Late last fall, I abandoned my signature close-cropped hair for a look that I thought would be less severe and more forgiving to a man of a certain age. Outgrowing the modest tonsorial skills of my partner, David, I retired the home clippers and sought the aid of a professional. And so that is how I found myself in Dustin’s chair.

My directions to him were simple enough — “Take five years off and I’ll be happy with whatever the cut.” Dustin, with his generous head of black hair, carefully styled to look as if he had just gotten out of bed, kindly proffers that he never aims for less than 10. I was wrong to have been put off by the tattoos scrolling up his arms, across his shoulders, and peeking out again just between his shirt and his jeans. He’s a professional and knows his clientele.

My first barbershop foray in nearly a decade was part of a yearlong effort to prepare for a birthday that signaled an indisputable transition from middle age to what sociologists call young-old age. I had watched friends pursue far more ambitious undertakings than my own — from Botox to facelifts — to stay the passage of time. I confess to having been tempted.

At my semiannual checkup with the dermatologist for seriously sun-damaged and cancer-prone skin, I insist he remove at least a few harmless dark brown age spots. They remind me of my parents and their flagging attention to matters of appearance. I want, but am too embarrassed, to ask about the more extensive and costly procedures — the chemical peels, laser treatments, microdermabrasions — advertised so alluringly on his website.

Although I ultimately concluded that such interventions, always temporary, never without risk, were not for me, even considering them suggests the way this birthday was bringing to light my own internalized gerontophobia. Gerontophobia? Yes, I found this graceless word — fear of growing old and of the old themselves — increasingly useful as I grappled with my ambivalent feelings about the event on the horizon.

My good friend James, still luxuriating in his mid-60s, offered words of solace: “You are not an accountant. You don’t have to live by the numbers.” He reminds me that age is a matter of mind as well as body, of how we see ourselves as well as how others see us.

This reminder doesn’t quell the proliferating questions. Am I still living a socially relevant life? Is it really okay to have been me? I decide to confront the challenge by telling friends and colleagues, anyone who will listen, that I am about to have a “big birthday.” And not surprisingly, this bit of coyness invariably solicits inquiries about my definition of “big.”

“Oh I don’t believe it. That can’t be. You look 20 years younger,” the listener replies when I reluctantly divulge the heretofore unsayable number.

At first I tell myself these premature announcements of the birthday to come are part of a strategy to pre-empt the clock, by saying the words before their time. But increasingly uncomfortable with the responses — however flattering and complimentary — I’m forced to acknowledge that this carefully orchestrated pattern of call-and-response is really a setup, a way to seek external reinforcement for what is ultimately an internal task.

I read the generous remarks of others as expressions of their own anxieties about aging. How else can I understand my 60-something G.P., who, upon perusing my chart on a recent visit, insisted on calling in his young colleague from the adjoining office to view the new kind of medical specimen in his examining room: that would be an embarrassed and completely objectified me. I am thankful that my ophthalmologist was a bit more tactful when reviewing his records. Confiding that he is about to turn 50, he hopes that in two decades he will look as good as I do.

I don’t mean to be ungrateful or unappreciative. But summoning the courage to look in the mirror, I barely recognize the drawn face I see there. How did this happen, I ask myself even as I note that the face in the mirror is fast becoming the face of my father and his five siblings, three of whom lived into their 90s. This patrilineal resemblance, less frequently glimpsed when I was younger, was once a source of curiosity, belonging, even reassurance. Now it elicits equal measures of disbelief and resignation.

I don’t linger at the mirror. My feminist self tells me to appreciate beauty in all its diverse forms, including the aging body. My less confident self finds it hard to stave off a culture in which most seek to be younger or, at the very least, to appear younger than their years. Cosmetic adjustments proliferate, hours at the gym escalate, and gurus of style management abound.

While driving to the East Hampton RECenter I hear Joan Rivers, icon of the ageless society, opine on the car radio: If we can feel better about ourselves, younger and more self-assured, then why not make the purchase, undertake the surgery, succumb to the treatments? Encouraging us to seize every opportunity to indulge the fantasy of living longer but never aging, Rivers, like others, does not stop to ask why we might feel bad in the first place. It’s all about the answer, the solution, not the question or, more critically, about how the problem itself was manufactured in the first place.

In calm, reflective moments I remind myself that a postindustrial consumer society creates a constantly escalating set of needs that we experience as our own deficiencies. These supposed deficiencies, read as personal failings, can be rectified only through the consumption of new goods and services.

When roaming the aisles of my local Gap store or perusing the latest issue of GQ in the dentist’s office, I find it hard to resist the products that promise to make me look and feel even a few years younger, hipper and of the moment. When trying on a new pair of summer shorts I carefully assess their age appropriateness. Too trendy, too stodgy — how young can I go? How old do I feel?

This year my internal dialogue also included a new refrain — “You can’t take it with you.” In addition to numerous small purchases, I gave myself a series of more expensive gifts — a visit with my niece in Hong Kong, a longed-for new computer, and sessions with a personal trainer to counter my preference for aerobic exercise at the expense of strength-building routines.

Cushioned by all these preparations, the formal passage from middle age to young-old age was, dare I admit it, pleasurable. The day itself, marked by a small surprise party, lovingly organized by David and a lifetime first for me, was pitch-perfect.

From my new vantage point, I can even see the country of the old-old with far less apprehension than previously. The difficult decade of caring for my frail parents is finally receding into the past. And I look with greater equanimity on the future, less a time of decline and despair and more practically a period for which I will need to prepare. Most of all I suspect that this birthday, my 70th, has given me renewed confidence in my ability to manage life transitions, to meet the moment and make the most of it.

Jonathan Silin lives in Amagansett and Toronto. He is the author of “My Father’s Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents.”

The language of the ocean is vital to anyone who enters. A failure to recognize a rip current or a misreading of the imminent collapse of an approaching large wave can drag any swimmer down in seconds. Comforting thought, I know.

For bodysurfers, timing a wave can make all the difference between a great ride and eating sand the hard way. Before I head into the ocean I take a look around to see how the waves are breaking, and to see if there is a noticeable rip current.

A rip current is easily recognizable — a broad strait of water that has the appearance of water being sucked out to sea. It is often bubbling with sea foam, and the water around it is rippled. The best way to get out of a rip current is to swim parallel to the shore, not toward the shore. This might sound counterproductive, but if you try to swim to shore you will only exhaust yourself. Trust me, I’ve been there.

