Dear Mr. Amtrak Media Man,

    Thank you for taking my call yesterday. You have no idea how much I appreciate anyone from Amtrak giving me the time of day. You asked me to pass along all the details of my recent Amtrak experience so you could pass along all the details to your superiors so they could . . . well, I don’t know what they could do, or should do, so I’ll get right to the details.

    It started on a rainy Sunday afternoon at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. My companion and I were booked on the 1:30 afternoon train to New York City. Anticipating a gaggle of holiday travelers, we arrived an hour early at the station, which is a beautiful building and deserves some serious gawking.

    Our train was listed on the big board as number 666. Even if you Amtrak people have just a cursory knowledge of Dan Brown novels, not to mention the Holy Bible, you would know that 666 is a pretty frightening number for a train, or any vehicle really. I’m no mathematician, but there must be a zillion other three-digit numbers available to Amtrak number-writers. I can only hope the committee members who dreamed up that number had a good demonic laugh.

    When the departing track was announced, around 12:15, we noticed other people immediately lining up. The line was 40 deep before you could say “The Da Vinci Code,” so we grabbed our bags and hustled into line. A lot of other trains were completely sold out that day, so folks were a little anxious. We boarded the 666 at 1:30. And found two fine seats, stored our bags above, took off our raincoats and hats, and settled in for a sweet ride back to New York City.

    I was reading an Xmas present, Little Star literary magazine, when I felt the first droplet of water bounce on my head. I paid it little attention. It was followed by another droplet, however, and then another, and then I looked up to the ceiling to see the source of the raindrops. A leak. By now, my companion was getting splashed too. Wanting to move, I looked up and down the car for other seats. Instead, I saw the conductor seated nearby and I walked over, introduced myself, and told him about the leak.

    “Oh, yeh, we have a few on this train.”

    “What do you suggest I do?”

    “Find another seat.”

    “I’m not sure there are any. Are you?”

    “I don’t really remember. It’s pretty crowded.”

    “Do you want to know what seat I am in, so you can report it?”

    “I’m sure it’s been reported already. More than once.”

    “But never repaired?”

    “I can’t fix the hole where the rain is coming, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

    “No, I didn’t think you could.”

    “So what do you want me to do?”

    “I don’t know. What do you usually do when someone is being rained on?”

    “I’m doing it.”

    “What do you think I should do?”

    “Find other seats.”

    “I’m not sure there are any.”

    “You’re on your own there, buddy.”

    I went back to my soaked seat and gathered the luggage from the overhead compartment and started walking through the rain, I mean train. And then the next car. And the next. Until I found one seat in one car and another seat in another car. My companion and I did not do much talking on our trip to N.Y.C.

    The next morning, I called Amtrak to register a complaint and perhaps help out the next poor schnook without an umbrella. I waited on hold for 50 minutes, listening to classical music and a tape that said, every few minutes, “Your call is important to us. All the operators are dealing with other customers.” There must have been a lot of unhappy customers, I thought, or very few complaint takers. Or both.

    Finally, a woman’s voice.

    “Hello, my name is Christina. How can I help you?”

    “Hello, Christina. How long do you think someone should wait to talk to customer service?”

    “I don’t know. You tell me.”

    “Well, 50 minutes seems a little long for good customer service.”

    “Can I have your complaint, sir? There are other people waiting on hold.”

    “That was my first complaint, Christina.”

    “What was?”

    “The wait was too long.”

     “Many people wait for over an hour, so I would consider myself lucky.”

    “Over an hour? That’s some customer service you have there.”

    “We have 50 people here and we are busy all the time.”

    “I can’t imagine why that is, Christina, can you?”

    “Can we get passed this issue and onto your complaint?”

    “Okay, Christina. My name is Bruce, by the way.”

    (Silence.)

    “You still there, Christina?”

    I told Christina my story, as succinctly as I could, on account of all the other customers waiting for service.

    “Did your train arrive at its destination?”

    “Yes it did.”

    “You cannot receive restitution if your train arrived at its destination.”

    “Okay, Christina, that’s fine, but . . .”

    “I take complaints. I don’t argue. Thank you for calling.”

    And Christina was gone.

    Geez. That was unsatisfying. So I went online and found the phone number of the Amtrak media person, Northeast division. I left my name and number, and what do you know, he called me back. I told him my story.

    “Mr. Buschel, write everything down and send me an email with the time and date and train number and ticket number and what exactly happened, and I will take it to my superiors.”

    “That’s what I do for a living.”

    “What?”

    “Write down my experiences.”

    “Then your descriptions will be accurate.”

    “But I have already spent $175 and 45 minutes in line in Philly, and 10 minutes getting rained on, and 15 minutes looking for a seat, 60 minutes separated from my companion, 50 minutes calling Amtrak, and now I am talking to you. It’ll probably take another half-hour finding my ticket stub, and then writing it all down, and, well, I am a very slow writer. I figure another two or three hours minimum. Which would bring us to a total of around five hours of doing stuff I didn’t want to do. And why am I doing all this stuff?”

    “So I can pass along the information to my superiors.”

    “And what do you think they will do?”

    “There will be no restitution, but beyond that, I’m not sure.”

    “Ever hear of The East Hampton Star?”

    “That’s not an Amtrak line, is it?”

    Bruce Buschel is a writer, producer, director, and restaurateur who lives in Bridgehampton.

