It was proved: that a River of Africa is flowing through America - and flowing through the East End.

But it was a river of rain, caused by last week's northeaster, that almost washed out Southampton College's first-ever Martin Luther King Jr. celebration.

The tribute to a man and his vision, which will be an annual one, marched on proudly, however, despite the last-moment cancellation of the much-anticipated Leon's Inner Voices. The director, Leon Lacey, cited the weather and a cold when he called in.

But everyone else who put this night together, including the Rev. Calvin O. Butts 3d, the keynote speaker, was a trouper. After the bus boycotts and police brutality and assassinations, that River of Africa wasn't going to be halted by a bandleader's cough.

Moving Like A River

Speaking to a half-full but wholly enthusiastic house, Dr. Butts noted that the Dream made famous by Dr. King didn't start with his birth, nor end with his death. Like a river, it is always moving, and growing deeper with age, he said.

"There would be no America without the African River flowing through this place," said Dr. Butts.

Moving skillfully between comedy and a room-quieting seriousness, the speaker took full charge of the place, presenting not only a remembrance of Dr. King but covering the distinguished history of blacks and other oppressed people.

From African American contributions to music and science to some eye-popping numbers on blacks who fought and died for this country, Dr. Butts got many well-deserved cries of "Amen!" "Tell it!" and "All right!" from the Fine Arts Theatre's audience.

Dr. Butts, pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, has a long track record of standing up for what he believes in: He's fought against police brutality in New York City, cigarette billboard ads in Harlem, rap lyrics that demean women, and the perils of drug abuse and homelessness.

But to cure these modern-day oppressive forces, he reiterated, you have to know where you come from.

"People say how strong and powerful America is," he said. "You'd be strong and powerful, too, if you had me working for 200 years and didn't pay me a dime."

He used the Scriptures, the poetry of Langston Hughes, and the lyrics of Grand Master Flash as examples. The Dream was around before Christ, it's something the poets are constantly trying to define, and it's still here today.

Helping Hands

"You must know the Dream existed before Dr. King, for it to continue into the 21st century," he said. "God has planted this dream in the hearts and minds of people across the generations."

It's a dream about surviving and going on - which was learned especially through the music.

At the last second, Kevin Jones's Helping Hand Gospel Singers of New York City lived up to their name and made the trip east.

"Just tell me how to get there," Mr. Jones told Joseph Encarnacion, one of the evening's planners.

Gospel Singers

With members ranging from the relatively young to one who walked with a cane, Mr. Jones's group was a reminder of the past, present, and future of African American history. Their voices were rich and presentation polished; they really helped fill in the gaps between speakers.

And spirituals such as, "I woke up this morning with my mind set on Jesus," reminded the audience how important God is to so much of the black experience.

Less successful was the Brook haven National Laboratory Gospel Choir. But the two groups got together at the end of the show and made for a harmonious goodbye.

Acknowledgements

Some of Dr. Butts's steam was also taken by a 15-minute series of thank-yous given by M. Anthony Fitchue, Southampton College's director of multicultural programs. Gratitude was administered - slowly - to the group of academics and civil rights activists who invited Dr. Butts, and to what seemed to be half the audience.

These acknowledgements could have been laid out in the program, and many of them already were.

But student poems and essays (including a strong piece on what it means to be a Latino, by Nelson Troche), and testimonials from people who were a part of the struggle during Dr. King's time (and still are today, including Southampton's Bob Zellner and Melissa Walton, and Lucius Ware, head of the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), really personalized The Dream - added faces and names to it.

As Dr. Butts asked: "How are you going to be my brother [or] my sister, if you don't know my name?"

Approximately 111/2 million dogs are euthanized annually in the United States because of behavioral problems. While some of these dogs do have very severe mental problems that make them dangerous and thus impossible to live with, many others are victims of ignorance, impatience, and unrealistic expectations.

Photo by Author

"A Search for the Perfect Dog," a book written by Gary Shiebler, takes a look at how our preconceptions of what a "perfect" dog should be can hamper our relationship with the unique creature our dog is.

Recently published by Broadway Books, the book takes a poignant look at the dogs who have touched Mr. Shiebler's life. And there have been many dogs in his interesting and varied life.

Childhood Companion

Mr. Shiebler grew up in East Patchogue, part of a dog-loving family - appropriately enough, his mother went into labor while watching the opening ceremonies of the Westminster Dog Show.

Throughout his childhood, he was blessed with the company of Rusty, a stray who had turned up on the Shieblers' doorstep.

Rusty was the stalwart companion that all children should have. "He was my anchor," recalls Mr. Shiebler.

He slept reassuringly on his young owner's bed at night, protecting him from nightmares, and, during the day, was a lively, loyal friend who on one occasion saved his human from a thorough thrashing being delivered by a neighborhood bully.

Perfect Memories

Rusty oversaw Mr. Shiebler's childhood. Shortly after he left for college, the dog died.

The memories of his perfect childhood dog never left Mr. Shiebler. His hopes (and futile attempts) to recreate that relationship are a leitmotiv of "A Search for the Perfect Dog."

