The East Hampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike was East Hampton's only toll road. The photo shows the old toll house. The toll was seven cents, but, if the toll-keeper had gone to bed, people drove through without paying. In 1909, the house was destroyed by fire.

The Rev. Samuel Buell arrived in East Hampton in 1746 with a degree from Yale and a reputation as a traveling revival preacher. He took over a split congregation and re-energized it, converting many a soul over the next 50 years. In the year 1764 alone, according to Jeannette Edwards Rattray's "East Hampton History and Genealogies," "he had the happiness of admitting into his church 99 persons."

Mr. Buell must have been quite a thunderer in the pulpit. His style is apparent in a letter to a Groton, Conn., friend: "The whole town of East Hampton has bowed as one man," he rejoices. "Every day the church is filled with worshipers by nine in the morning. Such a praying for mercy is heard; the piercing cries of sinners fill the air. The arrows of conviction have been fastened upon guilty hearts. There are shouts of holy joy and unutterable groanings."

Not only the church (the second of East Hampton's three Presbyterian church buildings, torn down in 1871) but his house as well "is filled constantly," he wrote, "with sinners and their cries for mercy. Children have come out of Hell's horrors; young people eight, ten, twelve years old have been converted; among the rest a Jew." (That was Aaron Isaacs, grandfather of John Howard Payne.)

The church, which featured massive oak beams brought over from Gardiner's Island, was a short walk across Main Street from the minister's house on the corner of Buell Lane, where the East Hampton Library is today. A fine portrait of Mr. Buell, incidentally, can be seen in the library.

East Hampton's third minister was "an orator, but no scholar," Mrs. Rattray wrote. "He was hospitable, and the best of company. He was a good teacher," too, although not much of a speller, and "physically tireless," riding "14 miles on horseback the day he was 80, to preach, returning in the evening."

He married three times, outliving his first two wives. The third, Mary Miller, was about 50 years his junior. Their courtship was the basis of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "The Minister's Wooing."

Mr. Buell's patriotism during the Revolution was apparently questionable, and in Connecticut he was reputed to be a Tory. He was known to dine aboard British ships anchored in Gardiner's Bay during the British occupation of Long Island, and "kept on good terms with the invaders," according to Mrs. Rattray. Some, however, said he was protecting his congregation.

He was 81 when he died, on July 19, 1798.

Sag Harbor's representative to the East Hampton Town 350th Anniversary Committee, Joan Tripp, has "always been interested in history," and no wonder.

The president of the Sag Harbor Historical Society, she grew up on the village's Main Street in an old whaling captain's house with the date "1867" carved over its hearth, and spent many hours of her childhood exploring its hidden nooks and searching for a reputed secret panel. (Eventually, it was found.)

Mrs. Tripp, nee Bates, has continued to inhabit historic houses for much of her life. She and her husband, James, now live on Hempstead Street in the Eastville section, in two 18th-century houses joined together and carefully restored.

One of them, a "typical Long Island half-house," was the home of the Snooks family in the 1700s. In 1854 a family named McMahon moved in, and the Tripps occasionally find bits and pieces of their lives - baby combs carved of ivory, a shoe - in unexpected places. A descendant of that family still lives across the street.

The other half of the Tripp house comes from North Haven. Originally the home of Jonathon Paine, it is believed to be only the second house built there.

The Tripps lived in Huntington after they married but spent summers in Sag Harbor before moving there full-time in 1990. Mrs. Tripp is a broker at Allan M. Schneider Associates in Bridgehampton, a vocation that fits right in with her avocation.

The Historical Society grew up on the foundation of several forerunners but was basically Mrs. Tripp's baby. "What got me interested was the fate of Little Umbrella House," she said. The Division Street building, of Flemish brick with a gambrel roof which overhangs it like an umbrella, is said to be Sag Harbor's oldest building.

Developers had proposed an apartment complex for adjacent property, and wanted to use the building for offices. That development was prevented, and today the building houses an antique store.

Among the society's preservation and restoration projects is the village's former jailhouse, also on Division Street. It was slated for demolition not so long ago, to make way for a parking lot.