    My husband and I are getting older, and while we talk of the necessity of making our “final arrangements,” the subject goes dead as it surfaces. So we enlisted the help of our son-in-law, David.

    Why him? His credentials are impeccable. First, he’s a good guy — a little quirky, but still, we like him. Second, he’s efficient. Give him a job and it is done — find an out-of-print book, set the sleep-timer on the television, cook the turkey and bring it over, never a problem.

    Next, and I suppose the biggie, he is the son of a minister and has often told us that as a kid he watched his dad perform the rites for weddings and funerals. He knew the routine. He could serve as an adviser on the finalities and legalities of life’s special moments.

    True, we have a flesh-and-blood adult daughter and adult son, but we thought it would be too emotional for them to make the arrangements while we were still up and running. David would be saddened by our demise, but not devastated as our own kids might be, or as he might be with his own parents. Matter of fact, we never told our children we had given David the assignment. We didn’t want to upset them.

    Perhaps “devastated” is too strong a word. While we avoid serious end-of-life discussion, we freely toss out deadly quips: This is the last new car of our lives. Or at Costco: 45 bars of soap . . . we can always leave it in the will.

    Surely the children have murmured stuff to each other about the folks getting older: What if they get sick? How much longer can they do the steps up to their apartment? Normal existential musings, none of which have gone unnoticed by us.

    David agreed to act as the liaison between the cemetery and us, and we began to formulate the plan. “Where? What?” he wanted to know.

    “We don’t really care,” I say. “So we may as well go to the cemetery where my mother is buried. Whatever they’re charging is probably the going rate, so let’s not dwell on this. Just buy two graves and we’ll reimburse you.”

    “Where do you want the site? New section, old section?”

    “It doesn’t really matter. Wherever they have room. Except I like to be in the sun. That’s a definite requirement. Use your judgment. We don’t need to know anything about it except that it’s done. Where it’s sunny. Don’t forget that part.”

    I told David we thought to get a family plot, but of course he being of the Christian persuasion, and this cemetery being of the Jewish persuasion, he would not be allowed in on any permanent basis.

    “You could visit us, but not for eternity.”

    The upside of this adventure for him was unique. He would be getting the opportunity to bury his mother-in-law, a wish often dreamt of by others, but rarely fulfilled. Who else has such a good mother-in-law?

    A week later, David called.

    “It’s done.”

    “Great.”

    “Nancy [our daughter] went with me.”

    “How’d she take it?

    “She said it was strange.”

    “Send us the deed.”

    “I’ll keep it,” he says.

    “Really? Why?”

    “That’s the way it is.”

    “Okay, so we’re good to go?”

    “Very good.”

    “Thanks.”

   Hinda Gonchor lives in East Hampton and New York City. Her essays have appeared in major newspapers and have been featured on radio.

 

Mr. Douglass:

    Paul Dickson, the writer, gave me your name. He was a little cranky on the phone today.

    This is my “Hollywood treatment” of the best of my screenplays. Please consider it for Paramount, MGM, and TriStar.

AMERICA ESCAPE (or FROZEN ICE)

    The expedition ship Wildworld Cause, with a worldwide passenger list of 24 wealthy dilettantes, is trapped in Antarctic ice. (Only one of the passengers knows or cares about the natural history, or history of the age of exploration, of the southernmost continent.) They are on board to drink, to eat gourmet food, to gamble. They can easily mistake a skua for an Adelie penguin. I’m hoping that Shirley MacLaine is loose, that is to say, interested.

    The ship is registered in Panama, but owned by Russians. A Russian icebreaker is sent to free her. The rescue ship is called Smasher or Smashed. Its name is unclear as the lettering on the gunwale is Cyrillic and scuffed.

    The relief ship’s electronics fail. Then its cutting-plow cracks and there is no one aboard who can read the Japanese instructions for its replacement. She too is trapped.

    The U.S. is called upon, but her two state-of-the-art icebreakers are at the top of the world: They are very near the North Pole cutting ice for vessels laying cables for a vast N.S.A. network far from the control of any Congress. Almost no one but the deceased Clancy knows of it.

    Supplies are running out on Wildworld Cause. Lights flicker. The sea ice groans and booms.

    The U.S. does have helicopters at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, that can do the job, but only two that can venture as far as the ship’s position and return loaded with passengers. The first flies and picks up 12, but on the return crashes. All survive but they must trek 11 miles in blizzard conditions to find more stable ice. Several die gruesome deaths as ice breaks off the surface sheet and they plunge into freezing waters. Others are consumed by leopard seals, and a pretty blonde is torn apart by skuas. (In an homage to Hitch, this occurs in an ice formation that looks remarkably like an old-time phone booth.)

    And . . . two young people have fallen in love, of course. (Love scene shot from outside a white tent lit orangey with silhouettes cast on the canvas, art imitating life and vice versa, while Vaughan Williams music rises.) As a rescue team on sledges nears from McMurdo, a crevasse opens and the lovers perish. They cling to icicles that drip drip drip as they bid farewell to each other as their bodily heats rise. (I must say, Mr. Douglass, Hitchcock! Hitchcock! Hitchcock!)

