Life peaked for me at the age of 9. It didn’t go downhill too much after that, but stayed at a plateau for quite some time. Class president and author of a handful of books, I was at the top of my game.

    Most of the credit has to go to my third-grade teacher, Queen Davis-Parks, who I learned passed away this month.

    Before I opened the envelope with the school’s insignia emblazoned on it the summer before I was to enter third grade, I knew that she was the teacher I wanted. I had no good reason for wanting Mrs. Davis-Parks except that my sister had had her two years earlier.

    When I saw her name on the paper before me, something that I would not identify as anxiety until many years later rushed over me. While I knew she was the teacher for me, I also knew that Mrs. Davis-Parks had a reputation for being tough. I was not so sure that I was up for the challenge.

    She stumped me right off the bat when she assigned an acrostic poem based on my first name, then a story using that

poem as the title. Too bad for me, I didn’t have an easy name to work with, but Mrs. Davis-Parks took the reins and even illustrated my book, “Lonnie Eats Incredible Green Houses,” about a monster with periodontal disease.

    She gave the book to my father that year, and it sat in his dental office until he retired several years ago.

    I learned what collard greens were when Mrs. Davis-Parks hosted a soul food lunch for our class that February. Not only was the history of each of the mountains of trays of food explained carefully to the class, but Mrs. Davis-Parks also had cooked every one of the dishes.

    For a woman with a stern reputation, her class had more parties than any other. Every holiday a celebration, every day an adventure.

    Mrs. Davis-Parks would tote a clunky record player into the classroom and play Dionne Warwick’s “That’s What Friends Are For.” She knew all the words and wrote them down, copying them for each of us. We were to learn the words and then sing the song in the school’s playground after our class election that year. All of us did, and we were surprised to hear the tune again during our eighth-grade graduation, when Mrs. Davis-Parks’s husband, Leon Parks, our social studies teacher, produced a video montage of all of us growing up. He played the song in the background.

    Even the students — by then newly minted but nonetheless jaded teenagers — cried openly.

    Mrs. Davis-Parks perfected my penmanship, as I was able to copy her flawless handwriting from the blackboard, and taught me how to write in cursive.

    The most priceless gift of all from the teacher I loved so much was the gift of understanding what was important. In fact, Mrs. Davis-Parks was my first editor — striking more than a handful of pages from a 20-page run-on sentence I had written about a horse.

    There were few waves in my third-grade career. But I have a keen memory of a day I forgot to complete a homework assignment. This was unusual for me, and as I stood in a line leading to Mrs. Davis-Parks’s desk to have her review my work, I panicked. Sweating, near tears, and thinking of how I would survive her wrath, she gave me a warm smile, put her hand over mine, and said it was okay.

    Turns out being a student of Mrs. Davis-Parks’s was not as much of a challenge as I expected. Even though she was every bit as tough as she was known to be, she was also one of the most inspirational and special teachers that I ever had the luck to spend a year with.

    After my big elementary school graduation, I received my first report card from my fourth-grade teacher. I can honestly say that Mrs. Davis-Parks had everything to do with my new teacher’s assessment of me when she wrote, “Wow. Leigh is ready for NASA.”

—

    Leigh Goodstein is a reporter at The Star.

    It was cold on the beach. Five a.m. or so, waiting to set nets, fishing with the Havens crew in Amagansett. I was almost 15 and had left the boarding school I attended in ninth grade a bit before the end of the school year (long story). I moved to my parents’ summer house in East Hampton, where Doug Kuntz, an on-again, off-again boyfriend of my older sister’s who was in need of a place to live, was installed to keep an eye on me. He was my ticket to fishing with the Havens family, haulseiners for generations.

    Haulseining was taught to white settlers by the local Indians and remained much the same over the centuries, with the exception of four-wheel-drive trucks with winches replacing hauling the nets by hand, and rowboats being retired in favor of 20-foot motorized dories towed to the beach and launched through the surf.

    Our dory would launch just before dawn, when the truck towing it would back quickly and violently into the ocean and come to a sudden stop, letting momentum pull the boat free. While the truck pulled out of the water as fast as possible, sometimes with the help of a tow line already set in place and wrapped around a winch of another truck, the dory would power through the beach break, wader-clad fishermen preparing to drop nets after clearing the waves.

    They’d head toward the horizon paying out net, the end of which was still tied to a truck, setting it in a deep arc before returning through the waves far up the beach. Crews manned each end of the net; one would work the large spinning steel winch that towed the net to shore while a second neatly coiled the rope. As the net at last began to pull clear of the ocean we’d run shots of line to the water’s edge and tie it around the net while the other end was wrapped around the winch to continue the haul.

    It could take two hours: shot after shot of rope tied on, untied, then rushed back to the water as the trucks periodically moved toward each other, leaving a trail of netting above the surf line as the arc in the ocean tightened around the catch.

    By the time the trucks were shouting distance apart, the tension would be an almost physical presence on the beach. Fish would have been cleaned from the net as it was retrieved, but that set’s success or failure was dictated by what was in the bag, a giant sock of netting at the center of the arc that held captive the fish that had hit the net and turned to run offshore. A full net could mean an early day and a run to Stuart’s market to deliver the catch. More likely, though, the process would be repeated at least once. But expectations were always high for that first set; the wisdom of haulseiners for generations said the best time to get your nets in was as the sun just came over the eastern horizon.

