The Sanctuary, 340 acres of Montauk moorlands with a checkered past, has been acquired by the Nature Conservancy for $4.18 million and will be sold again Tuesday as parkland to New York State, for the same amount. The conservancy's payment to the property's corporate owner will be divvied up in a deal to rid investors of their unwitting ties to the Colombo crime family.

The state's purchase of the Sanctuary means that nearly all of Montauk Point, broadly speaking, will remain green in perpetuity, from the lighthouse to the western boundary of Montauk County Park on the north and to the Sanctuary's western boundary, the old Old Montauk Highway, on the south.

The state now owns more than 1,400 acres at Montauk Point, Suffolk County owns 1,100, and 25 more are preserved by East Hampton Town and the Federal Government.

One Of The First

The only undeveloped land in the easternmost reaches of Montauk still in private hands is the 40-acre Caswell's Point tract between the Sanctuary and the ocean. There are a few developed sections, such as the 24 houses at Camp Hero and along the ocean where Richard Avedon, Peter Beard, and other notables live.

The Sanctuary deal was one of the first to be bankrolled by the state's $1.75 billion Clean Water-Clean Air Bond Act, approved by voters in November. It was announced a month ago that Governor George E. Pataki had agreed to the allocation.

He held a press conference Tuesday morning to announce the long-anticipated deal had finally closed, at the Long Island headquarters of the State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation in Babylon. A handful of East Hampton Town officials and residents, notified by phone the afternoon before, carpooled to the conference. Governor Pataki was joined by County Executive George Gaffney and other state and county officials.

"Spectacular Addition"

The Nature Conservancy, which has preserved a good deal of land to the west through donations, purchases, and easements, mediated between the state and I.C.R. of Montauk Ltd., the property owner.

In a statement faxed to the press, Governor Pataki called the parcel "a spectacular addition to the state park holdings" at Montauk Point and said "the Clean Water-Clean Air Bond Act is returning New York to its proper role as an environmental protection leader, guarding the critically important natural areas on Long Island."

Town Councilman Thomas Knobel, recently appointed to the State Open Space Advisory Committee, said the Governor and the County Executive both recalled during the conference that Suffolk voters had come out in force for the bond act.

Reputed Mob Figure

More than 70 percent of the Sanctuary is covered by freshwater wetlands that took town planners more than a year to flag. The extensive wetlands and the presence of blue-spotted salamanders and other rare species had some officials speculating those obstacles to development would pull the price of acquisition under $3 million.

Brian Vattimo, a state parks spokesman, said there was no management plan in place as yet for the Sanctuary. The land was considered environmentally fragile, and only the most passive uses would be encouraged, he said.

While the Sanctuary is now considered safe from development - the idea of a golf course there was ill-received here and lost its appeal in Albany as a result - the question of who will get the state's money is still in dispute, with Dennis J. Pappas, the reputed Colombo consigliere, at the center of the fray.

Ill-Gotten Money

A lawyer and financial advisor from Oyster Bay, Mr. Pappas was arrested two years ago on Federal charges of racketeering, loansharking, looting pension plans belonging to his clients, and other of fenses. The United States Attorney's office accused him of laundering mob money by pooling it with money invested by his legitimate clients in real estate and other ventures.

Prosecutors said Mr. Pappas and Victor M. (Big Vic) Orena, former Colombo family capo, were principals of International Coordinated Resources Inc., the parent company of I.C.R. of Montauk, and had early on named the Sanctuary as one of the assets it had acquired.

Faced with claims from a multitude of legitimate investors who said they too owned a piece of the Sanctuary, prosecutors later declined to confiscate the land. Instead, they have reportedly reached an agreement with the lawyers for I.C.R. of Montauk that would repay a portion of what they were owed to those who could prove their ownership.

No Documentation

Burton Ryan, the assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting Mr. Pappas, said many others would not get paid. "Mr. Pappas told many people they had an interest in the property, when there is no documentation," he said.

Roy Cacciatore and Kathleen Delessio, partners in the Freeport firm hired to represent I.C.R. of Montauk after the investors fired Mr. Pappas, did not return phone calls personally. However, a secretary for Ms. Delessio did call back with a brief statement: "The owners are happy that a mutual agreement was worked out for the perpetual preservation of this property."

Mr. Orena is serving life in prison for racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder. Mr. Pappas has not stood trial because of a heart condition and its "psychological effects" and has been forced into bankruptcy.

Distribution Of Money

The sale of the Sanctuary was approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Melanie Cyganowski, as was a deal that put $300,000 of the proceeds into the hands of the bankruptcy trustee. The rest is to be distributed to the I.C.R. investors by Mr. Cacciatore and Ms. Delessio, who are likewise owed a considerable sum.

Mr. Pappas's lawyer in the bankruptcy, Paul Dahlman, said his client will not claim anything from the proceeds of the sale, and Mr. Dahlman said he would ask that the $300,000 go to the investors as well.

