AMAGANSETT

Dunleavy to Steven and Doris Switsky, Main Street, $277,500.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Broder to Lois Bass, Sea Farm Lane, $320,000.

Woodbridge Homes Bldrs. to Stanley and Meryl Wunderlich, Sea Farm Lane, $270,000.

Ocean View Farms to Ivan Rubin, Ambleside Lane, $1,700,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Ralston to Fairfield Pond Assoc. L.L.C., Bailow Lane, $300,000.

Shore Retreats Inc. to Vera Engstrom and Lori Belber, East Hampton Drive, $150,000.

MONTAUK

Pierce to Charles and Sylvia Murphy, Fernald Road, $155,000.

Wilderman (trustee) to Harold and Thelma Weinberg, Captain Kidd's Path, $600,000.

NORTH HAVEN

Hart to Peter and Marie Maran, East Drive, $530,000.

Speciale to Ivar and Carolyn Albinson, Cove's End Lane, $245,000.

SAG HARBOR

Yardley Jr. to Robert and Corrine Yardley, Stoney Hill Road, $170,000.

Godbout to Yvonne Rafferty, Jermain Avenue, $190,000.

SAGAPONACK

Lester to Clifford Foster, Sagg Main Street (36.2 acres), $3,016,500.

SPRINGS

Gardner to Daniel and Laria Fram, Sycamore Drive, $276,500.

Lande to Joseph, Florence, and Maura Dickler, Hiroo Awano, and Christopher Panczner, Water's Edge, $214,500.

Srob to Max Pine, Gerard Drive, $505,000.

Stewart to John and Edith Schilling, Hog Creek Lane, $183,000.

While a network of courtroom advocates for the victims of domestic violence has been strengthened in recent years by state and Federal funding, the victims of crimes that occur outside the family are generally left on their own in East Hampton Town Justice Court. The few who can afford it sometimes hire lawyers to help them through the system. Those of lesser means more often than not are baffled by both the prosecution and the defense.

After her 12-year-old daughter reported being fondled by a family friend, who was later arrested, Carol Lock, an East Hampton woman, said she learned the hard way that sometimes victims (or, in this case, the victim's mother) must become their own advocates in court.

Vacant Post

"I just want to know what's going on. I just want to be sure they do what they're supposed to do. I couldn't find anyone to answer my questions," she said.

The Suffolk District Attorney's office had one advocate covering all the courts on the East End, including the county courts in Riverhead, until recently. She resigned a few months ago and has not yet been replaced.

The Retreat, an East Hampton-based agency, provides advocates for victims of domestic violence who seek its help.

Search For Information

"There has not been a general presence in the courtroom for a very, very long time," said East Hampton Town Administrative Justice Catherine Cahill, noting that she had "only seen two who were in court with people already plugged into the Retreat."

Justice Cahill and Justice Roger Walker, who is handling the case involving Ms. Lock's daughter, agreed it was the District Attorney's job to answer victims' questions and represent their interests in court. Justice Cahill said she has another pending case where the mother of a child victim had been in search of information.

Both Justices said they talk with the victim of a violent or sexual crime before arraigning a defendant to find out whether an order of protection is needed and to let the victim know when and if the defendant would be free on bail. Beyond that, "the judge has to remain impartial," Justice Walker said.

Ms. Lock told The Star she had many questions about her daughter's case.

To begin with, she said, the prosecutor assigned to it gave her the name of an advocate in the D.A.'s office, apparently unaware that she had left her job. Ms. Lock then called the prosecutor several times but reported that she did not get a return call until after The Star called to inquire about the case.

Questioned Charge

Ms. Lock said she wanted to know why Thomas Gilliam Sr., 36, had been charged with a misdemeanor rather than a felony. When The Star posed her question to Town Police Capt. Todd Sarris, he explained that felony charges of sexual abuse are reserved for cases when the victim is 11 or younger or when "forcible compulsion" is used.

Ms. Lock said Mr. Gilliam had been accused of fondling her daughter and another 12-year-old girl (both youngsters' names are being withheld to protect their privacy) in the same incident. She wanted to know why he was freed on $1,000 bail.

Explains Bail

Justice Walker told The Star that $1,000 bail was considered high for a misdemeanor charge. In comparison, he said, defendants charged with driving while intoxicated, also a misdemeanor, typically are released on $200 bail or less.

Mr. Gilliam has a court date next Thursday and Ms. Lock said she also wanted to know in advance what the procedure would be. She said both girls' parents had spent hours in court after the suspect's arrest waiting for him to be arraigned, only to learn that he already had been freed on bail. They were not present at the bail hearing.

In addition to expressing her opinion that the bail was too low, Ms. Lock said she wanted to be assured that, if Mr. Gilliam were found guilty, he would be appropriately punished. In her opinion, such punishment should be severe.

Matter Of Money

"But I feel like there's no one watching out for my daughter but me," said Ms. Lock, adding that she could not afford her own lawyer. She called some acquaintances for advice, including a criminal justice professor who took Ms. Lock's predicament to The Star. She added that she hoped to fill the courtroom with friends and family if the case goes to trial.

Justice Walker, noting that bail is intended only to guarantee that a suspect returns to court, explained that the Dec. 18 proceeding was for the prosecutor to report on any efforts to negotiate a plea bargain with Mr. Gilliam's lawyer. Justice Walker said he had "no indication" yet whether the case would go to trial or be resolved in a plea bargain.

Police confirmed that Mr. Gilliam has been arrested more than a dozen times in East Hampton, on a variety of charges, and the D.A. reported that he had pleaded guilty to four offenses over the years and once served 90 days in jail. He is now serving three years on probation for a petty larceny charge.

Defense Attorney

"Girls today are taught to speak up but what's the point if he's not going to be punished?" asked Ms. Lock.

Mr. Gilliam, a truck driver for Stanley and Sons, a local carting firm, has hired a well-known criminal defense lawyer, Robert Gottlieb of Huntington. Mr. Gottlieb is defending Mr. Gilliam's employer, Timothy Volk, in a separate matter, and it was Mr. Volk who posted the bail.

With Mr. Gottlieb working for the defense and the prosecution appearing to hinge entirely on the girls' testimony, Ms. Lock said she was worried that her daughter might have to take the stand. Captain Sarris said he thought both victims, though young, would be "credible witnesses."

Southampton Program

Captain Sarris agreed that some victims need the steady source of information and reassurance that an advocate could provide. He said his office tried to fill the gaps, although few victims take their questions to the police. Officers routinely hand out a list of agencies that offer counseling and other assistance such as the Family Service League and the rape hot line at the State University at Stony Brook.

In Southampton Town, where the focus of advocacy also has been on victims of domestic violence, Justice Deborah Kooperstein recently was awarded a nearly $150,000 grant to hire two full-time advocates to work in Justice Court and the emergency room of Southampton Hospital. Ms. Kooperstein said the plan was to have a victim's advocate in court at all times.

Teri Wilson, who runs the Retreat's advocacy program, said on Monday the agency has its own advocate in Southampton Town, another in Riverhead, and a third on the North Fork. That program has a budget of about $100,000, funded partly by a state grant, she reported.