    We woke up at 3:30 or 4 a.m. to fish. We’d sit in the dark living room of my house, Doug would smoke cigarettes, and we’d try to wake up enough for the drive to Amagansett in his drafty ex-Postal Service Jeep. Once at the Havens home we’d hop in the crew trucks for the drive to the Napeague strip.

    It was sleepy, cold, noisy, chaotic movement before dawn, before the rest of the Hamptons bothered to get out of bed, with the roads empty except for our small convoy of trucks heading east before turning onto the two-track through the dunes leading to the ocean and our first set spot. Everything had an odd edge to it: the air, the lights on the dune grass, the cigarette smoke in the truck cab, the sound of the trailer humming behind. I’m not convinced anyone but the men in the dory fully came awake before we started to see fish on the beach, but attempts were made in those few slow, precious moments of calm while the boat made its long trip out and back.

    Men would smoke, stand on the cold beach and talk about the day’s prospects, and toss causal, affectionate insults at one another. They’d tell me to be careful of bluefish, that one had leapt off the beach and latched on to Nicky’s upper arm once, that they’re dangerous fish, aren’t they? Yes, yes, bub.

    I never knew if they were trying to scare the city kid, but when I was finally insulted by one of the crew (I won’t be specific, but it had to do with my potential ability and supposed propensity for bed insects), I felt in some small part (very, very small part) a member of the crew, at least for a time. Never fully, of course, that would have been impossible for a number of reasons: I was young, I was obnoxious, I was born in the wrong state.

    But I didn’t care; the fact that I was there getting yelled at was what mattered. These were, after all, Real Men. Real Men who did Real Work, who smoked, who drank, who fought, who feared nothing I could think of. They were larger than life and stronger than gods and they let me fish with them in the spring of 1978.

Last year during the drought in South Africa I had to fly to the oldest desert in the world, the Namib, to have a shower. This year my hometown, Cape Town, was reborn — green. Dams filled with unseasonable, welcome rains. This may have been tough on vacationers, but it was cause for celebration among the locals. In the shower we could kick the bucket placed there to catch every drop, at least for a minute, until guilt made us put it back.

Rain has changed the picture of a place the BBC once named “the world’s first city to run out of water.” Unlike in Britain, people here now talk about weather in joyful terms. Other pictures, however, have not changed. 

Twenty-nine years have passed since Nelson Mandela completed his “long walk to freedom.” But the long rash of shantytowns remains unhealed. That’s not changed.

Sure, you may have left those sad clusters of corrugated iron as you exited the airport and headed into one of the world’s loveliest cities. But did you drive to Hout Bay, where ChapmansPeak Hotel would have offered you the best calamari in the world? On the way, you would have passed Imizamo Yethu. “Imi” is a shanty­town (excuse me, “informal settlement”) where 35,000 souls eke out a living. That’s not changed. 

Or drive over a hill from suburban Glencairn to the tiny seaside dorp of Scarborough. As you crest the ascent, to your right you’ll see a fresh rash of shacks — perhaps 200 — that house the poor. Now some may tell you that the “previously underprivileged” prefer to live in shacks rather than bricks and mortar. Why? Because they don’t have to pay property taxes or any of the encumbrances of home ownership. Huh?

Twenty-nine years after seismic political change, black men are still building handsome homes for white men. That’s not changed. Construction workers are always black people, always men; their average wage is 20 rands ($1.40) per hour. The crews I saw were supervised by people of mixed-race origin — some of them women — many of them holding clipboards. While it’s odd to see black men in overalls scrolling their cellphones as they clomp about in work boots, you can be sure they’re not making a booking on OpenTable; you will never see them chowing down a T-bone steak at 200 rands ($14). That’s not changed.

Strangers come to your door begging for money or food. At almost every traffic light, three or four beggars — even a sprinkling of whites — will ask you for coins. That’s not changed, but it has increased.

“Jo’burg is different,” I’m told by people who live there. “Hell, boet, there’s a ton of social change in Joeys.”

Why doesn’t that surprise me? Because politicians and their hangers-on, like tick birds pecking a rhino, cluster around the watering holes of Egoli, the “city of gold.” That’s where the pols, if they’re not already in prison or facing indictment by a lazy Prosecuting Authority (itself under suspicion of corruption), will be found jolling around in their Mercs and BMWs — in Johannesburg and its satellite city, Pretoria (the legislative capital). 

Here there are rich pickings for politicians. Any time the words “tender” or “procurement” or “contract” are in play, these men and women, like the mafia, are eager to dip their beaks or collect the vig. And afterward, they’ll dine on T-bones and the best red wine. That’s not changed.

After my two months in the exquisite Cape of Good Hope, here’s what has changed: People of all colors are at ease with one another. At a concert at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, a visitor from England told me, the vibe of friendship in an audience that was 80 percent black and 20 percent white was potent. In stores and cafes, loose service is always rescued by apologetic, unflagging smiles. 

My own behavior changed earlier this month when I did something I never would have done before. I gave a lift to a large black guy. He told me he was from Johannesburg and had come south in search of work; so far, nothing had come up. 

“Where do you live?” I asked. 

“Clifton, sir.”

I was impressed, as Clifton is one fancy suburb. Then he added, “In a cave.”

The guy had a broken foot, was on crutches, and lived in a cave about half a mile from my apartment. I gave him something, knowing that anything I could do for the guy would be inadequate. 

