"Why not use restraints? Why not tie babies' arms down or put aluminum mittens over their hands to keep them from thumb-sucking? This would frustrate them a good deal, which theoretically is not a good idea."

"Certainly the parents shouldn't put on acts to bribe the child to eat, such as a little story for every mouthful or a promise to stand on their heads if the spinach is finished."

Easy, sensible words, after the stern admonishments experts had offered previously - spare the rod, spoil the child warnings to mothers that they took the intuitive path at their babies' peril.

The encouraging voice of Dr. Benjamin Spock came as a welcome relief in the 1950s, as did that of the other doctor - Dr. Seuss, or Theodor Geisel, whose "Cat in the Hat" blew the unabashed squareness of "Dick and Jane" out of the water.

Dr. Spock's death on Sunday followed Dr. Seuss's in this decade, but not before both could see their writings passed on to a second generation of appreciative readers.

Because extended families are dispersing and parents are having children later in life, child-raising lore is growing increasingly hard to come by. Dr. Spock offered nuts-and-bolts advice in an age that needed it sorely.

He also championed the cause of pacifism - arguing that it was senseless to rear children only to extinguish their lives in war. Over the course of seven revisions of his "Baby and Child Care," he also revisited his ideas about whether mothers of young children ought to work, although to the end he said he had never heard of a mother who had managed to pull it off to her own satisfaction.

His will be a tough act to follow.

A man with a soft Southern accent and an impish laugh, Marshall De Bruhl does not have the imperious froideur one might expect from a military historian and compiler of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and thesauri.

As he settled a visitor in the exotic little greenhouse attached to his house overlooking Three Mile Harbor, a frog waterspout gurgled into a small indoor pool. A fire crackled cheerily in the living room beyond.

Mr. De Bruhl, the author of "Sword of San Jacinto: A Life of Sam Houston" (Random House, 1993), now completing a book due out next year on the firebombing of Dresden in 1945, speculated about his passion for reference books, biographies, and histories.

Too Truthful For Fiction

Born in Asheville, N.C., made famous by Thomas Wolfe as Altamont in "Look Homeward Angel," he was encouraged to write by his high school English teacher, Wolfe's first cousin Mary Louise Wolfe, whose copies of her cousin Tom's books are still in his possession.

"She probably hoped I would write novels, but after reading everything I could get my hands about the world, I think I became too educated to write fiction," said Mr. De Bruhl.

"I was too truthful to invent things the way my dad and my eight older brothers and sisters did. They'd come out with these colorful Southernisms - heaven knows where they got them - 'He's older than water.' 'She has enough money to burn a wet mule.' "

He laughed heartily. "They could turn a phrase and spin a yarn, but they couldn't write descriptions like I can."

After attending public schools in Asheville, Mr. De Bruhl went on to Duke University, graduating with a B.A. in psychology in 1958.

"It's an interesting field, but I knew I didn't actually want to be a psychologist when I realized there was not one person in the department I'd like to see socially."

As an alternative to the draft, then in effect, he enlisted in Naval Officers Candidate School in Newport, R.I., and was commissioned an ensign in 1959.

The next four years, served mainly in Morocco, were invaluable, he said.

"They expanded my horizons, and having responsibility for people's lives and well-being helped me enormously later on in my work."

He Knew The Difference

After being discharged in 1962, Mr. De Bruhl moved to Manhattan and began a career in book publishing as a copy editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Two years later, he spotted an ad in The New York Times: "If you know the difference between 'comprise' and 'constitute,' call this number."

He knew. He called, and landed a job at Crowell-Collier-Macmillan.

A 1967 move to Charles Scribner's Sons led to a directorship in the reference book division and a senior vice-presidency of the company.

Becoming something of a walking reference library himself, Mr. De Bruhl edited encyclopedias of philosophy, the social sciences, scientific biography, American biography, American history, American writers, British writers, ancient writers, Asian history, the Middle Ages, and the history of ideas - definitely the sort who would win the Volvo, the Cancun vacation, and all the available cash on "Jeopardy."

