Our lineup is being depleted, as Steve Marley’s death this past week reminded me.

“The Relics can boast a lineup of four players over 50,” Uri Berliner, who went on to become NPR’s business editor and its Olympics correspondent, wrote of our Wolfie’s Relics slow-pitch softball team in these pages 29 years ago. “When the lights are shining at the Abraham’s Path ball field, and Father [Peter] Allen has brought along the insect repellent — on a still July night like this, with the smell of Heet and Ben-Gay thick and sweet in the air — an umpire will dust off home plate and cry out, ‘Play ball!’ ”

“Why it’s enough to make a man feel young again.”

Uri, who, by the way, thinks rugby will in time replace football in this country, quoted Hughie King in that article as saying, “ ‘We’re well-balanced. We’ve got people who can hit but can’t run and people who can run but can’t hit.’ Four consecutive hits won’t necessarily guarantee the Relics a run. . . . Once, during a tense, closely contested game, Jack Kirkwood, who has a plastic hip, lined a sharp single. As always, the Relics started to send in a pinch-runner for their second baseman. But the opposing team, out to win at any cost, refused to allow the substitution. The next Relic batter also stroked a hit and Mr. Kirkwood walked home unnoticed as the team in the field argued over the relay throw.”

“ ‘It was a triumph of good over evil,’ said Mr. Marley.”

“ ‘What the other team didn’t know,’ added Mr. King, ‘was that the guy we were going to send in was slower than Kirkwood.’ ”

Wolfie’s eventually shed us, because we let our kids frolic at post-game gatherings. (Hughie always said playing slow-pitch was simply an excuse to drink beer. Moreover, our children, I’ll warrant, remember those times even more fondly than we.)

When our next sponsor, the Three Mile Harbor Inn, decked us out in Oakland A’s green-and-white uniforms, “Mr. Marley said soiled white pants wouldn’t be a worry because ‘hardly any of us slide.’ ”

In the miracle year of 1983 we swept our last five games on the way to the league championship, “astonishing skeptics and youth-worshippers. . . . The team is the only democratic organization in a league full of rabidly competitive younger players — everyone plays at least half the game.”

Those were the days. There is no league at the Amagansett ball field anymore, and there are fewer and fewer of us.

So, with a fond farewell to our manager, we bat on, cleats against the current, borne ceaselessly back into innings past. Long live the Relics!

Much was made this summer about the crowds, “the biggest ever,” our way of life lost, “trouble right here in River City.” It got crowded, yes, and Labor Day weekend topped it all, but why the surprise?

Merchants, who for years have bemoaned lackluster seasons, are thriving, capitalizing on the Hamptons and Montauk brands that they — the real estate industry in particular — have worked so assiduously to create. So, who exactly is complaining about the crowds? Is it only the relatively few people who are not merchants, real estate brokers, lawyers, restaurateurs, club owners, and yes, newspaper publishers? I’ve listened to a lot of very successful businessmen and women bemoaning the crowds they worked hard to draw.

The only people who really have a gripe are those on fixed incomes or who have been otherwise left behind in the gold rush, yet are left paying the Hamptons cost of living. Those responsible for affixing the Hampton brand to everything imaginable have succeeded in drawing crowds here to pay their inflated prices. Many of these same people now can be heard cursing the monster they have helped create. Yes, folks, we have broken an ancient rule. We, as an economically successful community, have squatted in our own kitchen, and look to government to open a window.

Let’s see, whom shall the Town of East Hampton punish for disrupting our tranquillity? By the sound of it, it looks like our politicians aim to crush the people on fixed incomes, the ones who see a way to pay their taxes and mortgages by renting their houses on weekends during the summer.

Elsewhere on these pages it was reported that as many as 600 homeowners rented their properties Airbnb-style last summer, the sort of thing the town apparently wants to restrict.