    Meanwhile, aboard Wildworld Cause the 12 remaining passengers find out that a malfunction in the second helicopter will require a repair part that cannot be delivered to McMurdo for three months. (The nut needed is manufactured in Pakistan, of all places.) The pilots can make only this one trip! Problem: Twelve people remain, six Americans, four Russians, one Moroccan, and one Costa Rican, and five of the Americans are overweight by 25 percent. Therefore only 11 souls can be airlifted.

    A lottery is agreed upon. The loser will be blindfolded and then pushed overboard by the “winner” of another lottery. But . . . we see another passenger pushed (by an unidentifiable character) into the ice-strewn sea! And another! Then as in “Ten Little Indians” our sorry cast one by one vanishes, wishing they had known of the travails of Scott and Shackleton, of Wilson’s watercolors.

    Only two remain alive as the last-chance helicopter approaches — the very slender Costa Rican teacher and an overweight American insurance executive (whose firm insured the Wildworld Cause).

    Blackout.

    Flashback: The Costa Rican is a member of the E.L.F. He coined the phrase, “If you build it, we will burn it.”

    Flashback: The American executive was given the trip as a 45th wedding anniversary gift by his loving wife. She died before she could sail of a dreadful, incurable disease. Only the desolation of the Antarctic will match his own, he thinks.

    Blackout.

    One nut after another pops from a bolt in the ship’s railing in the subfreezing cold as the two men grapple for their lives, like Moriarty and Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls. One will fall 40 feet to his death on Antarctic ice. They punch and kick and do jujitsu. We hear the helicopter in the distance. Foof foof foof! The rail gives way. Locked in tragic embrace, over the side the antagonists go!

    We see the searchlights of the helicopter scanning the forlorn ship and the reflecting ice. (This scene happens in deep twilight, perhaps caused by clouds, although it is summer at the South Pole.) The pilot speaks: [crackle, crackle, crackle] “McMurdo. Rescue 2. McMurdo. ‘Ah, a man’s reach should [crackle, crackle, crackle] ’ceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ ” [crackle, crackle, crackle]

    Blackout.

    But die they don’t. Because they are both wearing L.L. Bean winter-ready garments when they hit the water (yes, water); they survive. A warm cave of liquid has been created in the Antarctic ice by an N.S.A. substation. The two men, floating in their duck-down clothes, are sucked into the station by a tremendous undersea vacuum that might have been imagined by Greene’s man in Havana.

    There then they sit, hopelessly holding out hope, dripping, when the N.S.A. man says, “What can I do with you? What on earth can I do with you?”

    THE END

    Thank you for your kind consideration of this work of fiction; no persons alive or dead ever had any of these thoughts, etc.

    P.S. Sequel to follow! Prequel to follow!

 

    Dan Marsh, a native Long Islander and frequent "Guestwords" contributor, writes from Garrett Park, Md.

    How do you like them shrimp?

    It was never the shrimp, or the eggs running onto the extra bacon strips. It was not really the view, although it is fabulous.

    It was at those white plastic tables, on a plastic throne, where he held court. He was the knight of the grill, flipping eggs and burgers, filling Styrofoam cups with his best brew.

    There was the thwack of that screen door opening into the grill’s steaming heat that filled the square, enclosed porch. There was the crackle of that grill, the words “Hey, where ya been? I was going to call you.” He would call, you know. He knew if you’d been missing. He worried about his friends.

    Walls lined with necessities of camping, candy everywhere, and the ring of the arcade machines, that was Joe Kaelin’s concert hall. Marshmallows, chocolate bars, containers of milk, eggs, and butter, ketchup, and hot dogs filled shelves alongside charcoal and matches and fishing gear. Joe kept basketballs and volleyballs to lend out so kids could shoot hoops and play at nets just outside the Cedar Point Park store. These reminders of simple things are what bind family and friends, the stuff that memories are made of.

    Joe knew about memories. He and his wife, Mary Ann, ran the store for 31 summers. Many customers who had gone to the park as children were now taking their own children to meet Joe and Mary Ann, to enjoy pleasures that were cheap but priceless — a hot marshmallow glowing with embers skewered on a stick found in the woods, or a firefly lighting up a jar like your own miniature moon.

    Joe had wood for endless campfires and ice cream for late-night snacks. Every Saturday he ran a movie night for the children, who brought blankets and sleeping bags, lying under the stars in pajamas as they watched a carefully chosen movie — Joe was a PG guy.

    He was a raconteur. Not “Joe the plumber” from that famous campaign, but Joe, chief chef and bottle washer, procurer of treats and necessities at Cedar Point. Teller of jokes, weaver of stories that would lead into jokes, food critic. Insisting on a critique of those shrimp — they were the best, it was the sauce, you know!

    Joe got the recipe for the sauce from one of his many cruises. He loved to travel in the winter, visiting Mexico, Europe, and the Caribbean. Did he love those cruises for the cruising or because he always managed to get comps? It was a game, though it came with that recipe for the infamous sauce for the shrimp.

    But it was those bagels, oh those bagels, that kept the locals coming in. Oh how Joe loved those bagels! He picked them up fresh every day at the crack of dawn. No one delivers to Cedar Point Park — too far out of the Hamptons loop, both physically and metaphorically. So Joe would rise early and seek out the bagels, the foundation on which he built his breakfasts of eggs, bacon, ham, and of course his coffee. That coffee was like the nectar of the gods, but it came in Styrofoam cups.