The Historical Society sponsors four programs a year. This year, said Mrs. Tripp, one of them will be devoted to East Hampton Town history.

The building on Bridgehampton's Main Street which houses Kipling's should receive the architectural bloopers award. But duck in through a door off the depressing atrium and you find yourself in a cozy hangout reminiscent of a Seventh Avenue Irish bar, but without the smoke.

If you're in the mood for an inexpensive grassroots lunch, welcomed by a cheerful bartender instead of a frosty maitre d'hotel, Kipling's may be for you.

It offers the kind of basic staples that you will find across America, from Duluth to Des Moines - burgers and sandwiches, a touch of Southwest and a smidgen of Italian, food that's filling and fattening and comforting.

The decor is informal - bare wooden tables, paper napkins, and paintings that were probably done by the owner's aunt - and the service is friendly and kinda leisurely.

From among the appetizers, which range in price from $3.75 for onion soup to $7.95 for a jumbo shrimp cocktail, we tried the fried mushrooms, ale-battered onion rings, and chili cheddar nachos. The mushrooms, which were served with a horseradish dip, were breaded and deep-fried and disappeared in seconds.

The onion rings were crisp but proportionately too much batter and too little onion. The nachos are strictly for the hungry and strong-stomached, being made with canned beans and presenting such a weighty mass that the table legs trembled.

On to the entrees, which start at $6.50 for a hamburger and stop at $11.95 for a sirloin steak sandwich.

We gave the steak sandwich a try and recommend it highly - the steak was well-seasoned and of good quality, cooked rare as requested, and came with a good bread that didn't disintegrate as soon as you took a bite.

The crab cakes, at a reasonable $10.95, may not be as classy as some you can get on the East End, but they were crisp and tasty and generally received a thumbs-up.

The fish and chips was your standard breaded flounder and french fries. It was perfectly okay, but although flounder is obviously so easy to cook, cod - surely no more expensive to buy - would have been so much more interesting.

We tried both the grilled chicken breast and the grilled chicken with salad. The former was moist and served with excellent cottage fries, obviously made from scratch. The coleslaw, which came with most dishes, was also very good, being a nice mixture of red and green cabbage with a light mayonnaise dressing.

The chicken which came with the salad, however, was a bit too dry and we had to call for more dressing to spice up the green stuff.

Kipling's serves three types of individual pizzas - cheese, pepperoni, and broccoli, cheese, and garlic. The basic cheese is $5.95 and a very good buy. The generous helping appeared to have at least two different cheeses, wasn't greasy and, most important, came with a crisp, sturdy crust and tasted very good.

The only daily special we tried, and the only real miss of the meal, was a hot pork sandwich on rye bread. It was "special" in that the thinly sliced pork was tasteless and as dry as a bone - imagine eating two pieces of rye bread filled with shredded fax paper and you've got it.

We only tried one dessert - the Mississippi mud pie - and found it quite outstandingly good. The coffee, too, was way above the standard of most cafe coffee.

Kipling's location is certainly one of the more bizarre around, but a careful note should be made of any place here where you can eat in friendly and inexpensive comfort. So what better way to end than by a repetition of a hoary old joke that will keep Kipling's in your mind:

Courteous literary gent to flighty young woman, "Do you like Kipling, my dear?" "I don't know, I've never tried it."

The Hamptons International Film Festival, now heading into its sixth season and hoping to establish a presence in Manhattan, has begun a search for yet another executive director.

"We've received dozens of resumes from New York, the West Coast, and the East End," said Stuart Match Suna, the new chairman of the festival's board, "even before we've run an announcement."

The Film Festival has seen five executive directors come and go since its first season. One board member, Steven Gaines, compared the job to "putting on five Broadway opening nights at once. You have to be an impresario, a fund-raiser, and a marketing genius."

A Longer Loop

"Part of the reason that it's hard to get an executive director is that a lot of people don't want to come to the East End," said Michael Braverman, a board member. "They feel the [film] business is concentrated in other places. They feel as if they're out of the loop out here."