Let’s analyze this. Say the average number of renters per house was three, and the average size of the family making room for them was also three. That’s 1,800 visitors and 1,800 residents. The latter group must find alternate digs. Many of the homeowners leave town, but let’s say only a third leave. So, as I see it, in reality the “stress on our infrastructure” that is allegedly threatening our way of life amounted to about 1,200 people for all of East Hampton this season, a tiny percentage of the day-tripping population on any given day, and the motel-dwelling population on any given night. The numbers may be off a little, but you get the point. The Airbnb threat is a red herring served up by the self-serving. 

As for the health and safety issue, it’s true, we can’t have people buying houses for the sole purpose of stuffing as many people into them as they can. Group houses are already restricted. The truth is, the houses being rented via Airbnb are “homes,” owned by residents who have abided by all the health and safety requirements already on the books. In addition, houses rented via real estate agents are not registered and inspected by town government, as is being proposed for those properties rented outside the broker-controlled box. The town seems to be imposing a double standard.

An administration that came to power promising a return to a quality of life that — let’s be honest — we haven’t seen for a decade or two, should walk softly, drop the stick, and communicate with all the townspeople. Let’s punish the abusers, not the abused.

Russell Drumm is a senior writer for The East Hampton Star.

Suppose you’re a kid in one of the East Hampton School District’s three schools on a particular day this fall. Suppose you don’t usually get breakfast at home, and you’re hungry when you get on line for lunch. Friends on line are opting for whatever the main offering is, maybe spaghetti or pizza, and some also ask for and get a cookie or other snack.

But when your turn comes — uh, oh — you’re not allowed to have any of these things. Like the other kids, you have a NutriKids card, through which parents pre-pay for meals. When your card is swiped, however, it shows the cafeteria workers that your account is delinquent. You are told you can choose only one of three things: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a cheese sandwich, or a bagel with cream cheese. Nothing else and nothing more. Your friends around you are watching. What do you do? How do you feel?

The East Hampton School Board adopted a policy this year that, at the heart of it, penalizes students for their parent or guardian’s transgression of not paying up for foods their kids charged last year. School board members say the policy is justified: After all, they note, they cut $1 million from the budget approved in May and are running a tight ship. And, they would argue, parents have been given plenty of time to pay what they owe.

About $17,000 was outstanding for school meals at the end of the academic year in June, and, following what is reported to have been a concerted effort to get the outstanding bills paid, that figure was brought down to $6,300 by the opening of school this year. Board members say the new policy is necessary, and fair.

The only thing they don’t seem to be taking into account, or taking seriously, is the potential for a student to be humiliated in front of peers — and the lesson the policy teaches: That children deserve to be punished for their elders’ misdeeds.

One school board member told me she was confident that those still delinquent this month were, in most cases, perfectly able to pay up. She also reported that in some cases a social worker had been asked to find out if any hardship was involved in late payment.

Still, all this doesn’t sit right with me. Regardless of the frustration unpaid bills must cause the district’s accountants, taking it out on the kids is unacceptable.

Providing meals for the some 1,800 students in the East  Hampton schools is a mind-boggling challenge, I am sure, even though the district contracts with an outside firm to handle it. The bookkeeping involved in allotting free or reduced-price meals to those who qualify is undoubtedly complex. I trust that the school board is satisfied the district is handling these tricky jobs well. And, using NutriKids takes any stigma away from those whose meals are subsidized.

There are places, however, where the hard-nosed tactics of the marketplace do not belong and the breakfast and lunch program is one of them. The district’s 2014-15 budget came to more than $65 million. Sixty-five million! That throws the delinquent $6,300 into its proper context, and it’s a pretty piddling amount, don’t you think?

Let’s take a minute to remind ourselves that there are people living among us who — out of political conviction or out of a sense of honor or out of sheer embarrassment — would never seek public assistance or even admit they need it. This means that there undoubtedly are students whose only opportunity for a full, proper meal is at school. It’s the district’s responsibility, and our community’s responsibility, to see that they get it, and that they get it with their dignity intact. 

