Columnists

One of the puzzles about clamming is how slowly it goes at the start. It happens almost every time: No matter when or where I go, after I step into the water and drop my rake I find nothing for several long minutes. Then, there is a familiar clunk as the tines of the rake strike the first clam, and then another, and it is on. This may reflect some kind of truth about nature and humankind, but I’m not sure what that may be.

I’ve just reread some of my columns and I am struck by how relentlessly optimistic, how cheery I am, as — if you’ve read me for any length of time, for half a century, say — you will probably agree.

I’m a sucker for aesthetics. I’m the kind of guy who would live in a modernist glass cube because it looks cool, no matter how inconvenient. I judge books by their covers and products by their packing and I would rather have a mediocre dinner at a chic restaurant than good food from a dive.

Let’s not blame the election but bad international news coverage for not knowing about the Peace Boat. You may not have heard about it, and I would not have if I had not been paying attention to what Judy Lerner, a part-time East Hampton resident and a nonagenarian, has been up to lately.

Mary said they’d discontinued her makeup, and I said the things we liked seemed always to be discontinued, like the fleecy warm-up pants I just had had sewn, and which I’ll wear every day now until the end of eternity.

Summer ended late this year — a whole month late, this week’s high temperatures notwithstanding. It wasn’t until October 21 that the summer sun delivered its last, loving rays as we unloaded a good few thousand lobsters and crabs from the Kim & Jake.

Leo the pig has put on quite a few pounds since the last time I wrote about him. As pigs do, he grew fat this spring and summer, grazing on the lawn, then munched with pleasure on the black cherries, acorns, and beach plums that reached the ground in the fall.

The whole social-media dance has gone on for a long time now but, given its growth and its impact on the world in which we live, it seems well past time for me to get with the program. I use a Mac for work and read and write emails all day, every day, but beyond that I really have not participated in the revolution in how people communicate with each other.

When Rob Balnis asked if I were coming to work out Saturday morning, I immediately said yes, inasmuch as the football game would be Friday night, at Mercy.

We were going head to head the other day, in a wide-ranging discussion with some other longtime summer people turned almost-year-round, about never-ending construction on our streets and whose lost real estate opportunities and dumb decisions, over the years, were dumbest and lostest.

News that the Maidstone Club, having just gotten a new irrigation system in place for its golf course, now wants to build a new bridge over an upper reach of Hook Pond reminded me of my childhood in East Hampton Village. In those days, the mid-1970s, we could roam a lot more freely than kids can today.

William Wordsworth’s words came crashing into my head as I tried without luck to think of something cheerful to write about yesterday.

Frankly, I didn’t know how I could top the “locker room” comments I’d leaked. When would people ever get it, I wondered; I had reviled everyone and everything, and still they believed! I could say anything!

What woman out there hasn’t had to fend off unwanted advances from a boss, a host, a guest, a guy you just met, or a guy you know well?

“Enjoy the good part of global warming!” some­one in the morning crew at the coffee shop said this week.

Calling myself a country mouse may sound disingenuous, but the truth is that my knowledge of cinema comes almost entirely from visits to the local Regal and Sag Harbor Cinemas — and at most times of the year I only rarely go to the movies, waiting to hear of a film that is really good.

The last best hope for America, I’ve always thought, lay with the Kennedys, whose spirit was of the sort that would get us working with each other and for each other, but that was a long time ago, and, yes, in a different country.

As has been previously established in the pages of this newspaper, I am a nerd. But I have mostly considered myself an extroverted kind of nerd who never really had a problem making friends, whether in elementary school, summer camp, high school, or college (junior high, of course, being the exception, but let’s not talk about that).

For those who surf, like me, there should be a moment when we realize that waves like those generated by distant hurricanes which are so pleasurable to us meant death and property loss to others. The paradox should come with a sense of obligation.

Suppose we were chatting and I said, “I just got back from the SHAMF and went directly to East Hampton Town Hall because the board was discussing FIMP.”

Had I met Larry Brown at the pickup games the other night, I would, had I not been barred at the gates — “No media,” they said, though, looking about, it seemed I was the sole medium around — have told him that were he to coach here I intended to become the legal guardian of our 10 and 7-year-old basketball-crazed grandsons who live in Perrysburg, Ohio.

Why are there Russian teenagers wearing $700 down parkas on the popcorn line at the East Hampton Cinema?

A funny thing happened on the way to the Concerned Citizens of Montauk forum. I had been invited to take part by its president, Jeremy Samuelson, and had expected the subject for Saturday’s discussion might include summertime crowds, water quality, and short-term rentals. But as it turned out, the nearly two-hour meeting centered on only one thing: the United States Army Corps of Engineers sandbag seawall.

The editorial staff at The Star, who share the responsibility of gathering information for and writing obituaries, consider it a high calling. It has been our mission to portray each life of someone in this community as fully as possible, and, over the years, our obituaries — be they of a person of renown or someone known only to those near to them — have achieved significant recognition. We feel bad if we are unable to present a decent portrait of someone who has lived among us and died.

David Brooks wrote the other day about the lack of trust in our society, and how corrosive that is when it comes to a thriving democracy.

I never quite realized I was one of those people who loves throwing things out. When I was growing up, I had this relative who enjoyed “chucking” this and that — that’s how she would refer to it. It always seemed so odd to me that she seemed to get a euphoric feeling just by placing something she considered a piece of garbage in the trash. Euphoria might not be quite how I would describe it, but, damn, purging does feel good.

My own best debate story came to mind on Monday as I watched Lester Holt try to wrangle Donald Trump into answering a question about a previous statement regarding Hillary Clinton’s looks. Mr. Trump would not answer, and I wondered what was going through Mr. Holt’s mind at that awkward moment.

A lithe, strong man drove a Mack truck into the backyard on Tuesday, delivering a 30-yard Dumpster. I didn’t have a notion about what a 30-yard Dumpster was or how it would look, although we have had what I think is a 2-yard version in the yard for quite some time.

Two young women, Mormons as I learned, appeared at our door one late afternoon recently, and they were very pleasant even though I confessed I was no longer a churchgoer, which, of course, did not mean, I said, that I did not have a spiritual side.

With my kids in school once again and summer’s end this week, I have had a nagging sense of urgency about getting everything in.