"In an ideal situation, when we can afford it, we will have a New York office as well as a Hamptons office."

"We're determined that this will be a year-round operation," said Mr. Gaines. "We'd like to hold seminars on film year-round, have a professional writers' retreat at Gurney's Inn, and fund-raisers in Manhattan."

More Programmers

To manage all that, said the board member, the new executive director will have to be good at raising money. The festival's current operating budget, about $850,000, does not begin to cover its ambitious vision.

The search committee has just begun scheduling interviews with candidates, Mr. Gaines said, noting that the board was "also looking to hire more artistic programmers."

To date, he explained, just one person has been largely responsible for selecting films. But last year, 800 films were submitted to Stephen Gallagher, the program director.

Into The Breach

Mr. Suna said the new hires would also be expected to "expand our programming in new directions - increasing the number of our panel discussions, and involving well-known screenwriters, producers, and directors in the panels."

In each of the festival's first three years, the executive director either quit or was let go before the first film was shown. Every time it happened, Darryl McDonald, the program director, took on the additional responsibility.

In 1996, Ken Tabachnik had the job. He resigned unexpectedly last winter, and Bruce Feinberg, a board member, stepped into the breach.

"Bruce was stepping in to solve a problem for us - we had no director," said Mr. Braverman. "There was no discussion at the time if the position was to be short-term or long-term."

Mr. Feinberg has since resumed his seat on the board.

On The Lookout

Several board members who live or work in the city are on the lookout for a suitable location there, said Mr. Suna. The festival's only office at present is on Newtown Lane in East Hampton.

Besides Mr. Suna, an owner of Silvercup Studios, the board's executive committee includes Mr. Gaines, Pat Swinney Kauffman, and Jeremy Nussbaum, vice chairs, Robert Wiesenthal, treasurer, and Cynthia Sulzberger, secretary.

Mr. Gaines said it would be "impolite" to discuss the executive director's salary, but it was reliably reported that Mr. Feinberg was paid about $65,000 and that the new director might earn an additional $10,000, possibly in the form of a housing allowance.

The 1998 festival will take place from Oct. 14 to Oct. 18, starting during the week after East Hampton's giant 350th anniversary parade and block party.

     In true Memorial Day spirit, my rib-eye steak was marinated and topped with a thick coat of black pepper and Cajun spices. The corn was shucked and ready to go. The baked potato was well on its way in the oven, and the charcoal was starting to whiten under the flickering flames.

     I was in the living room when I heard the first screams.

     "Fire! Fire!" bellowed a voice from somewhere in the building to the right of mine.

     "Fire!" a man shouted again, as windows began to fly open all around.

     Just a few hours earlier, with the seemingly innocent intention of setting a grill up on my fire escape and engaging in a bit of good old backyard Memorial Day fun, I had gone to K-Mart to buy an el-cheapo and reclaim just one small hint of country life in the big city.

     And now this.

     "Fire!" This time it was coming from somewhere above me.

     I lunged toward the kitchen window, scoffing at my neighbors' misplaced screams.

     "It's a grill!" I yelled, restraining myself from adding "you idiots!"

     "In the corner! Fire!" the first neighbor yelled.

     I leaned out the window as far as I could without having my face charred by my shiny new grill. "It's a grill! Don't worry!"

     Even with my body half way out the window, I couldn't tell where all the commotion was coming from. I couldn't see any faces. Finally, when the yelling ceased, the voice from above me said, "Well I hope you're keeping an eye on it"

     "Yeah, obviously," I answered.

     With all the cacophony, I figured it was only a matter of time before Hook and Ladder Company Number Four would screech up and start axing down my front door. But no one had called 911.

Kool-Man, Too

     So I cooked my steak, but it was fraught with guilt (not to mention charred beyond recognition). All I wanted to do was usher in the summer. Instead, I labeled Apartment Three, 48 Marcy, a threat. To make matters worse, I learned it was illegal to barbecue on a fire escape. So much for that idea.