The next couple of days will spell the end of the remarkable beach plum crop of 2014. A mild, relatively dry summer made for good growing conditions, and the dunes from one end of town to the other were full of the tart purple fruit. A prodigious turnout of wild grapes in the understory was related to favorable weather as well.

I have been making as much jelly as I can just from the fruit gathered along the path to the bay beach in front of our house. It is tough to keep up, though, with the kids’ after-school activities, busy weekends, and the fact that I’ve had to spend a remarkable amount of time replacing a failed below-deck gas tank in my aging boat.

On my frequent trips back and forth to the marina at Three Mile Harbor where Zygote is docked, I’ve passed a modest stand, no more than an oil-cloth covered sawhorse and an old beach umbrella, where someone has been selling beach plum jelly. At $7 a jar, they go fast. By dusk there will be one or none left; a half dozen more appear early the next morning. Those who secure one or more of them will count themselves lucky.

So far, I have six jars of my own put up on the shelf at the far end of the kitchen. I have four jars of grape jelly done, too, and I intend to get a couple of pints of tomatoes put away for the winter and plant some fall kale and lettuce in our modest garden beds.

In the next few days, I also hope to harvest as many of the remaining beach plums and grapes as I can. I have heard about but have yet to try extracting the juice and freezing it until time allows to complete the canning. But in truth, since I work in small batches, four cups at a time generally, it is not too much bother to just go all the way once the kettle is on.

Still, things come up. The boat is still not quite done. There are house chores that need attention. Pets to look after. The newspaper. The beach plums nag at me, though, and I hate to see them fall like so many raisins, shriveled, onto the sand. I’ll do what I can. Certainly I can get another few jars in the cupboard before the first frost.

It’s hard to imagine that participating in sectarian slaughters fraught with possibilities that we’ll be played for suckers perhaps by all the combatants will lead to any good, and yet it seems we have no choice given the likelihood of a greater evil emerging insofar as Americans are concerned from a jihadist triumph.

The recent beheadings by ISIS of two American journalists and a British aid worker have fueled revanchist fire — all the more reason to be grateful that we have a president with a cool head, one who, as was the tragic case a decade ago, when the Pandora’s box  was opened, is not likely to go off half-cocked.

Tom Lehrer, I gather, does not like to be invoked, but these days I find the lyrics of a song of his that masterfully catalogued the world’s sectarian, political, and racial hatreds, which ended with “and I don’t like anybody very much,” dancing in my head.

And with the above in mind, I’d like to recall the late Denis Craine, who had much to teach, and who died, at 56, of Lou Gehrig’s disease in March 2003, the same month, if I’m not mistaken, that we invaded Iraq.

What follows are some excerpts from his obituary and an interview with him, both of which I wrote:

“ ‘. . . In the end, though pride and judgments get in the way, love is all that endures,’ wrote Mr. Craine. He thanked his five children for having taught him to be sensitive, to be inquisitive, to be courageous, to live in the present, and to let the spirit move him.”

“. . . Five years ago, to promote inclusiveness in the East End’s schools, and to combat racism and bias crimes, Mr. Craine began to hold a Race Against Racism, also known as the W.E. Race, on Columbus Day, in an effort ‘to rediscover America.’ ”

“. . . He recalled also that Dylan, then 5, had inspired him to jettison his self-pity [stemming from two operations he underwent in his mid-30s to remove a cancerous tumor] when he said, ‘You might die? Well, let’s play!’ That says it all. It has really been grace we’ve been talking about. When you have your faith and come to terms with what you’re dealing with, no matter how critical the crisis, it doesn’t become bigger than spiritual peace. That’s what grace is.”

Love is what endures. We cannot let hate win.

I am still angry, from 3,000 miles away, at an old man whom I do not know and will never meet, but who unnerved my daughter Julia to the point where she went on Facebook to tell the story to her friends and ask for their take. This happened in Portland, Ore., but it could have been anywhere.

