You really have to see the Taj Mahal in person to appreciate it. I don’t know if that’s a cliché — it probably is, but then, I’m not much of a world traveler. Still, a few years back I did catch a morning train from Jaipur to visit Shah Jahan’s “ultimate monument to love,” the mausoleum and funerary garden honoring his late wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

My then-brother-in-law and I stood on line for an hour, at least, before finally entering the grounds where, in the distance, the glorious structure rose from the earth, all white marble and sandstone and symmetry. A Mughal poet is said to have written that, in the mausoleum, “the whiteness of the true dawn is reflected, causing the viewer to forget his desire to move towards the highest heaven.” Sublime beauty, all around.

Until, I regret to report, while circumambulating the magnificent edifice, I came across a girl of, I guessed, 12 or 13. The girl, an Indian, apparently found it all somewhat less impressive than did the thousands of other visitors that day. At least, that was my inescapable conclusion as I watched her engrave her initials, with a stone, into a wall of the Taj Mahal. I sighed, heavily.

I was thinking of that girl on Saturday night, leaning against the bar at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett as Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, a legendary blues musician who goes by the name Taj Mahal, delivered a solo performance as sublimely beautiful as his namesake.

I’d seen Taj Mahal in New York a couple times — once at the late, great Tramps, and once, 15 years ago, in Central Park, when Sheryl Crow played a free concert with some very high-profile guests. I’ll never forget the reaction of Keith Richards, elegantly wasted, as he turned around to realize he was sharing the stage with Taj Mahal, who had performed ahead of Mr. Richards’s band in “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus” back in 1968.

But this was a solo show, just Taj and a guitar. Strong and spirited at 72, he kept a full house spellbound with playful, masterful performances of his easygoing country blues. “Corrina” and “Fishin’ Blues,” to name a couple, never sounded so cool.

“Here’s a little tip that I would like to relate: Many fish bites if ya’ got good bait,” he sang. “I’m a-goin’ fishin’, yes I’m goin’ fishin’, and my baby goin’ fishin’ too.” Here was wisdom, dispensed with a song and a most infectious smile.

About that rapt audience, though: As is so often the case, more than a few Talkhouse patrons, who had paid $150 or more to attend, seemed blissfully unaware that a concert was in progress, an intimate solo performance at that. Standing directly in front of my date and me, a woman spent about half of the show peering into her smartphone, furiously sending and receiving text messages. The other half of the show? That was occupied by the reading back of the correspondence, aloud, to her companion. I sighed, heavily, again.

I guess it doesn’t matter what side of the world you are on, or if it’s Taj Mahal or the Taj Mahal. Nothing, truly nothing, is sacred. Was it always this way?

We left and walked home, a splendid time had, but a nagging annoyance hanging overhead. Up Main Street, a line from Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” replayed in my mind: “I’m nothing but a stranger in this world.”

Christopher Walsh is a reporter at The Star and a musician himself. 

    Complaining to a colleague, as I am wont to do, about my difficulties hitting upon a subject for this column every week, she asked when I first began to write it. It turns out — and I had to pull out a folder from a crammed old filing cabinet to be sure — that the first “Connections” appeared in The East Hampton Star on April 28, 1977, which means it passed the 37-year mark a few weeks ago. (Even I, a hater of unnecessary exclamation points, want to put an exclamation point at the end of that sentence.)

    Looking through the somewhat yellowed clippings, I laughed out loud at something I reported on May 19, 1977. Members of the East Hampton senior citizens nutrition program, which met in the middle school, had recently “set up a table of snacks for sale at lunch time.” The idea was that “some students needed to eat more than the school lunch offered,” while other students — truly picky eaters — needed something to fill their stomachs when their refusal of the regular cafeteria goods had left them hungry. So what snacks did the senior-citizens group offer to the kids? I quote:  “The snacks were a collection of forbidden fruits like Yankee Doodles, Ring Dings, and Yodels.” 

