winning team, which I found out later was Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller, wrapped it up.

One of the next sides to come onto the field  wore blue uniforms, Ellis’s favorite color, so they instantly were his team. I told him I was taking the guys in black and white stripes.

Not that I know all that much about soccer, but the level of play looked good enough to me. Seven-on-7 is a fast game, and plenty physical.

Ellis, seated on a bench behind my team’s goal, yelled, “Go blue!” every time a team member touched the ball. He was right in his choice, of course, and, as the evening sun turned everything golden, the blues, Bateman Painting, took the win.

On a somewhat astonishing website devoted to the local 7-on-7 six-team league I later found a photograph of Ellis and me watching the Bateman game. I look far too serious, frowning in my wife’s old college sweatshirt. But Ellis is on the edge of his seat, excited and en