Here is what she wrote, along with some of the many comments. I know the comments helped her get over it, and I’m betting that rehashing it in this way will do the same for me.

Elly, by the way, is 5 years old. Jeff is my son-in-law.

Julia: Debating whether to post this, because I’m not sure I really want to know the answer, but curiosity has gotten the better of me. So, we took the twins to a Portland Festival Symphony concert in Grant Park on Saturday. It was a lovely event and a beautiful night, and a very festive atmosphere — hot dogs for sale, tons of kids, free face-painting and amazing music, selections from Bizet and Mozartand Liszt. Elly was pretty transported by the music and was dancing for much of the time — we were up near the front, so she was twirling and leaping and sometimes moving in the little open semicircle in front of the musicians. Other kids were there too but she may have been the most consistent about it.

During the intermission, when kids are invited up to “pet” the instruments and try playing then, an older man approached Jeff and said “Oh, your daughter is so cute, with her dancing. We came here just to watch her dance. No, wait a minute, we didn’t — we came here to hear and see the musicians, and she is being distracting and disrespectful.”

Jeff was furious, and I was very hurt, maybe not least because I wonder whether there was some truth to what he said. Of course, had we been at a symphony concert at the Schnitz or another concert hall, we would have kept her in her seat (and have done this, in fact), but we figured, at an outdoor, child-friendly event in the summertime, it was okay. I don’t know if I have any FB friends who have played in an orchestra, but I am particularly interested in their perspectives on this (gently, though, I hope — I already feel like a bit of a lousy parent over this). Thoughts?

Kim: He’s a jerk. If he wants a conventional, quiet symphony experience, he should pay the money and go see them at the theater. You guys did nothing wrong.

Donna: As someone who has played in an orchestra I am pretty sure seeing a kid dancing to our music would have been the absolute highlight of my music career. Seriously! Orchestra concert audiences are so boring. We notice when you’re sleeping. We notice when you get all dressed up just for a concert in the park. And we also notice when you seem to be really enjoying the music. And outdoor venues are very, very casual, so people should not expect a concert-hall experience. I’m surprised none of the musicians approached you to ask if Elly was taking music lessons.

Jason: In the small hours of the night, that man sobs into his pillow for hours about how lonely and hated he is.

 Ursula: Symphony in the park is all about bringing music that was historically accessible to a privileged few (at least in our country) to the general public. If this grumpy dude was really a music lover he would have relished your daughter’s delight. Shame on him.

Emily: If she was dancing directly on him, sure, but as long as she was dancing in the appropriate spot and not screaming he should be able to close his eyes and get his symphony Zen on.

Jack: Here’s a newsflash for that guy: Buy tickets to the indoor symphony, cheap-ass! I would have been livid. I wish Jeff would have decked him.

Peter: This one is easy: You guys should have told that guy to make his own musical instrument by sticking his thumb where the sun doesn’t shine.

Meg: I bet the musicians were so pleased. I am so sorry your critic didn’t see it that way and that is sad for him.

Julia: I feel moved and reassured by this reaction. The thing is, I want her to hold onto that joyfulness for as long as possible. I also want them to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them (as my mother used to say to me, back in the day). It seems like a fine line.

Kelly: I must say that he must have had a hefty set of balls to say something like that OR complete rocks for brains. An outdoor free show brings all kinds, even, dare I say, DANCERS! I am curious what Jeff said, if anything, to the toad.

Julia: Kelly, to answer your question, I turned around and saw Jeff basically vibrating with anger while talking to the guy — I sprinted over, because from my vantage point, it just looked like Jeff was being nasty to a harmless looking old man, and I couldn’t imagine why he was being so rude. Before I got there, Jeff apparently told the guy that he was very likely the only person in the crowd who felt that way, and that he was being very passive aggressive. The guy then repeated his objections to me, and I was so flustered, all I could say was “thanks for your feedback. You’re really upsetting me and I’d like you to leave us alone now.”