Point is, if I hadn’t felt the new spirit of this city, this rainbow nation, I would have driven by. That has changed. (I know, “Big deal,” you may be thinking. Hey, it’s a start.)

Optimism is, literally, made concrete by buildings that are being hammered out all over the city and its sprawling suburbs. Traffic is horrendous. I used to call Cape Town “the 10-minute town” when I was a teenager here, learning to drive. No more. A commute from a fancy suburb either south or west of the city bowl can take 90 minutes each way. That has changed.

For the half million whites in this city of nearly four million, much is the same. The sun sets as gloriously as ever across the stoeps of the $2 million homes at Clifton. The food at five-star restaurants can’t be bettered in any world capital, and yet is relished here at a fraction of the price. (Last week I tried to make a reservation at a top restaurant, Chefs Warehouse, and they are booked solid through the end of March.) 

Are more changes afoot? Many whites worry that younger blacks, frustrated at the pace of social change and the corruption of politicians by businesspeople, will force dramatic change on the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa. The man himself has spoken of “land expropriation without compensation.” Chilling to hear if you own a thousand-acre wine farm.

Meanwhile, the government has accelerated “white flight,” particularly by young professionals, via a policy of appointing blacks to critical positions, at times regardless of qualifications. 

Some say that “reverse discrimination” in South Africa is “when karma comes and bites you in the ass.” But be it black or white ass, 29 years on, karma doesn’t discriminate.

Brian Clewly Johnson is the author of “A Cape Town Boy: A Memoir of Growing Up, 1940 to 1959.” He lives in Amagansett.

Many of today’s leaders, ranging from Donald Trump of the United States to Theresa May of Britain, Viktor Orban of Hungary, and Vladimir Putin of Russia, liken those who oppose their nation-centric views to “losers” and those who support them to patriotic “winners.” This harks back to the comforts of the zero-sum game, where for every winner, there is a commensurate loser, or in mathematical terms, 1-1=0. Put more succinctly, “to the extent I win, you lose.”

This comforting dichotomy describes a finite two-player game/conflict in which a victor, clutching a trophy, places an unwelcome boot on the neck of his opponent.

If only disputes were this simple. In the world we live in, aptly described by complexity theory, political movements and institutions emerge in interdependent networked forms that cannot be disentangled. Much as Donald Trump would like to reimagine the United States of the 1940s and 1950s as an entity that can be duplicated today and erect a moat around American commerce, and, in similar fashion, Theresa May would like to excise Britain from the European Union while enjoying all the benefits of Continental trade, these feats cannot be accomplished.

Just as you can’t disassemble a brain into its component neurons and then reconstruct it, you can’t substitute 19th-century nationalism for 21st-century globalization. Once networked forms emerge, they can’t be deconstructed, no matter how powerful the instrument used to destroy them. The sum is already greater than the parts. In mathematical terms, 1+1=3.

What is complexity theory and why does it matter? Drawing from many disciplines ranging from computer science to sociology, from engineering to earth science, complexity theory seeks to describe nonlinear (noncausal) relationships between parts of a system that perform a collective function. The interaction of the interconnected, yet independent, elements of the system produce “emergent properties.” An example of an emergent property includes human consciousness, which emerged through the evolutionary process that led to Homo sapiens.

Complex systems, because they are so heterogeneous, are extremely delicate. Think of the effects of one errant cancerous cell in a body or a hate-filled meme on social media. This effect, called the butterfly effect when describing the devastating impact of tiny perturbations on global weather patterns, demonstrates the harm that can be perpetrated on terrifyingly complex systems, whether physical or social.

But conversely, great good can also come about.  Consider the nascent resistance that led to social movements such as the civil rights movement in the United States, or, in a biological context, the remarkable coordination of the human body’s immune system.

How can an understanding of complexity theory come to the aid of today’s leaders? As Americans watch the complete paralysis of the federal government and British citizens consider the possibilities of food shortages and the future loss of Scotland and Northern Ireland in a worst-case no-deal Brexit, it is clear that tampering with the body politic must be approached with surgical sensitivity.

A great focus must be placed on achieving desirable outcomes by observing the actual functioning of the body politic. These systems are “black boxes” that can be understood only by monitoring how they behave. 

Toxic assumptions, largely fear-based, must be avoided. An assumption of scarcity leads to the hoarding of global resources and scapegoating of people deemed “other.” An adversarial presumption creates distortions when applied systemically — witness the disruption of global trade brought about by tariffs or the fraying of diplomatic relations between former allies. 

Political relationships are just that, relationships, and it trivializes them to deem them a game with a finite binary outcome. Just as a prospective spouse would object to entering a marriage characterized as a game, so politicians must endeavor to treat their constituents and their global neighbors as stakeholders in the complex system that is the world.

Celia Josephson is an attorney who also teaches E.S.L. and high school equivalence classes at the East Hampton Library. She studied quantitative methods at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Subtitles. For years, the mention of the word sparked one of two emotions in my fellow filmgoers: curiosity or hesitation. I first became curious about films with subtitles because they were from foreign countries and in different languages, but many people are hesitant for the same reason. 

Reading the subtitles of a film or a television series sounds as if it betrays the essence of the medium itself. Film and television should show their stories through visuals, not tell them through dialogue. When we read subtitles, it can feel as if they are telling us how the narrative unfolds. 