    The meal was presented in a Styrofoam container with three sections. Joe wrapped the necessary plastic utensils in a paper napkin on the top of the box. If the knife or fork was missing he would be visibly upset. Presentation was everything.

    He tallied the number of eggs he flipped, bagels he cut, the rolls consumed, and always the number of bags of ice. Joe kept a tally because it established how many people he served, not how much profit he made. His trips to the restaurant depot for the famed shrimp salad he piled on kaiser rolls became the stuff of legend. His burgers were the best value in the Hamptons, according to Joe, because they sat on kaiser rolls, not the sissy buns of those other places.

    He loved food. He loved good value. He loved his Republicans (for which we forgave him). He loved being at Cedar Point Park because what he really loved was schmoozing with his customers.

    Joe did not need to man the park store. He was comfortably retired from Coca-Cola. Joe was at the park, spending long hours and hot days at the store, because he loved the interaction with the people. His customers were campers who might return year after year and local residents looking for an un-Hampton dining experience. The conversation was on the house, as were his jokes and advice.

    Joe continued to work last summer, although his cancer was getting harder to control. Mary Ann took up a lot of the extra work because she knew how much Joe loved being at the store. The day before he died Joe was planning for summer 2014 at the park.

    We know he is flipping burgers in heaven now, but for some of us he will always be seated on the plastic throne, telling jokes, as he greets us when the screen door thwacks.

     Jackie Friedman is a summertime resident of East Hampton.

    Joe Kaelin, a native of Riverhead, died on Oct. 23 at the age of 71.

 

    Once upon a time I would skip out the front door of my house in San Francisco, jog to one of three destinations, and return feeling victorious because not only had I completed my run but also some other small errand, powered by my own two feet. I joined Le Video on Ninth near Lincoln, so if I ran to Golden Gate Park I would both drop off and pick up a DVD. On return from Stern Grove, I purchased cilantro and lemons at Taraval Produce. And at the top of Mount Davidson, I ran around the humongous Armenian cross and prayed drive-by.

    All this eco-friendly double-tasking left me feeling quite industrious and “mindful.”

    Then one day we bought an electric car. It can be plugged into our own home electric outlet. We reasoned, however, that because we no longer needed to pay for gas, we shouldn’t have to pay for electricity either. I’m not sure how we arrived at that conclusion. Something like, if we’re giving the environment a break, someone should give us a break.

    We pressed “Charging Stations” on the bright blue futuristic touch-screen dashboard and planned our lives around those locations. On Saturdays I parked at Park Merced Apartments, plugged in the car, and ran Lake Merced. On Sundays I parked at the new Whole Foods on Ocean Avenue, plugged in the car, bought a small bag of groceries for $178, ran to my gym, worked out, and ran back.

    To stretch it out I’d order a Balboa Blast juice, which fortunately took about 20 minutes due to mindfully paced staff wondering if the parsley was kale. Running while charging an electric car for free and in addition bringing home organic food made me feel even more green, thrifty, and superior.

    Because of this great smug and got-something-for-free feeling, we started looking for more reasons to visit charging stations. Noting a station at Civic Center Garage, I checked all of my family’s passports for a reason to visit City Hall. Luckily, two of our passports had expired. Unfortunately, we finished the process before the battery was fully charged. As we passed by the stairs to the rotunda where we had been married, I suggested we walk up there and renew our vows. But neither of us could remember what they were.

    But then one day I found a non-electric car in my usual parking space at Park Merced. I looked around for some kind of security guard to complain to. Until I remembered that I was not actually a resident of Park Merced Apartments.

    Another day I pulled into the garage at Whole Foods and found a blue Prius hogging my space. I finished a cappuccino at Whole Foods Cafe, then checked the garage. Still there. I ordered a Balboa Blast and drank it, then checked again. Still there. I shopped for the entire week. Still there. And the Prius has a gas tank backup!

    Hopping mad, I started up the stairs to complain to customer service. Until I realized that increased surveillance on the Prius might mean increased surveillance on a certain new black Nissan Leaf. Until I realized that the Prius owner had just as much right to complain about me for hogging the space while leaving the store.

    Then Park Merced Apartments starting charging for charging. And Whole Foods hired a security guard who informed me he had an eye on my Leaf.

    Then I got a credit card bill with charges from Whole Foods that could feed a small country. Along with two passport applications rejected because of errors. Which is really too bad because there is a charging station at SFO’s International Terminal.

    Now, even though I return from my run with a DVD, cilantro, lemons, and Greek olives and have put in a word for my family with the Armenian God, I don’t feel as triumphant as I used to. Because there in the driveway sits the Leaf, sucking energy from our outlet.

    But here comes my husband running excitedly out the door and down the porch steps.

    “What can you think of to buy at Walgreens? Their charging stations are still free!”

    Lynn Hollenbeck, an attorney and nonfiction writer, grew up in East Hampton.

    My partner, David, and I, as is comme d’habitude, generally spend Thanksgiving in Europe. It’s a time here in this country that seems more and more like a week off.

    I remember when leaving work early on a Wednesday afternoon prior to the four-day holiday was a luxury — sneaking out for an almost five-day break from the tedium of employment. Some years, when I had my beach house, I headed to Amagansett on a Tuesday night. Then it became Tuesday afternoon, to Italy, the ad agency I worked for at the time quiet as a library. And then, off and away on the Monday of Thanksgiving week, the days before that Thursday, dead.