Cathy: The guy is a big poopy head. Elly, on the other hand, is a wood sprite. Rock on, little sister Elly! (I’m also insulted that he didn’t notice and complain about my kids climbing the tree.)

—

Irene Silverman, The Star’s editor-at-large, feels better already.

What with the Jewish High Holy Days coming up, I’ve been thinking a lot about God. But the Days of Awe, that 10-day period between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the time for introspection and repentance, have given me pause. Prayers will be offered, pleas and propositions will go up to the heavens. To God. The Almighty, the Munificent, all-knowing yet unknowable God.

Personally, I’m fine with the concept of a higher power. Someone or something to believe in when our computers crash, to give comfort during those endless hours on the phone with tech support. (Finally, I’m online again. There is a God!) The thing of it is, in this day and age, in our open-minded, all-inclusive, multicultural, same-sex-marriage century, why is God still personified as a he/him rather than a she/her?

Since the ancient scribes put their pens to parchment, that’s the way it’s been. No surprise there. Men wrote the Book and they gave the best part to him, but has he never heard of term limits?

And it’s not as if you can chat up his nibs over a double latte at Starbucks and bat this around. If you could, you’d probably get something vague and noncommittal like I AM THAT I AM. If he didn’t tell Moses who or what he was, do you for one minute think he’s going to give it up to you?

The fine arts are no better than the Bible. Think of the Sistine Chapel: the godly finger pointing to Adam in the altogether. I have no beef with that, but I have a good mind to get out my palette and pigments and rig a scaffold of my own. Transsexual is in now! If Chaz Bono can do it, why not God? Can you see the Pope strolling into the chapel? He glances up at the ceiling. “What the . . . ?”

Movies don’t help promote an open-minded, godly image either. Okay, fair is fair . . . the Hollywood hotshots stepped up and put their money where their box office mouth wasn’t and made Morgan Freeman God in “Bruce Almighty.” Morgan, I love your smooth, resonant voice, your talent to inspire confidence, but you can drive Miss Daisy to the moon and back and you still don’t cut it for me as God. Hollywood, you want color? You want a voice dripping honey on the silver screen? You want presence, something regal yet earthy? Try Oprah. Now there’s a girlfriend I could look up to.

Imagining God, trying to put a human face on a premise, is nothing new. Back in the first centuries of the Common Era, a Jewish mystic not only imagined God’s face, he used an ancient Persian measuring system called the parasang to measure God’s physical dimensions. As each parasang equals three miles, the mystic devised a system that calculated God’s size in units of 30 million miles, a size that, like the heavens themselves, was beyond human comprehension. And yet the mystic figured the measurements of God’s forehead, his nose, eyes, and mouth, each and every body part down to his beard. This mystic was so sure that God had a beard, he even gave the length and width of it.

It makes me wonder, then . . . could the mystic’s God have love handles? Six-pack abs? Did he ever pass the heavenly mirror, take a peek, and say to himself, “Lookin’ good, Adonai, lookin’ good”?

I’m no sage, and I couldn’t tell a parasang from a parachute, but I’m going to counter the mystic with a girly God, and I’m giving her persona some serious thought.

Should she be an introspective Dr. Joy Browne type? A big-on-psychology, call-in, shrink-wrapped God? Or more a Meryl Streep as Anna Wintour type of gal, bringing a little Prada and some high style to the heavens? On the other hand, do we want her traipsing around the cosmos in five-inch Manolo Blahniks, throwing her back out, just for the sake of a look?

The thing is, we need to get her down here with the folks. Give her a brand, some new press. Frankly, she could use some positive spin, what with fanatics out there trying to pin our latest hurricanes and volcanic eruptions on her. (I thought she quit smoking.)

What do you say to putting her on “Dancing With the Stars”? Think of the free promo, the ratings when they announce the lineup for the season: “Ricki Lake, Rob Kardashian, Chynna Phillips . . . and God!” Don’t tell me you wouldn’t watch. It’s win-win all around. She’d broaden her fan base. People would relate.

