Celebrities have never been the stock in trade of The East Hampton Star, so it was not all that surprising that we first learned Liza Minelli had sold a truckload of stuff at a yard sale here last weekend from an item on Page Six. Among the items were a set of epaulets given to her by Michael Jackson.

    The New York Post runs Hamptons gossip fairly dependably a couple of times a week, Memorial Day to Labor Day. The editors and writers there have a pretty good ear for such things, as evidenced by the various and sundry blogs and other media outlets that picked up on the Liza story.

    Late Tuesday, our front office took a call from a television news producer asking about yard sales of the rich and famous, and, as I was passing by at the time, the phone was handed to me.

    It was obvious where the guy was going on this. He assumed that the rich and famous were unloading unwanted items every weekend, and that we could steer him and a TV crew to the next big thing.

    “Martha goes to yard sales out there, right?” he asked.

    Well, maybe she does, I thought, but most of the time I see people like a certain East Hampton lawyer, who, like me, has somewhat of a problem resisting great deals on fishing tackle. Or there’s the photographer who combs the sales aggressively looking for collectibles to resell. And don’t get in the way of that antiques dealer from Sag Harbor who rolls in before everyone else with a couple of burly helpers to scoop up the good stuff. There are stories aplenty, but not usually of the sort that makes for network TV.

    I gave the producer my cellphone number anyway and a tip about one sale this weekend that was likely to draw a crowd. I also let on that it was difficult to tell from the address alone how good a sale was going to be. Sometimes the best locations, I said, have the poorest offerings. The real scores come mostly from those out-of-the-way places on the side streets, not Lily Pond Lane.

    Then, too, the little secret is that a lot of people go out on the yard sale circuit of a Saturday to snoop. It’s like one great big house tour without the admission fee or cheeky decorators leaving their business cards where they can’t be missed. I am not sure I’ll tell the television guy this if and when he calls back.

    “Joe Pilates would be proud of you,” my instructor said following yet another midweek class at the Y in which, were I to be frank — which I can’t because I’m Jack — I flailed about trying to work in sync with a group of women whose cores are iron and who bend like reeds in the wind at Carolyn Giacalone’s cues as I strain in the general direction of my toes wherever they may be.

    They’ve come a long way, baby. And, in part because they have, I have too.

    I wasn’t always so humble: When Zach Grossman, our champion young golfer, said before the high school’s athletic awards ceremony that he had earlier that day lost a tennis match to a female classmate, I told him that “eons ago,” when it became apparent I was about to lose to Joan Foedisch at the Edgeworth Club in Sewickley, Pa., I had walked off the court rather than be beaten by a girl. But that was then. Nowadays, when any of our club’s hotshot women — and they are legion — deign to have me as a doubles partner I hum this ditty (substituting myself for the old maid who sings it):

    “Come a landsman, a kinsman, a soldier, or a sailor / doctor, a lawyer, a tinker, or a tailor / a rich man, a poor man, a fool, or a witty / Don’t let me die an old fud, but take me out of pity. . . .”

    I told Zach that the equanimity of his generation — his equanimity at least, for he has already learned to treat victory and defeat as the imposters they are — when contrasted with the chauvinism of mine “must mean there is such a thing as evolution.”

    It is a happy thought then, that at three score and 10 I can participate in a coed effort at self-improvement, rid to some extent of the self-consciousness that might keep a man from trying something new. (Lest I get too big a head, I suppose, a woman in my class told me I wasn’t the only one, that she knew of a number of other men who were doing Pilates elsewhere.)    Of course, if I were really free I wouldn’t be writing this column about how acutely aware I am of women’s superiority. Though fairly flexible for a man, I’ll never bend like them, elbows on the floor, heads on their knees, nor do I yet have — maybe never will have — the stomach for what they do.

    It is pleasing, though, to sense that I’m participating in the dance of life, however ungainfully. That’s my core value, I would say.