After college, while working at Gurney's Inn in Montauk, Mr. Shiebler was discovered by a modeling agent. He was a successful fashion model and commercial and soap opera actor in New York City for 10 years, and followed that up by becoming a songwriter, supplying songs for Patti La Belle, among others.

When he and his wife, Linda, moved to the West Coast, Mr. Shiebler became a teacher.

Shelter Strays

Through all the career changes, there have been dogs in his life. His love of canines and education dovetailed beautifully in his next job, as a humane educator at the famed Helen Woodward Animal Center in San Diego.

"I started to keep a log of all the different dogs at the shelter that affected me. They come and go so quickly, and I didn't want to forget them," relates Mr. Shiebler.

These journals of his daily encounters with abandoned, discarded, and stray dogs were the genesis of his book.

Chaz And Sunshine

Mr. Shiebler's descriptions of the shelter dogs and of his own dogs are evocative and loving. He introduces us to two shelter dogs, Chaz and Sunshine, who are strongly bonded to one another: "Imagine Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn - with fur," writes Mr. Shiebler.

There is a Lab called Yellow Dog who is "the King of Slobber, the Sultan of Slurp." Parson Brown, the Jack Russell with attitude, and the courageous, indomitable Champ are just a couple of others.

And there is his own dog, the uncoordinated ("I have ceased to play fetch with him for fear he may injure himself"), outrageously demented Canyon, who has presented the greatest challenge to Mr. Shiebler's ideals and his patience.

The Greatest Lesson

And, therefore, it is Canyon who has taught him the greatest lesson; to give up the search for the "perfect" dog and to love the one he has.

Mr. Shiebler is very serious on the subject of the human-canine relationship and also very funny about it. While deeply concerned with a compassionate, honest, and just approach to animals, he is possessed of a ruefully self-deprecating style and the book is blessedly free of any moral posturing.

Unlike many animal advocates, he writes with great compassion for humans as well as animals.

Dog Stories

Mr. Shiebler has been touring around the country to promote "A Search for the Perfect Dog." "Perfect" dogs with owners in tow attend the book-signings, and the author has heard "perfect" dog stories that easily rival his trial and tribulations with Canyon.

"At one signing I did recently, a woman told a story about her Lab. She was out driving with the dog in the car and she stopped at 7-Eleven for a cup of coffee. While she was paying for the coffee, she saw her dog at the door of the store panting and wagging his tail, all happy to greet her. She thought, 'How did the dog get out of the car?' "

"When she went outside, she found out. Her car was a convertible and she'd had the cloth roof down. The dog chewed through it and climbed out."

Mr. Shiebler will sign books and talk about "A Search for the Perfect Dog" at Book Hampton in East Hampton at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. People and dogs of varying degrees of perfection have been invited to attend.

The East Hampton Village Board has decided to arm itself with a new weapon against the popular summer pastime it calls "musical cars."

The armaments - actually two arms - are mechanical barriers, known officially as "drop arms," that will face drivers arriving at the Reutershan parking lot. The arms will rise after drivers extract tickets stamped with their time of entry from a dispenser.

Traffic control officers will be able to check the time on the tickets, which are to be placed inside the windshield. If cars are removed within two hours, parking will continue to be free. If drivers dally, they will be fined.

By Spring

Chances are the new appendages of police enforcement will be installed at the lot's Main Street and Newtown Lane entrances by spring.

The public will have nothing to say about it. No public hearing is necessary, Linda Riley, the village attorney, told the Village Board at last Thursday's work session, because the change is in accordance with existing provisions of the code.

Only a public notice of the equipment bid - expected to come in at about $40,000 - will be necessary. That will be taken care of at the next regular board meeting, Friday, Feb. 20.

Other Lots Too?

The board has the endorsement of the East Hampton Village Preservation Society and the East Hampton Business Alliance, both of which sent representatives to the meeting, and of the East Hampton Village Police Chief.

In fact, said Chief Glen Stonemetz, if the experiment goes well, arms may in time be installed at the Schenck and Plaza Sports lots, too.

"Gentlemen, this is a major step," declared Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., "and apropos of America's most beautiful village."

A Deterrent

Decrying the seemingly endless circling of would-be parkers, especially on rainy summer days, one board member, Elbert Edwards, a member of the committee that recommended the devices, said, "It's come to the point where we need a deterrent."

"At 9 a.m. on rainy days, the lot is already filled," agreed Chief Stonemetz.

As an alternative, the committee briefly considered installing more signs, in at least two languages, reminding drivers of the two-hour limit.

Village officials have been taking steps to alleviate car congestion in the commercial area, among them launching a shuttle bus last summer with the hope that merchants, their employees, and shoppers would park in the long-term Lumber Lane lot and ride "downtown."

"Visual Pollution"

The shuttle, while only moderately successful in its first short run, will again circle the village streets, beginning on Memorial Day weekend.

Larry Cantwell, the Village Administrator, said he preferred "not having an arm." But, he said, while visitors unfamiliar with the time limits might claim they did not see the signs, no one could claim, "Officer, I didn't see the gate."

"Either way," said Mr. Edwards, there's going to be "visual pollution."