    The people who were around probably had nowhere to go. Those of us with places to go and people to see were already gone and seeing them, making Wednesday, touted as the busiest travel day of the year, spread out over a handful of days before.

    A week off. Blissful, really. No gifts to buy. Just food. And more food. And leftover food.

    I myself do not work anymore. For me, every week is a week off. What I do is write. And not just here, elsewhere. Published! Books in the works. I write with a glass of red at the ready. Writing is a lonely profession, filled with distraction, henceforth, the vino. Keeps me centered. Focused. There are those who find writing glamorous, but that would be only people who don’t write.

    But back to the subject at hand: Thanksgiving. Paris. A world, smaller. Un petit monde, where what happens here in the U.S. seems to bleed through to every region the world over.

    In London, in Leicester Square this past November, days before heading off to Paris, a big poster over a large multiplex — and isn’t that an American phenomenon? — advertised “The Counselor” with Michael Fassbender, a hunky new American star, and Cameron Diaz, more established but solidly Hollywood, there for everyone to see. Even if not too many people actually saw it. In London. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

    Kevin Kline, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Douglas look out at you from the sides of a red double-decker bus: “Last Vegas.” Really? “The Hangover” for the senior set? Whatever happened to “Georgy Girl,” or “Alfie,” or even “Strangers on a Train”? The great British movies — are they still running in Great Britain?

    I think: If I were Jennifer Lawrence, somewhere in her early 20s, traveling and seeing my puss plastered all over posters in London and Paris and, no doubt, Tokyo and Bangkok promoting “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” how would I feel? Freaked out? I mean, I’m — I mean, she’s — just a kid. How can that kind of global recognition sit well with someone who just three or four years ago was as unknown as me?

    And “Wicked” is playing to packed houses in Seoul, South Korea.

    Now. Thanksgiving. Once a defiantly, stoically American holiday, it is now talked about in Paris like it was Bastille Day.

    I’m annoyed by this. I am bothered by the idea that not much of anything is unique to anywhere. Mickey D’s cover the globe. Starbucks coming soon to a nearby star. You can take the Metro or the Underground for a footlong at a Subway. Even KFC is not far from YSL.

    Am I too old now?

    When younger, I didn’t notice the proliferation of all things American in all places exotic. And now, Thanksgiving joins the ranks of things American now appearing in a restaurant near you. Wherever you may be.

    A few Thursdays ago in Paris, you heard plenty of people gobble up the sentiment “ ’appy Thanksgiving!” on the street outside the Cafe de Flore and throughout the Marais section.

    Joining the ranks, but entitled as Americans, we reserved a Thanksgiving dinner at Ralph Lauren’s restaurant on St.-Germain-des-Pres. With a kir royale at the Brasserie Lipp prior.

    There were two seatings: 6:30 and 9. We opted for the earlier one and it was packed. With Americans and Russians and Germans and Parisians.

    It was lush and plush with men in suits, women in furs, families, and festivities — a twinkling Christmas tree and a table at the entrance groaning with a big, fat turkey, encircled by all the side dishes bathed in candlelight and flashes popping from smartphones from every diner who entered.

    It was a prix fixe affair — butternut squash soup, thick with cream with an island of a small bruschetta and olive paste, topped with a teeny dollop of creme fraiche. A glass of champagne arrived, and small, fried stuffed olives, mixed nuts, and a buttermilk biscuit. The service was fast and furious; there was a second seating to consider. The wine list was (mostly) French and way up there in the stratosphere. We settled for a pinot noir at 105 euros (approximately $145) and then the meal began.

    Plates of turkey, white meat and dark, appeared, with a slush of mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts that tasted vaguely of tobacco, and stuffing. Waiters, in sexy Purple Label striped pants and vests, slipped around the tables, balancing further platters — mashed sweet potatoes. Baked root vegetables. And seconds. And pouring water and wine. Briskly. Very briskly.

    Finally, as it neared 8:30 p.m., plates of slivers of pie — pumpkin, pecan, and apple — came and went in a blur.

    The whole event, two hours or so, was delicious, if rushed. As checks were paid, swag bags — small blue Ralph Lauren shopping bags — were handed out. To women. To women only. I got a glimpse of something silvery. A frame, maybe? Whatever, it felt a little sexist.

    It felt rushed and sexist and somehow not quite right. Of course, we could have taken a pass and saved roughly 350 euros (about $500). But I never get to have turkey — except for Oscar Mayer slices on rye with Swiss, but that doesn’t count. And I was curious to see how Ralph and his classic Americana lifestyle — dark blue and green plaid woolen walls, wood trim, candelabras, and mood lighting, like his Madison Avenue mansion-shop — looked translated, transplanted, halfway across the globe. It was glittering and gorgeous. Still, it felt somehow wrong on the Right Bank.

    The next day, we went to the Pompidou Center. And there, atop this industrial behemoth of a museum, lies Georges — a Parisian treasure of a restaurant with breathtaking views of rooftops and chimney stacks and, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower surrounded by misty, romantic gray cloudiness.

    We ordered cheeseburgers. But at least the fries were French.

    Hy Abady is finishing up his third book, this one with a collaborator. “Dish: Juicy Gossip and Tasty Recipes, a Private Chef Goes Public” is due out in early 2015.