    Can you imagine? In that column, I went on to — also somewhat amusingly, with a few decades’ perspective — muse about how, while we all loved the rural nature of our East End, it had to be admitted that suburban communities had certain advantages we missed. The example I cited was to contrast the Ring Dings and Yodels of the East Hampton Middle School with the good works of an UpIsland organization called CRUNCH  (Concerned Residents Upholding Nutrition’s Contribution to Health), which, through a Food Day event at the Smith Haven Mall of all places, was agitating to get schools to stop serving junk food or allowing it in vending machines.

    Thirty-seven years later, I am sure a group of concerned volunteers here in East Hampton would offer something quite different if called upon to supplement students’ cafeteria choices. Greek yogurt and organic bananas? Whole-grain flagels? Kale chips?

     I don’t actually know what the lunch programs are like at the South Fork’s public schools these days, although I have to hope that the campaign Mi­chelle Obama launched about four years ago to promote healthy eating and more physical activity among children has had some effect. Everywhere I go nowadays, adults are talking about changing their diets, eating more vegetables and fruits, canonizing the notion of farm to table, cutting down on sweets and certain, if not all, carbohydrates.

    In April, The Star reported that the Ross School had been ranked at number four among schools throughout the entire United States by a culinary website called the Daily Meal, which cited Ross’s locally sourced and healthy menus. The food director at Ross, Liz Dobbs, even sounded a bit apologetic for serving white rather than brown rice at dinnertime, explaining that it was a comfort food for its many boarding students who are far from home.

    Perhaps the Ross School, which years ago brought in the famous food activist Alice Waters from California to help design wholesome meals for its students, has had a good influence on our local discussion, at large. We have come a long way since the days of meatball subs and gallon cans of pudding.

    What does it say, though, that the children of 30 and 40 years ago — despite the prehistoric, processed food choices available during the school day — were less inclined to be obese than today’s children, who dine on organic root vegetables and sushi? I’m not concerned about the sophisticated kids who get to eat sushi, but the evidence, reported by the Centers for Disease Control, is that while the increase in childhood obesity crosses economic and social lines, the children of low income families are more likely to be obese than others.

    The East Hampton Star has offered, and helped pay for, its employees’ health insurance for as long as anyone can remember. As premiums have soared, what it has cost to do so has increased every year, as has the amount employees pay toward their coverage. Nevertheless, I am proud that, as a small company in an industry undergoing its own changes, The Star’s contributions to employees’ health insurance have stayed at the same level since 2007.

    This year, with the provisions of the Affordable Care Act in effect, we have turned to Susan Morrissey of the eponymous insurance agency in Sag Harbor to help us tread the waters. She has recommended chang­ing our insurer, and, to our surprise, the policies, which go into effect May 1, will provide more coverage at lower cost. What’s not to like about that? To understand why this is possible, you have to consider the expansion of services in the act’s basic provisions.

    Most of us know that insurance companies can no longer use pre-existing conditions as a reason to deny coverage or cancel coverage if you get sick. They cannot charge women more than men for the same plan, and annual or lifetime limits are no longer allowed. Young adults have been able to stay on their parents’ plans until they are 26 for some time, and they are now able to obtain health insurance as individuals through their parents’ employers until they are 29 under certain circumstances.

    What are really new are the many preventive services, categorized as wellness care, which now must be provided without cost, along with immunizations and H.I.V. screening. The Affordable Care Act also requires policies to cover mental health services for the first time, as well as annual pediatric visits to dentists and eye doctors and a pair of eyeglasses. Unfortunately the Obama administration, which has been besieged by criticism, didn’t do much of a job in broadcasting these improvements.

    The goal is to see that all Americans have basic coverage, which is long overdue. In New York State alone until this year, 1.1 million people were reported to have gone without insurance. It is not yet known what that number will be now that 7.1 million people throughout the country have signed up. Nor is it certain that everyone who has done so will pay up when premiums come due. But the Obama administration has every reason to be gratified by participation in the so-called exchanges, or marketplaces, so far, after such a terribly flawed start.