Not reflected in the list is his passion for opera. Among the authors he worked with at Scribner's were James Levine, artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera, and the great, controversial German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. "Stern and difficult, but fun to be with," Mr. De Bruhl said of Ms. Schwarzkopf, one of many performers who were forced to join the Nazi Party in order to pursue careers in Germany. Now living in Switzerland, she is still a good friend.

A Fortune Cookie

In 1986 Mr. De Bruhl moved to Doubleday as executive editor and editorial director of Anchor Books, responsible for publishing both hardcover originals and paperback reprints of works by John Barth, Donald Hall, and Ada Louise Huxtable, among many others.

Publishing was gradually robbed of its genteel traditions and relative job security as foreign investors began acquiring American houses in the go-go '80s. Entire staffs would suddenly be fired en masse, mostly by marauding German conglomerates.

While Mr. De Bruhl was not exactly whistling Dixie during those shaky times, he remembers his elation upon opening a fortune cookie after an uproarious dinner in a Chinese restaurant with the lively Ms. Huxtable. "You will receive a promotion soon," the message read.

When she called at work the next day to thank him for the evening and congratulate him on his auspicious cookie, he had to tell her he'd just been fired.

A New Life

Thus, in 1989, Mr. De Bruhl began a new life as a free-lance writer, editor, and editorial consultant.

"I'd always wanted to write a biography of Sam Houston, an authentic American hero," he said. "His victory at the Battle of San Jacinto not only freed Texas from Mexico but added all or part of 14 new states to the United States, basically our West today."

What really drew him to his subject, however, was Houston's abhorrence of slavery. As a Senator, he voted against extending slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, thus losing his Senate seat. Then later, as Governor of Texas, he declined to take the Oath of the Confederacy, a move that cost him the Governor's chair as well.

"He took the high road," said Mr. De Bruhl. "I don't even know if there is a high road any more."

Raid On Dresden

Similar ethical considerations inspired him to write about Dresden, Mr. De Bruhl said.

After viewing bombed-out Coventry as a tourist in 1965 he decided to visit Dresden, the site of a devastating Allied raid in 1945 that stunned the world. The event became so controversial that Winston Churchill glossed over it in one sentence in his otherwise exacting memoirs.

The only existing account of the bombardment had been written by David Irving, an admired British military historian now in bad repute for a book critics say denies the Holocaust and for a biography of Goebbels that has been canceled by his American publisher.

All Night, All Day

Mr. De Bruhl seized the opportunity to set the record straight, or at the very least, to set it down.

The raid took place on Ash Wednesday, also St. Valentine's Day Eve that year - Feb. 13. It started at 10:30 p.m., wave after wave of British bombers pounding Dresden all night.

At dawn American B-17s, B-24s, and B-25s took over, pulverizing the city by day. In all, 1,200 planes participated in the most devastating air raid to date, creating a firestorm estimated by some as equal in intensity and in civilian deaths to the bombing of Hiroshima.

"When the brass called for an air strike it generally meant women and children would be killed, and the terminology of choice was quite chilling," said Mr. De Bruhl.

"Dehouse"

"Take the expression, 'collateral damage,' indicating the destruction of schools, orphanages, and the like. Or the neologism 'dehouse,' meaning to render homeless and used in sentences like, 'It's better to downsize than dehouse a civilian population.' "

"And there really was no accuracy," he went on. "A bombing mission was considered successful if it came within 3,000 feet of the target, which means that if you were aiming at the New York Public Library and you hit Bloomingdale's, you'd done a great job."

Mr. De Bruhl, who lectures and teaches at universities in the South and also has a house in Asheville, actually got to fly a B-17 himself last summer, at a fund-raiser for an airplane museum.

A Tar Baby

"A crew of six of us wore bomber jackets and took turns flying the plane. There actually were papier-mach‚, bombs aboard in bomb racks, and I flew over the house where I was born. I could have bombed my own home!" he said with a laugh.