 

     The year was 1991. I was 14 years old. Scallops had made a comeback, and the price was very low. Local markets wanted to pay my father, Calvin, only $4 a pound shucked. It was at the point where my dad told us shuckers that if we wanted a job, we would have to take less money per pound to shuck or he wasn’t going to go anymore until the price came up. We were getting $1.25 per pound to open scallops then.

    Robyn Bennett, Dad’s number-one shucker, started calling every restaurant in town, peddling scallops. “Kelly, go make a sign and put it up in the front yard,” Robyn said. “Just like old man William Havens is doing.”

    Dad called up Havens and said, “Kelly’s putting up a sign to sell scallops here. What are you selling them for out of your house?” We had to keep the price the same. It was $10 per pound.

    Dad made it very clear: He caught them, we shucked and sold them. He would not wait on customers, that was our job. At that, Dad’s shuckers were back in business.

    Robyn, being an awesome saleslady, got Dad restaurant accounts. So it went. Robyn and I busted our asses and moved a lot of fresh local product and the rest is history.

    Some years were great, some were not. The following year we didn’t have scallops here. I got a phone call from baymen over in Southampton — they had the scallops! Local markets wanted to pay them $6 a pound for shucked meats, just as the markets tried to do to my dad. The Vandyke boys from Southampton brought Robyn and me their scallops to shuck and sell. We got the Vandyke boys $12 a pound and they were very happy. We were happy to be employed.

    Then there was the year we all used looking boxes and scoop nets in Three Mile Harbor. Dad would bring home 10 to 15 pounds a day, still a day’s pay. In those days, George, of Gordon’s restaurant in Amagansett, was Dad’s number-one guy. George got his scallops before anyone else. Don’t we all miss Gordon’s? The best food in town.

    Dad knew I had everything under control. I made sure the shop was clean and tidy, scallops were properly handled, shuckers were paid, and orders went out on time. I shucked away and Dad’s lifelong fishing partner, Brent Bennett, stuck a $100 bill in my pocket for all my hard work. At 14 years old, that was gold to me. I was so excited. It was something I never forgot.

    I would get paid for my shucking, and I would make a profit off other baymen, say, $2 a pound for every pound I sold. I never wanted to make a profit off my dad, but at the end of the day, he would throw me cash and insist I take it. I was so proud when Dad told Mom that I was just as good as he was at shucking scallops. After all, I was Dad’s right-hand girl. We worked very hard together and we made it work.

    Dad passed away a young man, at 54, in August 2007. His death left a gaping hole in this fishing community. Robyn died a few years later.

    In the fall of 2010, I got a phone call from my brother, Paul. “Come to Little Albert’s now. Pick up my dogs, and bring me five gallons of gas for the boat.”

    My neighbor and best friend, Terri, jumped in the truck and headed right for the bay. Paul, gleaming with joy and excitement, had found the mother lode of scallops. Racking the dredges right to the blade, Terri and I going, “Holy shit, wow, that’s awesome!”

    Back in the day, in the 1960s and ’70s, before my time, the old-timers like Milton Miller used to scallop off Little Albert’s and Bonac Creek once the inside waters were either frozen solid or depleted of scallops. That fall and winter, I told everyone that Paul kept half the town employed. As many as 60 bushels in that shucking shack at a time. Shucking scallops that year with all those young men who didn’t have a clue how to shuck was very interesting, to say the least. A lot of scallops got butchered in the process. It was bad.

    “Stop! Everybody just stop opening, please,” I shouted. So one by one I gave lessons to young local fishermen on how to shuck scallops, one being my boyfriend, Billy. Now he’s professional, almost as good as I am.

    The following year it was time to move on. I needed my own place. The cold, bitter reality was that things would never be the same without my right-hand man, Dad. Times had changed and everyone had differences. Billy and I built our own shucking shack at our house.

    The end result was great, because before there hadn’t been enough room to accommodate so many people and scallops. Although I did have a lady stop by and tell me how rotten I was for setting up shop next to my brother. I looked her dead in the face and said, “This is my business. Robyn and I started this for my dad when I was 14 years old.”

    So we have two shucking shacks up and running, with a total of about 12 fishermen. It doesn’t matter who you purchase your scallops from, we all work together.

    It is a source of great pride that the big fish companies are coming to me, begging me to sell them scallops for cost. I tell them our price is $20 per pound, at least for now.

    Last year we were shucking and open for business on Thanksgiving and through the new year. I must say my customers are great. I usually know exactly what they want. A few years ago I was told to stop talking to them so much. Now I can talk all I want at my own place. I have customers who stop by just to chat. I love it.

    Dad and I once had a customer who wanted a discount. I will never forget Dad saying to the guy, “There’s the truck, boat, and dredges. Boy, take it. You go pull on those irons for a while and then come back and tell me you want a discount.”

    One time I got an order from a local fish market for 10 pounds of scallops shucked — and do not rinse them! I shucked out the 10 pounds, did not rinse them, and delivered them. The owner of the market started in with me and swore I had rinsed them. I’d just shucked them myself. That’s how I open my scallops. My scallops are perfect and I open clean. After all, I learned from the best of the best, my dad.

    I turned around to the man and said, “If you don’t believe me, come to my shucking shack and watch me open 10 more pounds.” I was pissed. First off, I do not lie. I went home and told Billy what had gone on. If that guy ever calls here again, tell him no!