"Everything is up in the air right now. Mr. Pappas hasn't seen his own papers in years, and doesn't remember exactly what's on them, but he believes he is entitled to zero from this," said Mr. Dahlman.

Condominium Plan

Among the claims was a $1.4 million mortgage on the property held by Jerry D'Angelo and Vincent Augello, former commodities traders who hired Mr. Pappas in 1979 to rid them of an unwanted partner in the Sanctuary.

In a 1995 interview with The Star, they told the story of how, through dinners and drinks, Mr. Pappas gradually replaced that partner with two new ones, himself and Mr. Orena seem headed toward a townwide solution.

They were all shareholders in a corporation that, in 1982, had proposed 142 condominiums on 70 acres of the Sanctuary, bulldozing a road through the wetlands, and building an observation tower to show prospective buyers the view. Angry Montauk residents, among them Dick Cavett, Peter Beard, and Cheryl Tiegs, hired a lawyer, and the plan went sour.

Dies Before Testifying

Subsequent owners, all corporations, made little more than halfhearted attempts to subdivide. Town records show the property transferred several times over the last 20 years from one corporation to another, with each holding a mortgage for the next. No money changed hands, as the transfers represented partnership restructurings.

Mr. D'Angelo, who told The Star he intended to testify against Mr. Pappas when the time came, died last year.

Something's Wrong

East Hampton

April 17, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray:

Something's wrong there.

As we finally sense summer's approach, we look forward to the appearance of flowers, greenery, and this season's crop of village "brownies." When these summer Police Department personnel are in evidence, marking tires and writing parking tickets, and otherwise assisting our beloved tourists, we know that our favorite season has arrived.

One fine Saturday last summer, I foolishly ventured into the village to patronize my favorite hardware store, found my favorite parking lot full, and then proceeded to my favorite secret parking lot. Others had discovered my secret, so on I drove to the last resort.

I entered Park Place but then saw, two cars ahead of me, a stopped automobile, with the driver apparently waiting for the person who was entering a car parked at the side of the A&P to leave. The problem was that the person waiting was blocking the car ready to back out of the space, and since there were now four cars waiting to enter the lot, the person waiting could not back up, and could only go forward, to allow the other person to leave.

Since the waiting party simply waited, unable to back up, and obviously unwilling to go forward, no doubt expecting the leaving party either to pass over or through another car, I could tell that this was a tourist, or, worse, a day-tripper, because a "regular," or even a "native," would not have done such a thing. Ever.

Now, watching as the traffic (with me, alas) backed up and began blocking Newtown Lane, was one "brownie," while another nearby was carefully chalking tires. It must have been a wondrous sight to behold because both young people seemed enthralled with the sight of traffic now snarled, as if it were gridlock in Manhattan. One continued to mark tires between pauses to observe the spectacle, while the other watched, uninterrupted by any other duties.

Only after one intelligent motorist (it was not me) emerged from his vehicle and suggested to the culprit who started all this that she attempt to find another spot so that the entire East End could return to its normal frenetic state did the problem begin to abate, as she heeded the suggestion. (If I were she, I probably would have insisted that the 200 cars behind me back up and get out of my way.)

Perhaps those who are in charge of such things can arrange to have the seasonal keepers of law and order be a bit less assiduous in marking tires, writing parking tickets, hanging around looking handsome, and guiding the misguided, and provide some training in the fine art of assisting the flow of traffic, moving the double parkers, and unsnarling the snarls.

If "brownies" are hired only to enforce parking regulations, or to stand around and wait for a tourist to ask directions, then something's wrong here.

Definitely.

CALVIN SILVERMAN

Redeye Gaper

Washington, D.C.

April 21, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray:

The East Hampton Star's continued interest in ichthyology delights me! I had fallen behind in reading The Star and have only just come across the photo of the unidentified fish in the April 10 issue. A couple of your readers have come very close to a correct response, since the fish is both an "angler" and is closely related to the "goosefish."

It tricked a few of us at the museum at first glance because it resembles a type of bottom-dwelling fish called a stargazer. (You may recall I wrote to you about stargazers in 1994 after another "mystery fish" was featured.) However, the distinctive sensory canals on the head and body, so clearly visible in the photograph, are the features that reveal the fish's true identify.

The fish illustrated belongs to the family Chaunacidae, commonly known as chaunacid anglerfishes. It is a member of the order Lophiiformes, which also contains the family Lophiidae, or goosefishes, of which "monkfish" is a common commercially used species. Two characters that help to distinguish chaunacids from other fishes are the prominent open sensory canals that extend from the snout region of the head backward along the body, as depicted in the photograph, and the bright orange coloration.

The specimen in question is, most likely, the species Chaunax stigmaeus, or the redeye gaper. It is the only chaunacid known from Georges Bank, is a rare species, and is documented scientifically by relatively few specimens. Other species of Chaunax are not likely contenders since they are not known to occur this far north. A related species, Bathychaunax roseus (less likely judging by the photograph), occurs at greater depths (1,023-2,200 meters rather than 90-699 meters, the depth at which C. stigmaeus occurs) and has a more southerly range (circa 20 degrees north to 39.5 degrees north versus 36 degrees north to 40 degrees north).