Although his editor, Bob Loomis, who lives in Sag Harbor, is impatiently waiting for the Dresden book, Mr. De Bruhl will be leaving shortly for London to do more interviews with former R.A.F. pilots.

"That book's gotten to be just like a tar baby," the Tarheel said. "I stick to the darn thing - I can't seem to put it down."

Greg Casey's death in November, following a number of other deaths here attributed to drunken driving in recent years, has heightened the awareness of people all over town of tragic - and unnecessary - loss, even among those who weren't acquainted with the popular and energetic gardener, landscaper, fisherman, sailor, cameraman, storyteller, and beachcomber.

It is generally thought that the police on the South Fork strictly enforce the law against drunken driving and that their many arrests may well save lives, although they are not able to be everywhere at once.

The message of prevention also helps and has been sounded loudly and clearly in the schools and the media. But it isn't always heeded. The number of arrests for drunken driving in Suffolk County has been increasing, and there are continuing reports of fatalities - 49 in Suffolk last year alone.

In the past week, the media have carried word of Federal and state initiatives to toughen the laws against driving while intoxicated by reducing the legal threshold for drunkenness from a blood-alcohol level of .10 percent to .08 percent.

Translated, the new standard would mean a 170-pound man's being deemed drunk after consuming four drinks in an hour on an empty stomach; for a 140-pound woman that would be three drinks. This is hardly an attempt to legislate against responsible social drinking, yet the restaurant and tavern industry is opposed to it.

The self-interest of the opposition is even more apparent when the outcome of the lower threshold is considered in those 15 states that already have adopted it. While a quarter of D.W.I. fatalities nationwide reportedly involve a blood-alcohol level lower than .10 percent, the first five states to reduce the level showed a 16 percent overall decrease in alcohol-related fatal crashes.

The Federal bill carries an additional incentive. States that do not adopt the .08 percent level by 2001 will lose some of their Federal highway construction assistance. New York's Senators Alfonse D'Amato and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, normally political foes, joined forces to get that bill passed in the Senate. Representative Michael P. Forbes, the South Fork's Congressman, and his colleagues in the House will now take it up there.

A Boston University study projected that there would be at least 500 fewer fatal crashes in the United States each year if all states adopt the lower limit. New York is one of the 35 states that still have not. Its Legislature, represented in these parts by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Kenneth LaValle, failed to act last year when Governor George E. Pataki proposed such a measure.

They should approve the lower standard swiftly this year.

Those "hounds of spring on winter's traces" have been digging in the flowerbed for more than a week now. Out of nowhere, to paraphrase the Bard this time, rough winds did shake the darling buds of March, and the temperature dropped like a stone.

The daffodils that have flowered so early don't mind a bit of frost, but those tender perennials that have unwisely poked their noses above ground and the foolhardy buds on flowering shrubs are vulnerable to sudden, sharp freezes.

The damage here, however, is mainly aesthetic. Farmers may have to postpone planting potatoes for a week or two until the ground defrosts, and spring vegetables will probably be late, but that's about the extent of it. In the South, on the other hand, where azaleas bloomed two months ahead of time following one of the mildest winters on record, the unexpected cold snap is believed to have destroyed as much as three-quarters of Georgia's peach crop and a large number of orange groves in central Florida. In Louisiana, they were spraying the strawberry fields with water last week, trying valiantly to clothe the emerging fruits in a protective cloak of ice.

Spring makes its appearance tomorrow. Two weeks ago, nobody even cared - we thought we'd beaten winter completely. Now, however, we are acutely conscious of the official change of seasons, hoping that Mother Nature will follow the calendar's counsel this time, as she has not done for months.

The Southampton Town Board, after receiving an updated inventory of the farmland in town, took three steps on Friday to highlight the farmland preservation strategy it unveiled in 1996.

First, the board passed a resolution allowing it to use the installment purchase method to buy the development rights to 52 acres of land in Water Mill owned and farmed by the Zaluski family. The parcel is on the west side of Deerfield Road just north of Head of Pond Road.

The deal, which was agreed to last summer, is the first time the financing technique has been used in New York State.