     I tell you it's not easy for a country boy to get into the summer spirit in the city. Even the Kool-Man ice-cream truck, with its silly little "Ragtime" jingle, has begun to irk me. I suspected Mr. Kool-Man was up to no good in that beat-up little green-and-white truck - ever since he started cruising the neighborhood this spring on weekday afternoons when kids were still in school.

     But now the insidious jingle is beginning to bore into my brain. I feel like I'm being tailed. Every day, no matter where I am in the neighborhood, I either hear the truck or run across it.

At O.T.B.

     To add to the creepiness, Mr. Kool-Man finally changed the truck's tune this weekend - to something that sounds just like the theme music from the "X-Files."

     In a nostalgic sense, summer in Brooklyn is all you'd expect - stoop-sitting, street stickball, hydrant jumping, and, of course, an ice-cream truck. I've seen all of it already and it's not even June.

     I walked by the local Off-Track Betting parlor this weekend to find a row of Bukowski look-alikes actually sitting outside in lawn chairs - spending "a day at the races" as it were.

Nudged Out

     Then, yesterday, I took my blades to the basketball courts across the street to practice some roller hockey. Within 10 minutes I was nudged out by a group of thuggish-looking dudes who complained I was ruining the surface of their court.

     On those summer days where I wish I was back at Indian Wells boogie boarding, I sometimes head to Coney Island. Coney Island can be a blast. I love basking in its old-New York grit. But it ain't the Hamptons.

     Being one of the "young and the shareless," it takes some planning to get me back out there, but you can expect to see a lot of me this summer, along with the rest of the refugees who've learned summer in the city is not really summer at all. Look for me; I'll be the one flipping steaks on the grill.

Stephen Ranger was into everything. At age 21 he became a Northwest School trustee even though he had no children, wasn't even married, and probably still lived at home.

Exactly 10 score years ago - in the 150th anniversary year of the founding of East Hampton - Dering and Polly Van Scoy Ranger had a son whom they named Stephen, the first son of a first son, whose life would be dedicated to the ancient Latin motto carpe diem - seize the day.

We know nothing of certainty about his early childhood days, but we can infer a great deal from the time, the place, and the later record. Father Dering's farm, the one East Hampton people would one day call the Peach Farm, was on Northwest Road adjacent to the present-day Ranger cemetery.

Just to the north, just a bit beyond the school, was Grandpa Isaac Van Scoy's place. He and Grandma Mercy Edwards had come from Amagansett as newlyweds over 40 years earlier and took to raising livestock, crops, and babies with equal enthusiasm. However, of their 15 children, only two sons and six daughters survived to adulthood. Mother Polly (Mary, formally) was the baby of the family. Grandma Mercy died in 1782 at age 50; probably "wore out." After a while Grandpa Isaac married the widow Elizabeth Dibble Osborn. She was "Grandma" to young Stephen.

A bit further up the road, over on the south bank of Hand's Creek, was Grandpa Samuel Ranger's place. He and Grandma Ranger came over from Connecticut in '76 with Aunt Olive and the three older boys: Dering, Samuel II, and Abraham. Seems a strange time to be coming to Long Island. What with the Brits hassling folks, most were headed the other way.

Grandpa Isaac had his adventures with them. They say that on one occasion he drove a couple of would-be-thieving Redcoats off his place with a pitchfork. Some even say he killed one. Still, others say times weren't all that bad if you kept your mouth shut, tended to business, and tipped your hat to the officer of a Sunday morning. It probably depended a lot on whether or not you had anything worth "liberating." By the end of 1782 all that was history.

When Stephen came into the world in '98, President Washington had just retired and President Adams was in office. As for the Brits, they had their hands full elsewhere with a Corsican named Bonaparte.

At home, neighboring Sag Harbor was growing like a weed and the whole area was prospering for it. Northwest had had a school for six years. The town had come up with eight pounds for the purpose, and, desirous of a first-rate job, they hired Henry Dominy to build it - good mechanics, them Dominys.

You can be pretty sure Grandpa Isaac had his hand in the whole operation. Hard work and shrewd Yankee management had paid off for Grandpa Isaac. At 66 (in '98) he was both prosperous and influential.