With these arms, "we're trying to come to grips with the parking situation," the Mayor said.

Maybe, suggested Mr. Cantwell, "we can decorate them with flower pots."

"You can send me dead flowers every morning,

Send me dead flowers by the U.S. mail,

Say it with dead flowers at my wedding,

And I won't forget to put roses on your grave."

- Keith Richards and Mick Jagger

Like lemmings to the sea, men will swarm into florists this Valentine's Day, shelling out up to 75 bucks for a dozen long-stemmed red roses and just the right mushy card to keep them out of trouble with their wives and girlfriends for another year.

But what about the miserable rodent who forgets, or doesn't even bother?

William Verderosa of East Hampton has an answer for the jilted lover or ignored wife that is a little more subtle than a rolling pin or cast-iron skillet over the head.

Love's Labors' Losers

For just $37.50, Mr. Verderosa's company, Drop Dead Flowers, will wrap a dozen roses - well-preserved, but plainly deceased - in a black lacquered box with purple tissue and ribbons, and ship it, with a somber card expressing the sender's disdain for the recipient, anywhere in the world.

While a wilted bouquet, sent with an appropriately sentimental card that reads, say, "Drop Dead," makes for a great Valentine's Day gift for losers in the game of love, Mr. Verderosa sees a broader niche for his company.

Dead flowers also come in handy to thank your boss for that agreed-upon promotion which never came, to tweak the nose of a teacher who failed to see the hidden genius in your term paper, or to let your neighbor know you are not pleased he lets his dog roam through your yard and dig through your garbage.

Revenge Is All

"This whole concept is about revenge, to get something off your chest," Mr. Verderosa said.

In one of his most popular arrangements, he said, he cuts the heads off the roses and sends the stems and thorns with a card that reads simply, "Prick."

Other suggested cards include "Let's bury the past" and "Why are you killing me?"

Mr. Verderosa, whose name means green roses in Italian, uses only the highest quality roses for his bouquets, which he purchases at a wholesaler and painstakingly kills by hanging them in the garden shed behind his Pantigo Road house to dry for a month or more.

"They make lovely dried arrangements, too," he remarked.

Drop-Dead Beautiful

Customers who think they are too late for Valentine's Day need not fear. "I can send them overnight mail," Mr. Verderosa promised.

During the week, Mr. Verderosa works as a probation officer for the Westchester County Criminal Court. The job's four-day work week leaves him plenty of time for his moonlighting.

He started Drop Dead Flowers early in 1987, when he was living in New York City. The summer before, he had had a share in a house on Fire Island, and one of his housemates was a florist who brought out exquisite arrangements each week.

Pie Alternative

"One weekend, I looked at the flowers that were already a week old, and I said, 'Those are still drop-dead beautiful.' " Then he thought about what he'd just said, and the wheels started to turn.

"You have to be a twisted person to do this," he said.

Mr. Verderosa took out an ad in The New Yorker, offering his flowers as "an elegant alternative to a pie in the face."

The advertisement caught the attention of a Wall Street Journal reporter. The story was picked up, in turn, by CNN, Channel 7, Channel 2, over 30 radio stations, and newspapers as far away as Japan and the Netherlands.

"It was a flash," Mr. Verderosa said. "It was a novel idea that really took off."

Within weeks, he and his then partner, Mark McConnell, found themselves selling up to 100 bouquets a week.

At $37.50 and more a bunch, that made for a fat profit margin, especially since the overhead was so low. "I used to get the flowers from cemeteries," Mr. Verderosa confided. "I was a garbage-picker."

Living in an apartment building that had its own post office made deliveries a snap. "If there was a big enough shipment, the post office would pick them up," said Mr. Verderosa. "I didn't even have to leave my apartment."

Local deliveries were made personally. "The funny thing is, people would tip you. They'd give you five bucks."

The partners rarely waited for a reaction. "We'd turn around and run like hell," Mr. Verderosa said.

Not The Same Thing

While most recipients were good sports, Mr. Verderosa did receive a few complaints.

One came from the Nassau County Police. It seemed that a woman who had been receiving a weekly bouquet from her mother-in-law felt threatened.

"I told them, 'To tell someone to drop dead is not the same thing as telling them you are going to kill them,' " Mr. Verderosa said.

"But it's not all so serious. A lot of it is tongue-in-cheek."

Looking for a new challenge, Mr. Verderosa sold Drop Dead Flowers just two years after launching it. The buyer planned to market it nationally with a toll-free telephone number, but the idea never got off the ground and the company languished.

Last year, Mr. Verderosa, who had never received full payment, got the name back and decided to take the company on line. He invested $5,000 designing and launching a Web site on America Online and waited for the flood of orders. Instead, he received a trickle, four or five a week.

"The problem with A.O.L. is, who would ever think of buying dead flowers?" he said. "This idea has to slap you in the face."

Next Up: Mail Order

Mr. Verderosa considered a mass E-mail campaign, but dismissed the idea. He does not like junk mail himself, he explained, and besides, the cost was prohibitive.

He has now taken a detour from the information superhighway and plans to advertise in major metropolitan papers in an effort to turn the company into a successful mail-order house.