"An Act Of Love"

"This is an act of love, for your family and for the town," said Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio to Joan Zaluski, whose husband, William, is a retired farmer. She was accompanied by her four sons, Stephen, John, Marc, and William Jr., who now farms the land.

"In order for my son to continue to farm the land, we had to say no to developers who wanted to buy it," said Mrs. Zaluski. "We had a feeling we were contributing to the preservation of the land."

The town will pay the Zaluskis up to $990,000 or $18,000 per acre for the development rights to their property.

An installment purchase is similar to a municipal bond, with the landowner generally receiving tax-free interest payments during the life of the agreement and the principal at maturity.

West Of Canal

The method, approved by the state in 1996, allows the town to negotiate a lower purchase price while providing a guaranteed income stream and lower capital gains tax for the seller.

The Town Board also took steps to acquire three other farm parcels, including a 35-acre parcel owned by the estate of Helen G. Wright on the Montauk Highway and West Side Avenue in East Quogue. The town will hold a public hearing on that purchase on March 24.

It marks the first time the town has agreed to buy agricultural development rights west of the Shinnecock Canal, said Councilman Patrick (Skip) Heaney.

Seek County Help

The board also passed resolutions asking the Suffolk County Legislature to share half the costs of making two other purchases in Water Mill, a 35-acre parcel across Deerfield Road from the Zaluski farm owned by Loretta Gaston, Irene Sikorski, and Diane Pillsworth, and a 17-acre parcel north of the Montauk Highway owned by Joshua's Place, a spiritual center.

Both sales were also announced last summer.

The board's actions came after it accepted a report compiled by the Peconic Land Trust and the Town Department of Land Management, showing 8,345 acres of farmland remaining in the town. That is 272 acres less than the 8,617-acre figure cited in 1996, said Robert Duffy, the town's director of land management.

Remaining Farmland

"We literally went out to every parcel the town thought was farmland and compiled a list," said John Halsey of the Land Trust. In the past, the town had relied on "an imperfect inventory" that counted some woodlands, parks, and subdivided lots as agricultural land, he said.

The Town Board asked for the inventory in 1996 when it imposed a townwide tax to raise millions for farmland preservation over the next 20 years and agreed to hold a referendum on a $5 million open-space bond.

At the time, the board stressed that blocks of farmland needed to be preserved, to protect both the agricultural and resort economies.

Unprotected Acreage

The report also showed that about half the remaining land, or 4,225 acres, is devoted to traditional field crops, like corn or potatoes. Horse farms occupy 839 acres, and nurseries cover 773 acres, according to the report.

Over 5,200 acres of farmland remain unprotected by development rights transfers or other measures, Mr. Duffy said. An additional 614 acres, while still being farmed, have already been subdivided.

The town has purchased development rights to 757 acres, while the county has preserved 730 acres. An additional 145 acres have been preserved privately, and 893 acres have been set aside in subdivision reserved areas.

Database

Mr. Duffy said the information had been entered in the town's computerized geographic-information system, which will allow the town to choose where it wants to target future preservation efforts.

"For the first time, we've been able to say we have roughly 8,300 acres remaining," said Mr. Heaney. "And what was most significant to me was how many acres there are throughout town where the owners have not taken advantage of tax programs. These are the people we have to target."

Over 2,700 acres, distributed over 337 parcels, are not included in any of the property tax abatement programs offered by the town, county, or state, Mr. Heaney said.

Land Trust Consultant

To help in the effort to preserve farmland, the board also voted to renew its contract with the Land Trust. It will pay the organization $32,000 over the next year to serve as the town's preservation consultant.

The trust's duties will include preparing a booklet listing the financial, tax, and estate-planning options available to farmers, serving as an adviser to the town's farmland and agricultural committees, helping the town identify parcels worthy of consideration for purchase, and assisting the town in obtaining financing, appraising, and negotiating future purchases.

East Hampton Village's transportation committee, which came up with the idea of mechanical gates at the Reutershan parking lot to enforce time limits, has gone back to the drawing board.