    Before throat cancer took his voice and eventually his life, Damon Runyon, most famous for the stories immortalized in “Guys and Dolls,” was asked what kind of a remembrance he wanted. “You can keep your things of bronze and stone,” he said, “and give me one man to remember me just once a year.”

    My dad, like Runyon, died before his time at 65. He had beaten the big “C” before, but in early 2001, he got sucker-punched.

    A lot of people are described as larger than life. Dad was larger than life, and he lived that life large. He only ate the freshest produce and the juiciest meats. He wore the softest shirts. He smoked only the finest cigars, rolled upon the tanned and nubile thighs of laughing Dominican virgins, or so he said.

    When I was a small, shy child in grade school on the Upper East Side, occasionally the door to my classroom would open and a half-dozen tuxedoed waiters would burst forth, carrying silver-covered platters of hot dogs and hamburgers still hot from the ovens at Maxwell’s Plum for me and my astonished classmates.

    His avoirdupois only solidified his standing as the largest person in the room. When he appeared at some highbrow event in a gold lamé suit, he was described in a Manhattan gossip column as a “shiny butterball.”

    Dad lived up to his Hollywood glam roots. The son of Mervyn LeRoy, who produced “The Wizard of Oz,” and the grandson of Harry Warner, the mogul who started Warner Brothers, he was pretty much doomed to be over the top from the very beginning.

    He was born to astound.

    But what I miss most is when the gilded paint would chip a little, and the real Dad would shine through.

    “We’re nothing but ants on this planet,” he would tell me. “You just have to be the best ant you can.” Or, “Have a dream. Make it come true. Then move on to the next dream.” Those are the jewels I remember best. Those, and the feel of his shirt on my cheek.

    I was in Hawaii when I had my last conversation with Dad. He was in the hospital, heavily medicated, and somewhat manic.

    “How are you, Dad?” I asked.

    “Busy,” he replied, sounding distracted. “Busy, busy, busy.”

    “Doing what?”

    “Oh, you know . . . hospital shit,” he answered, annoyed, making it sound as if he had taken over the entire oncology department and had dozens of patients to see before the end of the day.

    “What’s going on?”

    “Oh, I’m having a big party in my room tonight. Big,” he emphasized. “You should come. Bacce is coming, and Rita is coming, Buddy and Greer, Judy Garland . . .” He continued to rattle off the names of people who had been dead for years. His stepfather, Charles Vidor, the director, he called Bacce. Rita was Rita Hayworth.

    “It’s going to be fabulous. Fabulous!” he said. “I’ve just ordered 12 chickens from Eli’s, and a bunch of other stuff. I found the reddest peonies in New York City. No kidding. The reddest! You really should be here.”

    “I’m in Hawaii,” I said lamely.

    “Oh,” he said. “Well, a big kiss for you and for Eric and for Georgia and for Joelie and for Bing and a big kiss for you!”

    “You already gave me one at the beginning,” I told him.

    “Well, you get two ’cause I love you so much,” he said with a laugh, and then said the words I had heard thousands of times. “I’m really busy, Bridgie. I gotta get going. I love you.”

    “Okay, Dad. I love you too. Have fun tonight.”

    Three days later he was dead.

    I’m so glad he went out with a big party, lots of friends, and lots of food.

    Since I’ve moved back to the East End, at least once a week someone asks, “Are you related to Warner LeRoy?”

    “Yeah,” I say, never knowing what to expect. “He was my dad.”

    Then they smile to themselves and all say the same thing: “There will never be another Warner.”

    Tom Twomey, the attorney, grabbed my hand at a library meeting last week and looked into my eyes.

    “Your dad was one of my heroes,” he said with all sincerity, and I know he meant it.

    “Me too,” I answered, choking up a little, amazed that I still do.

    If Runyon’s quote means anything, Warner will be around as long as there’s someone out there who will remember him, with fondness, just once a year.

    Which just goes to show Dad’s even larger than “larger than life.”

    He’s larger than death.