"For now, this is a hobby," he said. "It's a goof. It's fun."

During northeasters, bay residents on the South Fork fear high tides more than heavy surf. Bayfront residents got off relatively easily during the last two northeast storms, thankful that the particular storm last week came at a relatively low astronomical tide cycle -neap tide - when the moon was at first quarter.

A slow moving northeaster, one that blows consistently for a couple of days the way last week's storm did, multiplies the number of high tide cycles that take place during the period. Tidal stacking results here in the Gardiner's Bay area, where one high tide cycle cannot ebb against the driving forces of the persistent northeast wind.

Each successive high tide builds upon the remaining level of the last tide that didn't quite ebb.

The two northeasters that hit the East End a week apart from each other left East Hampton's beaches - especially on the ocean and especially in Wainscott and East Hampton Village - in a state that everyone agrees hasn't been seen in a long time.

While no houses east of the Southampton Town line were demolished or seemed in danger of slipping into the sea, the storms took away vast amounts of sand, and in some places, chunks of dune.

The northeasters revealed a number of shore-hardening structures along the shoreline, some of which had been buried so long residents did not realize they were there.

Devices Uncovered

This week, walks along the beach brought the sight of cement stapods, old septic tanks, and old snow fencing around Beach Lane in Wainscott, the rock revetment in front of the Kennedy house in the Georgica Association, and another revetment in front of the large house immediately to the east of Georgica Beach.

With the prospect of more storms heading our way before winter is over, many East Hampton homeowners and officials are keeping up their guard.

"It's a mess. . . . I think everyone's taking a wait and see to see what happens this week," said Jim Cavanagh, the assistant director of environmental protection for East Hampton Town who issues emergency permits for the town.

Poured Sand

In Wainscott, Harvey Silverman bought 1,500 cubic yards of dredged materials from the East Hampton Town Trustees this week. It was poured in front of his Beach Lane house on Monday and Tuesday.

At least half of the dune in front of Mr. Silverman's house is gone, Mr. Cavanagh said, and if another storm hits he'll likely lose the rest of it. Mr. Silverman's house, he added, is now about 50 to 60 feet from the back side of the dune.

Mr. Silverman's request was the only one the Trustees and Mr. Cavanagh had received so far, though Mr. Cavanagh said he had handed out another four or five emergency permit applications in the last week and expects to see more requests this spring.

Road Ends Barricaded

The world-renowned beaches in East Hampton Village - the most armored ocean beach in all of the town - were hard hit. Although they lie in the midst of a series of groins built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the first storm created an eight-foot drop practically at the edge of the road end at Georgica Beach. It was fenced off.

At Main Beach in the village, the road end was barricaded about 20 feet landward of the edge of the parking field on Friday afternoon; behind it is a large drop, of at least eight feet.

The beach in front of the Maidstone Club was "pretty stable," Tom Lawrence, the building inspector for East Hampton Village, said, and at Two Mile Hollow there was "marked erosion, but so far, so good."

Other Beaches

No houses in the village are in immediate peril, Mr. Lawrence added, including the house on the east side of the Georgica parking lot, which is owned by Inves Corporation International and Elie Hirschfeld of Manhattan and Lily Pond Lane.

The house, built around 1920, is undergoing interior renovations. A worker there said the owner had faith that the revetment in front of it would protect the house, which Mr. Hirschfeld bought about a year ago.

Several spots between Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue Beaches in Amagansett were unpassable this week, and Barnaby Friedman, an aide in the Town Department of Natural Resources, said that was probably true even at low tide. The beach in front of the White Sands motel on Napeague is also quite narrow, although it does not have a large scarp, or drop, carved out by waves such as the beaches do in front of Amagansett's Beach Hampton.

Cyclical Situation

Montauk was not hard hit relative to other areas, although Ditch Plain, which has had ongoing erosion problems, did lose sand and hardpan is visible near the comfort station, Mr. Friedman said.

Mr. Friedman was quick to point out that the sand had moved offshore and to the west, where, eventually, with some swift winds and waves from the southwest, it should find its way back to the shore.

Larry Penny, the director of the Town Natural Resources Department, agreed. In fact, Mr. Penny said the beaches would be likely to recover by summer. He added that the shore-hardening structures that have been exposed will likely be covered again by then.

Prospects Good?

The stapods uncovered in Wainscott have been exposed perhaps five times over the last 20 years, Mr. Penny said, but have never remained exposed in the summertime. Mr. Penny estimated that between East Hampton and Southampton some two million cubic yards of sand had been washed away.

Rameshwar Das, who heads the Town Waterfront Revitalization Committee, said that areas where dunes had been cut back would be particularly vulnerable to further disruption, especially from vehicles passing along the narrow beaches. However, Mr. Das added that since the waves had not overwashed the dunes, the prospect for rebuilding them were good.

The bay side was also affected by the northeasters, though in most places not to the extent seen on the south shore. Dredged spoils placed to the west of the Lake Montauk jetty were completely washed away, Mr. Friedman said, and, last Thursday, the waters of Accabonac Harbor were right up to many of the houses on Louse Point Road in Springs. The water also reached the Gerard Drive, Springs, roadway, but caused no damage.