Headed by Elbert T. Edwards and David Brown, Village Board members, the committee includes representatives of the East Hampton Business Alliance, Chamber of Commerce, the Circle Association, and Village Preservation Society.

The group is meant to be a "short-term" committee, according to Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. Its goal is to come up with a better way to enforce two-hour parking in the business district and engender more cooperation from business owners and employees in parking their cars in the long-term lot near Lumber Lane.

Sign Laws

Also at work recently has been the village planning and zoning committee, which has recommended a series of code changes governing signs. The changes, for which a public hearing will be held on April 17, came out of an effort to clarify laws already on the books, Linda Riley, the village attorney, said this week.

One amendment would prohibit "internally illuminated signs," while allowing signs to be externally lit "only by a white, steady, external, stationary light . . . shielded and directed . . . that no glare shall extend beyond the property lines. . . ."

A second proposed amendment defines a "window sign" as "inside (within no more than four feet) or outside of any window or door of any building which is visible from a sidewalk, street, or other public place, not including merchandise on display."

Sign Details

Such a sign, the proposed law says, cannot measure more than 25 percent of the window area.

Exceptions include decals no larger than two square feet, signs about special sales or events, visible for no more than 21 days in a three-month period, and no larger than a quarter of the window area, and signs stating hours of operation, no larger than one square foot.

Controversy erupted among business owners the last time the village proposed amendments to its sign regulations, concerning neon and window signs, about 18 months ago.

The planning and zoning committee also is poised to review possible changes in the Village Zoning Code to reflect the Village Board's formal adoption, last Thursday, of an Open Space Plan.

Flood Zones

The committee is comprised of the heads of the village's boards, Donald Hunting of the Planning Board, Carolyn Preische, Design Review Board, and Thomas Gaines, Zoning Board, plus Thomas Lawrence, the building code enforcement officer, Larry Cantwell, the Village Administrator, Gene E. Cross, the planning consultant, and Ms. Riley, the village attorney.

The board is scheduled to meet on Friday, March 20, at 11 a.m. at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street, when a public hearing will be held on its flood-damage prevention law.

In line with the New York State Environmental Conservation Law, Article 36, the law governs construction standards in various flood zones. The village is required either to adopt it, or a more stringent law, Ms. Riley said. The state recently updated its flood-zone maps, she added.

Getty Station Plan

In other village news, the Design Review Board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday at 7 p.m. on an application from Power Test Realty Limited Partnership, the Getty station on Montauk Highway and Toilsome Lane, to replace its concrete islands, install new gas pumps and lights, create a new concrete traffic mat, and convert one unleaded gas tank to diesel, and one middle-grade gas tank to high grade.

The gas station is a pre-existing, nonconforming use of property in a residential zone, and the new lighting plan is designed to diminish the impact on nearby properties.

The Review Board meets at Village Hall.

AMAGANSETT

Guidi to Joseph Risicato, Beach Road, $377,500.

Reis to Robert and Carole Kramer, Gilbert's Path, $720,000.

Turnamian to David and Catherine Suter, Hawk's Nest Lane, $303,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Whiskey Hill Inc. to Oceanview Farms Ltd., Bridge Hill Lane, $162,500.

Billet to Sunburst Prop. L.L.C., Ocean Road, $900,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Leigh to A. Howard Fine, Montauk Avenue, $255,000.

Goldsmith to Lloyd Amster, Dominy Court, $416,500.

Field to Richard Feleppa, Cove Hollow Road, $215,000.

Fine to Judith Jenner, Treescape Drive, $173,000.

Luhrs to Fred Schley, Talkhouse Walk, $310,000.

MONTAUK

Rattazzi to Richard and Francine Werbowsky, Grant Drive, $150,000.

Pepe to Robert and Patricia McCarthy, Reuter Place, $175,000.

NORTH HAVEN

Holder Jr. to Anthony Sages, Ferry Road, $575,000.

NOYAC

Cardone to Stephen and Lauren Loebs, Dory Lane, $465,000.

Vota to Vincent and Kandee Smith, Pine Neck Avenue, $175,000.