Look what “Dancing” did for Kirstie Alley. Her career was down the cathode ray tube. She does the waltz and she’s in the game again, on the cover of People. Got her own TV show. Okay, so she had to shed a hundred pounds to get there — I think she packed some of it back on. But you go, girl!

In any case, we’d better get cracking and spruce up the high-rise for when she gets back there. For starters, let’s tackle the throne; after all these years it could use a redo. I’m thinking chintz, a nice floral — it’s light, it’s fresh, some toss pillows here, a few pictures there . . . accessories make all the difference. While we’re at it, let’s spring for new window treatments — what we could do with those tall ceilings!

Which brings us to the sky — and don’t tell me blue again. It’s been blue forever. And where is it written that the sky has to be a solid color? Borrr-ring. I’m thinking an eye-catching print, say a paisley or a Burberry plaid. Overkill? I’m flexible. Excuse me a minute; there goes my cell.

“Hello? Hi! Sure. Love it! I’ll bring the bagels.”

That was her! Wants to break the Yom Kippur fast with me. The most holy of holy days on the Jewish calendar and she wants to spend it with moi. Right after She decides who will live and who will die in the coming year. She puts it in her book. She’s got it on her Kindle. I knew she’d be more accessible than he was.

I wonder what she’ll wear for the occasion? That schmate from the Year of the Flood? Snazzed up with a nice pin or a scarf, it could work. She’s happy, I’m happy.

    Rita Plush is the author of the novel "Lily Steps Out" and the short-story collection "Alterations." She lives part time in East Hampton.

A passel of college kids conjured the back-to-school spirit last weekend when they came to Bridgehampton to sing. Shere Khan, an a cappella ensemble of 12 Princeton students, performed for a group of friends at a private party, while the 45-member Howard University Gospel Choir, accompanied by electric bass, keyboard, and drums, raised the rafters of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. 

Shere Khan, the tiger in Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” is an appropriate riff on Princeton’s mascot. Linda Frankenbach and Rik Kranenburg had invited the co-ed group to spend the weekend here, rehearsing and enjoying the beach before heading back to school. Their son is the president of Shere Khan, and a senior. The Howard Gospel Choir was offering its sixth annual concert as a benefit for the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center.

A cappella singing requires a very good ear, which these collegians obviously have — as well as the talent to put across the messages in the contemporary songs they sing. I wasn’t alone among the audience in not quite being up-to-date on the music young people listen to these days, but Shere Khan rocked, and we all got it. The Beatles and Paul Simon were mixed in with Beyonce, Pharell Williams, Sheryl Crow, and Amy Winehouse, and at least half of the ensemble took terrific solos.

But I was stricken with admiration for the group’s music director, a Princeton junior named Liti Chiang, who not only set the beat but provided — vocally — amazing percussion. (The only note I questioned were the colors of Shere Khan’s T-shirts on its website: blue and red rather than Tiger orange and black.)

The camaraderie and good will of the audience for the Howard Gospel Choir was evident in its response upon learning that the concert, which had been called for 4:30 p.m., would start late because of a bus problem. The passion and gusto of this group is legendary, and they showed their mettle even though, we learned later, they hadn’t even taken time for lunch.

I’ve sung in innumerable concerts at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, and attended some wonderful performances there during the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, but nothing can compare with the Howard Gospel Choir for energizing an audience, encouraging them to clap and sing along to familiar songs like “Oh Happy Day.” This group, too, rotates solos among its members, and its music director, Reginald A. Golden, who circled the aisles in one number, “Keep A-Inchin’ Along,” has a stirring tenor voice. 

The good works — and fund-raising needs — of the Bridgehampton Child Care Center are formidable. A brochure passed out with the Howard Gospel Choir concert program mentioned just a few of the expenses that will need to be covered in the coming year, including $10,000 for meals it regularly serves and $5,000 for an equipment shed. I promised Bonnie Michelle Cannon, the executive director, that I would mention a benefit golf tournament that will be held at the Atlantic Golf Club on Monday, Sept. 22. I don’t play golf, but I can spread the word. Hallelujah!