As the saying goes, “Timing is everything,” in life, in love, and especially when faced with an eight-foot swell casting its shadow upon you. At first blush the dynamic to bodysurfing is fairly simple: Position yourself sideways between an approaching wave and the shore, and with either your right or left leg push off into the momentum of the wave, putting your arms out in front of you.

The difference between bodysurfing and surfboarding is straightforward. One puts you physically inside the force of the wave, and the other puts you on top of it, or as the Beach Boys song goes, “Catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world.” I prefer the former.

Like Olympic diving, bodysurfing is all about form and control. Arms stretched out in front of you, legs firmly together, and feet pointed flat behind you. The wiggle of your waist or midsection can act as a directional rudder allowing you to move left or right during the ride. The sound of the wave churning all around your body is like a 747 airplane taking off.

Some bodysurfers take a different approach to riding a wave. Once the wave has crested and is rolling along, some stick their head out of the white foam of the wave and put their arms flat against their sides, giving the impression of a water-borne bobblehead and allowing the bodysurfer to enjoy the view while riding the wave toward shore.

Not all waves are rideable. Some waves when they break are concave and look like a half-pipe curling into itself. These waves are to be avoided at all costs for bodysurfers, because the power and roll of this particular type of wave will slam you down and have you seeing stars.

Years ago a girl whom I had dated miraculously ended up renting the house next door with her fiancé. After the three of us exchanged the standard awkward pleasantries, her fiancé made his way into the surf.

While my ex-girlfriend and I were getting all caught up by the water’s edge, her fiancé was in trouble. Within a few minutes he had been dragged out and was getting nailed by wave after wave. My face dropped and my ex-girlfriend looked at me and said, “What’s wrong?”

I knew what was wrong — her fiancé, whom she was planning on marrying on that very beach in a few weeks, was drowning. I made a beeline for the water and swam as fast as I could. By the time I got to him he had that deer-in-the-highlights look and was going under. He was in shock. I was cautious and kept my distance — one desperate swing of his fist or elbow could knock me out cold, and then we’d both be on our way down to Davy Jones’s locker.

When his head bobbed up and was above the waterline I took a swing at him with all my might and clocked him square on the jaw. He probably thought I was trying to kill him, and he had that look in his eyes that said, “Hey! Nut job, this is how you save people?” Fair enough, but all I wanted to do was stop him from swinging and grabbing at me. It worked.

I put him in a firm headlock with my right arm and with my left arm I began to paddle sideways, parallel to the shore, to get us both out of the rip current. A decent-size wave came up behind us. I released him from the headlock, grabbed him by his bathing suit, giving him a nasty wedgie, and said, “Try and ride this wave. Go!” I pushed him into the wave as hard as I could. Granted, it was a risk, but I knew if I could get him to where he could stand and closer to shore his odds of survival would be that much greater. Luckily, the plan worked.

We both got out of the water and collapsed on the sand. By then a small crowd had gathered, and my ex-girlfriend was wedding-dress white. Happily, they were wed, and for my efforts I was treated to an afternoon lunch at the Clam Bar on Napeague.

Reading and riding waves for me has led to some incredible days in the surf. The ocean and waves specifically have served as a way to understand the rhythm of life. Waves make their way across the vastness of the ocean, endlessly pushing forward. On their journey waves encounter peaks and valleys. Each set of waves a generation passing through time together, finally playing out their final moments, cresting, turning white, and gently resting upon the shore. At that moment the remnant of each wave is pulled back out to sea, a rebirth begins, setting the stage for a new generation of waves to glide once again along the surface of a sun-burnt sea.

Liam Sullivan is an avid bodysurfer, musician, and writer who lives in Amagansett. His first book, “Making the Scene: Nashville,” was published in 2012. He is at work on a collection of reflections about the East End called “Reading Waves.”

Though the wages are low, man, I don’t get the willies actually starting a new and vastly different career at the overripe age of 66. A part-time summer salesman job in Amagansett, to help out during the busy season.

I came to this decision out of sheer boredom. What to do now that I was doing nothing? So I agreed to sell antiques and tabletop accessories and beach bags and candles and whatnot in a lovely “lifestyle” store, as I adapt to my new lifestyle of retirement-slash-unemployment.

Truth be told, I may have always been a sort of salesman. At 15, I helped my dad out in his shoe store in Rockville Centre. But, being a shy kid, I really wasn’t much of a salesman; I had no idea how to close a sale. For example, if an older woman wanted to know if the pointy-toed, multicolored patchwork pump was too “young” for her, I would sit at her feet, dumbfounded for an answer, head tilted, fingernails at my mouth.

My lack of gift of gab often led to a lack of shoes in bag. I was just too tongue-tied, and besides, being paid $15 a week, what I would have gotten anyway as an allowance, I didn’t particularly feel I had to sell. Nor could I — this did not seem to be my calling, nor did I have any interest in someday running the store when my dad chose to retire, as my older brother did.

He was more of a charmer than I was. At the time.

At 20, I entered another form of salesmanship, but I don’t really count writing advertising as selling. In my early years, in the hotshot 1970s, I didn’t give a hoot if my Volkswagen ads sold a single car, or if anybody bought the Sony TV sets or tape recorders I cleverly strung headlines for. I just wanted to win awards, build a career, and make some real dough.

Selling Perdue chickens at my next ad agency job was never attributed to me, even as I worked on that account writing a handful of ads. That gift of selling belonged to my edgy boss, a small man with a big talent. He thought Frank Perdue looked like a chicken and made him the TV spokesman. The fact that there had really never been a branded chicken doing smart advertising before Perdue put Perdue on the map. And sold plenty of poultry.

I wrote some forgettable ads; all ads were forgettable when pitted against the genius copywriter who created the campaign: “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” Remember?

Barney’s next. I wrote newspaper ads but they were nothing more than touting the fact that Barney’s had moved into the world of high fashion from being a bar mitzvah suit specialist. I never knew if any of my work sold so much as a pair of socks.

It’s not really a salesman’s job, being an advertising copywriter, no matter how good I was at it, and I was good enough at it to work at it for almost 45 years.

And then, it ended. With a thud. And a day to clear out my desk, at the time in a shared office, where other art directors and copywriters 45 years younger than me sat outside at communal tables, headsets on heads, baseball caps on heads. Backward.