On a practical note, it can be hard to read while trying to watch at the same time. In the past, when I have read subtitles, I have sometimes missed key moments onscreen that confuse me when that element of the plot comes up again. 

On the other hand, people can struggle with subtitles because of the speed at which they appear. This can sometimes relate to the language or dialect spoken at a fast pace. Out of all the non-English films I have seen, the two languages I find the most difficult to keep up with are Italian and Mandarin. 

The Chinese crime-thriller “Drug War” from the director Johnnie To, for example, is easy to follow when you pay close attention. That is, if you can read the dialogue fast enough. Mandarin can sound fast to Western ears, and this means the subtitles have to change as quickly in order to match up with the characters’ dialogue. After a while, I had to skim the film’s subtitles to get the gist of what the characters said. Although not much talking happens by the film’s end in a fantastical shootout to rival Michael Mann’s “Heat.” 

The issue is the same in regard to Italian cinema. Whether it is Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty” or Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” Italian films require fast readers as much as avid viewers. Even if hard to follow, both films are worth experiencing, subtitles or no. 

With these subtitle challenges, why do I watch as many foreign films as I do Hollywood blockbusters? The answer is simple. I want to have different experiences onscreen.

When I turned 14, my love of film and television grew and my expectations became more demanding. At a certain point, I wanted something different. While on a search for that new experience, I came across the South Korean thriller “Oldboy” from Park Chan-wook. I discovered a DVD copy of it at my public library. To this day, I have no idea how the librarian allowed me to check it out, given its R rating, but to this day I thank her for doing so. 

When I first watched “Oldboy,” it was dubbed into English. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t know any better, so what can you do? 

Based on that terrible experience, since then I have never watched another foreign film dubbed into English. My problem with dubbing is that it takes away from the original actors’ performances. English voices can overshadow the hard work the actors put into their roles. It can also be a distraction when the English voices do not synchronize well with the actors’ lips. To be honest, it baffles me that there is still an audience for dubbed films. 

When I say I hate dubbing, I refer only to live-action films. Animated features and shows are better suited for different voice-overs. When it comes to anime, however, I prefer to watch it in the original Japanese for authenticity. (Unless it is “Cowboy Bebop.”) 

Every once in a while, you find a film that touches you, a film that changes your life. For me, it was “Oldboy.” It not only made me want to become a filmmaker, it also made me appreciate what the rest of the world had to offer in storytelling. 

So, the next time you’re watching a foreign film on Netflix, maybe you’ll be able to read the subtitles and enjoy the film at the same time. If not, I hope you at least get a glimpse of the cinematic offerings from the rest of the world and learn something about new places and their cultures. If the subtitles still bother you, however, I suppose you could watch it dubbed.

Or, better still, you could learn the language.

Patrick Harford has a master’s degree in screenwriting. He spends summers at his family’s house in Springs.

On Jan. 2, my wife, Ellen, and I drove to the Sussex County Jail in New Jersey. We hugged outside the entrance. Then I entered and began serving a 20-day sentence for civil disobedience at the state’s black bear hunt.

I had served jail time during the previous two Januaries, but I hadn’t expected to return. Gov. Phil Murphy had made a campaign pledge to halt the hunts. But once elected, he stopped them only on state-owned land. He allowed the hunts to continue on county and private land, where most of the bears are usually killed. 

I dreaded going to jail again. But I felt I had to demonstrate how seriously I regarded the killing. 

For the first three days I was in medical lock-in. This is the standard practice. The jail holds new inmates in a cell until they receive a medical exam and the staff determines their permanent placements. During the lock-in, inmates spend only a few minutes a day outside their cells. 

In the past, I had spent the lock-in alone. This time I had a roommate, a young man arrested for drug possession. It would have been great to pass some of the time in conversation, but my roommate wasn’t up to it. He was withdrawing from drugs and mainly moaned and expressed hopelessness. My efforts to cheer him up failed. 

After medical lock-in, my roommate was placed in a large, minimum-security section of the general population. I requested the same placement, but I was kept in a small, special housing area. The area housed up to six men, two to a cell, with each cell opening to a common dayroom. While I was in the area, two inmates left and two came, but the area was always full. 

The jail used this special area to separate men from the general population. Some men had gotten into too many arguments or fights in other units, or had been harassed. Others had been charged with or convicted of sex crimes against minors. These inmates are generally despised by the others, and the jail kept these men in special housing to protect them from attack.

During my stay, there were three such inmates. All anticipated long sentences in state prisons. In addition, they all took pride in being tough fighters. When I asked them if they feared attacks in the state prisons, they said no. As one told me, “If they jump me, there better be 10 of them or they’ll all end up in the hospital.” 

I didn’t entirely understand why I was placed in this area, but a corrections officer told me that one reason was the publicity surrounding my case. Apparently the jail believed that it could keep a closer eye on me in a small area and help prevent bad press.

My fellow inmates had read about me in a local newspaper. They knew I was a 75-year-old college professor who owned a farm sanctuary and was in jail to protest the bear hunts. Several told me they didn’t necessarily agree with me about the bear hunts but respected me for acting on my convictions. 

The other inmates and I had numerous personal conversations. We were quite open about our lives. The men also got into some heated arguments, often during card games, and they played practical jokes that could be upsetting.  