Possible Aid

In East Hampton, a new advocate started work with the Retreat last week. Maryann Sarris (who is Captain Sarris's sister-in-law) will represent clients living at the agency's shelter or who have cases already on the docket. "She's very busy," said Ms. Wilson.

Drew Biondo, the spokesman for the D.A., James M. Catterson Jr., said on Monday that his office was in search of a replacement for the East End advocate. He also said that the case involving Ms. Lock's daughter had been assigned to a new prosecutor since the person first assigned had been promoted.

Ms. Lock reported Tuesday that she had had a call from the original prosecutor, who assured her the case was being taken seriously, and that she had made an appointment to meet the Retreat's new advocate to discuss whether her daughter's case could be included in that program.

A number of residents who stationed themselves around East Hampton Village to watch the Santa parade Saturday morning were wondering this week why two trucks in the procession were bearing Confederate flags.

Though some said they were upset at seeing the symbol, which is often linked to white supremacist and militant groups, the driver of one of the two trucks, Alex Danyluk Jr. of East Hampton, said that was not his intention. The second driver could not be identified by press time.

Complaints about the flags to the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the parade each year, may result in a new guideline for parade participants in future years.

Surprised

Marina Van, the executive director of the Chamber, and William Ritter, a member of the Chamber's board of directors who serves as the parade chairman, both said they received several complaints about the flags. The flags "absolutely surprised" Chamber members, Ms. Van said.

In the rush of getting the parade procession going, Mr. Ritter said this week that "I didn't notice the flag go by or I would have had it removed."

"I have to apologize to everyone for that. . . . It was not sanctioned by the Chamber of Commerce," Mr. Ritter added.

Asked whether the Chamber might prevent participants from marching in future parades if they display something objectionable, Mr. Ritter said that may be the case. "We've never been confronted with it before," he added.

Negative Connotations

"We encourage flags be put on the trucks and tractors, but the American flag," Mr. Ritter said, adding that he understood the Confederate flag has negative connotations of white supremacy, which neither he nor the Chamber condones. In the future, he said he would prefer to see only American flags or organization flags and banners, such as for the Boy Scouts or Kiwanis, used in the parade.

The 25 or so tractors and trucks that joined the parade's procession were organized by Mr. Danyluk, as they have been for the past several years. He was driving a Bistrian Sanand Gravel truck for "me as an individual" and not on behalf of the local company, Mr. Danyluk said. He works for the company.

"The Dukes Of Hazzard"

He stressed repeatedly this week that there was "no message, no intention" behind the Confederate flags, and that it was "not at all" a white supremacist statement. Many trucks and rigs, he said, drive around bearing Confederate flags.

Rather, he said, kids, like his college-aged daughter and high school-aged son as well as younger children, like watching an old TV show called "The Dukes of Hazzard," in which a pair of Southern brothers drive a car that bears a Confederate flag. There's even a Web site for the show, he said.

"The thing that puzzles me is," Mr. Danyluk added, "these kids that go to school, they're not concerned with prejudice, they go to school with kids of all colors. . . . People are not born with prejudice, people learn prejudice."

No Message Intended

"There was absolutely no message, other than kids think it's cool. And as far as I'm concerned, kids count."

"My head's spinning," Mr. Danyluk added. "Why is this such a big deal over nothing?"

"I just hope this doesn't get blown out of shape."

John F. Beuscher, a Bridgehampton resident who is a teaching assistant at the Amagansett School, was standing in front of the Ralph Lauren store on Main Street Saturday when he noticed the flags. "I thought 'Oh my God, there are some white supremacists looking for new members.' "

For many people the sight of the flags "really didn't sink in," Mr. Beuscher said. When he asked people around him, "Is that a Confederate flag?" he added, some responded "What's that?"

"Totally Offended"

"I'm totally offended," Mr. Beuscher said. "I've had that flag thrown in my face before," he added, while living in Boston, "because I had black friends." He called the Confederate flag "an American swastika. It's St. Andrew's cross turned the other way."

"If they didn't know what it meant, they need to be told," Mr. Beuscher said of the two drivers.

In a letter to the editor in today's Star, Fiona Bennett of Amagansett wondered, "Was there some subtle Christmas message or wish that I missed when the Bistrian gravel truck drove in the village Santa parade decorated with only the Confederate flag?"

Duplicate Santas A Problem

Mr. Danyluk said he did not know who was driving the second truck, which had a small Confederate flag on its antenna, and The Star's attempts to locate the driver were unsuccessful. Mr. Danyluk did say that the other driver was with the Antique Power Association of the North Fork, which brings old tractors to the parade.

Though the parade was the biggest in memory, perhaps ever, and "the best parade" to Chamber members, Ms. Van and Mr. Ritter reported two other problems this year. The Chamber's two guidelines - that marchers and floats not throw candy and that there be no Santas to duplicate the Chamber's, who brings up the rear of the parade - were both violated.

She got more complaints about the candy than the flags, Ms. Van said, from parents concerned that children might get hit in the head. She also got several complaints about the two Santas - one was the Chamber's and the other was on a float - which could confuse the children.

Nearly 1,000 mourners crowded into Montauk's St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church school building Tuesday morning to pay tribute to Carlos A. Hernandez, 17, who was killed late Friday night in an auto accident on Montauk Highway in Amagansett.

Many were students, teachers, and counselors from East Hampton High School, where Carlos, a senior, was a member of the band and the soccer and tennis teams. Among the nine who offered eulogies before the funeral mass was Christopher Tracey, East Hampton's athletic director, who called Carlos "a great kid who left a significant mark on those who had the privilege to know him."

His parents, Mr. Tracey said, "raised a winner."

Emigrated From Chile

An only child, Carlos had lived in Montauk since arriving in the United States at the age of 9 with his parents, Ana and Luis, from Vina del Mar in Chile, where he was born on May 31, 1980.

A hushed sadness filled St. Therese as Sister Cathi Kugler, a nun from the Southampton Spanish Apostolate, translated some of Msgr. John Nosser's words at the beginning of Tuesday's service. Worshipers rose as pallbearers, including several classmates, teammates, and Mr. Tracey, accompanied the white-draped coffin into the room, his parents and other family members following.

"We will never forget his wonderful smile," said Inez Fox, who had been his third-grade teacher at the Montauk School.

Five School Buses

"He was a Santa Claus of smiles and laughter," said his cousin, Sandra Mena of Montauk, who called him "my protector."

Five school buses brought high school students to the funeral Tuesday, in the process passing the spot where the fatal accident occurred. Since Saturday, friends have placed bouquets, wreaths, balloons, and photographs at the base of the tree Carlos's car struck after he apparently lost control at the wheel while heading home from a friend's house in East Hampton.

The 1989 Plymouth, police said, crossed into the westbound lane and went off the road. No other cars were involved. Using the "jaws of life" and other equipment, it took emergency personnel more than half an hour to free the boy, who was unconscious.

A Medivac helicopter met the ambulance at East Hampton Airport, but it was determined that Carlos was not stable enough to be transported by air, said William Lusty Jr. of the Amagansett Fire Department, who was the first on the scene. The ambulance then took Carlos to Southampton Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed.