Having pondered the evidence, one readily pictures young Stephen as bright, good-natured, and charming. In addition, he was energetic and ambitious (in the best sense of that word); a fitting heir to old Isaac.

When Stephen was 2, his brother Sylvester D. (for Dering) was born, and then, six years later, came Alfred. The picture comes into focus a little more sharply: Stephen, the ringleader; Sylvester, the trusty sidekick, and Alfred, the tag-along kid brother.

There can be no doubt that these three had some schooling, probably considerably more than most of the Northwest children. Not only was the schoolhouse just a short distance up the road, but Grandpa Isaac would have insisted. To amount to anything it was mandatory to learn enough of arithmetic to keep accounts and enough of reading to read the Good Book. Decent writing and spelling were desirable too, but not all that essential - or common. One could get by. In many instances, just the rudimentary requirements pretty much exhausted a teacher's repertoire.

Northwest farm boys had a busy life. There were, of necessity, strictly enforced daily chores from the time a boy could drag a stick of stove-wood or carry a feed pail. Soon Stephen would have been splitting kindling, pulling weeds, and escorting the milk-cow up to the barn twice a day. In addition to helping mother and father on demand, children typically would have had their own vegetable patch, and often their own animals: perhaps a pair of chickens to start, and then a piglet. As a teenager, a boy of enterprising disposition - with two willing younger brothers - might find himself the majority stockholder in a sizable flock of sheep, or perhaps a few cattle.

Stephen evidently did. At age 17, he registered his earmark with the Town Clerk, Abraham Parsons.

The War of 1812 started when Stephen was 14. The Brits again - poor Mr. Madison was driven right out of Washington. The infamous raid on Sag Harbor occurred when Stephen was 15. By then he may have been drilling with the militia, since mother's next-elder sibling, Uncle David - Captain - Van Scoy, was in charge.

If he could, he probably did. That was Stephen's nature. He was into everything. At age 21 he became a Northwest school trustee even though he had no children, wasn't even married, and probably still lived at home.

In his late 20s Stephen courted and won Miss Eliza I. Conklin, the daughter of Burnett and Ruth Jones Conklin of Amagansett. They set up housekeeping a bit to the south, on Swamp Road at the end of today's Two Holes of Water Road. Their place backed onto the fringes of Northwest Creek.

Stephen and Eliza had at least five children over a period of some 14 years. In birth order: Mary, the only daughter; George L., Alfred D., Stephen Jr., and William H. Here is the only sad part of the Stephen story: Both Mary and George L. died, unmarried, in their 20s. Stephen Jr. disappears from the record after the 1850 census and is thought to have also died young.

On the brighter side, William married Harriet Leek, the daughter of Erastus and Eliza Smith Leek. In 1868, along with Harriet's sister, Eliza Jane, and Eliza's husband, Jason Miller, they moved to Illinois, presumably to go homesteading. There was a lot of good farmland to be had out there, free for the taking if you were willing to work it. Perhaps there is a Ranger-Miller-Leek clan in Illinois today.

Stephen's other surviving son, Alfred D. (Dering, again), married Charlotte M. Parsons, the daughter of Nathaniel T. and Elizabeth Parsons Parsons (not a misprint) of Northwest. Their place was on the north bank of Hand's Creek at the terminus of Hand's Creek Road. Alfred D. moved in and it eventually became known - inaccurately, say some - as the Alfred D. Ranger place. In time, he became a well-known East Hampton personality in his own right.

But back to Stephen. In 1825, shortly before the birth of his first child, Stephen became involved in town affairs. He never looked back. He is the subject of some two dozen entries in the town records. In that first year he was chosen to be an Overseer of Highways. Over the years he would hold that office eight different times.

I have heard it said that the original Dominy schoolhouse burned. Chimney fires took a lot of places back then. At any rate, in 1827, a new school was built at the front of the Van Scoy farm. Stephen's children attended this new 16-by-22-foot, $250 edifice. It served until 1885. (Stephen's granddaughter, Mary E., a daughter of Alfred D., may have been the last teacher. She had formerly kept school on Gardiner's Island. Later, Mary E. married Henry Talmage.)