    Happy Father’s Day to all.

—

    Bridget LeRoy is a reporter at The Star.

    My husband, Mick, is a jam-making machine. It’s as if he stepped into a telephone booth wearing his summer uniform of khaki shorts and a beaten-up polo shirt and changed into a superman of jam.

    Since last summer, he has made cherry, apricot, mango, strawberry, raspberry, gooseberry, peach, plum, blackberry, and beach plum.

    He boils the jars bought from the hardware store and leftover Bonne Maman jam jars with the red-and-white-checkered lids. He calls his new enterprise Bon Papa. He works with factory-like precision. He chops and dices and strains fruit and measures sugar and boils it up according to the recipes on the Certo package. Then he melts wax to seal each filled jar. He carefully wipes off any excess jam and admires his results.

    I leave him alone and return to find beautiful pots of fruit nectar with light coming through the transparent color. His nine jars in three rows are lined up on the kitchen counter like British redcoats off to war. He cleans up after himself and leaves the stove spotless with only a few jam drips here and there.

    The sensuous pleasure I used to experience making jam has now been passed on to my jam king of a husband. One day as I was making raspberry jam he said, “Why don’t you make plum?”

    I answered, “Why don’t you make plum?” And he did.

    I never bought any fruit and used only berries we grew ourselves. I would never have attempted cherry jam; I couldn’t be bothered to take out the pits.

    Mick writes on oval labels with a red Sharpie pen. This gives each jar a professional appearance. He has had offers from a local farm stand to sell his jam but he prefers to keep it for friends and family. When our kids and grandchildren visit they get to pick their favorite to take home.

    We sample a different jam every morning. We spoon jam over plain yogurt for lunch and over vanilla ice cream for dessert. Mick’s favorite is gooseberry and mine is apricot. The blackberry jam that he strained all the pips from reminds me of my Aunt Helen, who removed the seeds from the watermelon that she cut up for my cousin and me when we were children.

    We give a jar wrapped in a colorful new dish towel as a hostess present when invited to dinner. Friends give us the empty jars back, hoping they will get a refill the next year. The dish towels hanging in their kitchens are a reminder of the delicious jam gift.

    I wasn’t surprised by his jam making since Mick was a natural nurturer as we raised our children. He would take the kids to the pediatrician if I had to work. He thought his purpose in life was to smooth out the bumps in my life as well as our children’s. Nothing was too much trouble or too difficult. There was a solution to every problem. “Ask Dad,” was a frequent refrain.

    Mick drove the kids to school for 19 years, sharing the driving with a Japanese family. He loved to drive them because the kids would talk to each other as if he were invisible and he got to hear what was really going on.

    Our two children were born on the same day, six years apart. One birthday morning, Mark and Sophie thought he was driving them to school as usual, but after they passed their turnoff, they said, “Where are we going?”

    He told them he was taking them to an amusement park for the day. “Are we playing hooky?” they asked. “Yup,” he said. “Yeah!” they shouted, loving the idea of parent-sanctioned rule breaking.

    While coaching our daughter’s varsity softball team he rewarded the players with stuffed animals when they made a good play, admonishing them “Softball players don’t cry!” when they missed an outfield catch.

    As Sophie was writing her essay for early admission to Princeton, the glowing green numbers on the digital clock clicked past the midnight postmark deadline for the application. The next morning my husband drove the application to Princeton from New York City. He told Sophie she’d better be accepted because he wasn’t going to drive her college applications all over the Northeast.

    He took our son with him on location for photo shoots for the Army, Tropicana Orange Juice, and other commercial accounts. They went to Zion National Park in Utah and Homer, Alaska, and Aspen, Colo. Mick wanted our son to experience the real world of advertising, to see the process behind the perfection.

    He taught Sophie how to develop film in the darkroom and how to do museum-quality prints. He drove his ’69 Mustang to Florida so our son could use it for his wedding. Mick had kilts in his family’s tartan made in Scotland for the male family members of the wedding party. Mick is a Sean Connery look-alike.

