The first-ever issue of this paper read in a gothic font, “The Easthampton Star.” Seeing the name of the town as one word has raised the question of when East Hampton became two words and if it ever properly was just one.

It’s Tuesday morning at 10 minutes to 10, and I have somehow neglected to come up with a subject for this week’s column, which needs to be turned in by 2:20 this afternoon.

Togetherness through cards.

Hobbled and fearing the worst, I jumped at a chance to see my knee doctor in Great Neck on the Tuesday before Christmas.

I had just hit some second-rate jackpot and felt a combination of instant relief and long-haul anxiety. Yippee, we could take a test. Uh-oh, what if my wife and/or I tested positive?

From the pages of Ye Olde Star.

New real estate transfers, Montauk to Southampton Village.

And the readers have their say . . .

The author of “Lit Life” looks back at the highlights of the year that was in literature.

A memorial service for Bryan Eldridge, a detective who worked for the East Hampton Village Police Department for 19 years, will take place Thursday from 2 to 5 p.m. at East Hampton High School. A formal police officer’s service will begin at 4, and a reception will follow at the East Hampton Fire Department headquarters on Cedar Street. Mr. Eldridge died on Dec. 22.

The East Hampton Library is encouraging high school students to take on its 2022 winter challenge, which runs from Jan. 3 to Feb. 19.

Gov. Kathy Hochul urged parents to have their children vaccinated against Covid-19 while schools are closed this week, noting a rise in pediatric hospitalizations as the infection rates across the state climb ever higher, and for those who are ready, there's a pediatric vaccine clinic planned at the Children's Museum of the East End next week.

The Jewish Center of the Hampton will be closed for three weeks, according to an announcement released on Dec. 23.

The affluent Georgica Association is the setting for a pandemic comedy written and produced by Nick Schutt, who spent summers there growing up.

Folioeast is showing paintings by Eva Faye and Amy Wickersham at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Bridgehampton.

Kelly Taxter has stepped down as Parrish Art Museum director after nine months.

On an average day at the Montauk School, it’s normal for around 13 or 14 students to be absent, amounting to 4 percent of the school’s enrollment of 328. On Friday, its absences jumped to 23 percent — about 75 children — after a social media post threatening violence went viral and whipped families into a frenzy across the nation.

If there’s any doubt that people are concerned about rising Covid-19 numbers on the South Fork, countywide, and across the state, one need only drive by East Hampton Town’s Covid testing site on Stephen Hand’s Path. The facility ran out of tests and closed early on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning, the line of people waiting for tests was 50 cars long.

With the East Hampton Town Board’s unanimous vote on Tuesday to approve an agreement to put an emergency communications tower at the Camp Blue Bay property on Flaggy Hole Road in Springs, a collective sigh of relief could be heard elsewhere in the hamlet as residents’ five-month struggle to prevent the tower from being erected in a wooded area in their neighborhood had officially succeeded.

The new owner of the former Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe in Montauk has big plans for the property, but they are far too big, the East Hampton Town Planning Board told his attorney last week.