I didn’t think any of those kids thought of themselves as salesmen. Unless they were selling pot to supplement their incomes, one-tenth of what mine had become.

But enough about me. Well, not really. But now it’s time to get to the point of that title up top.

To pass the time — retirement is a bitch if you don’t play golf or tennis (or sell pot) — I volunteered to help a friend out with her Amagansett Main Street shop. It was a lark for me, at first, something to keep me out of Rowdy Hall at lunch to save a few calories and stop me from getting too early a buzz, which often led to long, snoring afternoon naps.

The hours were 11 to 5, and occasionally weekends. And the place is a potpourri of everything — lots of things that are perfect as hostess gifts or dinner guest gifts. My problem? I had a hard time gift-wrapping. As it happens, her “gift wrap” is nothing more than the sheerest sheets of chic, antique-patterned tissue paper that tears easily and fights you. Ribbons are strips of unforgiving raffia, thin as dental floss. I would break into a sweat whenever anyone said, “It’s a gift.” Wrapping is not one of my gifts. And, frankly, neither does the owner of the store possess that gift, so together, wrapping, we were like some version of the Keystone Kops.

I was relieved and less dripping wet when a buyer said, “Take your time, I’ll go next door for a manicure,” as it took forever to wrap with this filmy, flimsy paper. And I was horrified when people lined up three and four at the cash register, holding bulky salad bowls with servers, an oblong tray that fits in no box, or a set of six wineglasses. Gifts.

Gulp.

Everything looks like a gift to me in that store. Even a $25,000 armoire, French and from the early 19th century, weighing a ton. Wrapping that could take me into the 22nd century.

But gift-wrapping aside, the job had its high points, although the owner hated air-conditioning, and it often felt to me, with hair everywhere except the soles of my feet, that I was working in a sauna. Or a hot yoga studio. Even the stone Buddhas for sale had a film of sweat above their lips.

But, on the plus side, most of the customers were nice. Pleasant. (Most.) One exception was on the day that I heard a crash in the next room, clearly a broken something, and a woman called out: “Oh, my. The frame just slipped off the shelf!”

Again, gift-wrapping aside, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of stress except for the time a lovely customer from Ohio bought and requested shipping of $350 worth of vases and artificial flowers that were ultimately lost by U.P.S. Tracking, that totally dependable way of locating stuff, sent out no record of the transaction, and there were no duplicates of what she bought, and paid for, in stock. I still shiver over that one, as it was me who delivered the packages in person to the U.P.S. store in East Hampton. Did I do something wrong with the labeling?

Still, I did get to work my advertising headline chops by creating signs like “Tray chic!” around a grouping of trays. Or “These gifts will bowl them over!” among, you guessed it, a grouping of bowls. But the next day, the placards disappeared. “Not my thing,” the owner said. And it’s her candy store, although no candy is sold, but there is a pretty good fake cake that sits atop a real cake stand.

Best of all, I have found I actually do have a personality. Fifty years on from the days of sitting on the floor surrounded by a stockroom full of shoe boxes that no one actually bought in the end due to my lack of conviction, my lack of salesmanship, I found, with confidence and genuine (ish) enthusiasm, a smile on my face as wide as a berth, and I would say: “This alabaster bowl with its sparkling silver rim goes with any decor!” Or, “This beach bag with a print replicating Missoni is an absolute steal at $22!” Or, “Have you ever seen champagne glasses with this particular pearlized patina of pink?”

The responses were generally as blank-stared as I was in the shoe store. Or, “Just looking,” they’d say. “Thanks.” Or, “We’ll be back. Oh, look! The sun is coming back out!”

Amazingly, though, I did sell a $7,500 grandfather clock! The owner did a jig after that particular transaction, and I thought, well, I did have what it takes, but frankly, the buyer told the owner that she had been eyeing the clock for three years and today was the day she finally decided to buy it. The day being my very first day on the job.

“It’s a nice clock,” I managed, shrugging, smugly, settling into my salesman personality.

Tick-tock. Summer’s over. And so, it seems, is my salesman career.

Tennis, anyone?

Hy Abady, a frequent “Guestwords” contributor, is putting together a sequel to his 2010 “Back in The Star Again: True Stories From the East End.” “Back in The Star Again, AGAIN!” is due out in early 2015.

With all of the iPhones, iPads, tablets, laptops, and other devices teens have access to these days, you would think textbooks would be a thing of the past . . . right? Guess again. Carrying around heavy backpacks all day can be very detrimental for growing students, causing stress fractures in the back, inflammation of growth cartilage, and nerve damage in the neck and shoulders. Even with the advancements in technology, the burden of the backpack has not been lifted, in fact it has only increased.

As a senior at East Hampton High School, I’ve had to put up with the discomfort of backpacks nearly my whole academic life. I decided someone needed to say something. So I asked a bunch of my friends and their younger siblings who attended schools within the district whether they, or anyone they knew, struggled with back problems related to backpacks.

An (un)surprising majority had experience with back problems ranging from regular chiropractor visits to severe cases of progressing scoliosis, some even resulting in spinal surgery. You don’t need to be a scientist or doctor to see the effect that lugging backpacks has on us. We slouch, shuffle our feet, are slow to class, and use our desks to crack our backs more than anything else (just ask any high school student to explain the technique). These characteristics shouldn’t be chalked up as typical sullen teenage behavior; instead they should be recognized as one of the side effects of years of dealing with overweight backpacks.

The standard high school course requires students to transport at least one textbook back and forth between home and class. This does not include all of the handouts, class work, binders, folders, calculators, books, homework, notes, tests, quizzes, portfolios, and so on. Keep in mind that most binders, once filled, can weigh as much as, if not more than, the books. Over time the “heavy workload” really piles up, figuratively and literally.

During my junior year I began researching reports of overweight backpacks and their prominence in school systems across the country. It was interesting to learn how in recent years backpacks seemed to be getting heavier, causing more and more complaints from the student body despite the influx of technology intended to alleviate such issues. There were articles by doctors and parents all over the Internet about the severe problems that accompany overweight backpacks, but I could hardly find any information on the average weight of a backpack nowadays.

I had so many questions: How early are children being forced to lug their backpacks each day? Exactly how heavy is the average backpack? What about in my school district? I was curious. So in February of this year, with the approval of my principal, Adam Fine, I held my first-ever “Backpack Weigh-In” at my high school.