The chief prankster was a tall man who liked to tell everyone he was bisexual. One afternoon when I was resting in my bunk, he pretended to be sneaking into my cell. I found this unnerving and told him never to do it again. He agreed.

On another occasion, some inmates hid a man’s razor. Because razors can be used as weapons, the jail gave them to us only twice a week and required us to promptly return them. When the man couldn’t find his razor, he became frantic. He searched his cell over and over. All the others laughed. I could understand the humor, but after a couple of minutes I asked those who had hidden it to give it back. They then moved it to a place where the man readily found it.

When a corrections officer came into our area to pick up the razors, a young inmate asked him what would happen if a man’s razor were missing. “A rectal search,” the officer replied. “And it wouldn’t be just him. Everyone in here would have it.” That statement produced a nervous silence.

During my jail terms I learned about the inmates’ values. Many of the men, especially those charged with sex offenses against minors, valued power over others. When I asked one man why he didn’t seek sexual relationships with females his own age, he said. “I can’t mold them.” Another man said he would like to be a dictator or a tyrant.

All the men had a low opinion of those who try to steal from other inmates. But they saw nothing wrong with deceiving others in the course of selling and buying. They told me about state prisoners who sold cigarettes filled with tea leaves instead of tobacco. They also told me about prisoners who misled others into thinking they were getting great bargains. Whenever I asked my fellow inmates if they approved of such practices, they replied with statements like, “Yeah, that’s business.”   

I had always assumed that criminal values are different from the values of our mainstream society. But as I thought about what the inmates said, I began to wonder. Doesn’t our mainstream society also promote, at least to some extent, the quest for power? Doesn’t our society frequently accept deception as part of doing business? 

In some respects, jail was easier this time. The building wasn’t as cold, and the kitchen staff tried to accommodate my vegan diet — an effort I appreciated.

But on the whole, this January was more difficult. For one thing, my area was more crowded, noisier, and more boisterous. When the men pulled pranks and got into heated arguments, I didn’t always know whether to intervene, and this uncertainty was an added stress. 

This time, in addition, we had less freedom to move from our cells to the dayroom and back. We frequently had to go to an intercom to ask an officer for permission. 

And this jail stay was more difficult simply because it was longer. In the past two years, I served eight and 12 days, after my sentences were reduced for good behavior. This year, I was in jail for 16 days, receiving four days off for good behavior.  

Sixteen days is shorter than what most inmates must endure. Even so, on two occasions I felt quite downhearted. At those times, brief phone conversations with my wife helped immensely. Ellen reminded me that I was in jail “for the bears.” Focusing on my purpose gave me strength. 

When I was released, my first steps outside the jail felt wonderful. I felt so free! But I hadn’t completely left the jail in my mind. Night after night I dreamt I was lying on my back in my bunk, wondering if I would ever be released. This same dream occurred for seven straight nights. Then it went away. 

Bill Crain is a professor of psychology at the City College of New York and a part-time Montauk resident. 

As someone concerned about mitigating the potential ravages of climate change, I admire Assemblyman Fred Thiele’s past leadership in replacing fossil fuels with energy from the sun and wind. In 2017, he supported the Deepwater Wind South Fork Wind Farm, to be located 35 miles east of Montauk, as an economic source of renewable energy necessary to meet growing electric demand on the South Fork. This project is the first step to taking advantage of New York’s plentiful offshore wind energy and furthers Governor Cuomo’s ambitious plan to move the state’s electrical system off fossil fuels by 2040.

Yet I am now puzzled by Assemblyman Thiele’s withdrawal of his support for the South Fork Wind Farm project. He cites two recent changes behind his decision. The first is the purchase of Deepwater Wind from its initial hedge fund owner by Orsted, a Danish company and the world’s largest developer and owner of offshore wind farms. Orsted will retain Deepwater’s Long Island team while bringing technical knowledge and expertise that does not yet exist in North America. 

Why is this a problem for Assemblyman Thiele? Exchanging a hedge fund owner for the world’s most experienced offshore wind company is actually a gain.

Mr. Thiele should check on Orsted’s reputation and commitment to sustainability with his counterparts in Europe before he reflexively condemns them as not being “a good steward of the natural resources we have worked for decades to protect.”

The second change he cites is upgrading the 15 turbines in the South Fork project to newer and larger turbine technology — with a limit to the project size of 130 megawatts. The newer turbines will produce 44 percent more energy in the same project footprint and at a lower cost than the originally planned ones. 

How is this a problem? We all know that when you buy the “economy-size” package, the cost per unit goes down. It’s the same thing here. This is another positive development.

Finally, Assemblyman Thiele is upset that the Long Island Power Authority has redacted certain terms of the South Fork contract from the version released to the public and available on LIPA’s website. His concern is that Long Island customers don’t know what the project costs because of these redactions. But LIPA has disclosed both the total cost of the contract and the impact to monthly electric bills, which is estimated at $1.39 to $1.57 per month for a typical Long Island residential customer. 

And the salient point is that energy from this project, when combined with local battery energy storage, greater efficiency of use by customers, and reduction of peak demand, will be the least expensive way to meet the growing energy needs of the South Fork.

The contract was approved by LIPA’s independent board, and the entire process — including competing proposals — was audited and preapproved by both the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the State Comptroller to ensure that the process was fair, competitive, and in the best interests of Long Island’s customers. Does Mr. Thiele think he could do a better job of finding flaws in the contract than people whose professional careers are spent doing this work?