"Thank God"

Beyond dealing with the immediate consequences of these storms, Mr. Das and Mr. Penny both said they thought the recent acts of nature would force the town to take another look at its policies concerning erosion control.

A flooding and erosion report, part of the town's Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, has been complete for two years and will be presented as draft legislation within the first half of the year, Mr. Das said. The plan offers suggested policies for various stretches of the town's 110 miles of shoreline, as well as alternatives to structures.

"Thank God for the revetment," Michael Kennedy, the Georgica Association homeowner whose house is just west of Georgica Pond, said this week. "The house would definately have been undermined" without it, the Manhattan attorney said.

"What Storm?"

In March, he plans to cover the structure with sand and replant beachgrass, he said, adding that he had not see erosion this severe since the storms of 1992, when he lost a retaining wall to the sea.

Many people surveying the beach over the weekend wondered just what had caused the erosion. "What storm?" became a familiar question, especially from those with inland houses.

Many may also underestimate the fragility of the beaches' current state, Mr. Lawrence said. "The ocean throws a boulder like a marble."

DESTROYED IN A FIRE ON FEB. 18, 1978, the Sea Spray Inn was on the east side of the road end at East Hampton Main Beach. It had been an inn since 1863, when it stood on Main Street near where the Victory Garden shop is now. It was named Sea Spray in 1886, but not moved to the seaside until 1902.

Give The Oceans A Break

Amagansett

February 9, 1998

Dear Sirs:

As you point out in your editorial "To Eat, or Not to Eat," the state of our fisheries has now reached such a state of crisis that it is finally generating debate at the public level as if it's a real problem. A campaign which has helped focus this attention, "Give the Swordfish a Break," has apparently got the longline industry scrambling.

Last week, a full-page paid statement appeared in The East Hampton Independent indicating that everything was fine with the United States swordfishery, that if there were a problem, it was really a problem of foreign harvesting and consumption, and that the National Marine Fisheries Service had it handled anyway.

At the bottom of the statement were the names of two lobbyists for the longline industry and the names respectively of the heads of the International and National Agencies, under the Department of State and the Department of Commerce, responsible for swordfish management in the U.S.

This was so contrary to the scientific and economic data that had been presented before that I immediately called Dr. Rebecca Lent, chief of the National Marine Fisheries Service Highly Migratory Species Division, for an explanation.

Dr. Lent not only had never seen this statement, but was shocked and angry that the names of these regulatory agencies had been appropriated by the longline industry without permission.

The next day, The Star's editorial bemoaned the fact that the fishery was depressed. Did you mean the fishermen or the fish? If you meant the fish, the words, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, are "depleted" and "overexploited."

Since the statement in The Independent proved out to be a hoax, it might be wise to hear what National Marine Fisheries Service really has to say about the North Atlantic Swordfishery:

". . . quota reductions and the imposition of minimum size limits have not substantially changed the rapid rate of decline (from that of a healthy population to one approaching commercial extinction) during the 19-year period since 1978. . . . The U.S. commercial swordfish fishery suffers from two primary problems: overfishing, particularly of immature fish, and overcapitalization (too many vessels)."

"Swordfish are overexploited and the stock depleted. Almost all swordfish are caught before they can reproduce. . . . This is primarily the result of year-round fishing in the nursery grounds around Florida. . . . Large reductions in quotas are required in 1997 and beyond to rebuild the stock." - Draft Amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Swordfish, Jan. 28, 1997.

I don't believe I have heard the call to ban swordfishing as you state in your editorial. I have heard the call to ban longlining, though, and here's why this is not a problem of "other irresponsible nations" as you strongly suggest.

Longliners stretch their miles of baited hooks. Mostly, any fish or mammal that takes the bait and is hooked has died by the time the line is retrieved. U.S. fishermen may not sell undersized swordfish, and so they are discarded and thrown overboard.

Along the coasts of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and the Gulf states, the number of discarded fish equals or exceeds the number of saleable fish. The U.S. is the biggest source of immature dead discards in the world according to the most recent information available from National Marine Fisheries Service. This really makes it sound like we're the "irresponsible" nation you warned us about.

It is not true that the problem is the "foreigner's," it is ours, too. International management of highly migratory species is complex. The U.S. has been a leader in regulation and compliance. These facts in and of themselves are not reasons to give up that leadership.

There is not presently a plan for rebuilding the swordfishery, but it is mandated that the National Marine Fisheries Service come up with one this year. We have been taking too many fish for too long with gear that kills the fish that are unsaleable before they have a chance to reproduce.

I'm glad that Dr. Lent has been so vocal, and initiated a campaign of denial of this outrageous hoax and distortion of fact that the longliners have attempted.

We're hearing a lot about depleted fisheries this year. Each side will present the facts they believe. In the debate, let's not make our focus too narrow. We're not talking just about swordfish.

We all own the world's oceans and everything that swims in them. If we give the oceans a break, maybe, if we're lucky, they'll be there to provide enjoyment, jobs, and to serve as a source of all life forever.