I arrived at school early one morning with a few of my good friends and set up a table in the front lobby along with posters, fliers, doughnuts (to encourage participation), and, most important, scales. Then the buses pulled up, opened their doors, and immediately students were pouring into the foyer. My friends and I stood near the table calling over our peers to have their bags weighed and in return receive a doughnut. Needless to say, all of the doughnuts vanished within seconds.

Even after the treats were gone, students still came up to the table curious about my project and shocked at the weight they hadn’t realized they were carrying around with them all the time. In the end I had weighed 100 backpacks. The results were astonishing. Doctors say that you should never carry more than 10 percent of your body weight for long periods of time. On the low end of the spectrum, students’ backpacks weighed a minimum of 10 percent of their body weight. Fewer than 20 students were either under, or met, the recommended 10 percent. The average weight was 19 pounds — almost double the recommended percentage.

On the high end, some bags were clocking in at 24, 27, even 30 pounds. Let me say that none of these students weighed anywhere near enough to be within the 10-percent parameters. This meant that about one-quarter of the 100 students were hauling almost triple the recommended amount.

The heaviest bag I weighed was that of a senior girl. She was a petite thing, around 5-foot-2, and when I asked her if she was interested in seeing how much her bag weighed she shrugged and let it drop to the floor with a loud thud. Since the bag was too big to fit on one of my bathroom scales, I asked for the assistance of my health teacher, who hooked it onto one of my scales that works using suspension. My teacher’s eyes popped out of his head as he gave the tiny girl a once-over and then showed me the number.

I turned and asked if she would tell me how much she weighed. At this point she was a little nervous, seeing that something had really grabbed ahold of my attention, but she replied that when she weighed herself the week before she was roughly 113 pounds. Her bag was 34 pounds — just over 30 percent of her body weight. I asked if she suffered from any back problems, and she explained that at the age of 16, almost two years ago, she began seeing a chiropractor regularly.

Amazed at these results, I presented them to Mr. Fine, who was also blown away. After some discussion we both agreed it would be interesting to do the same experiment at the other schools within the district. So at the end of May I met with Charles Soriano, the principal of the East Hampton Middle School, and Dennis Sullivan, the assistant principal of the John M. Marshall Elementary School, and arranged another two weigh-in sessions. Although doughnuts weren’t allowed to aid us in attracting volunteers, we were still able to round up a good 50 bags at the middle school and another 100 at the elementary school.

Again the results left us all slack-jawed and wide-eyed. At the middle school the average backpack weighed 14 pounds, and at the elementary school the average was 7 pounds. Again, just by looking at the students, you could clearly tell that they were beyond the healthy 10 percent. This means by the time some kids graduate from elementary school they are at risk of suffering from back problems accumulated over vital growth periods throughout the years.

The principals were amazing. They immediately showed interest in my ideas, made the necessary accommodations for my experiments, and hopped on board with me to raise awareness within the district and around the town. Most of them admitted they hadn’t heard anything about overweight backpacks within at least the last five years, from either parents or students. They all agreed, however, that the number of children suffering from back pain, scoliosis, and growth problems must be correlated to the increase in backpack weight over the years. The resulting backpack averages from my experiments are enough on their own to show just how extensive the issue already is, and how as time goes by the matter only becomes worse.

Currently there are no backpack regulations for the student body, but starting with this article I plan to raise awareness through the student handbook, the East Hampton School District’s online page, parent emails, and health classes. In the meantime, I contacted Matt Vogel, a locally acclaimed physical therapist, for his advice on how to help ease and prevent back pain:

1. Always wear two backpack straps to evenly distribute the weight. 2. Use a back brace, Velcro, adjustable straps, and/or clips to secure the bag. 3. Stretch as often as you can to keep your muscles warm and flexible. 4. Good posture!

I believe the more that students, parents, faculty, and administrators are conscious of this issue, the less likely it will be for overweight backpacks to cause serious health problems later on in students’ lives. School can really weigh a kid down as it is, and this is one burden they can do without.

A year ago Hannah Vogel wrote a “Guestwords” about her mission trip to Cuba through the East Hampton Presbyterian Church.

I discovered the eminent economist William Vickrey, a 1996 Nobel laureate, in an odd way. Although I’ve written about Wall Street and money for many years, my academic background was not in economics, but in American literature. So when I was looking for a pungent epigraph for “Up From Gold,” my 2012 book on the development of our modern dollar-based economy, I thought of a quip by Gertrude Stein (the doyenne of American writers in 1920s Paris, famous for “a rose is a rose is a rose”). As I remembered it, she said, “Economics is simple. First there is money in someone’s pocket, and when you look again, the money is in someone else’s pocket. That’s economics.”

When I Googled the quote to test my memory, up popped William Vickrey’s 1992 presidential address to the American Economic Association, in which he offered a snappier version: “As Gertrude Stein remarked, ‘The money is always there, it’s the pockets that keep changing.’ ”

When he died in 1996 at the age of 82, Vickrey was promptly forgotten by most of the economics profession; a small following keeps his memory and his ideas alive. A maverick all his life — a Quaker and conscientious objector — he often disagreed vehemently with what he described in his 1992 address as “the great bulk [of economists] close to the seats of power.” His Gertrude Stein quote came as he was denouncing a “callous tolerance for unemployment” within both the government and the economics profession. He blasted the “monetary authorities” for their “remoteness from the grim realities of unemployment,” and he derided the theory of a “non-accelerating-inflation rate of unemployment,” or NAIRU, which assumes a trade-off between unemployment and inflation.

At the time, most economists believed that 5 to 6-percent unemployment was “necessary” to restrain inflation. Some of them even referred to a “natural rate of unemployment,” a phrase that Vickrey called “one of the most vicious euphemisms ever coined.” In words that still reverberate, he told his colleagues, “It is high time we gave human values a deserved priority instead of staying mesmerized by figures on balance sheets. . . . What is urgently needed is to bring the economy rapidly to a point of genuine full employment and keep it there.”

Most Americans instinctively agree with Vickrey and can’t understand why, seven years after the economy collapsed, despite Federal Reserve efforts (the “QE2” quantitative easing, etc.), and despite assurances from policy makers that their focus is on jobs and jobs, unemployment remains a drag on economic growth. Is there an explanation for this? There is, and Gertrude Stein’s imagery helps us find it.