SAG HARBOR

Minto (referee) to Contimortgage Corp., Hampton Road, $250,000.

Garbowski estate to Elizabeth Gilbert, Atlantic Avenue, $175,000.

SAGAPONACK

Wiggins to Robert Marceca, Hedges Lane, $505,000.

Wand to John and Laurel Rafter, Erica's Lane, $245,000.

WATER MILL

Bennett to John and Rose Dios, Seven Ponds Towd Road, $150,000.

Kayes (trustee) to Mitchell Kriegman, Bay Lane, $675,000.

It will be easier to find a parking space at the beach on the hottest day this summer than it was to find a seat at Southampton Town Hall on Tuesday, when the Town Board held a public hearing on a proposed six-month moratorium on the construction of bulkheads and other erosion-control structures.

The board is considering the moratorium to give a team of consultants time to finish an environmental impact statement that will help it develop a policy for handling future applications from homeowners. The board closed the hearing but agreed to accept written comments for 20 days.

The standing-room-only crowd that filled every seat, lined the walls, and spilled into the hallway and Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio's office next to the hearing room offered sharply different opinions on the moratorium, with supporters arguing it is necessary to help save the town's beaches and detractors claiming it will only hurt property owners whose homes are in danger.

Make It Permanent

"We don't need a six-month moratorium, we need a permanent moratorium," said John White, a Saga ponack farmer.

The beach erodes "at a rate that surprises me, and I've been standing there watching it for 40 years," he said. "Don't build anything you can't afford to lose."

"There will always be a beautiful sandy beach if we don't build on it," said Richard Hendrickson, a Bridge hampton farmer and longtime weather observer. "There's been no manmade structure since 1640 that has done anything but ruin our coast."

Not A Safe Place

Mr. Hendrickson pointed out that Long Island is made of sand, "and it will move." Problems are exacerbated, he added, because the island sits at a right angle to the coast "in the middle of hurricane alley."

Scientists agree, he said, that the sea level is rising and in the future more hurricanes and gales will hit the coast

Mr. Hendrickson said that we can expect storms similar to one that wiped out a beach pavilion at W. Scott Cameron Beach on March 10, 1938, and another hurricane in 1815, "which flattened every dune on Long Island."

"Use the beach for the day only," he cautioned. "It's not a safe place for a home."

But Marjorie Appleman of Daniels Lane in Sagaponack, whose house has been jeopardized by this winter's storms, said the moratorium would be a "death sentence" that would "foreclose on the future."

A Pile Of Rocks

The only thing protecting her house from the surf is a pile of rocks, she said. "With a moratorium we couldn't get that protection and we couldn't even ask for it."

However, Councilman Patrick (Skip) Heaney, who called for the moratorium, said emergency permits would still be processed while it is in effect.

Ms. Appleman said she and her husband, Philip, retired teachers, sacrificed to buy their land 20 years ago and build their retirement house. "There's a piece of my heart in every board, wall, and window," she said.

"Not All Arrogant"

January storms "erased the last 110 feet of dune in front of our home," said Mr. Appleman. He said he understood that "if you built on the dunes, you get what's coming, but we didn't build on the dunes. We built on farmland."

When other natural disasters strike, governments render aid and "victims are treated with sympathy," he added.

That theme was repeated by Denis Kelleher, whose house on Potato Road in Sagaponack collapsed into the surf during a Feb. 5 storm, and who said he overhead people in the hall who "seem overjoyed" that "our house is gone."

"We are not all arrogant," he said. "Can we drop this level of acrimony?"

Mr. Kelleher urged the town to work with homeowners, not fight them.

"Socialism For The Rich"

Roy Scheider, the actor, who has lived in Sagaponack for four years, took a defiant stance. He said his property has lost "300 feet of sand" and that he has no place to move his house. If it is threatened by a storm, "no moratorium is going to stop me" from protecting it, he said. "I'll take my chances."