    The most troublesome thing about the health insurance provided to individuals through the New York State exchanges is that, unlike the policies obtained through companies like The Star from such private insurers as Oxford or Aetna,  the network of doctors and hospitals to which patients can go  is extremely limited. Even Stony Brook University Hospital, where many East End residents are treated when they are seriously ill, is off-limits.

    Something is very wrong with this, and who knows how long it will take  to correct, if ever. Premiums for those buying reasonably good individual policies used to average $1,100 or $1,200 a month, but lowered premiums through the state will backfire if patients are unable to continue treatment where they have had it without exorbitant bills.

    Those on The Star’s policies who remain relatively healthy, and who see their doctors or buy prescription drugs routinely, are indeed going to benefit from lower premiums and modest co-insurance payments in the year ahead. But there is more to the story: Those who require more expensive care or hospital stays will for the first time have deductibles to meet. This is also the case for those who qualify for premium subsidies through the exchanges.

    It’s all so complicated that a whole line of work seems to be growing up: so-called health insurance “navigators” online, who are supposed to help people understand what is and isn’t possible for them, and what it will cost. We are lucky at The Star to be able to rely on a professional like Ms. Morrissey.

    The house we live in, built for my parents more than 50 years ago, is a little tight for a family of five that includes a 4-year-old with an ample supply of Legos and dinosaur toys, as well as two dogs and a pet pig. We need more closet space. The upstairs wood floors are due to be redone. The kitchen cabinets haven’t been painted in 20 years.

    It’s not like we haven’t tried. A plumber we met with about getting better heat in a chilly bedroom has gone missing. The painting contractor we used most recently appeared to have an eyesight-challenged crew, if the sloppy job they did on the interior trim is any indication. And I’ve tried to institute a no-new-objects rule for everyone in the family to minimize clutter, to little avail.

    The problem with any house-renewal effort, as many of you will agree, is mission creep. When we had a problem deciding on paint colors for the kitchen, our attention became focused on the outdated red tile on the floor. We are now investigating options, including laying a high-tech “floating” surface on top of it, but this may involve a visit to the manufacturer’s Manhattan office.

    Selecting tile for the kids’ shower became a conflict when one of our daughters announced she simply had to have a pricey, bubble-like style we saw in a Wainscott showroom. The debate about whether to put the new television over the fireplace or next to it nearly brought the family to blows. Both these conflicts were resolved (we agreed on a more sensible tile; the TV is next to the fireplace), but it wasn’t easy.

    Warm weather, when we will open the doors and windows and spend more time outdoors, can’t come soon enough. That will take the pressure off calling in a bulldozer for this old house. At least until the fall when we all move back inside once again.  

    Down the street from where we live is an arid wasteland of a building site, stripped bare not only of the modest house that was once home to a pair of gentleman gardeners but also of the profusion of flowers, shrubs, even trees (the ultimate insult) that they had so carefully tended. There is nothing left but 20-foot mountains of dirt, a broken-down shed off in a brambly corner, whose survival may have been an oversight, and a waiting construction trailer.  

    The site has been like this since last summer. I’m sure I’m not the only one on the street who turns to look whenever I drive by, waiting for signs of movement even as I dread the colossus that is all too likely to follow.

    When I say nothing is left, I mean nothing between the house and the old post-and-rail fence out front. If they’d torn the place down just a little sooner than they did, say in the month of March, they’d have noticed green blades coming up beyond that fence — on the grassy strip beween the fence and the road which, so far as I know, is rightfully town land but is viewed by many homeowners as part of their property — and probably smushed them, along with all the other growing things.

    There ought to be a word for that strip. Right-of-way? Homeowners all over town appropriate it for their own uses, usually though not always to good effect. Forsythia is particularly popular; so is ivy and impatiens, planted around the street trees. But then there are the people who space big rocks a few feet apart on the grass, or stick sticks in the ground with lights on top that glow red at night. They may say they’re there to protect their fences from wayward cars, but I think what they’re really doing is marking their territory. 

