Columnists

The Star’s 130th anniversary, although a milestone, passed almost unnoticed here last week. It was on Dec. 26, 1885, that George Burling first printed 500 copies of what he called The Easthampton Star, only later deciding to separate the East and the Hampton, in keeping with local tradition. Mr. Burling can be forgiven for the error, given that he had started The Southampton Press only the year before.

We often say our house is full of too many things, that we are going to get at sorting and deciding what to do with them some day soon, but that day never seems to arrive.

Mary continues to accuse me of cheating in back­gammon, and I tell her, eyes widened, that I simply can’t count as well as she can, and that, moreover, I’m not intelligent enough to cheat.

But none of that will wash. “You’re a cheater, I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it,” she concludes, as I hang my head, mimicking, as best I can, shamefacedness.

“OMG, I never heard of that,” a 40-something guy says to a lady friend at Starbucks on Main Street in East Hampton. The coffee in question is labeled New Christmas Blend . . . infused with cinnamon and ginger. New items pop up in the Village of East Hampton as never before. Chestnut Praline, Vanilla Bean Crème, Café Misto.

It’s difficult to say yet whether the electric do-dad that was among the highlights of our middle child’s Christmas and Hanukkah haul was total junk or something really cool. What was clear was that when she lost a tiny and critical metal part at bedtime on Monday, crisis ensued.

The combined Rattray and Heilbrunn families are celebrating Hanukkah late this year, so late in fact that the festivities will be the day after Christmas, also known as Boxing Day (at least in Great Britain).

Ah, I see it’s that time again. I had suggested to Mary the other day that maybe we ought to become Jehovah’s Witnesses to free us from the bondage of mandatory holiday cheer.

I finally found myself with a little free time and thought I’d let all our friends and family know what we’ve been up to out here in Montauk.

Forget about the last-minute gift shopping and wrapping and decorating the tree, the fact that our not-so-small pet house-pig now has nowhere appropriate to sleep is a very big deal.

Understanding that men and women may have different sexual orientations and that gender identification is not always known at birth are tenets of the revolutionary changes taking place in American culture. Lesbians and gays are long since out of the closet, and same-sex marriage is now accepted by a majority of Americans.

As I said last week, I immediately dialed up the Round­about Theatre’s box office when I read a rave review of “The Humans” in The Times — a moment or so before Mary said she’d been wanting to see “Hamilton.”

It was Lisa’s idea on a day that the kids were able to go to school late that I get them up at the usual time and take them out to breakfast someplace. That was fine with me, since feeding them in the morning almost simultaneously with reminding them to put on their shoes and brush their hair and teeth is often a challenge. Thing is, I had no idea how much it would cost.

Five or six years ago I took the time to enter every single name, address, and phone number from my Rolodex into an A-to-Z computer program. (For anyone who doesn’t remember, a Rolodex was a spinning card file, and the more famous and powerful the names in yours, the more important you were supposed to be.)

As soon as I read the Times’s review, which said “The Humans” might turn out to be the best Broadway play of the season, I reserved two seats for a Wednesday matinee performance a month in advance of a Rogers Memorial Library bus trip we’d signed on to. 

It was only then that Mary told me she had wanted to see the hip-hop version of Alexander Hamilton. 

This past September I went to see Madonna in concert at Madison Square Garden with my concert buddies, Yuka, Maxine, and Tom.

Back when my reprobate buddies and I were in high school and had our first cars we would nervously drive past a place we called the Mafia House down near Two Mile Hollow Beach. Because there was a heavy metal gate across the twisting driveway we concluded that the residents had something to hide. It was the 1970s, and tales of the Cosa Nostra were in the air, you know.

What am I feeling thankful for this week?

I liked what the woman in one of our papers the other day said she was thankful for: the moon (I would say especially the moon the way it has been the past few nights), the stars, the sun, of course, and air, water, fire, and a roof over your head.

“All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter.”

I was driving though Bridgehampton the other day and passed the place on Montauk Highway where a vehicle struck Anna Pump as she tried to cross the road. Ms. Pump, who died of her injuries at Southampton Hospital later that day, had been in a crosswalk.

From time to time my West Coast niece and nephew post family photographs on Facebook, where I am surprised by a young version of myself. I am pleased the photos were saved and are retrievable, but am reminded that I still haven’t figured out how to print photographs that arrive these days via the Internet.

You need no further evidence as to the extent of global warming than the hot air given off in the Republican candidates’ “debates.”

I like my winter holidays cold. Though the weather we’ve had out here has been good for the thermostat, it just doesn’t feel like the holiday season. The warmer climate takes away from the essence of Thanksgiving.

Leo the pig will not be 4 until the spring, but he already weighs about 10 times as much as his Texas trailer park breeder-slash-con artist claimed he would.

Speaking for myself — as a mother, and perhaps for my generation —I am both horrified and perplexed by the dystopian worlds that young people immerse themselves in (I hesitate to say enjoy) these days on television, in young-adult novels, and in popular films.

I told Jen Landes, who’s conducting a survey as to whether males are more inclined than females to put flat lids on their coffee, and whether, conversely, females are more inclined than males to put on raised ones, that she could put me down as a raised-lidder.

“I tried to talk with the dead last night, but the dead, being dead, gave no reply.”

Evvy, our middle child, was delighted Monday after school when she learned that she was a winner in the East Hampton Town Trustees Largest Clam Contest. Her 12.3-ounce hard clam was big enough to claim the top spot among kids in the Accabonac division, and earned her a basket of prizes.

I remember the first Thanksgiving in Amagansett, long ago, after I was married but before our children were born, primarily because it was my first experience cooking a goose; I’ve still got a small scar on my right thumb testifying to inexperience where goose fat was concerned.

“I’ve got no one left to root for,” I said to Rob Balnis during a workout at East End Physical Therapy the other day. “First the Pirates, then the Mets, then the Steelers. . . .”

Then, knowing he’s an ardent Buckeye fan, I added, “Maybe I’ll root for Ohio State. . . .”

“No, no, please!” he said, figuring that given my track record I might well be the kiss of death.