TIMOTHY R. DYKMAN

Shinnecock Marlin and Tuna Club

National Advisory Board

Recreational Fishing Alliance

On Swordfish

Shelter Island

February 9, 1998

Editor:

The plight of the swordfish is not just another alarmist reaction by environmentalists as some including your own Russell Drumm would label it. In this case, the facts from various government agencies which admittedly have failed our fisheries miserably in their attempts at management speak for themselves. Among them that:

- Eighty-eight percent of swordfish caught and sold to market today are juveniles and have never reproduced.

- Forty thousand baby swordfish under the minimum allowable weight of 33 pounds were thrown back dead last year by longliners.

- Longliners catch 98 percent of the swordfish brought to market.

- If we continue to catch swordfish at this rate they risk extinction by the year 2005.

And the list goes on.

This is not another example of us vs. them, as Drumm would lead you to believe. It is the intent of Fish Unlimited's Save Our Swordfish program to educate the consumer about this situation.

We feel that they will then stop eating swordfish, and in doing so impact the marketplace to the point that longlines will no longer fish for swordfish.

During this time, new regulations curtailing the indiscriminate fishery longlining will be implemented, the stocks of swordfish will be allowed to rebuild, and a return to a commercial harpoon and hook and line method for catching swordfish will return.

This was the way swordfish were harvested through the late '70s from Montauk and Shinnecock, when they could be found 10 miles off our shores, and a method I was fortunate to have witnessed as a boy firsthand.

Only when we eliminate the highly effective, and indiscriminate fishing methods such as purse-seining, pair-trawling, and longlining that were developed in the late '60s and early '70s will our oceans stop being "strip mined" and allowed to return to health.

Then there will again be enough fish for all anglers, commercial and recreational, to safely harvest. This concept of the consumer making the real difference by impacting the marketplace will then be carried to other fisheries to allow them to return to health.

Sincerely,

BILL SMITH

Executive Director

Fish Unlimited

For Open Discussion

East Hampton

February 6, 1998

Dear Helen,

It is gratifying to see that The Star received two polemics against the letter in which I chastised Representative Michael P. Forbes for forcing the Smithsonian to cancel a series of lectures sponsored by the New Israel Fund, on the occasion of Israel's 50th anniversary. Clearly, my voice has been heard.

This is not the first time my "old friend" Charles Evans and I have disagreed on political issues, it will surely not be the last.

There is, however, nothing in his letter that proves my argument wrong. Professor Evans merely slings the same smelly old red herrings against the fund for its "political" views. As though his and his colleagues' views were not political! Any ideological position which conflicts with another is by its very nature political.

If a group of politically conservative Jews persuade a congressman who is clearly a neophyte in matters Jewish (and has a minuscule Jewish constituency in his district) to cancel an event sponsored by a group of liberal Jews, they are engaging in politics of the crassest sort.

It is nonsense to say that they were asking for a fair middle ground - the simply wanted their views to prevail. Not in an open discussion, but in forcing a withdrawal of the other side.

That the New Israel Fund was ready to include representatives of the Israeli right shows their good will. The Likudniks and Orthodox withdrew from the discussion when they realized that they could sink the whole project. Why argue a point in a free and open discussion if you can silence your opponent by canceling the venue altogether?

I was not the only person to smell a revival of McCarthyism in the actions of those Jewish organizations who got Michael Forbes to wield his Congressional power. Anthony Lewis made the same charge in The New York Times.

The unsubstantiated, slanderous allegations hurled at the fund's panelists were unquestionably reminiscent of the late, unlamented Senator from Wisconsin. Professor Evans bravely upholds the tradition by implying that my suggestion that Representative Forbes was bowing to the pressures of former wealthy campaign contributors "smacks of another kind of 'ism.' "

Does he really think I serve up (commun)ism when making the point that American politicians regularly accept huge donations from people who expect them to push their agenda?

I'm flattered that my modest epistle to The Star caused the national president of the Zionist Organization of America to jump into the fray against me. Shows you how well they keep track of even the smallest peep of dissent.

Again, the good Mr. Klein uses the familiar smear tactics (distortions and misrepresentations, fragments of opinions, and phrases taken totally out of context) to back up his claim that the N.I.F. program was a plot to "attack" Israel. On her 50th birthday no less!

To take one small example of his method: He claims that Thomas Friedman referred to Rabin (killed, as we all know, by a right-wing Israeli "terrorist" convinced, in a climate of extremist Jewish hatred, that his act was done with God's approval) as "bloody-minded."

Since he takes the word totally out of context might it not have been used as our British friends use it to mean thick-headed and single-mindedly stubborn? The Brits use "bloody" in almost any sentence where we might use "damn." "He bloody well better pay me back," or "that bloody dog just bit me."

There's not a single accusation hurled by Mr. Klein at the New Israel Fund that is not a calculated smear. Anything but total agreement with the Netanyahu Government is apparently considered "hostile," any question raised about his policies "harsh."

Such attitudes are inimical to free and open discussions and are exactly reflected in the Orthodox Rabbinate's refusal to consider Reform or Conservative Judaism legitimate in any shape or form.