    Anyway, those green blades beyond the onetime house with its falling-down fence are now daffodils. Hundreds at least, maybe 1,000, all sizes, all colors, yellow, white, yellow and white, yellow and orange, orange and red, red and white and apricot and pink. From March to May, for more than 100 running feet along the grass, daffodils bloom and fade and others come along, and they all just keep increasing every year.

    For as long as I can remember, and we have lived on this same street for 45 years, those two men, both dead now, could be seen out front every autumn shoehorning new bulbs into the ground. They transformed that grassy strip into a springtime showstopper, and I know I was not the only neighbor who would purposely walk on that side of the street to gawk. Because of them I became something of a daffodil fanatic myself, sending off to Wisconsin or Oregon for unusual varieties, even once entering the Garden Club of Shelter Island’s biennial show.

    Daffodils have been aptly called the self-cleaning ovens of the gardening world; with little or no care, they do what’s expected. They’re doing it again down the street this spring, but I am not, and that’s really what this is all about. I still walk over there most days, but now, instead of stopping and ogling and walking on, I cut a bunch of flowers and take them back home, or to work.

    Is this stealing?

    No one lives there anymore, and there are so many drifts of daffs that you couldn’t possibly tell the difference, and yet I find myself hoping no car will pass by and see me — catch me? — in the act. But why? The new owners, probably a corporation, clearly couldn’t care less about plants, and the plantsmen, given the situation, might actually approve. Or so I tell myself.

    I was putting some really spectacular Albert Einsteins in a Tropicana juice container the other day when a neighbor — a woman whom I happen to know is a fervent proponent of private property rights — walked by on the other side of the street and shot me a dirty look. I stood up and went home, thinking that after all this was thievery, and the next day I asked someone at work about it.

    “Would you go cut somebody else’s flowers, even if they didn’t even live there yet?”

    “Of course not,” she replied, then paused. “Only if they were lilacs.”

    Irene Silverman is The Star’s editor at large. She is at large at the moment in Amagansett.

    Ever since I joined the staff of The Star decades ago, I have adhered to the old-fashioned journalists’ prohibition against public expressions of support for one political position or another: I do not sign petitions, attend meetings to either advocate for or oppose matters of controversy, and I do not usually participate in polls. This week, however, I broke with the last of these standards.

    As we know, polls have had an increasingly powerful effect on legislative decisions; this is especially true at the federal level, but more and more often at the local level, too. The media treat poll results as news. We have gotten so used to this adjunct of the democratic process that there seems little debate about how seriously the results of polls should be taken.

    In a recent essay for the Neiman Journalism Lab, an affiliate of Harvard, Herbert J. Gans, a sociologist, expressed doubt about how well polls truly reflect the will of the people. He pointed out that news reports on polls almost never describe the specific questions that had been asked and do not generally include figures to account for respondents who didn’t have opinions on the matter or were unsure of their answer. For that reason, Mr. Gans said, poll results are often not an adequate measure of majority opinion.

    Obviously, the answer we give to a pollster is very much affected by the way a question has been framed. The wording, as I have learned, is often anything but neutral, but instead engineered to garner one result or another.

     The telephone rang this week on Edwards Lane, and the person on the other end indicated that she was seeking opinions on a proposed zoning law in the Town of East Hampton (a law that will, as a matter of fact, be subject to public hearing tonight and happens to be the subject of an editorial today). All the caller would say when I asked her to describe the proposed law was that it would become clear as we went along.

    At first, the questions were as wholesome and straightforward as motherhood and apple pie. Did I approve of maintaining East Hampton’s rural or semi-rural character, protecting hamlets, neighborhoods, landscapes, scenic vistas, and historic buildings? Of course I did.

    As the questioning progressed, however, the queries became astoundingly biased. They were rigged in such a way that if those who answered wanted to be counted as in favor of the proposed new zoning law, they would find themselves approving something that was going to have dire, damaging effects on the community.