No skid marks were found on the roadway, police said, suggesting that Carlos may have fallen asleep at the wheel. He was wearing a seatbelt.

Among approximately 35 fire and emergency medical personnel on the scene was Justin Raynor, a classmate and new member of the Amagansett Fire Department.

Friend To Many

Carlos's close friends and schoolmates Kevin Reilly and Jared Steil spoke through tears on Tuesday, Kevin saying he had "lost his best friend."

"Anyone who knew him was on his team. He was docile, playful, and strikingly honest," said Ben Simpson, a friend, classmate, and tennis teammate.

Chris Zay, who played with Carlos on the high school soccer team, said his friend "frustrated us with his ball-handling skills, and then would make us smile." The team, he added, "loved and respected him."

James Stewart, a high school teacher who coached the soccer team, said Carlos's "love of the game and the team were infectious, and his smile legendary."

Community Support

Monsignor Nosser noted the participation and support of "so many" in the community, "especially the students whose tears and feelings, especially of love, are more eloquent even than their words."

When word of the popular student-athlete's death spread Saturday, donations to cover funeral expenses and help for the grieving began to pour in.

The high school opened its doors to students, at least 100 of whom gathered in the auditorium to talk about their friend and comfort one another. Edna Steck, the East Hampton Town director of human services, arranged for two additional counselors to be on hand.

Kevin Graham, a school psychologist, and Sharon Bacon, the East Hampton School Board president, were also among those who turned out Saturday. Each had lost a child who had attended East Hampton High School.

In Two Languages

"He was a lovely boy, and there were a lot of tears," said Theresa Trouv‚, the principal, who with several counselors and teachers stayed at the school through Sunday.

Family members, friends, students, and school administrators attended a Spanish-language mass at St. Therese Saturday evening, where the Rev. Fransicso Dionisio from the Spanish Apostolate in Southampton spoke first in Spanish and then in English.

"We want everyone to know how important he was to us," said Dr. Trouv‚.

Besides participating in sports, Carlos held full-time summer jobs at John's Pancake House and the Montauk Bake Shoppe, where he worked part-time during the school year. He also volunteered at the Montauk Youth Center.

Half-Mast

"He had a huge heart," said Haley Ryan, a friend. "He wanted to go to college so he could make a good living and send money back to relatives still in Chile."

Flags were flown at half-mast at the high school and the Montauk School, which Carlos attended from the third through eighth grades.

Long lines of friends paid condolences to Carlos's family on Monday at the Williams Funeral Home in East Hampton. Carlos had played first trumpet in the high school band, and on Monday morning, in high school music class, friends placed his instrument on the chair he had used.

Fifteen students from that class played two selections Tuesday as pallbearers accompanied the coffin back out of the church for burial at Fort Hill Cemetery. There, Keith Fenoy, a son of Edward Barry, Carlos's high school social studies teacher, played "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes.

Afterward, more than 500 mourners gathered at a reception at the Montauk Firehouse.

Smile Remembered

Carlos's mother said she wanted her son to be remembered for his smile. Her wishes were reflected in a meditation offered by Mrs. Fox, who spoke in Spanish and English, at the funeral. It read in part:

"Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you, whatever we were to each other we still are . . . wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes together. . . ."

In addition to his parents, Carlos is survived by an aunt and uncle, Lorraine and Carlos Mena, and three cousins, Sandra Mena, 15, Andrea Mena, 13, and his goddaughter, Alexandra Mena, 21/2, all of Montauk. Other cousins in Montauk who survive are Domingo and Marcela Schiappacasse, Mauricio and Macareno Ramos, and Yanni Bascunan.

Also officiating at the funeral were the Revs. Dionisio and Gregory Semeniuk, also from the Spanish Apostolate.

Memorial donations can be sent to the Carlos Hernandez Memorial Fund, Bridgehampton National Bank, the Plaza, Montauk 11954.

The after-dinner skits written mostly by Joe and Sonya Gaviola have become the much anticipated finale to the awards dinner held each year to celebrate the end of the Montauk Locals surfcasting tournament. The antics on Sunday night, which included appearances by several surprise guest celebrities, did not disappoint.

The tournament, in its 11th year, began on a (sorta) friendly bet for dinner between two brothers, Dennis and Joe Gaviola. Joe bought dinner the first year.

The following spring, three others joined in the contest to see who could catch the largest striped bass from the beach. The next year there were 15 entrants, and this year 42 paid $200 each for the privilege of competing with surfcasters who are surely among the most proficient on the Atlantic coast. The money went toward prizes, the finale dinner, and for the savings-bond awards in the tournament's new Youth Division.

The Awards

The after-dinner shows began eight years ago with a few, mostly inside, jokes about the mishaps, bad luck, and idiosyncrasies of the participants.

The skits grew to be more theatrical when organizers realized that fish jokes - funny to those whose idea of fun is to stand on a rock in the cold for hours at a time - were not necessarily funny to the spouses and friends who endure the fishing addiction, and who also attended the annual awards dinner.

On Sunday night, at the Harvest restaurant in Montauk, Bob Jones of East Hampton was handed the $4,182 first prize for a 351/2-pound bass. Fred Kalkstein of Amagansett won $2,091 for the 341/2-pound, second-place striper he'd caught on an eel. Dennis Gaviola caught a 33-pound striped bass worth $697, third place, and Adam Fatigate and Jeremy Gould received $500 and a $200 savings bonds respectively for their accomplishments in the junior surfcaster category.

Three Nor'easters

Tom Bogdan, owner of the Rumrunner shops, was given the annual sportsmanship award for his efforts to clean up Montauk's Fort Pond and stock it with freshwater fish. Dave Marcley was given the "Googin" award, a kind of booby prize, for giving Dennis Gaviola his rock perch, a gesture that was punished minutes later when Mr. Gaviola caught the third-place fish.

The winning fish were caught in late summer and early fall. As a result, the latter part of the tournament had lacked the suspense and marathon casting that usually accompany the late migration of 40 and 50-pound bass throughout November.

Submarine clouds of herring, dived upon day after day by flocks of gannets, kept the bigger bass out of casting range. But what this year's tournament lacked in late-fall fishing drama was made up for by challenging fishing conditions. The wind and surf of three nor'easters made for some precarious moments atop the usual rock perches "up front" under the Montauk Lighthouse.

An Unfortunate Confrontation

Sunday night, the east end of the Harvest was transformed into the set of a "celebrity Jeopardy" contest. The contestants were introduced by Joey (Gaviola) Trebek: Vinnie Bottabing, an Eng lish-language-challenged surfcaster from way Up Island, played by Atilla Ozturk; a feisty Martha Stewart, played by Sonia Gaviola, and Elvis Presley, returned from the dead, played to perfection by Len ny DeFina. Henry Uihlein in drag conjured a believable Vanna White who had agreed to a guest ap pearance on the "Jeopardy" show. Oh, was she sorry.

There were bad vibes between her and Martha Stewart right from the start. They wound up in a vicious fight in the opening seconds of the game when Martha suggested that Vanna had turned more than cards during her career. Vanna's dress was rearranged in a shocking way.