Why redact certain terms from the publicly available contract? LIPA’s position is that making this sensitive information public and thus available to other offshore wind developers would reduce the competitive nature of the next offshore wind auction, to the detriment of Long Island’s residents.

In summary, none of the stated reasons for his U-turn make any sense. Assemblyman Thiele has rejected meetings with LIPA and Orsted representatives to discuss the South Fork project. He should take these meetings to inform himself about the changes to the project since he first expressed his approval in 2017.

Playing politics with an impending climate crisis is not the visionary leadership Assemblyman Thiele has previously shown. I urge all readers concerned about clean energy and climate change to contact him and ask him to reclaim his mantle as a sustainable-energy leader by renewing his support for New York’s first offshore wind farm. 

He’s taken a wrong turn. The faster he comes about, the faster the turbines of the South Fork Wind Farm will produce clean, reliable power for all Long Island.

Peter Gollon was appointed a LIPA trustee in 2016. A former energy chairman of the Long Island Sierra Club, he lives in Huntington.

I thought I was up on things when I learned to text. And though my aging thumbs refused to fly across the keypad of my cellphone — trek was more like it — once I got the hang of using the tiny microphone to record, it took only minutes to send a message. Easy as pie. And quick! 

Not so quick, come to think of it. Truth to tell, I found it a bit drawn out and annoying, accustomed, as I was, to one short and sweet phone chat. 

“Friday, 1 o’clock, the diner?” was how my texting went. And went and went, a simple sentence taking three separate texts from my end alone, and I was still bashing thumbs. 

#1: How about lunch on Friday?

“Friday is good. What time?”

#2: One is good for me. 

“Where?” 

#3: The diner?

“Nah. I’m meeting Ellie there today.”

If one picture is worth a thousand words, one text is worth bupkis.

Then there’s the shorthand — or short-finger, as it is — of chat-speak, the requisite LOL to let a receiver know that what you just said — typed really, no one actually says anymore — was funny. After all, how would anyone know something was yuk-yuk if you didn’t tell them? 

But I couldn’t claim my salt in the cellphone stew till I mastered the fine points of emojis, sprung free by tapping the smiley face at the bottom of my cell’s texting page. It was then I called forth happy, sad, and angry faces, a veritable mood menu including party hats and clapping hands standing for good times, airplanes and cars denoting travel, puckered lips — “Love ya, babe” — a treasure trove of symbols with which to punctuate my missives when mere words just would not do, laying claim to my expertise in the chapel of the mighty text and banishing thoughts that I was behind the times, uncool, or, heaven forbid, not fly.

But alas, my triumph was short-lived, when in came a text from a friend who signed off with not a simple anyone-can-have-it emoji, but her cartoon likeness, happy-faced and popping out of a side-of-the-road, flap-down mailbox, exclaiming in a colorful, fun font, “Hey, buddy, how’s it going?” It was her all right, but younger, thinner, and cuter than she was in real life — sorry, girlfriend. 

That was for me: An iteration of my real self, yet a new and improved version, giving my lame texts punch and personality. And for a free Bitmoji download a new me was mine to have. Well, that and the help of my daughter, Leslie, a technical genius as far as I’m concerned. 

Shape of face, eye color, hairstyle — doesn’t need a cut every six weeks. Dressed in my look: tights, long cardigan, and scarf. No cellulite or wrinkles, thank you very much. It was all there in my avatar, and I was good to go, ending my texts with hands to hips, my head cocked just so — a bit oversized, but on me it looked good. I’m so cute I can hardly stand it. 

Open-armed and smiling, I give morning hugs and nighttime kisses: “Muah!” Someone gets my angst up, I get a little frown on, and the colorful font exclaims “Bummer!” I’m still adorable me. 

Who then is the grouch in the mirror giving me the stare? The one with the under-eye pouches and bleeding lipstick, and why so pale? My Bitmoji always has a healthy blush to her cheeks. And what’s that pooch of belly fat? Don’t tell me muffin top! Argh! What’s a girlfriend to do? Call up that old cutup, Dr. Shiv? Not a chance. This old face and bod are going down with me; it’s my darling double I worry about. 

To my eye, a change of late has come over my little one-inch imp. A smiling-on-the-outside, crying-on-the-inside kind of vibe from my outstanding other. Maybe it’s something only a BFF would spot, but methinks something is getting her down. A “wine time” pick-me-up, anyone? Nah. Been there, done that. Girls’ night out? Uh-uh. Enough with the girls already, it’s time to bring on the boys. But who? How? 

I know, what she needs is a beau, a Bitmoji beau. There’s an app whose time has come. And I know just how I’d set him up. 

I’ll give this one dimples, brown eyes, a beautiful smile, and gray hair — distinguished on an older man, don’t you think? I’ll turn him out in a tracksuit and big white sneakers. Passé, you say? Wanna step outside? 

They’ll “meet-cute” in a Stop and Shop, where there’s only one copy of The Sunday Times. 

He: “You take it.”

She: “No, you.” Bitmojis don’t waste time with idle chitchat. 

He: “Share it, then.” The dimples deepen. “Coffee?” Gestures toward an empty table.

What’s she got to lose? They’re in a public place; he seems nice enough. 

He likes the business section, she Arts & Leisure. They both take their coffee black, no sugar. They chat. He still works part time. (Good, a man who has interests.) He likes to drive. Why don’t they take a trip together? Fast worker he, but for all her sass, our Bitmoji babe is still old school. They just met!

