Columnists

A college drop-off and a first glimpse of the empty nest.

The Hampton Classic must know me by now. I’ve only been covering the show since 1979.

Cerberus, my 28-foot-long Cape Dory sloop, is heavy enough to have its own gravitational pull, at least into the bilge. A stubborn black goo has settled there and if the floorboard is lifted it smells like the bathroom in the Mos Eisley Cantina in the first “Star Wars.”

Beach plum jelly, made from the juice of the fruit, is far and away the most popular thing to cook from beach plums, but there are other things, less obvious things, you can do with your harvest.

Joe Theismann’s leg: a retelling.

To think that a newspaper — The Marion County Record in Kansas, in this case — was virtually shut down by a police raid at the heart of which may have been a marital dispute is mind-boggling.

These are the weeks that gardens are supposed to be in finest form, high summer.

It’s cringey to swoon over someone else’s home island and say you heard its siren song and “fell in love.” But . . .

No trips downtown in August.

Tyrants don’t speak aspirationally, they do not speak hopefully, they don’t say “wouldn’t it be wonderful if.” They bark orders, and woe to him or her who doesn’t carry them out.

It is a sad state of affairs that all anyone is talking about this summer is traffic.

We were in Massachusetts this week so my daughter could try out for a lacrosse club team based within striking distance of her boarding school.

Mad magazine’s Dave Berg, now more than ever.

Paying attention can be draining.

In the context of the way so many of us live our lives, not taking a break for something pleasurable is just business as usual.

It is a cliché that middle-aged Americans like me should indulge in nostalgia for the lost years of banana-seat bicycles and 10 speeds, but they did carry us far and they did provide us with a bliss of freedom completely unknown to my children’s generation.

Sag Harbor’s Jordan’s Run is always worth it. Just don’t miss the ceremonies.

Pretty much everything that makes life worth living has been axed in the Wainscott School District as the result of two budget turndowns.

It is my opinion that so long as they are fed, their tank is relatively clean, and they are around some kind of action for entertainment, goldfish become part of the family.

So much of our time, especially in the summer, is taken up with running into proof positive that strangers are total idiots.

Blue-collar envy.

I’m mindful that the threat Trump poses is one thing that cannot be ducked.

If there were a grand prix of weeding, it would be ridding grass from between patio or walkway bricks without toxic herbicides like RoundUp.

It’s preferable when your kids come to appreciate your old favorite tunes on their own. But sometimes a nudge is in order.

I was impressed when several on the Sag Harbor Whalers collegiate baseball team told me they were majoring in scientific subjects.

Our climate reality has shifted from a sense that it could happen here to it actually is happening here already.

In the party department, where has all the fun gone?

From the minor leagues to the M.L.B. draft: It’s a crapshoot.

It’s hard to revel in schadenfreude anymore when one’s closest relatives live within the places, such as drought-ridden California, sizzlingly-hot Florida, and smoke-clogged Ohio, that we’re glad we don’t live in.

Believe it or not, there was a time not all that long ago when the surfing scene looked very different around here.