The Categories

She recovered in time, however, to turn the cards to reveal the answers in the categories: "Googins" (local jargon for unpracticed fishermen), "Surfcasting," and "Montauk People." Not surprisingly, Mr. Bottabing was able to provide the correct questions in the fishing category, albeit slowly, and while enduring Ms. Stewart's disapproving jibes about his lifestyle. It seems that during fishing season he lives in a truck on the beach down by Montauk Point with his dog, Thor, subsisting on a bean-rich diet. Martha's looks of disdain helped bring down the house.

Contestant Presley found reason to launch into a gyrating, scarf-throwing rendition of "Viva Las Vegas." Ordinarily this would be funny, because Elvis impersonations have become part of our culture. But Mr. DeFina, host of "The Lenny DeFina Show" on LTV, is a gifted performer with a world-class voice that evoked the King in all of his Vegas glory.

An Emotional Moment

"Local tackle dealer known for his mellow personality and warmth," was an answer posed by Mr. Trebek.

"Who is Bill Addeo?" guessed Mr. Presley.

"Who is Mort Zuckerman?" Martha Stewart said.

"Who is Johnny Kronuch?" Mr. Bottabing answered, correctly identifying the owner of Johnny's Bait and Tackle shop on Main Street in Montauk.

Elvis broke up the questions, many of them a bit bawdy for a community newspaper, and waded into the audience with "It's Now or Never," a song that seemed to loose a flood of emotions in more than one fisherman's date.

"Ferry boat owner bringing the Queen Mary to Montauk in 1998," was Mr. Trebek's next challenge.

"Who is Bill Akin?" Ms. Stewart guessed, referring to a leader in the Montauk-based anti-ferry movement.

"Who is Lisa Grenci?" was Mr. Bottabing's stab. Ms. Grenci was a candidate in last month's Town Board elections who has spoken against new ferries in town.

Elvis Has The Answers

"Who is Paul 'Craps' Forsberg?" Elvis guessed correctly to the great pleasure of Mr. Forsberg himself, a surfcasting contestant and owner of Montauk's Viking Fleet who has been fighting East Hampton Town over his Montauk Harbor-based ferry service.

Elvis also guessed correctly that it was Henry Uihlein and not Ivana Trump, as Ms. Stewart had surmised, and not Miss July, as Mr. Bottabing hoped, who was "known for tight fitting dresses and large cleavage."

And, when Mr. Trebek left it up to the audience to answer: "Last American pummeled in a street fight with Alec Baldwin," the crowd roared "Bill Addeo," knowing about the man's war of letters to The Star with Mr. Baldwin, and proud of the fact that Messrs. Addeo, Kronuch, Akin, and Forsberg were themselves part of the audience of Montauk locals making good sport of each other.

A Legal Problem

The final "Jeopardy" question employed a visual aid. Mr. Trebek raised a striped-bass mount over his head. "The length, in inches, of this bass," he challenged.

Mr. Bottabing, of course, got it right. "Twenty-seven inches," his practiced eye had told him. He added, however, that 27 inches made the fish one inch short of the legal size.

"Legal schmegal," said Mr. Trebek, at which point the red lights of a police car could be seen outside the restaurant.

Harbormasters Pete Anderson and Ed Michels entered the Harvest and arrested Mr. Trebek for violating state conservation law, and Vanna White for obstructing justice in a most scandalous way. It was all over but for the thunderous applause, gales of hometown laughter, and the 50-50 cash prize drawing. And it seemed fitting that the drawing was won by a surfcaster who, unbeknownst to the others, had caught and released a bass weighing 52 pounds after a three-hour battle in Cavett's Cove using a fly rod.

"When you get involved in a gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most dangerous spot to be in is the middle," Ron Peckham, the vice president of C & S Engineers, said to a crowded room at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett. His firm designed the proposed reconstruction of East Hampton Airport's main runway at center stage at a heated public meeting on the project Friday.

More than 200 people attended, to question, debate, and testify on the merits and drawbacks of the controversial runway improvements. In the end, those on both sides seem to have stood firm.

Supervisor Cathy Lester maintains that doing the reconstruction before further State Environmental Quality Review is "illegal." Republican Town Board members, who say the proper groundwork has already been done, say that Friday's meeting only underscored the reasons to move forward now with the runway rehab.

Not Over Yet

On Tuesday, Town Board members Thomas Knobel, Len Bernard, and Nancy McCaffrey pushed through a resolution authorizing Mr. Knobel to sign a construction contract with Hendrickson Brothers of Farmingdale for improvements to runway 10-28.

"You can fight it if you want to, but you should have been signing it anyhow," Mr. Knobel said in response to the Supervisor's protests. On Monday, reflecting on Friday's public meeting, he said he had heard people seeking reasons to object to the project, but no actual objections.

To those unfamiliar with the issue, that would seem to be the end of it. But the recent history of East Hampton Airport proves that nothing is over till it's over. Hendrickson Brothers has already brought suit against the town and Ms. Lester asking a judge to compel the Supervisor or another Town Board member to sign its contract.

"The Campaign Is Over"

The Supervisor's defense is that she had legitimate legal concerns about the project that compelled her not to sign the contract. As of yesterday, a determination had not yet been made.

Though the town attorney, Robert Savage, and a deputy attorney, John Jilnicki, said New York State Town Law allows for another board member in towns the size of East Hampton to execute a contract, the Supervisor questioned the legality of Tuesday's resolution and said she would seek an injunction against it.

"There is not a single reason not to do this . . . . The air is cleared as far as the actual project. At some point the campaign is over," Mr. Knobel told The Star Monday, adding "It would be gross misconduct if anybody tries to stop this."

Boisterous Group

In the capacity crowd at the American Legion Hall Friday, only a handful spoke against moving forward with the project. Pilots urged the town to reconstruct the runway before it becomes a more serious hazard. Many in the audience chose not to speak, but heckled or cheered on those who did, making for a boisterous four hours.

Representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration and C & S Engineers detailed the plans and history of the project and answered questions about it at the start of the meeting.

According to C & S, the runway, which is now 75 feet wide with a deteriorated 12-and-a-half-foot shoulder on either side, is proposed to be reconstructed and repaved. The shoulders on either side of it would be strengthened and become part of the runway proper.

New Lights

The 20-year-old runway lights are to be replaced with newer bulbs of the same wattage, but the new wiring will allow for higher intensity bulbs in the future if the town chooses.

Phil Brito, the manager of the F.A.A. regional office, said replacing the lighting isn't mandatory, but, if the town chooses to use precision landing instruments, it will need to be able to install high intensity bulbs. A 100-foot runway is also required for a precision approach, the airport manager, Pat Ryan said. "I expect we will take advantage of [it]," he added.

The revamped runway will not change the type and number of aircraft that could land at East Hampton Airport, nor will it accommodate larger airplanes than are already landing there, said Bruce Clark of C & S, the project manager.

Near The End

While those opposed to moving for ward with the reconstruction have claimed that the load-bearing capacity of the runway would increase from 8,000 pounds to 60,000 pounds, C & S engineers said the runway was originally designed to bear 50,000 pounds over a 20-year life cycle and that the reconstructed runway would bear 60,000 pounds over its 20-year life.