He: “How about a movie, then? I hear ‘The Wife’ is good.”

Game on. 

Rita Plush is the author of the novels “Lily Steps Out” and “Feminine Products.” She had a house in East Hampton for many years.

What better name for the daughter of the middleweight boxing champion Rocky Graziano than Roxee? Her parents obviously thought she was a champ too.

What kind of father was the tough guy who had one of the hardest-hitting right crosses in boxing? According to Roxee, her dad was kind, sweet, thoughtful, and a bit old-fashioned, leaving the raising of his daughters to their mother, Norma. 

And what kind of woman was Norma? Roxee said she was unlike the retiring, nearly shy character portrayed by Pier Angeli in the Rocky Graziano biopic “Somebody Up There Likes Me.” Norma was tough, smart, and knew where to find answers to any questions she had. She guided the Graziano finances, never letting her husband invest in the many schemes that were brought to him. In fact, he once commented that the reason he hung around with millionaires was because they never asked to borrow money. Though knowing what a soft touch Rocky was, the schemers — no doubt — felt he would dig some money out of his wallet for them, and he often did. 

There is an anecdote about Rocky sitting around Stillman’s Gym following his retirement from boxing and observing the up-and-coming fighters. Off in a corner, he noticed a former boxer who had gone blind. The man was nearly destitute, living a crummy fleabag of a hotel. Rocky went around to everyone in the gym, collecting 20 dollars here, 10 dollars there. He put in some money of his own, folded it all together, and inserted it in the blind boxer’s breast pocket. He told the man to come back every month, for he would get the same thing. Because of such acts of generosity, Rocky’s manager, Irving Cohen, suggested that Norma put Rocky on an allowance so that he wouldn’t give all of his money to needy cases.

When I asked about the Graziano marriage, Roxee told me that her parents were madly, passionately in love with each other. And what attracted her mother to Rocky when he was just starting out and his future looked grim? “She thought he was sweet and innocent and positively gorgeous.” And photos of the young Rocky show a young man who was indeed movie-star handsome. Boxing, of course, leaves one with a face that’s a history of one’s bouts, and Rocky was no exception.

I asked Roxee, who survives her older sister, Audrey, how it felt to be the daughter of a celebrity. And Rocky’s celebrity increased exponentially through the years of Roxee’s life, as she went from being a little girl to a teenager. As a boxer, Rocky was admired for this athletic prowess. But as an entertainer seen regularly on television, he became known to millions of viewers who may not have been interested in boxing. Rocky’s career as an entertainer began when he co-starred in the TV series “The Henny and Rocky Show” with Henny Youngman. That was followed by another co-starring role opposite the great rubber-faced comedian and singer Martha Raye in her eponymous TV show. The show ran for three years, and Rocky was in every episode. 

Martha became a good friend of the family, and Roxee said she regarded her as Aunt Martha. 

Before the show went into production, its producer and creator, Nat Hiken, was sitting around with the director and advertising agency people, and they decided that Martha needed a boyfriend. They agreed that it should be a warmhearted, inarticulate guy. Someone suggested a guy like Rocky Graziano. Another said why not get Rocky, and so Nat Hiken went to Stillman’s Gym and offered Rocky the part of Martha’s Goombah. Off screen and on, Martha and Rocky were true pals. 

And Nat Hiken also became a lifelong pal of Rocky’s. He went on to create numerous hit TV sitcoms, including “The Phil Silvers Show” and “Car 54, Where Are You?” 

But they weren’t the only show business people to light up the Graziano household: There was Paul Newman, who played Rocky in “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” which catapulted Newman up into the stratosphere of stardom. He spent months with Rocky, learning to walk like him, to talk like him, to punch like him. And then there was Frank Sinatra, who had not only befriended Rocky at Stillman’s Gym in the early 1940s, but also cast him as his sidekick, Packy, in the movie “Tony Rome.” The Grazianos became quite friendly with the singer Tom Jones, whom they met through the owner of El Morocco, one of the premier New York nightclubs and watering holes for celebrities from the 1930s to the 1960s.  

I asked if the Grazianos were friends with any former fighters. The one who came around most often was Jake LaMotta, and Norma Graziano disliked him. She did not think he was a nice man, and one could certainly see that from his portrayal by Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull.” Nevertheless, Rocky went out of his way to find work for Jake, including parts in movies and TV programs. There is a photo of Jake and Rocky with Martha Raye, and another of Jake and Rocky relaxing with their wives poolside in Miami Beach.

Though those were pals of her parents, Roxee had her own celebrity friend, Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland. In addition to hanging out at El Morocco, Lorna and Roxee, who were the same age, often went to Broadway and Off Broadway shows together.

Surrounded by entertainers, it was no wonder that Roxee embarked on a career to become a stage actress after graduating from Forest Hills High School in Queens. As many aspiring actors have discovered, the road to success is decorated with potholes, and there are many side streets and detours that are dead ends. She eventually gave up her dream of acting and attended college at C.W. Post and Adelphi, earning a master’s degree in education. For 20 years, she was an elementary school teacher, as was her present husband, John Lore.

I asked Roxee to sum up her father, a man who was brutal in the ring and a warmhearted charmer out of it. Roxee said he was a regular guy, never bragged about his careers as a boxer and actor. He had many friends who thought the world of him. 

