William J. Hayes, an artist who became a design-builder on the South Fork in the early 1970s, died on Dec. 14 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue after a long illness. He was 89.

Rita Foster, who owned and operated Rita’s Stable in Montauk until 2020, died on Dec. 4 at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead.

Thomas Lindsley, formerly of East Hampton and Springs, a world traveler, an amateur historian, and a cook, died in Schenectady, N.Y., of Covid-19 complications on Nov. 8. He was 71.

Ernest Cecil Greene Jr., who served in the Marines from 1970 to 1974, died last Thursday at Windmill Village in East Hampton. He was 72.

On the fate of a town-owned property in Springs where two important modern-art painters once lived and worked, we believe that a middle path should be sought.

The old line “If you build it, they will come” should be applied to costly new sewage treatment facilities being planned for Montauk and East Hampton Village.

Buying socks was a problem here — until I noticed a bin in the menswear section at the Ladies Village Improvement Society Bargain Box.

As with so many things in life as the years tick-tick-tick by, it takes rather more priming of the pump than it used to to achieve the right holiday atmosphere.

Best concert ever: Bob (“Schoolhouse Rock”) Dorough on keys and Richard Sudhalter on cornet at a North Fork vineyard, spring 2002.

There is little question that soccer here, the games that have been played by adults since the early 1970s and since 2009 by our high schoolers, has been East Hampton’s pre-eminent sport.

Just imagine how much more peaceful the world would be if difficult and/or coldhearted people were walloped with a million daily currents of kindness and love.

It’s the pre-holiday raft of reader comment . . .

Among the highlights from The Star of yore: At a 1922 meeting, the Bridgehampton Spud Lifters Pedro Club claps back at the “East Hampton cracker barrel team,” vowing to reclaim the card game’s championship cup.

The latest reported real estate transactions across the South Fork.

The East Hampton Historical Farm Museum will celebrate Christmas, Bonacker-style, on Wednesday afternoon.

In the second volume of Neal Gabler’s monumental biography, Ted Kennedy’s progressive priorities run up against a resurgent American right.

The Bridgehampton School will host a blood drive from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday in the auditorium.

The writer Susan Scarf Merrell talks about her "secret" desire to write fiction, and her breakthrough novel, "Shirley: A Novel," a thriller that drew upon the life of Shirley Jackson, a writer known for her works of mystery and horror.

Barbara Kruger's immersive, dizzying installation at the Museum of Modern Art is an explosion of black-and-white text about truth, power, belief, doubt, and desire.

Grenning Gallery is selling prints to benefit a teaching facility for underserved communities, printmaking workshops are coming to The Church in Sag Harbor, and a new group show is at Sara Nightingale.