Birthday parties are all well and good, but they should not be converted into propaganda feasts or sentimental, feel-good orgies.

Along with Mr. Klein and millions of other Jews, I want to celebrate the vision of an ideal Israel as it exists in my own heart and soul, but he refuses to accept any vision but his as valid. So he says that "the very title of the [fund's] program 'Israel at 50: Yesterday's Dream, Today's Realities' implies that there is a clash between what Israel dreamed and how the reality turned out."

If you look at the history of modern Israel with any kind of objectivity, you have to say "bloody right there's a clash!" and aren't we better off discussing it than pretending that Israel (along with the United States, which has its own quota of super-patriots with bigoted, sclerotic opinions - just take a look at R. Falconer's letter a few columns to the right) is pure as the driven snow, the embodiment of all virtues and blessed by God besides?

But the American God is a Christian God, you understand, and his fundamentalist followers - many of whom, for their own dark reasons, support Israel wholeheartedly - believe he has given them the mission to bring all the Jews (whatever our political bent) to Jesus.

With best regards,

SILVIA TENNENBAUM

P.S. I found Friedman's characterization of Israel as "Yad Vashem with an air force" - though irreverent, quite apt. It is a perfect metaphor for all those who proclaim their victimhood by exhibiting its stigmata, even as they turn themselves into a powerful military machine, atomic weapons and all, backed by the might of Big Brother Uncle Sam.

Why All The Fuss?

East Hampton

February 3, 1998

Dear Editor,

I just returned from two weeks in London and Paris and missed most of the "media frenzy" surrounding the Clinton-Monica W. affair. But I did observe that the people one meets in these cities react quite differently than many of us here. Let me explain.

In regard to the President's "moral character," they (and I) believe that this does not reflect badly on his morality.

First, adultery is viewed as a relatively common (and normal) thing with married men, especially after many years of marriage. I bet if you took a poll of our Congress, you'd find the vast majority have cheated on their spouses at one time or other. It just doesn't get talked about . . . and shouldn't.

Second, there are those who claim that the President should be judged by a "higher standard." Why? He's a normal and virile man!

But add to this the fact that, not only is he the most powerful man in the world, but, like J.F.K., he's young, good looking, and, like football players, hockey stars, etc., women are probably throwing themselves at him every day. So once in a while, he gives in to temptation. Who cares, except for his political enemies?

And most of the women who succeed in seducing him go away quietly, and you never hear about them. Except for those greedy few who decide to capitalize on the event (like Paula Jones).

As for Monica W., she's viewed by Europeans as a "starstruck," oversexed young lady who constantly threw herself in the President's path, to the point where she became so obnoxious that she was sent packing to the Pentagon.

Incidentally, Bill Bennett, ex-Cabinet member, said this incident was "trashy." He's right, only in terms of the women involved. Paula and Monica are trash.

And lastly, there's all this fuss about the fact that the President may have lied. The Europeans I talked to think that one's love life is nobody's business, and should be kept a secret, even if one has to tell a lie that doesn't harm anyone. We used to call these "white lies." And I agree!

I should add that those I talked to see this whole thing as a purely political witch hunt, and very bad for the world because it takes the President's attention away from far more important issues.

ROBERT S. ZIMMERN

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At noon last Thursday, Denis and Carol Kelleher owned a beautiful house perched on the edge of a Sagaponack dune with sweeping views of the ocean. Twelve hours later, after a sea wall protecting it caved in and its foundation was undermined, the Kellehers' pride was reduced to a pile of rubble on the beach.

"I'm still in shock and numb," Mr. Kelleher said this week. "It's something I feel very painful even talking about. We're devastated."

While the Kellehers' Potato Road house was the only one to be lost in the storm, other houses in a line along the narrow stretch of beach just west of Town Line Road in Southampton Town also were in peril.

House-Moving

On Friday morning, the area looked like a military staging area, with Southampton Town police blocking the road from rubber-neckers, and house movers, dump trucks laden with rock, and utility crews converging on the scene.

By Tuesday, movers pulled the house belonging to the Kellehers' neighbor to the east, Stephen Perlbinder, away from the dune and were preparing to relocate it several hundred feet back on his property.

To the west, a house owned by Barbara Slifka also was elevated on girders in preparation for the move landward. And a small cottage in between the two that Gary Ireland's grandfather had built in the 1920s had been moved back about 25 feet from its precarious place on the edge of a sheared off dune.

On Dune Road

On Dune Road in Bridgehampton, erosion had begun to undermine the foundation of the William Rudin house, where a costly and massive subsurface dune restoration system had failed the week before.

"For all intents and purposes, Rudin's house is totaled," said Aram Terchunian of First Coastal Corporation, who designed Mr. Rudin's system of sand-filled tubes. "Parts of the foundation have been undermined."

The house of Mr. Rudin's neighbors to the west, Ronald and Isobel Konecky, was protected by a temporary steel bulkhead that was erected even as the town fought in court to have it removed.

This week, Mr. Kelleher, who estimated his house was worth over $750,000, charged that it could have been saved if Southampton Town had moved more quickly to allow him to dump boulders to reinforce the bulkhead.