"There is not a single aircraft that will be attracted to East Hampton Airport as a result of the widening, strengthening, and reconstruction of the runway," Mr. Brito told the crowd. Along with the project's engineers and the F.A.A.'s airport engineer, Dan Vornea, Mr. Brito insisted throughout the meeting that the project was about maintenance and safety, not expansion of services.

A repaving project 20 years ago was meant to last just 10 years. Now, Mr. Peckham said, "the runway is near the end of its life."

Unsafe Runway

"This has nothing to do with attracting or promoting larger aircraft," Michael Margulies of the East Hampton Aviation Association said. "We are against runway lengthening. If you want, we will put our names to it."

"We do not want expansion," Thomas P. Lavinio, the president of the Aviation Association, said, echoing Mr. Margulies and many other pilots who spoke. What they do want is some assurances about safety. "Runway 10-28 is one of the most unsafe, cracked runways I've experienced in my years of flying," Mr. Lavinio said.

Richard Krause, another pilot and member of the association, said, "I've worked damn hard to get that little Cessna. A propellor costs $2,400, and if I start picking up rocks I'm going to get pretty angry."

Agree On Safety

Irving Paler, a pilot from Wainscott, urged the town to move forward with the improvements with F.A.A. funding, rather than local taxpayer money.

The F.A.A. has pledged a $2.5 million grant for the runway work, but will not fund a runway narrower than 100 feet. Anything less, according to Mr. Brito, does not meet the agency's safety standards for airports serving the type and size of planes that East Hampton's does.

"Actually, our position is largely in agreement with the pilots' association," Henry Clifford, the chairman of the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion, told the crowd. He said his group wants a safer airport, too, but doesn't want an airport capable of serving more planes and larger planes. He asked the Town Board to "re-examine the project, conduct the proper environmental review, and not expand [the runway] to 100 feet."

No Real Option

"If we fund the reconstruction it will be 100 feet wide," Mr. Brito said. He pointed out that when the town first accepted Federal money for the airport it agreed to abide by F.A.A. standards. That means keeping the airport open 24 hours a day and meeting other Federal safety standards for airport improvements.

By that token, the runway will ultimately have to be 100 feet wide whether or not it is paid for by the F.A.A.

"The only option the town has is to not do any reconstruction until the runway deteriorates and the airport has to be closed," Mr. Brito said. After the meeting he added that if, after further study, the town decides to repave at 75 feet, the F.A.A. could take legal action against East Hampton.

Improbable Scenario

Mr. Brito said the town cannot restrict the type of planes using the airport and that the choice to land in East Hampton was the pilot's alone.

"I'm feeling we have no control over who comes into the Town Airport," Councilman Peter Hammerle said at the meeting Friday. "If more pilots decide to come in than now, is the F.A.A. going to . . . invoke new standards, new design categories, new requirements. . . . Can we be a Category C airport for the rest of our existence regardless of what's going to attempt to come into our airport in the future?"

Mr. Brito answered with a flat-out "no." "Category D [larger aircraft than typically use the airport] can come into East Hampton airport with a [runway of] substandard width. If there are 500 operations per year in a given category, the airport should be designed to accommodate that airplane, but that's probably not going to happen."

Larger Picture

The chance that it will is what worries opponents of the project, who fear that this will lead to further changes at the airport, such as lengthening the runway to accommodate larger aircraft.

"We do not see this project in isolation," said Pat Trunzo 3d, an attorney and member of the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion. He and other opponents of the project believe it has to be looked at as part of a larger picture.

"This project is being segmented," Pierce Hance, Mayor of Sag Harbor, said. He would like to see the project undergo a more extensive environmental quality review. "There's no reason to be afraid of the process."

"Take A Hard Look"

"This is being rammed down the throats of the people in the town," Supervisor Lester said Tuesday. If the town has to do what the F.A.A. dictates, that's all the more reason to "stop and take a hard look" at this project, she said.

Now, it's the widening of the runway the town won't be able to stop, the Supervisor said. Soon, she worried, it will be the length of the runway, then precision approach instruments, then moving Daniel's Hole Road. The impression people are being given, she feels, is that "they could not stop this runaway freight train."

Mr. Brito said Friday that the town's own master plan for the airport did not advise runway lengthening.

No End In Sight

"We all want basically the same thing - controlled growth of the airport," Tom Hensler, another member of the aviation association, said.

"I wish we could suggest a graceful way for certain town officials to reverse their misinformed actions," Mr. Margulies said. "Further study to reach the same end is a further waste of taxpayer funds."

Though Councilman Knobel has since been authorized to sign the contract that could get the work started before the change of guard on the Town Board, it's still uncertain what will happen in the coming weeks.

The Supervisor and her allies still hope to put the brakes on the runway reconstruction and review the project, a process she said could take six months, but many expect would take well over a year.

Bryn J. Mader, a paleontologist and the founder of the yet-to-be-built Long Island Natural History Museum, which he expects would house, among other things, the skeletons of small dinosaurs and extinct mammals, wants to bring a mobile rain forest and a 40,000-square-foot branch of his museum to the South Fork.

Half the museum would be devoted to dinosaurs and other extinct vertebrates. Although relatively small, the organization already has a collection that includes what may be the largest number of African pterodactyls in the world as well as small animal specimens previously unknown to science - creatures the size of mice or shrews.

The museum also would contain a collection of contemporary and fossil invertebrates including various insects and arachnids - a beetle as large as a sparrow, for example, and a huge replica of a ground spider, Dr. Mader said.

Vertebrate Focus

Dr. Mader and his board plan to create a giant model of an ant colony in the museum, and a vertebrate biological exhibit will explore "everything with a backbone" from humans to squirrels, he said.

While Long Island is to be home to the museum, Dr. Mader stressed this week that its contents would be "international in scope." Several of the scientists, artists, and designers planning the museum have worked with the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Dr. Mader was a collections registrar in its recent mammals department and also worked in vertebrate paleontology there.

These particular exhibits have been chosen because of their demonstrated ability to draw visitors. "The museum has to be financially successful," Dr. Mader said.

Long-Term Goal

His plan for Long Island is to open two branches of the museum - one on the South Fork and another in western Suffolk or eastern Nassau County. The museum will also construct a model of a Central American rain forest inside a tractor-trailer to use as a teaching tool for schools, he said.

Ultimately, the museum would build an enormous geodesic dome to house forest environments and a robotic dinosaur exhibit, but that, Dr. Mader said, is many years down the road. He said Robbie Braun of East Hampton, who builds models of such creatures as dinosaurs for films and museums, was helping plan the long-term project.

For now, Dr. Mader is concentrating on the mobile rain forest and the South Fork branch of his museum. He said he needed $15 million to get these two projects under way.

State Funding

Dr. Mader believes the timing is perfect to create a world-class natural history museum on the Island. As to funding, he said the state had $425 million available for "community enhancement" and that State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Kenneth LaValle had agreed to lobby for some of it for the museum.

He had hoped to build the first branch in East Hampton, but said he had found zoning and land costs prohibitive. Having recently conferred with members of the Town Board, he was pointed toward the Montauk Playhouse, a rambling and dilapidated early 20th-century building on Edgemere Road. He said "no" to that too.