    When I see him with our grandchildren, hugging and kissing them and making up games and drawing roads in the sand to follow, I fall in love with him all over again. Nurturing is sexy. He laughs and giggles like a little boy himself as he plays with blocks, organizes toy car rallies, and reads kids’ books. At the beach my husband builds forts, collects shells, and runs like a sandpiper in and out of the waves.

    Don’t get the idea that my husband is perfect. We have our differences and usual disagreements, over the kids and money. But we try not to go to bed angry. He does have one annoying habit: He never closes jars — mustard, mayonnaise, or relish tops — so when I pick them up, they slip through my fingers, breaking and making a mess. However, he always manages to securely fasten and tighten the lids of his homemade jam.

    But it’s a small price to pay for my Jam Man. As long as he produces jam and smoothes out life’s bumps, I can’t imagine my life without him.

Joanne Pateman is a former advertising art director who lives in Southampton. She has an M.F.A. from Southampton College, and her writing has appeared in The Star and The Southampton Review.

    With the not-unexpected departure of the superintendent from the East Hampton School District at the end of the month, school board members have found themselves with a difficult job. Ray Gualtieri had a stormy tenure, mostly of his own creation, but finding a replacement will not be easy, despite the position’s hefty salary.

    During his eight-year tenure, Mr. Gualtieri reigned as the district’s top policy-maker rather than the elected board of education. This must change. His resignation gives the board an opportunity to restore public confidence by insisting that the district’s leaders restore a habit of openness. Far too many decisions were made behind closed doors without the opportunity for board members, much less taxpayers, to become involved.

    One of Mr. Gualtieri’s low points was the still-unexplained decision to hire a white-shoe Park Avenue law firm to handle a contract dispute, leading to legal fees in excess of $2 million. A request from this newspaper to examine detailed billing records from Mr. Gualtieri’s chosen firm was denied, even though the New York Committee on Open Government has repeatedly issued advisory opinions that such documents must be available for public inspection. But this was the way the superintendent ran things — his way, welcoming very little outside scrutiny or advice.

    Problematic, too, was the formula chosen to arrive at tuition rates for students from other school districts, which led to usurious rates. While this might have been good for the taxpayers in the East Hampton district, it created rancor within what had long been a united community. A recent deal to pay back some of the money has helped heal the wounds, but there is more to do.

    In considering new candidates for the post, ideally, the board should look among the district’s existing administrators. Though this is not essential, it might help avoid some of the conflicts that plagued Mr. Gualtieri. Foremost among the qualities the board should look for in the candidates is a talent for diplomacy to help forge stronger ties among the sending districts and East Hampton. Consolidation of the districts, or the creation of a separate high school district, are ideas whose time may have come. A more cooperative approach among the districts would benefit taxpayers and students at all levels.

    For the East Hampton board and its new superintendent, the biggest issue, however, may turn out to be a property-tax cap that may well be handed down from Albany later this year. The proposal, backed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, would hold increases to 2 percent annually, with exceptions for the cost of pensions and other contract obligations. This is far less than the historic rate of inflation, and it could prove crushing for the state’s schools.

    East Hampton’s next school superintendent will have a very full to-do list. For the board of education, finding the right person for the job has never been more important.

    There is a hearing at East Hampton Town Hall this evening  on an update to the overarching policy document that guides land buys using money from the community preservation fund. The draft that will be brought to the town board for consideration does not contain major departures from a program that many residents value highly and that has been an unmitigated success. The 251-page document lists every property suitable for some form of protection, whether by outright purchase, through easements, or via public-private partnerships. It also provides guidelines for officials as they mull potential deals.

    Approved by voters for the first time in 1998 and several times since, the preservation fund in East Hampton has helped save hundreds of acres of land, protect drinking water sources, and assure the survival of rare plants and animals.