The money that moves through the economy is, for all Americans, dollars, whether in paper or bank deposit form. This is true for all individuals, including economists, and for all corporations or other business entities. Buyers of, for example, Bitcoins measure their gains or losses in dollars. Owners of gold value their holdings in dollars. All players in the economy use their dollars to buy goods and services, and “the economy” is nothing more than the sum total of all the movements of dollars from one pocket to another in exchange for something else.

This process seems obvious today, but, as I related in “Up From Gold,” it took 500 years to create our modern banking system and complete the extraordinary conversion from a gold-based economy to a dollar-based economy. In fact, the conversion was not fully accomplished until the 1960s, yet understanding the implications of so fundamental a change is crucial to understanding our economy.

The difference between using dollars and using gold is that you can dig more gold from the earth, or ship it from overseas mines, but you can’t create dollars in the same way. The German Treasury in the 1920s literally printed marks and paid government employees with them, thereby destroying both the currency and the economy. The U.S. Treasury is prohibited by law from printing money or selling bonds directly to (that is, borrowing dollars directly from) the Federal Reserve. All paper dollars printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing are distributed to banks, at their request, to have on hand when existing depositors want to withdraw “cash.”

Nonetheless, there is clearly more wealth, and more dollars, in the nation today than there was 50 years ago. So how does the total number of dollars grow?

The answer is that dollars increase when an economic player, whether an individual, a business, or a corporation, borrows from a bank. This process is rarely explained in official publications, but think of it this way. You and all other economic players know how much money you have; you can envisage a pile of physical dollars that represents your total wealth today. If you borrow a dollar from my pile, yours is a dollar higher and mine a dollar lower, but the economy’s total number of dollars hasn’t changed. If you borrow a dollar from a bank, however, you have not diminished my pile or any other player’s, yet your pile is higher. The total number of dollars in the economy has increased.

It is also true that when you repay that dollar to a bank, the number of dollars in the economy shrinks. Again, this process becomes clear when we ask where you find the dollars to repay your loan. You can only get them by selling goods or services to other players in the economy, who transfer dollars from their pockets to yours. You then return those dollars to the bank that created them, the bank tears up the note you signed, and the created dollars disappear. The economy has grown, but the number of dollars has not.

Dollars do increase over time, but only through additional borrowing by a growing population, in a growing economy. The wealth of the nation, in the form of useable and productive assets, increases through the economic activities that borrowing makes possible, and with that increased wealth, and the larger economy, additional borrowing is possible. The absolute amount of borrowing can increase as long as the economy grows as well.

What I’ve described represents the whole economy, including the U.S. government (that is, the Treasury), which, like all players, borrows from other players, or taxes them, without increasing the total dollars in the economy. The difference lies in the relation of the Treasury to the Federal Reserve.

In the first place, the Fed is a bank — or more precisely a national system of banks. It is not, however, like the familiar banking corporations we all keep our money in. The Fed has just one main customer, the U.S. Treasury. The Fed receives taxes and borrowed money for the Treasury and maintains its accounts. All the checks the Treasury issues are written on its accounts at the Fed, just as your checks are written on your banking corporation.

I’ve said that the Treasury cannot borrow directly from the Federal Reserve, and when it borrows from you or me, the total amount of dollars in the economy does not change. However, the Fed can buy Treasury bonds from economic players who lent money to the Treasury and received the bonds. As a bank, the Fed creates the dollars it puts into the pockets of bond owners when it buys bonds from them. The dollars the Treasury previously received when it sold the bonds went into the pockets of players providing goods or services to the government, and those dollars continue to exist in those pockets. Now the Fed creates new dollars to put back into the pockets of the original bond buyers.

In other words, when the Federal Reserve buys Treasury bonds from players in the real economy, total dollars in the economy do increase. This is the full meaning of QE2 and other phrases. It is the action that commentators are in fact describing when they speak of the Fed “pumping money into the economy.”

The answer to our original question — why Fed actions have not restored the economy and significantly reduced unemployment — now becomes clear. The economic players from whom the Fed buys Treasury bonds haven’t spent the increased dollars on goods or services, because they bought the Treasury bonds in the first place as investments, and they count the bonds or the dollars in their assets. The vast majority of government bonds that are traded are exchanged among those investors — including pension funds, hedge funds, etc. — with dollars changing pockets among them constantly. When the Fed steps in and buys government bonds, it is simply acting as another trader among all the asset traders — and not the largest one. The Fed’s major announcement last year that it would buy up to $100 billion of Treasury bonds per month should be seen in the context of the whole market. Outstanding Treasury bonds now total over $17 trillion, of which some $300 billion to $400 billion trade daily.

In essence, through its purchases of Treasury bonds, the Fed creates more dollars to circulate among asset traders. To reduce unemployment, the government will have to put more dollars into the hands of those who will spend them on goods and services. Their additional buying will encourage more business borrowing and an expansion of the nation’s productive capacity.

Malcolm Mitchell is editor and publisher of Investment Policy magazine. He lives in New York and East Hampton.

“You need to put the sound of a Ferrari, a Porsche, or a McLaren engine in the sound system. When the driver starts the car, he turns a dial and can pick out whatever engine noise he wants that day.” Accosting a board member of a European car maker in a Florida post office, my husband was half-jokingly pitching his brainchild with, atypical for him, enthusiasm.

Two weeks earlier, we had witnessed the celebrated Formula One Grand Prix in Monaco, which may have been the genesis of the thinking behind the creativity sparking his automotive must-have, the pick-your-engine sounds. (If my husband had tried to hustle his “gizmo” to the Russian oligarch who shared our table at the Ferrari Club, he might have had better luck. More on that.)

We were seasoned Grand Prix attendees, I a little grudgingly. In any long-term marriage there are deals: He gets the Formula One; I get the south of France. Although the Ferrari Club tent looked out on the Monaco marina, jam-packed with extraordinary mega-yachts that had cruised in for the race days, my husband couldn’t help but ogle the Rivas, the Ferraris of power boats, lining the marina’s docks.

This year, the timing of the Grand Prix coincided with the Cannes Film Festival, which may explain the surprise drop-in by Antonio Banderas and his entourage to the Ferrari tent. For the GQ set, the actor was wearing a fitted navy sport coat, a tie-dyed dark crewneck T-shirt, and slim-legged ripped jeans, from which the toes of spotless camel-colored boots peeked. His handler, in her Ferrari signature-colored red jumpsuit, reported when questioned that Antonio did not own a Ferrari, but she quickly added, “He is thinking about it.”

