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Guestwords

Guestwords: A Glimpse of Adulthood

Time spent on the beach with a father, and the details a daughter remembers.

May 6, 2021
Guestwords: Coming of Age

I think my interest in history, as in the history of the Presbyterian churches in Springs and Amagansett, is an extension of looking into my history. Who am I?

Apr 29, 2021
Guestwords: Science and God

Science can’t prove or disprove God, but I nevertheless believe that its findings can contribute greatly to our quest for meaning.

Apr 21, 2021
Guestwords: A No Good, Very Bad Year

Lessons from a tumble down a flight of stairs, a hospital stay during the height of Covid, and 90 isolating days in a less-than-desirable care center.

Apr 14, 2021
Guestwords: Pass the Wine, Please

Some variation of your life partner getting on your last nerve is inevitable. This was especially true in 2020, the year we rolled back the clock to 1918.

Apr 7, 2021
Guestwords: Once at the News Co.

How a slotted space for newspapers in an old Main Street store’s cabinetry came to symbolize something more — an arrival.

Mar 31, 2021
Guestwords: Our Impossible Journey

Whenever my daughters complain about lugging an extra bag of groceries, climbing an extra flight of stairs, or enduring yet another Covid-related frustration, I remind them to “think about Shackleton.”

Mar 24, 2021
Guestwords: Aging Energy Infrastructure

Long Island is in a precarious situation in terms of meeting growing energy demands. So how will the construction of offshore wind farms affect the grid?

Mar 17, 2021
Guestwords: A Reason to Protect Nature

What childhood traits and experiences promote an adulthood commitment to the natural world? A sense of wonder.

Mar 10, 2021
Guestwords: Good Ground

I’ve roamed 23 South Fork graveyards, from Southampton to Sag Harbor. I dig surprises, and what has more surprises per square foot than a cemetery?

Mar 4, 2021
Guestwords: The Funk I’m In

We have a new president. The virus cases are receding, hospitalizations and deaths, too. What is keeping me from yodeling in the streets? Could it be Post-Traumatic Virus Reprogramming Syndrome?

Feb 25, 2021
Guestwords: The Perfect Storm

Though alone since my husband passed away this year, I don’t feel lonely inside this lovely snow globe.

Feb 17, 2021
Guestwords: Dear Prudence

My introduction to the art of Prudence Punderson came in 1976 in Connecticut, when I took up embroidery and checked out a book on the subject that contained an example of her work. But an East Hampton connection? That came as a surprise.

Feb 10, 2021
Guestwords: The Lily Pond Connection

A two-mile stretch of road between two ponds in East Hampton has provided Treasury secretaries for F.D.R. and four Republican presidents in the 20th century, and now a secretary of state for Joe Biden.

Feb 3, 2021
Guestwords: Staging

It is easy enough to absent myself for apartment showings. Would that I could take the furniture with me. Since it must remain in all its dated glory, a stager will come in to “freshen it up.” But there are consequences.

Jan 28, 2021
Guestwords: MAGA and the Coronavirus

The newest strain of MAGA, the one that was evidenced at the Capitol, seems not only more contagious, but also immune to the vaccine of coalition that President Biden is attempting to inject into the body politic.

Jan 20, 2021
Guestwords: Hope Is Back

A market-based strategy to mitigate climate change is embodied in a bill now before Congress called the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. The expiring Congress did not pass it, but it will be reintroduced in the new one, where it may have better prospects.

Jan 13, 2021
Guestwords: More Than Just Ice Cream

While poring over The Star, just as I was breathing a sigh of relief that the year was finally ending, I spied a piece of news that felt like the final slap in the face after a year of low blows: Scoop du Jour on Newtown Lane was closing for good.

Jan 7, 2021
Guestwords: The Holiday Dress

The lily of the valley I planted after my husband died took me back to a time and place when my mother and her brood were happiest, and in particular back to a Christmastime shopping trip to the city.

Dec 30, 2020
Guestwords: In Veritas Vino

When East Hampton resident Philip Whitley Churchill-Down, age 63, died last month in a freak clam-shucking accident, America lost its foremost oenological bibliophile and I lost a dear friend.

Dec 23, 2020
Guestwords: Trumpty Dumpty’s Great Fall

One of the ways that a human being can be traumatized is to have their reality doubted, and now more than 81 million people who voted for Joe Biden are being told at least once a day that what they’ve seen and done is a fiction.

Dec 17, 2020
Guestwords: That Special Coffee

Offer me coffee and I feel special. A chance to shine, to be heard. Inevitably, all eyes turn to me when I announce, “No thanks, never had a cup in my life.”

Dec 10, 2020
Guestwords: Polio Flashbacks

Tired. So tired . . . I want to lay my head down. So heavy. 

It’s 1947, a hot, late-summer afternoon in Bethesda, Md., where I’m in first grade at Bradley Elementary (named for Omar, the World War II general). I’ve walked my bike home on the path through the woods, past the spot where we kids hunt and eat wild strawberries at recess. Too weak to pedal. I’ve made it home by holding on to the handlebars and lying across the seat. A few steps. A few more. Another.

Dec 2, 2020
Guestwords: This Year’s Uninvited Guest

Every year about this time, I would go through the same litany of worries. That gosh-darned turkey gave me no end of heartburn. But this year is something else entirely.

Nov 25, 2020
Guestwords: Secondhand Man

My father was pretty good-looking, with sharp blue eyes and a wash of curly hair that held high on his head throughout his life. What my father wasn’t was a sharp dresser.

Nov 19, 2020
Guestwords: F.D.R.’s Lessons for Biden

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first big job was filling his cabinet, and this year’s large Democratic field of candidates offers Joe Biden a chance to emulate him.

Nov 12, 2020
Guestwords: ‘Mrs. Lassie’ & Me

Every week I hike a Pennsylvania nature trail named for my late friend Jere Knight. It’s my thank-you to her for trusting me to write the first biography of her late husband Eric Knight, the English-American author of the novel “Lassie Come-Home.”

Nov 5, 2020
Guestwords: Caught Again

I had received an upgrade to ride the Hampton Jitney’s Ambassador coach, and was looking forward to a snack and some relaxation to the old-school music of my iTunes playlist. No such luck.

Oct 29, 2020
Guestwords: My Italian-American Mensch

The New York governor’s persona intrigues me, and I draw on my love for Italian cinema to explore my fascination with him.

Oct 22, 2020
Guestwords: The Home Farm Project

This year I finally planted my victory garden. My coronavirus home farm, inspired by the victory gardens of World War II.

Oct 15, 2020