I can certainly attest to that, for I attended Rocky’s funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. There must have been 1,000 mourners in attendance. And when his coffin left the church, cops cleared a path for the hearse and the limos that followed, not just on Fifth Avenue, but all the way out to a cemetery on Long Island. (Norma, who died years later at age 83, is buried beside her husband.) 

Rocky was the last of the great fighters from the golden age of boxing. And his daughter remains his biggest fan.

Jeffrey Sussman is the author of “Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame, and Fortune,” among other books about boxers and boxing. He lives part time in East Hampton.

Most of us have been to the dentist. Aside from the very lucky who need only a biannual cleaning, there are those of us who must relinquish a tooth or two over the course of a lifetime. But what if the necessary extractions leave you with no ability to chomp on an ear of corn, a toasted bagel, or a crunchy salad? What if the molars that turned steak and roast beef into digestible mush “bit the dust”? What to eat? Oh Lordy, what to eat?

So for the dentally challenged, a brotherhood and sisterhood long unrecognized and unacknowledged, I offer creative cookery solutions. Indeed a roadmap of good eating and good nutrition.

When I mentioned my gourmet food tips to my dentist, she was very enthusiastic. “We hear that from so many patients,” she said. “They just don’t know what to eat. It would be really helpful.”

What is essential is an open mind and a creative and adventurous spirit. A good chef’s knife, a food processor, and happy recollections of tastes and foods that you loved when your battalions of teeth were at the ready will open doors. No baby food or cans of chemically enhanced food supplements. Real food! Good food! Sometimes deconstructed, but familiar and nourishing and always made to suit your taste.

Admittedly, one or two of the preparations might look odd. But the goal is not art, but satisfying meals. I recall one morning, half awake, cooking old-fashioned oatmeal. Feeling especially hungry, I beat an egg and tossed it into the cereal. The egg cooked quickly. I put it into my blue bowl, topped it with a pat of butter, and then enjoyed my one-pot breakfast. If you like sweet things, you could add applesauce, brown sugar, and cinnamon to your oatmeal.

At that moment, I wondered if I could approach all my cooking with the same intrepid attitude. The goal was good nutrition and good taste. We all know the guidelines — protein, carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, good fats (canola, olive oil, avocado), and less salt and sugar.

Eggs became my default meal: scrambled, boiled, fried, omelettes with shredded cheddar. Egg salad made with low-fat yogurt and mayonnaise or mashed avocado with fresh lemon juice. I love bread and found that cutting up toast or artisanal bread into itty-bitty bits and throwing them into soups or sauces worked for me. Bread soaked in milk and egg for French toast led me to quiche. A frozen piecrust sprinkled with cubed Swiss cheese and cooked chopped spinach, with a custard of milk, eggs, and fresh-ground nutmeg baked for 45 minutes at 350 degrees produced six lovely meals to be enjoyed any time of the day or night.

Meat loaf or turkey loaf with the spices or herbs of your choice (curry, oregano, thyme, fresh dill, Italian parsley), eggs, and Panko bread crumbs if moist can be eaten comfortably in small bite-size pieces. Small and tender is the target. Chicken, tuna, chopped beef in cream sauce (remember S.O.S.?) go down easily. In restaurants, even a gourmet burger, half the bun ignored, can be eaten slowly with knife and fork.

Pasta is my love. Many of the dentally challenged can manage spaghetti al pesto, even lasagna in red sauce with minced sausage. Grated pecorino, a great source of calcium, is always welcome. And let’s not forget chili or black beans and rice.

We’ve talked about loaves, what about fishes? Broiled salmon, cod with lemon or remoulade sauce, cooked shrimp minced in a food processor, herbed rice, couscous, quinoa, green peas, and overcooked broccoli provide vitamins and minerals.

Let’s include more vegetables. Those crunchy salads might be a thing of the past, but chopped greens sautéed in olive oil and garlic, or baby kale or young spinach, will keep your eyes young. Roasted vegetables with a modest spray of olive oil spread out in a single layer on a cookie sheet, or baked whole sweet potatoes oozing sweetness, call my name. Soups with onion, carrots, and celery can be a starting point. Just add dried lentils or dried split peas and some tender greens. When ready to eat, crumble in a few Club crackers.

What about snacks? Forget about popcorn, Cheetos, or potato chips. A small serving of creamy mac and cheese is a happy option. There’s always hummus, salsa, guacamole. Try smooth peanut butter with yogurt and preserves, or sprinkled with low-sodium soy and sesame oil on leftover noodles. Baked beans with a dash of maple syrup (the real thing) and a bit of minced smoked ham will satisfy the midnight snacker.

For sweet treats, enjoy fresh raspberries, blueberries, or mashed bananas with fresh lemon juice. There’s ice cream, rice pudding, custard, even Jell-O. Try small pieces of Graham crackers that will literally melt in your mouth. I love homemade applesauce topped with crushed Graham crackers and a dash of cinnamon. It is deconstructed apple pie at its finest. And for a really indulgent sweet, there’s tiramisu or cheesecake.

There is a universe of good eating out there. Your imagination can lead you to satisfying and nutritious meals that can be enjoyed sans a full set of choppers. The only downside is that while your food choices are expanding, so might your waistline.

Carol Sherman is a poet who lives in East Hampton. Her most recent collection is “Adios, San Miguel.”