Too Late

"We could have saved the house if we just had permission to put in rocks," on Feb. 9, a Monday, Mr. Kelleher said. But Robert Duffy, the town's land management administrator who oversees emergency permits under the town's coastal erosion hazard law, did not okay an emergency permit for rocks until last Thursday, having earlier in the week granted a permit for sandbags only.

"They gave the verbal okay 15 minutes before it was too late," said Mr. Kelleher. "This was a house that was enjoyed immensely by my family, and it was taken away and it didn't need to be."

Mr. Duffy did not return phone calls.

"Very Emotional"

Mr. Kelleher said his troubles were compounded because the town had not approved his 1994 application to extend his bulkhead perpendicular from the shoreline to the dune to prevent sand from washing out behind it.

"I'm still very emotional and that's not a good time to make decisions," said Mr. Kelleher, who said he had not yet decided whether he would sue the town for damages.

He estimated that he had spent "tens of thousands of dollars, maybe into the hundreds of thousands, with everything I've done to try to save it." Insurance would cover less than a third of his losses, he added.

Counter Argument

But Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio said it was wrong to point fingers at the town.

"It's happenstance, negative serendipity," he said. "There are holes in the offshore bar that are moving. Where nature opens a door, the damage occurs, and that is what is happening."

In any case, the demise of the Kellehers' house was swift. Bill Horn, the property's caretaker, said he arrived there early last Thursday to find the storm tide pounding against the bulkhead.

"Instead of it just being a storm that was hitting the bulkhead, it was flowing over the top and taking the sand and pushing it out to the west," he said.

Gave Up

Early that afternoon, the undermined bulkhead "snapped open and folded over, allowing the sea to rush in, he said. By 3:30 p.m., the storm had carried away the dune in front of the house and washed away the deck.

Mr. Horan and other workers tried to salvage possessions from the house. "We heard a lot of cracks and snaps," he said. "There were splits in the walls and the corners were popping."

They gave up their efforts at 6:30 p.m. when it became clear the foundation was no longer stable. "There was nothing in there that was worth it," he said.

Town police reported that the structure plunged over the edge at 12:38 a.m. Friday. By early this week, crews had cleared away most of the debris except for large slabs of the foundation.

Fifty to 70 Feet

"It hasn't been very jolly," said Ms. Slifka, whose house was also in danger. "My house is right on the edge," she said. "One more bigstorm and it will be in."

Ms. Slifka estimated that it would cost her anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 to move her house to safer ground. "What else can I do?" she said. "These past 10 days we've lost 50 feet to the storms."

Ms. Slifka said it was time for the town to join forces with the state and Federal government to undertake an effort to replenish the beach. "I'd like to see a bigger beach for everyone," she said.

Mr. Ireland estimated that he had lost 70 feet of dune in the recent storms. "Thursday night I had a rope around the porch to try to save it," he said. The effort was unsuccessful.

Second Move

With the house left exposed at the edge of the dune, Mr. Ireland said he had no choice but to move it. "We're doing it on an emergency basis, and we'll try to finance it later," he said.

"We moved it one other time," he said. "It used to be 50 or 60 feet behind the crest. We had a lot of dune."

He said the house had been built by his grandfather, Brian Hamlin, a Bridgehampton attorney, in the 1920s. "It's just a little beach house," he said. The family preferred to keep it rustic, only recently adding an indoor shower, he said.

"It's really sad. It's an old family property," Mr. Ireland said. To get his mind off his problems, he said, he headed over to the Sagaponack School on Friday to play bingo. "It's been a stressful situation," he said. "I had to do something."

The name Merchants Path suggests quite well its significance in East Hampton's history - it was a route of trade in the early 18th century, when goods were brought to and from Southampton and the region's first port, at Northwest Harbor.

Today, the East Hampton portion of Merchants Path begins at the town line and stops at Route 114, just across from Swamp Road in Northwest. In its heyday, however, the path continued along Swamp Road and past Northwest Landing to what is now the Grace Estate.

William D. Halsey, in "Sketches From Local History," writes that the route was opened "by the merchants of the day, Edward Howell and John Wick, both being contemporary merchants of this locality. All of their merchandise was landed at North West, and had to be carted from there, for the most part with teams of oxen."

A map of East Hampton commemorating the nation's bicentennial notes that Merchants Path was first cut by "A merchant, by the name of Howell . . . in 1712."

Typical goods at that time would have included exports such as firewood, whale oil and bone, hides, and tallow, and such imports as timber, rum, and molasses. In those days a merchant, in the strictest sense, meant a shipowner - the person who owned the vessels that carried goods from port to port. At least two men associated with East Hampton's whaling companies fit the description: Abraham Schellinger, who owned the sloop Endeavor, and Samuel (Fishhooks) Mulford, owner of the Adventure.

Many years later, when business was flourishing and the deep drafts of larger vessels could not enter the relatively shallow waters of Northwest, the port at Sag Harbor was established.

Merchants Path is still owned by the East Hampton Town Trustees. To date, it remains a dirt road.