But Montauk, Dr. Mader said, was too far east to draw visitors and involve schools from western Long Island. In addition, it would cost millions to rehabilitate the structure. Instead, he is looking toward Southampton Town and will meet with that Town Board this week to explore the options.

"Mobile Expedition"

Design and engineering of the museum is expected to take two years and cost $4 million. Building it will cost another $10 million. If the state comes through with funding, Dr. Mader said, the first step would be to construct a $1 million "mobile expedition experience." A 48-foot tractor-trailer would be able to travel to schools all over Long Island.

This first project would serve as a "practical demonstration of what the museum is capable of," Dr. Mader said. Stepping into the truck, students would enter a replica of a tropical rain forest with a small Mayan temple, plants, partially robotic animals, animal sounds, and forest smells.

Their task would be to help an imaginary team of scientists identify and study various specimens. Dr. Mader also described field stations within the truck where children would be able to examine materials, collect data, and do rubbings of archeological etchings.

Disembodied

"These will be practical exercises in deductive reasoning," the paleontologist said. His hope is that this hands-on learning experience will help spark a lifelong interest in science. The American Museum of Natural History and the Los Angeles County Museum both have mobile learning units similar to the one he is planning.

Right now, Dr. Mader refers to the Long Island museum as a "disembodied entity." Those involved in it are working on establishing a research collection, including the items mentioned above, along with things like mammoth hair and insects in amber. Some of the collection would be loaned free of charge to teachers.

"This is a once in a lifetime thing. . . . The chances of all these people being together are kind of slim."

His enthusiasm for the project makes the physical location seem only a minor detail and one he's certain will fall into place. Along with East Hampton Town he has also explored, but decided against, a location in the Suffolk County parks system.

Standing for Truth about Radiation, the East Hampton-based group pushing for a permanent shutdown and complete cleanup of the reactors at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has turned its attention north to the chronically troubled reactors at the Millstone Power Station in Connecticut.

Friday night's meeting at Guild Hall, billed as a talk on the non-nuclear possibilities in Brookhaven's future, instead focused primarily on Millstone, the nuclear facility closest to East Hampton.

"We are so connected, your community and mine. . . . We've got a problem. You've got one and I've got one too," said Susan Perry Luxton, an activist from Waterford, Conn.

Just 15 Miles Away

She was a last-minute addition to a panel that included STAR's found ers, Dr. Helen Caldicott and Dr. Jay Gould, as well as William Weida, an economist who studies nuclear facilities, and Mary Olson, a Washington, D.C., antinuclear organizer.

Jan Schlichtmann, the well-known environmental lawyer from Massachusetts, was rained in at the airport, and replaced as moderator by Alice Slater of STAR's executive board.

Ms. Luxton told the audience of 75 or so they should be as concerned about the potential environmental and health hazards from the three giant reactors at Millstone as they are about contamination from Brookhaven, noting Millstone is just 15 miles away across the Long Island Sound. Brookhaven is twice as far, to the west.

Similar Histories

She and other panelists noted that, while their technology and size differ, the two facilities have similar histories. There have also been studies in each location that allege higher-than-average cancer rates are due to emissions from the facilities.

All three of Millstone's reactors were shut down within a five-month period ending in March 1996, after 20 years of accidents, safety violations, and retribution against whistleblowers. The climax came the previous August when a senior engineer disclosed a superheated nuclear core was repeatedly transferred to a spent fuel pool before the required cooling-off period.

Waterford and New London residents have long criticized the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission for not strictly overseeing safety operations at Millstone, which has undergone three changes in management in the past two years.

Ms. Luxton said she was not an anti-nuclear activist but founded a group called the Citizens Regulatory Commission two years ago to "make sure they follow the safety rules, and to make sure the N.R.C. enforces the rules."

Buckets And Rulers

Brookhaven's high flux beam reactor, the larger of its two reactors, was shut down a year ago after a long-delayed report about dramatically elevated levels of radioactive tritium in the groundwater. Last month, Federal investigators said scientists had used an unreliable method involving buckets and rulers to track the water level in a containment pool for spent fuel.

Their report said that, as a result, the lab failed for 12 years to identify a leak of six to nine gallons of radioactive water per day.

Like Millstone, the lab had for years been the subject of protests, accusations of safety violations and health hazards, and whistleblowers' reports. It was named a Superfund site in 1989, and now has radioactive and chemical contamination in the groundwater and soil.

Radioactive Water

STAR is supporting independent testing off the lab site, including in the Peconic River estuary. Dr. Gould noted that a state radiological study called the Peconic the most radioactive water body in New York.

Primarily a research facility, the lab is owned by the U.S. Energy Department. The department, like the N.R.C. at Millstone, came under fire for failing to oversee safety. It in turn fired the Associated Universities management group and awarded a new contract last month to a partnership of the State University at Stony Brook and the Batelle Institute.

"Quiet Incompetence"

However, lab critics are now predicting little will change, noting 11 of the 16 new board members were also on the Associated Universities board.

"We know who runs these places. This quiet Victorian incompetence is a lot of fun when it's covered with ivy," but potentially lethal in the arena of nuclear energy, said Dr. Weida, who heads the economic conversion project for the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment.

Ms. Luxton made a similar prediction about the new management at Millstone and the N.R.C.'s renewed promises of oversight. "They're no going to protect us. We have to protect ourselves," she said.

Cancer Rate

A Federal budget bill withholds the funding necessary to restart Brookhaven's reactor anytime in the next year, and Energy Secretary Federico Pena said he would decide over the next two years. Meanwhile, scientists inside and outside the lab have been lobbying heavily for it to restart.

On Tuesday, a panel of top U.S. scientists said operating the reactor is critical to the nation's competitive edge and indeed its capacity should be doubled.

Earlier this week, the Brookhaven National Laboratory Environmental Task Force, formed last year by the County Legislature to address health concerns, released data suggesting the East End's cancer rate was increasing dramatically and was about 17 percent higher than the rest of the county.

Debate Over Study

There has been considerable debate, including among task force members, over whether the study was flawed and whether the lab, or Millstone, or pesticides, was the main cause.

Dr. Roger Grimson, head of the task force and a Stony Brook epidemiologist, said the study indicated the lab was not a factor since the data showed lower rates in the adjacent neighborhoods. But, Ron Stanchfield, vice chairman of the task force and an East Hampton resident who joined the panel discussion Friday, said the considerable contamination from the lab - a radioactive plume in the groundwater is migrating off site - could not be ruled out.

The data, which breast cancer activists have said is inconclusive and needs more study, involved 5,172 cases in all of Suffolk and 455 on the North and South Forks, reported between 1988 and 1993.

Millstone A Concern

Dr. Caldicott, who is known internationally as an anti-nuclear activist and is now an East Hampton resident, said the 80 "filthy" sites around the lab that contain pesticides and fuel oil, as well as radioactive isotopes - cesium, strontium, and plutonium - have created a dangerous "synergism" for Long Island over the 50 years the lab has been operating.

"Now is the time I would expect to see those elevated levels of cancer," she said.

Ms. Luxton told Friday's audience that East End residents should also see the start-up of Millstone as an immediate health and environmental concern since Northeast Utilities is claiming it can meet all the conditions for a restart there by February or March.

