Opinion

Other than everyone in masks on the plane, there was nothing much out of the ordinary about Alaska Air Flight 458. It seemed strange to travel again, being the first time that I had been aboard an aircraft since 2019. For the most part, passengers followed the rules, but there were a few people in the section around seat 18D who needed repeated reminders from the flight attendants to “Cover your nose.”

Fresh or frozen, brined or spatchcocked, roasting a turkey with all the trimmings can be a fairly expensive and labor-intensive holiday undertaking. For those who may find them too expensive, there’s help available in various forms. Food pantries, school groups, religious institutions, community-minded businesses, and even the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office have been distributing turkeys to those in need.

Hard-hitting college football action — a cure for the late-night-Wednesday-in-November blues.

The New York State Assembly’s damning report following an eight-month investigation of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s behavior while in office should serve as a cautionary tale for government at all levels.

On Nov. 25 and every day before and after, I will thank God, Destiny, Fate, Chance, and the prejudice of white descendants of European immigrants for my good fortune. But is that something I should celebrate?

I’m not supposed to say this — visualize me right now muttering “Knock on wood” as I rap smartly on the top of my head — but I am the lucky dame who always wins the raffle: I win things much more frequently than chance says I ought to. If there is a door prize or basket of cheer, I expect to soon be carrying the basket home, strapped with a seatbelt into the front passenger seat beside me, softly chuckling to myself like a thief.

A change to the ways East Hampton Town ordinances are prosecuted would be a significant improvement over the antiquated procedure in use now, which requires a mountain of paperwork and takes officers out of the field. Under the present rules, only parking and other very minor tickets can be handled by mail or online; everything else has to be handled in town court. This leads to a sizable backlog, particularly as violations pile up in the summer and can take well into the fall to be dealt with.

The desert is hardly deserted, at least the one that is rimmed by the San Jacinto mountains in Southern California, where two of our grandchildren, unbridledly joyous 4 and 6-year-old girls, live. Untrammeled joy, however, was not our lot last week inasmuch as an 11-year-old grandson who lives in northwestern Ohio underwent at the same time a severe Covid-caused trial ultimately overcome only by astute medical intervention and his characteristic bravery.

When I was a teenager, the doomed trajectory of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life story caught my attention.

Lee Zeldin was a House of Representatives back-bencher until Donald Trump announced his bid for president.

My granddaughter stroked the ball well in a middle school tennis match at Sportime the other day, but it was her composure that struck me.

My teen years here in the 1970s, in retrospect, seems a halcyon time.