    By reducing the number of residences that will ever be built here, the preservation fund has helped keep taxes relatively low by limiting the need for new public services and infrastructure. And it has set aside accessible acreage for pursuits such as hiking, birding, and outdoor education. Another goal of the program is to maintain East Hampton’s connection to the past, something the fund can be used for under certain circumstances.

    Tonight’s hearing, though routine, is an opportunity to be reminded of the community preservation fund’s importance in the constant fight to keep East Hampton attractive and viable as a vacation and second-home economy — a place its residents are proud to call their home.

    New York State Senators were expected this week to approve a bill that would legalize same-sex marriages. If a similar bill is approved in the Assembly, and signed by the governor as expected, the law would make the Empire State the largest in the country to allow couples to marry regardless of their gender. If this happens, it would be a landmark moment not just in the gay rights movement but for human rights in the United States as a whole.

    It has become increasingly difficult for elected officials in even the most conservative New York districts to rationally defend their preference for supposedly separate-but-equal civil unions. This half-step does not, nor would it ever, guarantee same-sex couples all the legal rights and privileges that heterosexual couples enjoy. Access to estate planning, tax parity, and the ability to make health care decisions for a dying spouse, for example, have never been fully allowed by civil unions.

    No understanding of the fundamental principles of the United States can support the idea that government has a place in saying who can marry. Many engaged in this path toward equality share the hope that a positive vote in New York will be followed in other states, even in Congress, which produced the shameful Defense of Marriage Act that allows the federal government to intrude in the most personal of decisions.

    Let our state help lead the nation in saying to its people, whether gay or straight, that they are free to marry whom they want. Let New York show the world once again how big its heart is.

    Last weekend, we cleaned the barn. Nearly 200 years old, it is a ramshackle, dusty old edifice that is literally packed to the rafters with junk (ancient matresses, broken appliances) and treasures (ancient farm implements, office chairs from the 1920s that only lack a bit of love). Many small creatures, some more adorable than others, call it home.

    Actually, it was more sorting and sifting than washing or scrubbing, and there were two men with strong backs, while I stood around suggesting where to stow things and agreeing about what to throw out. Nevertheless, I had fun and came away with a feeling of accomplishment for having delved into a job that had seemed too daunting.

    Although none of us is the worse for it, as far as we know, on reflection I think that we may have taken a foolish risk. Does anyone remember hantavirus?

    Hantavirus is a disease transmitted by deer mice that can be fatal in humans.  A serious hue and cry went up on eastern Long Island in 1994, after a 22-year-old student whose family had a second home on Shelter Island died of the disease. Where he contracted it wasn’t known, but Shelter Island, like the rest of the East End, was then, and is now, full of deer and deer mice. (He also had worked in a factory in Queens before becoming ill.)

    For years, aware of the deer mice and rats who frequent our barn, my daughter used to theatrically shout  “Hantavirus! Hantavirus!”  whenever tasked with retrieving something from its depths. (And, yes, for those of you who don’t know: Much of East Hampton Village has for a very long time been home to rats, too; I prefer to think of them as shipwreck rats, and consider them a mark of distinction.)

    How soon we forget. In the ’90s, everyone on Long Island was made aware that dusty, cobwebbed corners could hide mouse droppings that could make us seriously ill. Caution should have reminded me and my crew last weekend to buy and wear face masks.

    Certainly, I do think we often, these days, take health precautions too far.  At what point, for example, do parents, aware that ticks may be lurking, decide not to let their children play on the grass? (I’m not sure if it’s rational, but I am probably a bit more scared of those little yellow signs that get stuck in the ground when lawns around town have been sprayed with pesticides than I am of lolling on the grass.) Similarly, are those anti-bacterial potions people carry in their purse really more helpful than harmful?

    It isn’t in my nature to be overcautious. Some years ago, I even tried to convince my husband that we should name our boat Caution. At the time, I thought Caution would be a great name because, yes, I liked the idea of throwing caution to the winds.