    Come on down to the sucking shacks on Abraham’s Path. Meet our local fishermen. Taste the most delicious, sweetest bay scallops in the world. My scallops are featured in some of the finest restaurants in Manhattan. My oysters have become known as Golden Abraham’s Path Oysters. I thought that was great!

    What fun it is to watch your dinner being shucked by local fishermen.

    Kelly Lester lives in East Hampton.

 

    With a federal budget deal apparently at hand, the facts of Social Security financing need to be re-emphasized. Last April, when President Obama, in a gesture of compromise to Republicans, proposed cuts to Social Security benefits to help reduce budget deficits, liberal Democrats were outraged. At the time, Republicans simply ignored the federal budget, preferring to create havoc over raising the nation’s debt limit. Eight months later, behind-the-scenes negotiations to come up with one are taking place, with Social Security cuts still on the table.

    What is most peculiar is that no one in either party has challenged the president’s assumption that cutting Social Security benefits will reduce government spending. The reality, as most Americans know, is that Social Security is self-supporting and has nothing whatever to do with the federal budget. It is the nation’s collective 401(k). Every employee contributes 6.2 percent of his or her salary into a trust fund, and those amounts are matched equally by employers. Retirement benefits are paid from that fund to American workers who have contributed during their working years, and to their survivors.

    The Social Security Administration manages the fund, investing its balances in Treasury bonds. All the money in the fund today — nearly $3 trillion, or more than three years’ worth of benefit payments — came from, and belongs to, American working people; none came from the government’s “general revenues” (except for the interest the government pays on its bonds, regardless of who owns them). Most Americans understand all this. Comments like “Social Security does not cost the government a dime” appear regularly in the web postings of ordinary citizens.

    So how did the false idea that the government “spends” money on Social Security spread? The answer is that ever since the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, most politicians and public policy experts have argued that only the federal government can guarantee retirement benefits. All the European retirement systems that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s advisers studied as models, beginning with Bismarck’s German system in 1889, relied on government money to bolster workers’ contributions when, as was expected, those contributions were insufficient to pay promised benefits. F.D.R.’s cabinet and his advisers believed that the U.S. system would follow the same pattern.

    Not F.D.R. He insisted that every dollar would come from the contributions of working Americans and their employers; America’s retirement system would carry no hint of “the dole.” Payroll contributions, he said, give the contributors “a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions.” If the system runs low on money, the contribution rates would have to be raised. By removing the government from responsibility for funding benefits, F.D.R. argued, “no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.”

    As in most New Deal programs, F.D.R. had his way. The 1935 Social Security Act contained no provision for government financing of retirement benefits. Most of Washington criticized the omission, and the political urge to change the law remained strong. In May 1977, when President Jimmy Carter asked Congress to raise the rates for Social Security contributions (the trust fund had run down to barely three months’ worth of benefit payments), he also asked for new legislation to allow the federal government “to compensate the Social Security trust funds from general revenues.”

    Support for Carter’s request came from 70-year-old Tom Eliot, who as a young lawyer from Harvard had played the major role in drafting the original Social Security bill. Permitting the government to supplement payroll contributions from general revenues, Eliot wrote, would “get rid of the notion that the system should be forever ‘self-supporting.’ ” The payroll contribution, he continued, “while necessary to effectuate the contributory principle, is a regressive tax and should be held at a very low rate.”

    However, neither Carter nor Eliot reckoned with the enormous popularity of Social Security among the American people, based on the very ideals that F.D.R. defended. Although Carter got all the changes in contribution rates he had asked for (the rate rose in increments from 4.95 percent to 5.4 percent by 1982), Congress did not allow the federal government to shift other federal funds into the system. Jim Guy Tucker, a young representative from Arkansas at the time, exemplified Congress’s opposition. “My father,” Tucker said, “was manager of the Social Security system in Arkansas, and I grew up with a respect and understanding of Social Security and its importance for the working people of this country.”

    Social Security remains to this day self-funded. The contribution rate was raised to 6.2 percent in 1990, in anticipation of baby boomers’ retirements, and it has not been changed since. With the trust fund surplus now covering over three years of payouts, the system’s actuaries expect clear sailing for at least 15 years. If any problems arise after that, they can be dealt with, as in the past, by slight increases in the contribution rate or, more likely, increases in the salary cap (now $113,700) on which the rate is collected.

    Social Security has no role to play in efforts to reduce government spending and no place in debates over how to reduce government deficits. The challenge for American working people, now and in the future, is to remind Washington of that fact.

    Malcolm Mitchell, who lives in New York City and East Hampton, is editor and publisher of Investment Policy magazine. His e-book, “Up From Gold,” was recently published on Amazon.

    When Goldberg’s Bagels opened in Montauk last year I laughed inside. I recalled the story a woman had told me, about how years ago she’d waited on line for a bagel and lox at Herb’s Market and was told if she wanted locks, she had to go to the hardware store across the street.

    I started driving to Montauk five days a week about 11 years ago when I met my business partner, Jill Fleming. Jill’s up there on the WASP-o-meter. Blond, blue-eyed, stoic, Canadian. She works hard, lives well, and can make me seem like the female version of Woody Allen. We started our advertising and design firm in an addition to her home. You could say we balance each other, or that we couldn’t be more different.