But Lorna Salzman of the Long Island Shoreline Defense Committee said "there is a very good reason for this hostility" on the part of the public. The costs of "privatizing" the coast are "substantial" and borne by taxpayers, she said. "It is socialism for the rich." She called on the town to order the removal of all bulkheads or other hard structures on its coast.

Face The Situation

After the 1938 hurricane devastated Long Island "they couldn't get at it fast enough to help people that were hurt," said Ann LaWall of the Southampton Business Alliance, which opposes the moratorium.

"Don't run away from the situation. Face it," she said. "We will just have extension after extension that goes on forever."

While the Business Alliance does not "endorse bulkheads or any hard structures," it wants the town to devise a short-term solution "that we can all live with," she said.

"It's not a choice between homeowners and the beach," said William Berkoski of the Southampton Town Business Advisory Council. "We need both."

"The moratorium is not an attempt to do nothing, it is an attempt to do something," countered Robert DeLuca, the president of the Group for the South Fork. "We don't think we have it completely figured out, and we don't think the proponents of steel walls have it figured out either."

"It looks like some people are going to lose their homes, and it looks like I'm going to lose my job," said Charles Guilloz, a partner in James H. Rambo Inc. of Southampton, whose company builds bulkheads and other erosion-control structures.

"A Hired Gun"

"Don't tell me it's going to be six months and then say another six months," he said. The town already has a de facto moratorium in place, he added, because it has not approved any hard structures in over five years.

His partner, Tom Samuels, agreed. "Can you believe that a document like this is going to take 18 months?" he asked. "It will take four years."

He charged that Dr. Stephen Leatherman, a coastal geologist with Florida International University, who has been hired by the town to work on the environmental impact statement, is "a hired gun" who has already determined that no structures should be allowed.

Beach Stays In Flux

Dr. Leatherman has submitted an affidavit on behalf of the Group for the South Fork in support of the town, which was sued by a group of property owners on Dune Road in Bridgehampton who want to build a string of connected bulkheads.

Aram Terchunian of First Coastal Corporation, which built a massive subsurface dune restoration system for William Rudin of Dune Road, also spoke against the moratorium. Mr. Rudin's structure, protected by a steel cofferdam during construction, touched off a storm of protests when it blocked beach access before collapsing in a storm on Jan 28.

He submitted aerial photographs dating to the 1930s, which proved, he said, that the beach comes and goes. The moratorium is not based on scientific evidence showing manmade structures harm the beach, he said.

"Plain Common Sense"

Mr. Terchunian agreed, however, that the beaches, particularly in Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, are in danger for now, and he called on the town to implement a long-term plan, perhaps with aid from the Federal Government to renourish them with sand.

But Carolyn Zenk, the attorney for the Group for the South Fork, said the moratorium is needed. "It makes plain common sense to study shore-hardening structures before you allow them," she said.

Bulkheads and other structures rob the beach and take away the public's right to use them, she said. "That easement has been in place since 1640," she said. "And it should be there until the end of time."

Complete The Study

The town should complete the environmental study as soon as possible and keep the moratorium in effect until it is finished, she said.

A Dune Road homeowner who did move his house - three times - Edward Padula, also spoke for the moratorium and a future ban on hard structures.

Some Advice

He said his house, an old fisherman's shack that he has lived in for over 40 years, was damaged when his neighbors, Mr. Rudin and Ronald and Isobel Konecky, tried to protect their own homes.

During the late January storm, Mr. Padula said he watched the ocean take his front and side deck before he heard water rushing under his house.

Briefly, he turned suicidal. "I decided the sea is my lover and it's come to get me," he said. "Let it come. I wanted to go with it." He said he was pulled out of his "madness" by friends who rescued him.

Describing himself as an "old beachcomber, not a geologist," Mr. Padula offered some advice. "Today is the day we should arrive at the studious decision that nothing is to be done on our beaches," he said.

Shoppers at East Hampton's One-Stop Market got a jolt along with their milk and newspapers Sunday morning when a car crashed into the store.

"It sounded like an explosion," said Bill Hall, One-Stop's owner. "He really popped it."