    Still, having reminded myself about hantavirus, I may feel a bit foolish but I will put on a mask this weekend when we attack another part of the barn.

    The roosters began crowing at 4:30 in the morning this week, and with the bedroom window open it sounded as if they were perched on the roof outside. If there is anything redeeming about a backyard flock that wakes you well before dawn, it is that they can get you out of bed at an hour you might not otherwise be up and about.

    So it was Wednesday. Because I was up anyway, I took a short spin to the beach. I had seen the swirls and tail-slaps of striped bass on a previous dawn. That morning, they had not shown any interest in anything I tossed at them. A friend with whom I swap fish stories had suggested that the fish might be feeding on what is called a worm hatch, which is actually a breeding swarm of various marine invertebrates.

    Whether they were or not, I did not have time on Wednesday to tie on a pink fly of the sort that supposedly will catch bass during a worm hatch. Instead, I removed a surf lure that I had left on my St. Croix rod and clipped on a yellow Bomber, which tends to work well in the spring. The feeding movement of the fish was apparent on the nearly glass-calm water. Four or five tries, and I was into a fish and glad that I had grabbed a rod with a bit of backbone.

    I have always tried to keep in mind the admonition on a bumper-sticker that was seen around here on commercial fishermen’s trucks some time ago. It read: “Don’t play with your food.”

    In theory, a stout rod and solid reel will bring a fish to the beach quickly without too much physical damage and able to survive if released. Lighter, supposedly more sporting tackle makes that less sure. This fish would go 31 inches and just under 10 pounds and be destined for dinner.

    After a few more casts, it seemed as if the school had moved on, and I noticed that mosquitoes had found my forearms. No matter, I had my fish and there was no point harassing any others, which would just have to go back into the water anyway.

     A truck with a couple of guys heading out clamming came by, and in the distance, I could hear the outboard motor of some baymen setting off to lift fish traps. The lights down the beach were switching off as the sky got brighter. I headed for home and the morning’s first cup of coffee, my first bass of the season in hand.

    A friend of mine was ready to go to Italy not long ago, to hike along the Amalfi Coast by day and drink wine by night, but then his mother-in-law injured herself in a fall and his wife took sick, and the vacation had to be postponed.

    It would have been his first genuine two-week vacation in 30 years. He was glad, he said, that he had trip insurance. I wished him better luck next time.

    This is all by way of saying that we too are thinking of going to Italy, in the fall. Ireland took Italy’s place last year, its being Mary’s native land, but we never made it out of Dublin, turned to stone by the thought of driving on the wrong side of the road.

    The plays we saw were good, though of course I couldn’t hear them. I read them, one by Sean O’Casey and one by Sebastian Barry, when we got back.

    “Fish away, Dad, fish away,” one of the characters says in the Sebastian Barry play. I liked the sound of that so much that when every now and then I find Mary working her Farm Ville plot, I say, in my best brogue, “Farm away, Mum, farm away.”

    In my case I imagine my children would say, “Volley away, Dad, volley away.”

    I hadn’t realized until recently that my combative net play — an athletic blessing, I suppose — was an apt metaphor for a defensive nature — an interlocutory curse — that is all too quick to take offense.

    And if the zings aren’t there I’ll imagine them. We’re not talking about the big picture here, or, in my case, of reasoned discourse, but of bang-bang exchanges whose product is exhaustion and then remorse.

    But while I must be wary of such high-strung tendencies at home, in tennis, with a loosely-strung racket, I revel in them, confident that at the net, when the ball is whizzing back and forth, my reflexes, undiminished, to my delight, after all these years, will parry the shots hit my way every time. It comes as a shock when I’m bested in a doubles exchange, so much so that not infrequently I emit a primal scream.

    Mary counsels equanimity when, following a bad night, I begin to mope, and reminds me that I began to play tennis again not in order to backbite, rage, or sulk, but to have fun, and wonders why, given the vagaries of life, I would ever want to postpone it.