You hear from time to time how tight East Hampton Town is when it comes to handing out construction permits. “You can’t get anything approved around here,” the complaint goes. Well, that is not really the case. Although the paperwork may mound up and the review process be painfully slow, you can generally get what you want.

During a late-August getaway, I visited a California community that was really restrictive and puts East Hampton’s supposedly hard-nosed preservationism into sharp perspective.

Bolinas, a town of about 1,500 residents on the Pacific Coast in Marin County, decided about 40 years ago to simply stop time. No, they said, to the California suburban sprawl creeping over Mount Tam from Interstate Highway 101. And it worked. There are no chain-type convenience stores, no obvious mansions belonging to the new San Francisco tech elite, and nothing to tell you that it’s not, say, 1971, other than the Honda Priuses parked along the road to the beach.

Chief among the tools that Bolinas pushed to limit growth was an absolute cap on the number of water meters. It is today, as it was when Johnson was in the White House, a hippie-surfer paradise, and it is likely to stay that way.

That the place could have remained unchanged is all the more astounding when you consider that it is but a one-hour drive from the new-money capital of the United States. Like Montauk, for example, Bolinas is flanked by preserved land and the sea. It, too, was once envisioned as the home of a massive resort project, including, in its case, a four-lane highway and marina for luxury yachts.

Beginning in the 1960s, however, activists began to build a metaphorical wall between themselves and the ravages of the time.

Visitors will find no sign on the main road indicating the Bolinas turnoff. Residents supposedly stole it so many times the authorities just decided to forget about another replacement. Montauk, on the other hand, and the rest of the Hamptons — well, we know all too well what has happened here.

Several times during my weekend there with an old friend, we passed a person dancing in the street in full shaman regalia — a cape, staff, beads, and, dangling from his decorated hat, a talisman that reached between his eyes to the end of his nose.

Okay, so Bolinas is definitely not East Hampton Village, where a shaman might be urged to go along. But it is interesting to consider what we might have looked like had we really held back East Coast excess and powerful real estate interests to make sure our policies lived up to their perception.

In East Hampton, officials and most residents just shrug, believing there is nothing they can do in the face of all that New York money. But it is illustrative to see just how far one community managed to go to keep its identity, and it is sad to realize the extent to which we’ve blown it here

As I walked to The Star’s kitchen the other day with Henry’s empty dish, not needing it anymore, I saw a piece of plywood barring the editor’s door, about baby gate-high, and looked in, and there was a puppy nibbling at his shoelaces. I wasn’t overly sad, for that’s the way it is: Life goes on.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been paying more attention lately: to a small gold leaf that twirled downward as I was taking a shower outdoors yesterday morning, to a bug barely the size of a comma, walking briskly over his kingdom, words that I have been trying with some difficulty to understand, to two fawns who’ve been welcomed at the corner, feeding on our neighbors’ lawn at dusk, to our brightly painted wooden fish — which reminds we two should be at peace — that fell from its perch over our sink just as a catbird stumbled in through the open slider door, its heart beating hard as it pressed up against the large windowpane.

“Un parajo a dentro,” I said, with some excitement, as the cleaning women entered, and went to get garden gloves to take hold of it. As it hunkered down in the sink, not knowing what was coming next, I grabbed and squeezed a bit, though not too tightly, and as it protested I let it go, almost in one motion, delighted as it flew off — to where I don’t know, happy that it wasn’t sick.

“Everything is holy,” Blake said, and while I still can’t quite say I believe it, I am finding it is truer than I thought. He would say, I suppose, that I hadn’t thought it through enough, that we were all one at one point, in the Eternity that preceded the Creation/Fall, before unity gave way to division — division so painfully evident on this day of all days, division which, because of its great enormities, may lead us to treasure unity and life all the more.