At the town meeting of 1828 Stephen was chosen to be a Viewer of Fences. This involved finding and prosecuting the violators of the fencing ordinances. In an economy that depended on keeping livestock and crops separated, this was serious business. But code enforcers are rarely popular, and Stephen liked to be liked; he never stood for that office again.

In 1846, a reasonably prosperous 48-year-old Stephen finally became a Town Trustee. He had hit the big time. This seems to have suited both him and the electorate: He would be chosen seven more times, the last time at age 66. In 1849, between stints as Trustee, he served a term as both Assessor and Path Master - simultaneously - just keeping his hand in.

In 1848, in addition to politicking and farming, he was part of a committee that laid out the official route and boundaries of Swamp Road - the extension of Merchants Path into the old port area. By now he was often called "Uncle" Stephen by his younger associates. In rural places especially, until very recent times, it was customary to bestow the honorary titles of aunt, uncle, or cousin on one's elders. No close kinship was implied.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861 Stephen and his brothers were too old to serve. Although Stephen's sons, Alfred D. and William, were of prime military age, they evidently declined to participate. In that saddest of our national adventures the family colors were carried by Stephen's 45-year-old cousin, Samuel Ranger 3d, who some years before had forsaken Northwest for a Round Swamp Lester as a wife and a small farm on Three Mile Harbor Road.

In 1862, Uncle Stephen's beloved Eliza passed away. She was 62. Together they had carved a prosperous farm out of the woods and raised a fine family. They had had a good run.

Clearly, Stephen liked Elizas; he wasn't finished yet. Soon he married Eliza C. Leek, who was probably the widow of Erastus Leek and the mother-in-law of Stephen's own son, William. Unfortunately, their time together was short. She died of apoplexy in 1865 - the year we lost Mr. Lincoln.

Uncle Stephen was alone now, but he was totally unsuited for the solitary life - nobody to talk to - nobody to listen - just too much peace and quiet. He went back to Amagansett for a third wife. In 1868 he married Phebe Bennett, the daughter of Augustus and Irene Topping Bennett. He was a spry, active, and colorful 70-year-old. Phebe was 48 and not previously married. Local history records her as tiny, determined, and very religious.

Uncle Stephen and Aunt Phebe worked the Swamp Road farm together for another 17 years. The census of 1880 indicates they had live-in help to do the heavy lifting: Edgar C. King (actually Cornelius Edgar) and a man named Addison. The latter remains a mystery.

The following is a 19th-century recollection by Everett J. Edwards, who was related to Aunt Phebe, as recounted by his daughter, Jeannette Edwards Rattray, in her wonderful book "East Hampton History and Genealogies," without which neither this article, nor many others, would be possible.

"Uncle Stephen drove an odd team - a horse and a cow together - to East Hampton to church or to Sag Harbor for trading. He would take a load of wood to the port and exchange it for groceries. He liked a nip or two and liked to get off by himself. If Aunt Phebe gave him the molasses jug to fill in the Harbor he was likely to come home with rum in it instead of molasses and he the worse for wear."

In 1885, the year Mr. Burling published the first edition of The East Hampton Star, Uncle Stephen slipped away, probably with a smile and a wink - probably looking forward to his name in the paper. He was 87. He and his two Elizas lie in a line in the Ranger cemetery at Northwest.

In due time Aunt Phebe became the second wife of Isaac W. Miller. His first wife was Phebe's sister, Ann Maria. It gets confusing.

Uncle Stephen Ranger. After him they broke the mold. He was some piece of work.

Charles E. Squires, a resident of East Northport, was born and raised on Three Mile Harbor Road. A descendent of the Ranger and other old-time East Hampton families, he is at work on a book, "Sam's War," about Samuel Ranger in the Civil War.

When a public hearing before the East Hampton Town Planning Board draws more than 100 residents, the proposal is obviously controversial - a major subdivision on a scenic piece of land, an expansion of an already obtrusive business, or a superstore.

It came as quite a surprise, therefore, when such a crowd was brought out by a proposal to site a moderately sized nursery school on a five-acre-parcel in a sparsely populated residential area.