The waitstaff served the three-course meal with its “gastronomic” aspirations, nearly tripping over themselves in servicing the special requests of the attendees as if we were all Monegasque members of the Grimaldi family. No water glass was ever empty. But try as the caterer might, the food could never be the high point, not when Fernando Alonso, the movie-star handsome, dark-haired Spaniard and Formula One champion driver, took the stage during the dessert course. Responding to questions about the car’s tires, fuel, the engine, and his pole position, Alonso was unnaturally calm, especially considering that in less than an hour he was about to drive the twists and turns of the 78 laps, clocking an average speed of over 140 miles per hour while weaving among the 19 other drivers, all hell-bent on winning.

A half-dozen or so well-placed wide-screen televisions were scattered throughout the tent, but the best viewing of the race was in the grandstand seats that faced the race road and the pits where teams of deadly serious technicians changed sets of tires in what seemed like milliseconds. This year, the engine noise abated somewhat as Formula One officials tried to “go green,” leaving some “can’t get enough of the engine noise” fans to grumble accordingly. The cars flashed by.

So who was there? At our table, randomly assigned, we sat with a heavily tattooed Finnish couple, celebrating his 40th birthday and Christmas. The rest of the table was made up of a Russian group — husband, wife, his son, and either staff or family members. The wife who sat next to me spoke perfect English, which always frustrates me, with my failure to acquire language skills. Old enough to be her mother, I struck up enough of a rapport with her that on the final day Olga and her husband invited us to a post-race celebration at which they had taken a table. Since the party began at midnight — we’re not that hip — we declined. Yes, I know. Still kicking selves.

And on that perfect Sunday in late May, Alonso finished fourth. And much to my surprise, I am becoming, of all things, a fan.

Stateside again, my husband, no sentimentalist, drapes our Grand Prix badges over a glass he won in a car show for his 1958 Jaguar in what he jokingly refers to as his “trophy room.” He now has a growing collection of Grand Prix badges.

Carole O’Malley Gaunt is the author of “Hungry Hill,” a memoir. She lives part time in Sag Harbor.

“What a great country we have here when it decides to be.” — John Updike

“We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

In September 1932, Franklin Roosevelt crossed the country to San Francisco to give a speech that contributed mightily to his landslide election to the presidency six weeks later. I yearn to hear the likes of it today from Hillary Clinton.

The United States, F.D.R. said, needed a new social contract. Throughout most of our history, anyone willing to work could earn a good living. If a depression came along, all you had to do was climb into a covered wagon and head west, where free land and jobs were plentiful.

But, F.D.R. continued, by the start of the 20th century the free land was gone and our corporate and financial leaders had become “malefactors of great wealth” and “princes of profit” — exerting “uncontrolled and irresponsible powers” akin to “the feudal barons of old.” We were becoming an “economic oligarchy.” Equality of opportunity no longer existed. The government had to expand its role in the economy to facilitate creation of jobs and otherwise ease the burden on the great numbers of people who were suffering.

Backed by Congress and prodded by his determined wife, Eleanor, F.D.R. moved swiftly. He created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which recruited millions of unemployed young men to work on public land development and conservation. The Works Progress Administration constructed public buildings and oversaw the Federal Art Project, which paid a monthly stipend to struggling writers and artists, among them East Hampton’s de Kooning, Krasner, and Pollock.

The Tennessee Valley Authority provided low-cost electricity to poor rural areas. The Agricultural Adjustment Act firmed farm prices that had so thoroughly collapsed, tens of thousands of farm families abandoned their land and, impoverished, set off to find work. The National Labor Relations Act, at present under attack in Congress, reduced obstacles to workers forming unions and in doing so paved the way for the amazing mid-20th-century growth of our middle class. The Social Security Act of 1935 thrives today as a source of economic stability for our elderly and disabled and for the country as a whole. And, until its repeal, led by Bill Clinton in 1999, the Glass-Steagall Banking Act stood as a bulwark against investment industry shenanigans that were to rock the country with the financial trauma of 2008.

Some of F.D.R.’s princes of profit called him a socialist and traitor to his class, the old wealth that then prevailed on Wall Street. “They are unanimous in their hate for me,” he said while campaigning for re-election in 1936, “and I welcome their hatred.” He carried 46 of the 48 states and all but 8 of the 531 electoral votes.

I believe that in order to be elected president in 2016, Mrs. Clinton must commit to a new, similarly focused social contract that signals her independence from the magnetism and influence of great wealth. The country needs this, as it did in the 1930s, to recover from its economic and spiritual funk. And she needs it, personally, as a mission for a prospective presidency and to reinforce the Clintons’ legacy.

The similarities between now and 1932 are startling — the decline of equal opportunity and the morale of working families, the narcissistically applied power of the very rich, the deification of money and those who make mountains of it by fair or foul, while our leaders seem unable to provide a safe financial system and enough jobs offering opportunity and livable income. Now as then, this demands a strong, compassionate leader directing strong, compassionate policies who can stare down the 21st century’s malefactors of great wealth.

Such a social contract could also mend cracks that have appeared in the Clintons’ credibility, notably from perceptions of excessive closeness with the “.1 percent” and a preoccupation with attaining personal wealth. The routing of speaking fees — upward of $200,000 per speech for Hillary (and $700,000 for Bill) — to the Clinton Foundation rather than the Clintons personally, though apparently legal, diminishes trust in her statesmanship and provides a potent weapon for her opponents, which can best be countered by a potent program of her own.

F.D.R.’s site choice to unveil his social contract was inspired — San Francisco, a youthful city, symbol of optimism and vigor, traits the country needed to survive and that F.D.R. feared the Depression was crushing. Mrs. Clinton needs a similarly telling site to introduce her 21st-century social contract. That site is East Hampton, nexus of Clinton campaign money-raising and symbol of the country’s gaping economic apar­theid.

To highlight her focus, the presentation should be delivered north of the highway, a part of our town James Brady, author of “Further Lane,” called “the other Hamptons.” East Hampton High School would be a good place. So might Studio 3 at LTV, our local television station. The audience should be predominantly north of the highway — our parks and highways workers, farmers, traditional and organic, fishermen, nurses, waiters, engineers, chefs, the seniors and working families in our town’s affordable-housing homes and apartments.