Strontium Level Study

"Not to diminish the consequences from Brookhaven for the Long Island community, but that reactor is a mole compared to the reactors at Millstone," she said.

Brookhaven's is a 30 megawatt reactor that went on line in 1965. Millstone's outputs are 660, 1,870, and 1,155 megawatts respectively, from reactors that went on line in 1970, 1986, and 1975.

Ms. Luxton and Dr. Gould, an epidemiologist who lives in East Hampton, announced that he would take his study of the strontium level in baby teeth to Connecticut too. He has been collecting teeth from all over Long Island, especially from around the lab, but said Friday the endorsement of the Suffolk County Dental Society was crucial to success.

"It's the only way we can truly establish the truth," he said.

Taking the panel's anti-nuclear message beyond the metropolitan region, Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service asked the audience to look "at the big picture." The situation around Brookhaven was no different than the areas around 40,000 contaminated sites worldwide, she said.

"When Chernobyl blew, it affected many countries, not just the Ukraine," she said, urging observers to become politically active. Several reactors around the country have been shut down, or are about to be, because of grass-roots opposition, including one in Oregon, two in California, and the Connecticut Yankee reactor in Hartford, she said.

And, in some cases, the shutdowns came about as an economic consequence of cleanups and safety conditions that grew out of community activism, said Ms. Olson.

No Long-Term Plan

She also announced that three of Long Island's legislators in Washington voted in favor of what she called the "Mobile Chernobyl" bill, which would make the transport of nuclear waste a taxpayer responsibility - without any long-term plan for safely storing the deadly waste, she said.

There are 50 million people living within a half-mile of the proposed transport routes, she said.

U.S. Representative Michael P. Forbes and Senator Alfonse D'Amato, who have called for a permanent shutdown of the Brookhaven reactor, voted in favor of the bill. U.S. Senator Daniel P. Moynihan did not.

As of this week, Southampton Hospital owes close to $1 million in back payments for employees' medical benefits, pensions, child care costs, and job security insurance.

Nearly two-thirds of the debt is for health insurance premiums and pension contributions covering 275 employees, said Steven Kramer, an executive vice president of Hospital and Health Care Employees Union Local 1199.

According to Mr. Kramer, the hospital could be putting its own workers' medical insurance in jeopardy.

Part of the money owed was paid in October, and the rest, promised Dr. John J. Ferry Jr., the hospital president, will be paid by June 1998. Union officials are watching the situation, said Mr. Kramer.

Late Receivables

"The other side of receiving late payments is making late payments," Dr. Ferry said this week.

There have been widespread reports this year of delayed payments by some managed-care companies, as well as chronic late payments by the Government itself, including both Medicare and Medicaid.

"This is the most severe it's ever gotten at Southampton Hospital," Mr. Kramer said. "It's an astounding amount."

Dr. Ferry was reluctant to divulge details of the hospital's arrangements with the 22 different managed-care companies it does business with because, "the more information I tell you, the more information they will have to use against me" as they negotiate new rates.

But, he said, "I don't hear any hoofbeats of disaster."

Nurses' Union Dues

The hospital has made some late payments on union dues as well, for roughly 160 registered nurses, said Michael Chacon, a representative of the New York State Nurses Association.

Nurses' union dues are deducted from their paychecks - about $40 a month each, or $85,000 annually for the staff. The hospital ran about a month late for four or five months starting in the summer, Mr. Chacon said, but now is considered "current" - about three weeks in arrears.

"It's not a real problem," he said.

"These are unhappy times," commented one longtime R.N., who asked not to be identified. She said she thought the hospital had been "four-square" with its employees.

Developments in recent months have forced hospital officials to adopt a kind of fiscal triage policy, with top priority going to inpatient care and staffing.

Expansion of the plant, "wellness" education, and new outpatient services are having to wait their turn.

Also waiting are several outside contractors who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the hospital has owed them money for services and materials for months.

One East Hampton vendor said he had been owed $1,200 for more than a year and will no longer work for the hospital.

Closed Doors

Only 18 months ago, new hospital buildings and personnel seemed to be popping up in all directions, with outpatient facilities in nearly every South Fork hamlet.

At least one major project was about to break ground (the Hampton Bays dialysis center); another was at the Planning Board stage (the Pantigo Road, East Hampton, medical arts building), and a third was an approved concept (a cancer center in Hampton Bays).

But now, with 10 percent fewer patients admitted for in-hospital care this year than last, plus the late insurance reimbursements, some hospital doors have swung closed.

Falloff In Patients

The hospital admitted about 6,000 patients in 1995, Dr. Ferry said, 6,500 in 1996, and 6,000 again this year.

The drop this year reflects in some part the nine-month loss of low-income prenatal patients who went to Brookhaven Medical Center in January after Southampton gynecologists demanded improvements in the county clinic where the patients are seen.

Seeing no progress, the doctors refused to renew their contract with the county.

The county has since agreed to renovate the aging clinic and as of Oct. 1 the doctors resumed deliveries in Southampton.

Some say the managed-care system is responsible in large part for the decline in admissions, citing, among other things, better preventive care and a growing emphasis on outpatient services. Some hernia operations, for example, are now done on a same-day-surgery, outpatient basis.

To make up some of the money lost in the downturn - roughly $2.5 to $3 million - the hospital has stepped up its fund-raising, garnering $1 million more this year than last year to date.

Meanwhile, the number of Medicare patients, who generally require more care than younger people, has been rising by about 10 percent a year. It now accounts for about half the patient population.

Consolidating

The hospital has begun belt-tightening. For example, patients and staff from two medical/surgical floors now occupy one. The 45-bed second floor is nearly full most of the time, according to Dr. Ferry, while the third floor, with 49 beds, is not used unless necessary. It can handle 15 patients when needed.

"We can operate better if one floor is busy all the time," he said, "and we keep the other on hold."

Dr. Ferry described the consolidation as part of a "slow and deliberate approach" to avoid reducing the 250-person nursing staff. He acknowledged that some "realignment" and "retraining" was under way, meaning personnel are being reassigned where most needed.

To date, no layoffs have been reported.

Hospital Network

The hospital executive expects to reap savings also through Southampton's new cooperative purchasing arrangements with Central Suffolk and Eastern Long Island Hospitals.

The State Health Department gave the network its long-awaited approval just last month.

The hospital also has consolidated three offices of the Center for Community Health Improvement and Wellness, its educational arm, into one, and slowed the construction of outpatient treatment facilities, including the sports rehabilitation center in East Hampton and the dialysis center.

"We have a dual mission:to break even and serve the community well,"Dr. Ferry added, acknowledging that sometimes the two goals "appear to conflict."

Senior Center Closing

Closing, as of Friday, Dec. 19, will be the three-year-old Senior Center in Hampton Bays, which employed a full-time physician who saw about 1,000 patients a year. Also shut, at least for the off-season, are specialists' offices in Westhampton Beach, near the hospital's primary care offices.

The primary care offices handle 15,000 visits a year and will add the senior population to its patients, Dr. Ferry said.

