With Covid-19 beginning to invade the South Fork, the Amagansett Library director closed the doors for the start of an expected two-and-one-half-week shutdown. The library would not reopen to the public for months.

"It was a very different summer," said John Ryan Jr. Covid ensured that there were indeed unprecedented logistical differences, but nothing about the commitment of East Hampton Town's lifeguards had changed.

John Daniels, the head custodian at the Bridgehampton School, is no stranger to the concept of clean. Forty years in the job not only means he knows how to take care of maintenance, but he also knows for whom he is doing it.

"I call them my babies. I get to see them all the way from pre-K to graduation," he said the other day.

The region's post office clerks, mail carriers, foremen, and other employees have been doing some of the heaviest lifting of all: processing and delivering a record-breaking volume of packages and mail for more customers than ever.