Mrs. Clinton needs to show that to restore fairness, a healthy economy, and balanced budget she will risk, as F.D.R. did, being labeled a socialist and traitor, that she is not knitted to a coterie of superrich financiers. Rather, she is a potential leader of our democracy who, if we elect her, will make certain that the people who profit hugely from our financial casino are no longer pampered by our tax and regulatory codes and a presidency that frets at the prospect of their displeasure.

Richard Rosenthal is author of “The Dandelion War,” a satire on class warfare in the Hamptons.

The East Hampton Town Board recently proposed a rental registration law that has become the topic of much debate. Ostensibly it is designed to address the problem the town has long had in enforcing the existing laws prohibiting group and transit rentals. Unfortunately, the proposed law does not really solve this problem in a meaningful way, although with a few tweaks it could be a lot more effective.

As a matter of full disclosure: My wife and I have owned a home in the Amagansett Dunes for 35 years. We’ve never rented it nor do we intend to. A number of the homes around us, however, have been rented to groups and transients over the years.

The proposed law requires that an owner submit an affidavit attesting to the number of persons to occupy the property, the proposed rental period, that there is a valid certificate of occupancy, and that refuse will be removed in a timely manner. This is insufficient. The owner should be required to attest under penalty of perjury that the home will be occupied by one family (as required by the town zoning code) and that no shares have been sold giving rights to individuals to occupy individual bedrooms (also prohibited by the zoning code).

At present, there is no legal obligation for landlords to ensure that their rentals comply with the existing laws prohibiting group or transient rentals. They (and their real estate agents) just take the money and run, often involving tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is the neighbors who are left with the consequences of loud parties, scores of guests, tenants coming home drunk at 3 and 4 a.m., and illegally parked cars.

Indeed, I would propose that the law also require that in any lease the tenant also represent that only one family will occupy the premises and that no shares have been sold. There is already precedence for this in the section of the town code dealing with affordable accessory apartments; it specifies six provisions that must be included in the lease of such an apartment.

The proposed law is very unclear as to whether a landlord has to get a new permit every time he enters into a new lease. The way I read the current draft, all a landlord has to do is update the affidavit in terms of the number of persons occupying the premises and the term of the lease. I suggest that there will be wholesale violation of this provision, as all an owner has to do is publish his rental registration number in any ad. An owner should go through the certification process every time he or she enters into a new lease, as what could be a legal lease one year could be an illegal group rental the next.

People have to get beach parking permits every year; the same should be true of rental permits, which should only be valid for the term of the lease in question. In fact, the Southampton rental permit law has such a provision.

In addition to issuing a rental permit number, the town should also issue a rental permit decal (again, like the beach parking permit) that should be prominently displayed on the door of the premises and that sets forth the registration number and the period for which it is valid. Given East Hampton’s limited resources devoted to code enforcement, it is really the neighbors who are able to identify illegal group and transient rentals. Unlike Southampton, however, East Hampton does not (and probably in the near future will not) have a database of property permits readily accessible on the Internet. The display of a permit will enable neighbors to easily ascertain if the landlord of a rental property has complied with the law rather than having to do a manual search at the Building Department.

Over the years I’ve been told by various code enforcement officers that the problem with enforcing the group rental law is their inability under the law to obtain access to the premises. Once again, the existing town code governing affordable accessory apartments provides a solution. That law requires that the lease of any affordable accessory apartment contain the following clause:

“The tenant consents to an inspection upon reasonable notice by the building inspector, or his/her designee, for the purpose of determining whether the apartment and all other structures on the property are in compliance with the code of the Town of East Hampton, the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code, and/or the rules and regulations of any other agency having jurisdiction. The failure to schedule an inspection after due notice from the town or resisting, obstructing, and/or impeding the agents, servants, officers, and/or employees of the Town of East Hampton during an inspection of the premises is a violation of the East Hampton Town Code and subject to the fines and penalties provided herein.”

The proposed rental registration law should have a similar clause. It should provide that by applying for a rental permit the landlord consents to an inspection by the building inspector to ensure compliance with the law, and it should require that the lease of the premises contain an identical consent by the tenant.

Absentee landlords have been thumb­ing their noses at the laws relating to group and transient rentals for years. This has become a real quality-of-life issue in numerous areas of the town. If the town is serious about getting this under control, it needs to do more than what is currently being proposed.

Jack Hassid is a lawyer who practices commercial litigation in New York City.

In 1961 I was 8 years old and Sandy Koufax was the most dominant pitcher in baseball. He was also my favorite player. It wasn’t common in those days for girls to collect baseball cards, but I did. The only card I did not have was Sandy Koufax.

One day walking home from religious instruction at Our Lady of Lourdes in Massapequa Park, I felt something hit me in the head. I quickly looked around, thinking someone had thrown something at me, but there was no one around and I was in an open area. The only thing visible, lying at my foot, was a Sandy Koufax baseball card. I was duly flabbergasted at this stroke of luck, but of course immediately began to consider that since no one was around this must be divine intervention, having after all just come from religious instruction. Or it was just baseball magic.

Going into this last week of the regular season in baseball, I find myself hoping for more of that baseball magic. I find it hard to imagine that Derek Jeter, my favorite player these last 20 years, will play his last game in Fenway Park on Sunday, unless somehow not only do the Yankees miraculously play flawless baseball down the stretch, but all the teams in front of them in the wild card race collapse. As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over,” etc.

Whatever happens, baseball will not be the same next year — that is, New York baseball, and in particular Yankee baseball. And as rocky as this season has been, I’m glad Jeter announced his retirement early and shared it with baseball fans throughout the country. I grew up in an era when many baseball players were not very cordial to each other, to say the least, but Derek Jeter has brought a civility to the game that proves that the only things necessary are talent and sportsmanship.

In an era of performance-enhancing drugs, Jeter is the epitome of what a baseball player did not have to do to be great. In 20 years Derek Jeter never embarrassed himself or baseball. He understood that as the captain of the Yankees he was a leader and he had to set an example. He was respectful and therefore respected. He never kicked the dirt or argued with an ump. He played the game the way it was supposed to be played. He worked hard and he played hard. If he hit a ball deep he never stood and watched it. He ran out every hit. He fielded every ball as if he could make the play, and many times that meant going deep in the hole behind shortstop, fielding it bare-handed, and releasing it midair, accurately, to Tino or Teixeira at first base.