Sound controversial? It shouldn't be, considering that all but two of the 15 public and private schools in East Hampton are in residential zones.

In the case of Deena Zenger's plan to relocate the Country School to Route 114, however, an organized group of nearby residents lined up to speak at the recent public hearing, citing everything from traffic dangers to nesting hawks in an attempt to convince the board to deny the school a special permit. Some argued that a commercial-industrial park was the appropriate place for a school. And, while all said they were not opposed to day care or to children, they were vehement in opposition to the proposed site.

Traditionally, here and elsewhere, schools have been correctly sited in residential neighborhoods. An industrial park is hardly the place where a community's youngest children should get their introduction to education. The opposition to Ms. Zenger's school seems to be one part reasonable concern and two parts of NIMBYism.

While the neighbors raised a number of practical concerns, such as the dangers of having a school along a 55-mile-per hour road, the brunt of their objections centered on potential noise, lights, and property values. They also took strong objection to Ms. Zenger's intention to run a summer camp there, which she says is integral to the private school's financial success.

The Town Code recognizes a school as a proper use of land in residential districts, provided that a list of special-permit conditions can be met. The Country School, which plans to take children from 18 months through 5 years old and would take them up to 8 during the summer, fulfills part of a very serious vacuum here.

It wasn't easy for Ms. Zenger to find a parcel large enough that the school could afford, and she has shown her willingness to be constrained by reasonable limits on what she can do there. She has spent a year trying to address each one of the Planning Board's standards.

The application deserves to be judged on its merits.

Mother Nature took a deep breath Monday and let it out all along the East End bays, sparing the oceanfront for a change but filling ponds to the brim, flooding low-lying basements, and dealing yet another blow to the spirits of a rain and wind-weary population, a population that had been fooled by last weekend's marvelous weather into thinking that spring had come.

Instead, another northeaster arrived. They come weekly now, or so it seems: howling gales accompanied by sheets of rain no one could possibly feel like singing in. This week's 50-mile-an-hour gusts came at the worst possible time for a North Haven house that had caught fire early Tuesday, whipping the blaze into an inferno that defied the best efforts of firefighters.

It was raining heavily two weeks ago, too, the night a house in Northwest Woods, brand-new and never lived in, was destroyed by flames. That followed the erosion from a northeaster three weeks ago that toppled a Sagaponack residence into the ocean and undermined several of its neighbors so severely as to create a minor boom in the house-moving trade.

Even as Monday's storm was battering the South Fork, a mass of tornadoes, again driven by El Nino rains, whirled in from the Gulf of Mexico and plowed across Central Florida, killing at least 38 people, with 11 more reported missing.

It was the deadliest round of tornadoes in Florida since the National Weather Service began keeping detailed records 50 years ago. The devastation is said to equal that of a high-category hurricane. There are those who say a hurricane would, in fact, have been preferable, because it announces itself well in advance while tornadoes are almost never predictable. Maybe.

Meanwhile, winter is far from over. What will next week bring? We know at least one fellow who's hoping for nothing worse than a blizzard.

Copy Berg, a Bridgehampton artist, has spent the past 20 years in the invidious position of being famous, but not for his work.

Last month, with a major retrospective opening at Rutgers University's Robeson Gallery, he seemed finally to have diverted the spotlight to his art. But controversy continues to dog his heels - the show's content has provoked protests from faculty members, requests that the show be closed, and questions from the student body about censorship and freedom of expression.

Mr. Berg was the subject of a 1974 trial involving his dishonorable discharge from the Navy for homosexuality. As a result of the landmark case, any service member dismissed on grounds of homosexuality today must receive a fully honorable discharge.

Turned To Art

After leaving the Navy, Mr. Berg, who was born Vernon Edward Berg 3d, wrote a book about his case and then turned full time to art, obtaining a master's degree in design from the Pratt Institute and apprenticing with the Photorealist Charles Bell.