Leonard W. Tuft, 75, a Manhattan resident who has a house on Scallop Avenue in East Hampton, was backing his 1988 Toyota out of its parking space in front of the market when the accident occurred. When he put the car in drive, he told police, it lurched forward, jumping the curb.

The Toyota hit a brick wall under a large plate-glass window, staving in the wall and damaging a built-in cabinet inside. The window cracked in several places, but did not shatter.

"If that brick wall hadn't been there, he would've been inside," said Mr. Hall.

The impact, just after 9 a.m., caused a ceiling-high row of shelves to topple onto the front counter. Two employees assigned to cash-register duty "fortunately happened to be standing at the other end," said Mr. Hall. "It was a little quiet at the time. That worked in our favor."

Otherwise, he said, Diana Lakshman, who, an hour later, was calmly tallying purchases, would have been standing right there.

Several customers helped Mr. Hall right the shelves. He and his employees spent the rest of the morning completing an unanticipated inventory, picking through a mound of razor blades, shaving cream, cold medicines, antacids, and Alka-Seltzer - some of which may just have come in handy.

"This is definitely my breed of dog," said Randy Handwerger of Springs.

The object of her affections, Sylvester, a large dog of wolfish appearance and lamblike demeanor, demonstrated his sociability by kissing a curious horse on the nose and then charming the resident collies into play.

Sylvester is a Shiloh shepherd, a rare breed derived from the more familiar German shepherd. Wendy Fullerton, secretary of the International Shiloh Shepherd Dog Club, said the breed was founded by the Shiloh Kennel in western New York State.

Over several decades, German shepherds with big bones, mellow temperaments, and physical soundness were selectively bred to create a guardian-type dog. In 1990 Shiloh shepherds were recognized as a separate breed independent of the German shepherd.

Sylvester is a big dog, but at 110 pounds he's about medium size for a male Shiloh shepherd. A really big male will weigh in at 130 pounds.

Shilohs have either a smooth-hair coat or a plush coat like Sylvester's. The coats can be an array of colors but are usually a variant on a black-and-silver or black-and-tan theme.

Shiloh shepherds are an affable lot. Ms. Fullerton said they've been bred to have a "soft" temperament, dog-person parlance for easygoing, mild, and sensitive.

Ms. Handwerger concurred. "Syl vester's so sensitive. Any time I get emotional, he picks up on it and gets upset."

She has owned Sylvester for three years. She was initially attracted to the breed, she said, because of the wolfish appearance, but it was the dogs' good nature that made her a convert.

Since Ms. Handwerger is a professional animal photographer, she needed a dog that could accompany her to shoots and not cause a commotion, or, God forbid, pick a fight with one of her clients.

And Intelligent

Intrigued by what she'd read and heard about the breed, she attended a Shiloh shepherd show in upstate New York. She was very impressed.

"People knew I was interested in getting one, and they'd hand their dog to me and say, 'Here, take him for a walk in the woods, play with him.' I couldn't believe that people were comfortable just handing over a big show dog to a stranger, but it soon made sense - the dogs were all so mellow and friendly."

Sylvester is a highly intelligent dog who responds to 20 different commands. He often helps out Ms. Handwerger on shoots by carrying photographic equipment in his backpack. "He travels everywhere with me," she said. "He's stayed in hotels. The only thing he hasn't done yet is travel in a plane."

Aside from aiding Ms. Handwerger with her accomplishments, Syl vester has many accomplishments of his own. He's a certified Canine Good Citizen, having passed the American Kennel Club test for reliable behavior in public settings. He has also distinguished himself in the show ring and has points toward his championship.

Though they can excel at many different disciplines, Shiloh shepherds have been bred specifically to be companion dogs. Tractable, adaptable, and highly intelligent, they are a breed that adjusts well to almost any lifestyle, said Ms. Fullerton.

There are only around 1,000 Shilohs in the world today, but if Sylvester is a typical example, it is likely that we shall see far more of them. Information about Shilohs can be obtained from The International Shiloh Shepherd Club, Box 909, DuBois, Pa. 15801.