December 2, 1999
Sag Harbor collegians Craig Gaites and Kristin Andrews scored a double victory on Thanksgiving Day in the East Hampton Town Recreation Department’s three-mile road race around Montauk’s Fort Pond.
Gaites, a Cornell sophomore, won in a very swift 15 minutes and 50 seconds, apparently the second-fastest time in the history of the race, which dates to 1976. Artie Fisher ran a 15:34 in 1988. Andrews, a Dartmouth freshman, was the women’s winner, and fifth over all, in 18:29.
. . . Despite a steady rain, the race, which usually is run in inclement weather, drew 103 entrants.
. . . John Keeshan, the Montauk real estate agent, who at the awards ceremony hands out frozen turkeys that he has bought, traced the race’s origins to Staten Island, where he and George Watson, the owner of the Dock bar and restaurant, had formerly lived.
Keeshan, Watson, Ray Charron, Billy O’Donnell, and Bill Stevens “introduced the race here 23 years ago,” said Keeshan. “For four or five years we ran it, and then Gordon Carberry [then the town’s recreation director] took it over and it became a town thing.”
“In the beginning, we started here at the Circle and ran out to the ranch and back, two and a half miles each way. There were a couple of variations before we began running around the pond. . . . Two years from now we’ll be celebrating our silver anniversary. Hopefully, it will be 65 degrees with sunshine!”
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Forty people, almost twice the number of those who turned out for the first meeting, attended the second session of the Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation on Nov. 17 at Art of Eating in Amagansett.
Leading the local chapter are Kevin Ahern, chairman, Mike Solomon, secretary, and John Kowalenko, treasurer.
December 9, 1999
The possessor of a black belt in karate since 1981, Mark Tuthill, who presides over a busy martial arts studio on Three Mile Harbor Road, recently won a black belt in small circle jujitsu as well, repelling more than 450 attacks during a three-hour test.
. . . Asked what made the small circle form special, Tuthill replied, “It’s very street-practical. It enables you to control an opponent with pressure. There are throws, but we try to get away from them. With this system, if you can’t throw, you can punch, if you can’t punch, you can kick, if you can’t kick, you can elbow, if you can’t elbow, you can grapple. It’s versatile. You can fight outside-range, inside-range, standing up or lying down. It’s not just a stand-up martial art like karate.”
Some of the attacks were empty-handed, he said in reply to a question concerning the black belt test. “Some were with guns, clubs, or knives, and some were multiple attacks with as many as six different attackers. It was very, very hard. Every attack proceeded to a takedown.”
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Though the East Hampton High School bowling team was heading for a defeat in its season-opening match at Westhampton Beach Monday afternoon, Bonac’s sophomore lead-off bowler, Erick Bock, was the focus of attention once he’d put up Xs in the first six frames of the third game.
“About 50 or so watched Erick from the sixth frame on,” Karin Federico, the Bonackers’ coach, said in recounting Bock’s perfect 300 game — apparently the first ever to be bowled by an East Hampton High School student.
. . . While he felt like he “couldn’t do anything wrong,” the affable Bock said Tuesday that “in the eighth I started to get nervous” — though probably not more so than his father, Rick, who was among the spectators.
“I told myself just relax and focus on the next shot.”
His ball hit solidly in the pocket in the ninth frame, but the 10 pin stayed up for an anxious moment, until the head pin, which had caromed off the wall, crossed the lane and knocked it down.
Bock’s ball, which he delivers from almost directly above his head, a windup that his mentor, Steve Graham, says is used by only two or three bowlers on the professional tour, exploded the pins for a concluding triple in the 10th frame.
Federico said that the East Hampton sophomore was mobbed by his teammates and by Westhampton’s bowlers afterward.