Diagnosed H.I.V.-positive in 1986, he made the decision that in the time he had left he would paint what he wanted, even if it didn't sell. In 1994, the year after his longtime companion, Paul Nash, died of AIDS, he himself was hospitalized for the first time and nearly died.

Which made it all the more poignant that it was his work that was chosen by Kathy Schnapper, director of the Robeson Gallery. She had been asked by Mapping No Boundaries, a tri-state program that promotes AIDS awareness, to put on a show about AIDS.

Sex In Context

"I wanted an exhibit with balance," said Ms. Schnapper, saying she had seen a lot of "depressing" work. "Copy is a very, very good artist whose work covers everything from anger to playfulness to anxiety."

"I think it's a very important show. There is sexual content - there had to be, since it is about AIDS - but I worked very hard to put it in context. It celebrates the joy of sex as well as the sadness - I wanted to show a full life."

The photographs that caused the controversy are in a small "back room" at the gallery, deliberately created, said Ms. Schnapper, to embrace Mr. Berg's personal life. There are paintings of his life in the military, portraits of his father and Mr. Nash, paintings of his house in Bridgehampton - and the photographs, taken by the photographer Marcus Leatherdale, of Mr. Berg and his lover.

"We commissioned the photographs after we both discovered we had AIDS," said Mr. Berg. "We wanted to record ourselves when we were looking good."

Mr. Berg is naked in some photographs (Mr. Nash is not), sometimes wearing sado-masochistic outfits. They progress over the years, with the two men together, Mr. Nash looking more and more ill, and end with Mr. Berg alone.

In one, "Howl," he has his head back, screaming. In another, the most controversial, he is ejaculating.

Not There For Art

After seeing these photographs, a Rutgers faculty member asked that the show be dismantled. In the student newspaper, someone (who hadn't seen the show) declared, "That stuff is sick; it isn't art."

What seems to have caused much of the controversy is that the gallery is also used for receptions. Word from the provost's office reached Ms. Schnapper of "distress" that guests might be embarrassed.

"It's a bit like a catering hall situation," said the gallery director. "They're not there for the art."

For one event, she compromised and closed the back room for an hour. But a second reception was moved and held in the foyer immediately outside the gallery, which remained open.

A forthcoming event, a performance scheduled for March 5, has been moved from the gallery to a theater space.

"Inappropriate"

"The office of multicultural affairs said the exhibit was 'inappropriate,'" said Barbara Hunt, who organized the Mapping No Boundaries project.

"It's a storm in a teacup," she said. "There are some people who don't want to see photographs of a nude man, let alone a nude gay man or, heavens forfend, a nude gay man with AIDS."

"I feel it's particularly pernicious that they're being allowed to get away with this on a university campus, of all places - the one place where there should be an arena for this kind of show, an openness of mind."

Student Debate

"It's infuriating, because the work is fabulous," Ms. Hunt continued. "The photos are beautiful, meaningful, and not created to be shocking. You have a testament to the strength of a relationship, the bond between these two men."

"There's a growing storm on campus," she said. "One healthy thing is that students are debating it in many classes."

"Many of them are too young to remember the Mapplethorpe scandal, and it's very healthy that they have to consider where they stand on freedom of expression and censorship."

Center Stage

Laura Draper, a student who coordinates public relations for the gallery, confirmed the interest of the undergraduates.

"Some students have objected," she said, "but others are in support. To cut the students off from the world of homosexuals with AIDS is to cut them off from the wide experience they expect to get from a large university like Rutgers."

So, once again it looks as if Mr. Berg's paintings might get pushed off center stage, this time by photographs that he did not even take himself.

Show Extended

That, said Elaine Benson of Bridge hampton, whose gallery has often exhibited Mr. Berg's work, would be a pity.

"His work is a combination of cartoons and ebullience, but underneath is a good art-historical background. It's playful and animated, which is part of his personality," she said. In the face of tragedy, said Ms. Benson, Mr. Berg "seems to just bounce back."

Ms. Schnapper said response to the show has generally been very positive and that the heads of the other fine arts departments are strongly behind her. In fact, she has extended the show through March 26.

Was there a chance it might be closed?

"Not on my life!" she replied firmly.