Guestwords

Standing in a fish market, a valued 31-year customer gets a credit card company on the horn, and, oh boy.

This fall a Horseshoe Crab Protection Act will land on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk. It would ban harvesting these ancient creatures in New York rather than merely setting quotas, and this is vital to safeguard a species whose extinction would have far-reaching implications.

History is never an objective description of How Things Really Were. History is a human science and art, conveying the values of the historian.

How can we promote deeper feelings toward trees? I suggest we direct our attention to the one set of people who are spontaneously enthusiastic about them: children.

A 91-year-old physicist questions the wisdom he has acquired during a productive and well-lived life.

The hostile takeover of our airspace started pre-pandemic but was accelerated by it: a collective attempt to sanitize our lives with scents that scream “no germs here.” This is my outcry.

Through rainy weather, no wind, uncooperative currents, heavy seas, and thunderstorms, three friends and sailors keep it together — and keep talking.

There I was at the Red Cross training program, a mother of four and a grandmother of two joining two young girls, one who wanted to be a lifeguard and another who was taking the course for recertification. I just wanted to keep up.

Adventures in yardin’ from the 1990s into the aughts.

I am not the only one who has noted the frankly unfriendly reception science and scientists are receiving these days, but what is most disturbing is the exodus of young aspiring scientists, the next generation.

The notion of “defeating cancer” is a lesion in our language and our national psyche that does damage to both the inflicted and their loved ones.

A “Way It Was” entry in this newspaper from 1950 about a 36-foot, 19th-century gondola being transported by railcar to the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va., unleashes a flood of memories.

East Hampton is home to a renowned Georgian artist, Sergo Tbileli, who has brought his native country’s art and culture to the forefront here.

Memories of midcentury New York and an important figure in a woman’s life — the fun aunt.

I’m a dog person. Except when it comes to boats. With boats, I worry I might be a cat person.

Mother’s Day brought the memories, both wistful and comforting.

One shining example of what customer service really means.

Riverhead is blessed to have an organization, the Butterfly Effect Project, that sees how girls are butterflies in progress, from birth, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to adult.

How well do bioplastics decompose? While they claim to be compostable, many, including the most common, require industrial high-temperature composting and do not degrade in home composters, soil, or water.

We need to show Americans a higher power that has a story they can claim as their own. We need to show that God is empowering ordinary people to do God’s work in the face of dark forces.

For 30 years my life and my brother’s did not cross, despite good reasons to reconnect. And then it all changed.

What happens when loss is slow, the goodbye extended? Is it something to treasure or to dread?

My husband and I took long, life-affirming cycling trips, until one day everything changed.

Scientists have discovered a new pill that will do away with both toothpaste and toothbrushes, not to mention human agency altogether.

The bandbox, a staple of 19th-century travel, was more than just a practical storage solution. It was a symbol of newfound freedom for a feminine work force.

When a beloved children’s book author took up residence in a tiny playhouse in Wainscott.

On the evils of Christian nationalism.

Georgia is at a crossroads, and its citizens have taken to the streets in a relentless fight for democracy, freedom, and Euro-Atlantic integration.

On earthquakes, literal and artistic, and how art has the power to not just reflect the times, but shape them.

Two years have passed since I started my adventure teaching memoir writing behind bars. It’s like group therapy without the therapist.