    I was told that if the law were approved it would become extremely inconvenient for residents to buy necessities such as milk — and was I in favor of its passage? Then I was told that if the law were passed it would cause the community to suffer economic loss, because there would be fewer jobs — and did I support that?

    (I wish I had been sitting at my computer at the time of the call so I could have taken more precise notes, but you get the gist.)

    At the hearing tonight, some will no doubt argue that local government has no right to restrict commerce. Others may say that although the goals of the law are reasonable, its restrictions go too far.

    It’s likely, someone will come waving the results of the poll in his or her hand, as “proof” of the public’s wishes. Frankly, I would be delighted if they do, because perhaps then we will learn which individual, organization, or corporation paid for this sham.

    Is it possible that as we age, and become ever more aware of life’s horrors, that we are, perhaps in like manner, ever more stimulated by its beauties and wonders?

    I looked at the grass this morning, though it is not grass, it is an infinity of, to use Mary’s word, species (overlaid by crystallized snow this morning) that, even with Larry Penny at hand, would require endless study to catalog.

    It was Peter Matthiessen, I think, who said that we should consider ourselves lucky if we were awake five minutes a day. 

    “To see eternity in a grain of sand,” I said (in somewhat garbled fashion) to myself on the way to the compost heap.

    And then, of course, one must get ready for work.

    Though not without thinking how much joy remains to be had in loving, so much more than I, a typical American male I would say (and thus perfectly suited to sportswriting) would have expected.

    That I continue to be surprised by this — though not so much anymore by the seemingly limitless cruelty that lies within us — is a wonder to be cherished in my 70s, knowing that I’ve done nothing to merit it. It’s just dumb but marvelous luck.

    The secret, as Andy Neidnig said, is to keep moving. I was about to say that the more you move the less time you have to fret — about the future, about the past. About sins of commission and — perhaps more germane in my case — of omission.

    To reflect in that manner, then, would not be to be awake. I think the idea is to look at things whole for at least five minutes a day — to take it all in, calmly, the sorrow, the ugliness, the joy, and the beauty. For it’s not only beauty that is true, Mary said.

    And, keeping all that in mind, to raise a glass to what we know and to what we do not know, and to moving, and seeing, and feeling.

    So, they say Edward Snowden is a traitor and yet they give those who reported on his public service work the Pulitzer Prize.

    The Obama administration admits that it has overstepped when it comes to its spying on all of us, and yet if Snowden returns to this country, they will leap upon him and prosecute him to the full extent of the law.

    And there were Mark Shields and David Brooks the other night, brows furrowed, tut-tutted, trying to reconcile the reporters’ prizes with the alleged infamy of what the source of the story did. But do they understand? They would probably not even be talking about this universal listening-in, which would still be going merrily on unbeknownst to us, had it not been for Snowden.

    Who cares? you may say. Obviously, we must give up some of our privacy in order for the state to do what it must do to protect us from those who intend us harm. When, though, does it get to the point — not that I’m saying it has as of yet — when those who are charged with looking after our best interests transmogrify into our betes-noires.

    It’s something to keep in mind. Blake said there are two sorts — tyrants and the acquiescent victims of tyrants. No, no, we don’t practice tyranny here, at least overtly. The income gap widens, ever widens, and yet we acquiesce in it. It’s not tyranny, it’s just the way things are in our democracy, you might say, where everyone has an equal say, as in one man, one woman, one vote. 

    Do we need a subversive Snowden to point out this subversion of system? He might risk jail time.

    As I was writing this, I discovered in the Sunday Times business section that there indeed is such a fellow, Thomas Piketty, who recently co-wrote a best seller that “debunks the idea that wealth raises all boats.” But he’s French.

    The Times followed up three days later with a front-page piece headlined “U.S. Middle Class Is No Longer World’s Richest.” While our richest still remain the richest, it said, our middle (I wonder if there still is one) class and poor have been outstripped by their counterparts in Canada and Western Europe.

    Oligarchs now reign in the land of the free. I think Aristotle said mob rule comes next.