    When I met the Fleming family, Maggie was 8, Mack was 11, and despite the fact that she never cared all that much about Christmas, Jill bent over backward to make the season special for them. Her husband, Thom, a fine carpenter and local fireman, was way more into it — taking care of buying a great big tree, always putting a beautiful wreath on the door, and filling the house with bright red amaryllis. There were stockings for everyone, even the dogs. I loved every bit of it, and looked forward to delivering presents from the Springs Santa each year.

    Despite the fact that my parents celebrated Hanukkah with us, lit the menorah every night, made potato latkes, spun dreidels, and even gave us gifts eight days in a row, I was a little girl with visions of sugarplums dancing through her head. At age 4, I hid under a neighbor’s tree, hoping to disappear into the pine scent, magic tinsel, and twinkly lights. I sang carols whenever I could, even a cappella in Grand Central Station (the acoustics are amazing). I organized Project Santa Claus at my high school — a bunch of us, dressed as elves, went door to door collecting toys and gifts from retailers and marched them over (with Santa Claus) to the children’s wing at the local hospital.

    Finally, I married a lovely Englishman, raised in the Church of England. I thought, “At last, I can deck the halls and get a tree.” Of course my parents’ voices were loud and clear in my head saying, “It’s not your holiday.” But Simon, the Englishman, didn’t want a tree; he wasn’t interested. He barely wanted to exchange gifts. “I’ll go along with the nonsense if you need me to,” he said. Humbug!

    When we moved to Montauk, on Christmas Eve in 2007, something shifted. Of course, the sunsets here were better, the sky and the ocean were bigger. Hiking became a new passion. But . . . in Montauk, the streets are decorated for Christmas, the Lighthouse is decked with lights for Christmas, and nary a latke can be found. Within days of moving in, a man across the street waved me over. “I heard I had a new neighbor. Your name is Schwartz, right?” The schools in my new hometown are open on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur even though they’re closed in East Hampton. And, I’ve never been invited to break the fast or for a Shabbos dinner on this side of the Napeague stretch.

    But on a cold December morning when I walked into the office at blumenfeld + fleming, I was startled, not by the wreath on the door, but the sign someone had placed over the top of it. A wood carving with a child’s handwriting announced: “Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah from b+f.” Carved underneath the words was a menorah. Mack Fleming had made the sign in wood shop. I think he was in seventh or eighth grade. No one had asked him to do this. But, this boy was acknowledging my holiday. He wanted me to know I was included — and that we could celebrate together.

    That for me is the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of Hanukkah, the spirit of brotherhood, the spirit of everything worth celebrating. And yes, all these years later, there is nothing I won’t do for that boy.

    Lynn Blumenfeld, co-partner at blumenfeld + fleming, is a member of the Ashawagh Hall Writers Workshop. Her first novel, “Finding Grace,” set in Montauk, was excerpted in Beach magazine’s September issue.

    My neighbor the slob hasn’t been blown in almost two weeks.

    I sit here watching leaves fall in his yard, leaf by leaf, a Chinese water torture. Leaf by leaf. I want to run over there and catch the leaves before they hit the ground. But that would be trespassing. It’s his rotting yard.

    You see, he’s away. In the city, where he does something. I’m not sure what. Now and then he shows up. I don’t wave.

    What right has he, an away person, to mess up the whole neighborhood with his sloppiness?

    Maybe he’s become one of those Ban the Blowers — a secret conspirator against tidiness. Somebody shoved one of their fliers in my mailbox yesterday. Him? Is he goading me to run screaming into his yard and blow it? (Not me. That’s why we have workers. Leaves support the poorhouse industry out here. They blow, we pay. Everybody’s happy.)

    The Ban the Blowers say blowers are too noisy. They ruin the “quality of life,” whatever that is. Well, let me tell you something, my quality of life is destroyed by the accumulating rot next door.

    And besides, what’s the matter with noise? I welcome it. Hear the roaring traffic and the airplane racket — busy people with busy lifestyles. What’s wrong with that? You want sloth?

    Here in Springs we have one-half-acre lots and each requires two or three leaf-blowing fellows to tidy up — the little guys I see hanging out at the train station waiting to blow. When I hear the screams of blowers, I think redemption! These guys have work! We’re all working! This is industry! America up off its butt! Win, win!

    I say to the leftie Ban the Blowers, take your bamboo rakes and go back where you came from. Noise is beautiful!

    Here’s what the elite anti-leaf blowers say at BantheBlowers.org: “Our citizens are unwillingly exposed to hazardous carcinogens like hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, whipped up in hurricane-force windstorms of pesticides, fertilizers, mold, lead, arsenic, mercury, fecal matter, and more. . . . A leaf blower generates as much tailpipe emissions in one hour as an automobile does in over 350 miles and deposits it all in one front or back yard.”

    Yeah right. Big words. Where’s the proof? I think I have to check these factoids. Fox News told me leaf lefties fake their “research” — you know the morning show with the long-neck-tied guys and the girl in the middle with her skirt up to here? I trust them. The jury is still out. I have lots of questions.

    Meanwhile, my slobby neighbor has still not shown up. And he still hasn’t been blown.

    I just wrote a note and I will sneak it over and tack it on his door. Here’s what I said, a quote from some old movie, “You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just pucker up your lips and blow.”

    Maybe he will get the hint.

    Bill Henderson of Springs is thinking of buying a rake.