We remember those plays and hits: the 2001 “flip” play along the first-base line to Jorge Posada to tag out Jeremy Giambi at the plate, the dive into the stands along the left-field line in 2004 when he made the catch but came up bruised and bloody, the home run for his 3,000th hit, and the many playoff and World Series clutch hits and home runs. He wasn’t called Mr. November for nothing. Jeter has been thrilling to watch. We came to expect near perfection.

Watching as Jeter went from stadium to stadium this season has been a delight. This was not an easy season for the Yankees or Jeter, as both struggled, the Yankees with pitching and Jeter with hitting, although Jeter’s bat has gotten hot again, and he still managed to make some spectacular fielding plays throughout this final season. But to see fans in the stands all over the country wearing their home team’s hat and a Jeter T-shirt was great. To see opposing teams stand on the top step of their dugout while Jeter was paid tribute to. And to hear active and retired players pay tribute to him has been heartwarming. My favorite was young Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals, who said that Jeter was “not just the captain of the Yankees, but the captain of baseball.”

This is in no way to say that Derek Jeter is a hero or the greatest baseball player of all time. A hero is someone who cures cancer or saves someone’s life or sacrifices his or her own life. And I think Derek Jeter would be the first to agree with this statement. Jeter is someone who loves to play baseball and feels he owes it to the fans to play it the best he can.

So it would be selfish on my part to want more of that baseball magic after what he has given us for 20 years. What Derek Jeter deserves now is simply this: Thanks!

Diane Spina York, a retired social studies teacher, taught at East Hampton High School for 20 years. She lives in Springs.

Nothing new here. I ride my bike through the streets and it’s all the norm — loud pink taxis swooping up fares, red buses chugging up Sukhumvit Road, growling mobs of motorbikes mustering under traffic lights. I do not see a single soldier, gun, or tank. Everyone seems intent on business as usual.

Wasn’t there a coup d’état here last night? Aren’t we under martial law?

Looking a little closer, however, the evidence is there: The traffic sprawls much farther than usual, and is even more chaotic.

The TV at the Witch Pie Factory, where I eat lunch, doesn’t offer regular programming. Instead, it is broadcasting a static test pattern bearing the five insignia of the branches of the Royal Thai Armed Forces. Presumably, all the other channels are doing the same.

There is a sheet of paper taped to the door of my building, informing all occupants that, effective immediately, there’s a curfew in Thailand: We’re to be off the streets from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Intolerably, the little family-run laundry across the street has not finished ironing the 20 articles of clothing I brought in two days ago. This has nothing to do with the coup. This I am actually familiar with. I narrow my eyes to slits but then smile graciously (as one must). I am laughed at.

But it’s a military putsch — my first. I’m fired up. I expect to see tanks, and I want everyone else to share my excitement and fuel my outrage. But all the Thais I speak to decline, knowingly, to make a big deal of it: “It happens,” they say, shrugging. “We’ve had worse.”

As if we were due one.

And, perhaps we are.

The last coup was in 2006, and before that it was 1991. There have been five in the 38-year span of my time on this planet. Each time it’s been the same story. There’s a pattern, and there’s perhaps a problem with Thai-style democracy.

For seven months now, the normal functioning of government has been stymied by yellow-clad protesters (the so-called “yellow shirts”). Their opponents are the red shirts, who, generally speaking, represent Thailand’s working class. While nationwide the red shirts far outnumber their jaundiced counterparts, the yellow shirts (representing the moneyed elite) are highly concentrated in the capital, where, consequently, they wield inordinate power — managing in recent months to shut down Bangkok’s major intersections, invade government buildings, and frustrate attempts to hold fair and open elections.

Despite all this, they fell short of their goal of ousting the reds from their commanding majority in Parliament. The red shirts, for their part, were unable convincingly to neutralize their opponents, who kept popping up with new insults and challenges to their authority.

And so it was an impasse, and unrest crept into the streets. Among other things, there have been grenades lobbed, guns fired, an occupied bus set ablaze. Twenty-eight people have lost their lives in seven months. The army, for all appearances loath to intervene — despite repeated calls, since November, to do so — finally stepped in on Tuesday, May 20, declaring martial law, and then again the following Thursday, when they seized power from Parliament in a bloodless coup.

The army’s claim is that they could not risk the growing violence, which is plausible enough. But it remains unclear how long they intend to remain in power, and their talk of “reforms,” which they say must happen before new elections are held, are greeted with skepticism by many Thais.

The army has traditionally sided with the minority yellow shirts, who have not won a national election since 1992. Nobody knows what the proposed reforms might entail; but if, this time, the military sticks to precedent and installs an unelected, unpopular yellow government, it would be regarded, especially by vocal student organizations, as an affront to the people. Should that happen in the current climate, nobody can predict what would result.

Unfortunately, that is the pattern: The red shirts have handily won all five elections since 2001, and except for once they’ve been ousted each time — twice by the military, twice by the courts. Thais are getting tired of their popularly mandated governments being usurped by powerful Bangkok interests.

The news reports that, since the day of the coup, about 200 journalists, politicians, and academics — from both sides — have been detained by the military. Most complied and were released after a day or two, though one esteemed academic, Pavin Chachavalpongpun, responded to his summons by claiming to be too busy — and valiantly offered to send his pet Chihuahua in his stead.

There have been daily anti-coup demonstrations at the Victory Monument in central Bangkok. There’s been talk of an uprising out of Isan, the northeast stronghold of the red shirts. There’s even been talk of civil war. It’s hard to imagine, but not impossible to imagine.

We’ll see.

At the Witch Pie Factory, there’s still a static armed forces test pattern on TV. The traffic has gotten worse, not better. We’re still being told to be off the streets after 10 o’clock.

For now, though, and for me, the city is functioning more or less as usual. The stores are open; the people, characteristically unruffled, get on with it; the schools and government offices are functioning.

I finally got my ironing back.

By all accounts, no tourists have been troubled.

It’s three days later, and I’ve still not seen a soldier or a tank.

For those of us who live and work in Bangkok, it is still good to be here. There is a breathlessness, a calm-before-the-storm feeling. Maybe that’s just the early onset of rainy season.

We’ll see.

Jamie Schelz taught cultural history at the Ross School and for seven years worked at BookHampton in East Hampton. He has lived in Thailand since 2010 and teaches science and social studies at Wells International School in Bangkok.