    After I buried Pooh in Central Park, I wanted nothing more to do with felines, at least not for a while. I was in mourning for my little friend, and mourning takes time. My wife, however, had other ideas and a team of accomplices pitted against me.

    We lived on West 19th Street in Chelsea at the time, and a Dominican couple with four daughters had moved from the South Bronx into the building next door a few weeks earlier.

    The apartment Carole and I had was essentially a two-room studio, and we learned that their apartment had the same setup, cramped quarters for a family that large. When I came home from work I would see the girls on the street in front of the buildings, and would stop to talk with them. The oldest, about 7, was their spokesperson. She would tell me about everything that had happened in the building and on the block that day.

    One evening, soon after Pooh’s demise, there was a knock on the door. It was the little spokesperson. “Your cat is dead. Do you want our cat?” she asked. I said no, although I told her it was a very kind offer.

    The next evening, there was another knock on the door. “He’s a very nice cat. His name is Garfield,” she said.

    “Shouldn’t we at least take a look?” Carole asked after the disappointed neighbor left.

    “It’s too soon,” I said.

    The next night, another knock. This time my little friend had her three sisters with her, as well as Garfield, cradled in her arms. He looked to be no longer a kitten, but was not full grown. He also looked strikingly like the dear departed Pooh.

    Their mother had said Garfield had to go, she explained. After I sent them away disappointed again, my wife stared daggers at me. It was very quiet around the dinner table that night.

    The next evening, the now-ritual knock was heard again. It was the four girls and the cat, now wrapped in a large towel. They had washed him. I looked at the wet animal. I looked at my wife. I looked at those four pairs of dark eyes, which seemed to be looking back imploringly as they waited for my answer. “Okay,” I said.

    And that is how the cat whom we rechristened Bunky came into our lives. He was a close companion for the next 20-odd years.

    T.E. McMorrow is a reporter at The Star.­

    Even though it has been a long time since I saw the Japanese film “Rashomon,” I can remember the profound impression it made. “Rashomon” introduced Japanese cinema to this country, and its director, Akira Kurosawa, went on to become one of the most influential in American filmmaking.

    “Rashomon” is about a man’s murder and the rape of his wife, as described by four people who testify very differently about what happened. That witnesses may, and in some cases do, see important or powerful events from wholly different perspectives is a valuable lesson for anyone who ever thinks about truth and justice. Not only beauty but guilt and innocence can be in the eye of the beholder. And that also is a touchstone for journalists.

    Thirty or so years ago, when Dan Rattiner of Dan’s Papers and I met for dinner at East Hampton’s original Laundry restaurant, we seemed to have a lot in common. Over the years, some people confused our last names. We both grew up in New Jersey and we both began our newspaper careers in the town of East Hampton in 1960. But we knew we looked at the world through different lenses.

    I have never forgotten the day when Dan, just starting out, came into The Star office and asked if he could run our publisher’s column, “Looking Them Over.” What chutz­pah! Or was it flattery?

    At dinner, Dan explained his professional philosophy. He had realized (perhaps in high school) that there was no such thing as real truth so he decided early on that he was free to tell the news any way he fancied. Sometimes he took that idea to extremes, startling readers with elaborate and hilarious hoaxes. I, on the other hand, I had come to East Hampton by way of the Columbia University School of Journalism, where one of the basic rules was to strive for objectivity. The Star was more likely to run “on-one-hand, and-on-the-other” accounts of events than hoaxes.

    I am reminded of the famous Robert Frost poem that begins: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. . . .” It seems that Dan, a pioneer in personal journalism, “took the one less traveled by,” while those of us at The Star followed a traditional path. That I recited that poem at my eighth-grade graduation is one of life’s little ironies.

    Speaking of truth, or at least accuracy, in journalism, I was wrong last week when I announced there was to be a big rummage sale at the Springs Presbyterian Church this weekend on behalf of the Synchro Swans, the water-ballet team at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter. Clothes and household goods are being collected there tomorrow and Saturday, but they will be distributed to the needy by a charitable organization.