Dr. Jeremy Halfhide, whom the hospital hired about 18 months ago as its primary care physician in Sag Harbor, has left that office for personal reasons, and is returning to England. Dr. Ferry said he had been unable to attract a replacement of Dr. Halfhide's caliber and has closed that office, in the Malloy Building.

The catalogues stacked by the chimney with care

And the credit cards ragged

with far too much wear. . .

It's too late to force bulbs

or "Martha" your house

So give up, think sweet thoughts,

make desserts, reservations,

or fly down to Peru.

Christmas dinner is the next major feast we tackle, and it's a lot more variable than the Thanksgiving menu, which is more or less set in stone by most families.

In my household, we opt for the English traditional roast beef (the Dickensian goose having always disappointed everyone). In the South, the main attraction was often a country ham; in New England, the turkey again - if you're lucky, a wild one - or some venison.

A special lasagne is not unheard of at some Italian holiday tables and leg of lamb stars at Christmas dinner for many families of various ethnic backgrounds.

Left to my own devices, I'd probably go with buckwheat blini and caviar, smoked salmon, and champagne. But I am never allowed my own devices.

Dessert was traditionally fruitcake, mince pie, or English plum pudding at my mother's Christmas table. I loathed fruitcake and dropped that item as soon as humanly possible.

However, the mince pie is still a "must" around here, and last year I made my own version of plum pudding.

Those who eyed it dubiously at first wound up asking for seconds.

Anyway, the holly and the flames are good dinner-theater.

Plenty Of Time

Like fruitcake, old recipes admonish the cook to make plum puddings months ahead of time.

But it really isn't necessary, and the beauty part is that you can make this any time from now up until a couple of days before Christmas.

If you have a pressure-cooker, you won't have to simmer it in the oven for hours, but even so, you just go about your business while the pudding throbs along all by itself to a delicious, dense taste thrill.

A pressure-cooker contracts the steaming time from about six hours to 90 minutes.

Christmas Plum Pudding

1 cup dried currants

1/2 cup dried Sultanas (yellow raisins)

1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

1/2 cup dried pears, chopped

1 cup unbleached flour

2 cups bread crumbs (from day-old bread)

2 sticks unsalted butter or 1/2 lb. fresh beef suet, finely chopped

Peel of one orange, grated

Juice of one orange

Peel of one lemon, grated

11/4 cups raw sugar or light brown sugar

1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg or mace

4 beaten eggs

1/2 cup dark rum

Mix, Cover, Steam

Mix all the ingredients in the order given and scrape into a buttered eight-cup mold or heavy, heatproof china bowl. The pudding will expand, so the dish shouldn't be filled higher than an inch below the top rim. Cover it, first with buttered parchment (or typing) paper, then with heavy aluminum foil tied tightly with string.

Set the pudding on a rack in a pot that has about an inch of space all round it and fill it half to three-quarters of the way up with boiling water. Cover the steaming vessel and place it in the lower third of the oven (pre-heated to 325 degrees F.). After half an hour, lower heat to 300 degrees. Steam the pudding for six hours. When done, store it with fresh, dry coverings in a cool, dry place (not the refrigerator) until a couple of hours before serving.

Re-immerse the pudding in its boiling-water bath and steam it for about an hour. Lift it out, unmold it onto a heavy platter, and place a holly sprig on top. Heat a quarter-cup bourbon in a ladle and when it flames, pour it over the pudding. Rush it to the table before the flames die out.

Hard Sauce

Serve it with hard sauce, either purchased or easily made in a food processor. This can be made a week ahead of time, refrigerated, then brought to room temperature and beaten lightly to serve. It melts on top of the hot plum pudding; very little is needed for each portion.

1/2 lb. unsalted butter

1 cup light brown sugar

Pinch of salt

Pinch of nutmeg

1/4 cup bourbon or cognac or brandy

Cream the butter and sugar with the salt and nutmeg in a food processor or electric mixer (this ancient sauce can, of course, be made with a bowl and a wooden spoon). When light and fluffy, add the liquor in a slow stream. Pile into a container, cover, and store until needed.

The Right Dish

This next dessert is light, fluffy, and simple to make. I added pears to the basic pudding, normally made with rum-soaked raisins, which I've never cared for. Use either fresh Bosc pears or dried pears (moist, not leathery ones).

My pudding dish is Bennington stoneware, round, and about 12 inches in diameter by 21/2 inches deep. However, an oblong 9-by-13 standard glass baking dish could be substituted if you don't mind the somewhat institutional look of it.

Any kind of heatproof baking bowl or dish will do, actually, though it should not be too deep or the edges of the pudding will dry out before the center is cooked enough. Don't substitute any kind of fancy bread, though, such as baguettes or sourdough, because they won't make a proper fluffy pudding.

Southern Bread Pudding With Pears

Serves 12.

1 large, medium-ripe Bosc pear, peeled, cored, and sliced or 3/4 cup dried pears, snipped into small pieces

1 loaf Pepperidge Farm "toasting" white bread, (to make about 8 cups torn into bite-size pieces, with crusts on)

5 cups whole milk

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 vanilla bean

6 extra-large eggs

1 cup white sugar

Butter

Spread the pear slices on a lightly oiled shallow pan or cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for about an hour. Remove and cut in small pieces. Set aside.

Be Gentle

Tear up the bread. Heat the milk with the cinnamon stick. Split the bean and scrape the vanilla pulp into the milk and toss in the bean. Bring it to just under the simmer and hold it at that temperature for 15 minutes. Do not boil.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs together with the sugar in a large bowl. Remove the cinnamon stick and vanilla bean from the scalded milk and pour it into the center of the eggs and sugar, whisking gently (you don't want a froth) constantly.

Pour this over the torn bread, stir in the pears, and let it soak for 10 or 15 minutes. Turn this into a prepared baking dish, well coated with soft butter. Dot with a bit more butter.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Let The Ends Hang Out

Put the pudding into an underpan with at least an inch of space around the perimeter of the pudding so that you can lift it out. With a round, handleless dish, place a folded thin cloth under it before setting it into the underpan. Leave the ends hanging out for lifting handles.

Pour boiling water around the pudding and place it in the center of the oven. In 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 325 and bake about 35 to 40 minutes - until a table knife inserted in the center comes out fairly clean. Do not overbake.

The pudding will need to cool on a rack for half an hour before serving with Whiskey Sauce. Or, it can be refrigerated, then reheated in a water bath (as above) before serving.

Whiskey Sauce

This sauce is mounted rather like a beurre blanc but is far less tricky to make. Just make sure the bottom of the double-boiler never actually touches the barely simmering water beneath it, or scrambled eggs will happen. It reheats easily by whisking it over very hot water.

If you're the type who wears suspenders and a belt, make the sauce in a heavy china bowl set over a smaller pot of barely simmering water.

1 extra-large whole egg

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup sugar

1 stick room-temperature unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

Pinch of nutmeg

1/4 cup bourbon

Lightly whisk the egg, yolk, and sugar together in the top part of a double boiler (or heavy china bowl). Set it over barely simmering water in the bottom part of the boiler and whisk gently, adding one piece of butter at a time until all is incorporated. Whisk in nutmeg and bourbon and pour into a slightly warmed sauceboat with a small silver ladle.

Only a little of this potent sauce is necessary to top each serving of pudding.