Confirmation of the species identification, however, can only be done with the specimen in hand. If the specimen was frozen and is available for donation, I'd love to acquire it for our preserved specimen research collection, since we do not have any specimens of this species in our holdings of approximately eight million fishes!

Chaunacids are not well known and are rarely encountered. They are bottom-dwelling anglerfishes that occur in all but polar seas at depths ranging from 90 to over 2,000 meters. Prominent characteristics include the large globose head with a conspicuous network of open sensory canals that continue backward along the trunk as a single open lateral-line canal (part of the sensory system common to most fishes, but structured quite differently in these fish), an angling apparatus on the head, the pink, red, or orange live coloration, the loose, flaccid skin that is covered with minute, spine-like scales, the large up-turned mouth, the large, paddle-like pectoral fins situated far back on the sides of the body, and small, circular gill openings that are above and just behind the pectoral fins.

A number of deepwater fishes use an angling device (or illicium) to lure prey. Although I can't distinguish the illicium in the photograph of this fish, it should be found on the middle of the head between the eyes (it may be retracted into an oblong depression). The illicium in chaunacids is very short and has a terminal bait (or esca) comprised of a dense cluster of small finger-like projections, giving the apparatus the appearance of a short-handled mop.

Scientific records of the live coloration of chaunacids are virtually nonexistent. For this reason, I'm interested to know if the photograph is in color and if it was taken when the fish was still alive or shortly after it died. I am also very interested in knowing the depth at which it was caught and if the specimen still exists. If so, we would very much like to have it for the national fish collection. If the fish is available for donation, please contact me at 202-357-3300 or by e-mail at [email protected].

I'd like to take this opportunity to compliment The Star on a recent excellent article on eels by Larry Penny. It was accurate and well written, and our resident eel expert, Dr. David G. Smith (referenced in the article), was quite impressed by it. Thanks for your efforts to educate your readership about the world of fishes. My own wonderful experiences poking around the salt marshes and beaches of Three Mile Harbor when I was young (an activity I continue to this day, while on vacation visiting my parents) are what inspired me to my present calling.

I'm sure the delightful exposure to the biological world, readily available to residents of East Hampton, enhanced by the fine nature writings in The Star, continue to inspire young and old alike and, hopefully, will translate into preservation of East Hampton's treasured natural resources for future generations to enjoy.

Sincerely yours,

SUSAN L. JEWETT

Collection Manager

Division of Fishes

National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution

Better Way

Amagansett

April 19, 1997

Dear Helen:

A number of people have called me to ask if there is not a better way for the town to deal with compostable waste than having residents empty out their plastic bags at the recycling center. This messy and offensive method has deterred many from participating in the program.

If the town feels unable, for some reason, to deal with plastic bags, there are two alternatives.

1. There are now on the market several practical and truly compostable plastic bags. These are made from relatively new biopolymers that, in the compost environment, break down to harmless carbon dioxide and water. Be aware, however, that there are also so-called compostable bags that contain polyethylene; these bags do not totally break down despite the claims of their manufacturers. I would refer anyone interested in more details to my cover story on this subject in the February 1997 issue of Biocycle magazine.

2. There are also available compostable paper sacks, lined with water-resistant, but compostable, film made from vegetable starch. These bags are strong and practical, but they are a little more expensive than the compostable plastics.

There is a commercial opportunity here for an entrepreneur to wholesale these bags to local stores. Of course, it would make the most sense for the town itself to do this, but I am afraid that common sense solutions do not seem to have much appeal to those now in control.

Some of my callers have even suggested that deterring participation in the composting program may, indeed, be the objective of those calling the shots. Surely this cannot be true? Can it?

Sincerely,

PETER GARNHAM

Fair Is Fair

East Hampton

April 22, 1997

Dear Editor:

A note about Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which takes place today.

A number of years ago, the Ms. Foundation began what has become a nationwide effort to inspire young girls to aim for careers in any field they so desire. Because of the huge success of this effort many men's groups have started to complain that we are not paying attention to young boys. For as long as this day has been around, antifeminists - particularly some in the so-called "father's rights" movement - have complained that the project discriminates against young men.

Of course, this is a classic tactic. Every time a program is developed to level the playing field for women, some men (who are used to having the game rigged in their favor) scream foul. But this year, instead of arguing, we suggest that these guys take "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" and take their sons home and teach them how to clean toilets, scrub floors, launder clothes, and pick up after the other family members. After all, fair is fair.

MARILYN FITTERMAN

Past President

National Organization for Women New York State

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

Please include your full name, address and telephone number for purposes of verification.

On gloomy winter days there are few things more buoying than baking bread. It warms the spirits as well as the kitchen and fills the house with comforting aromas. Then, after all that, you get to eat something beautiful and satisfying: your own personal handmade loaf of bread. It does not, as many people think, take hours of laborious kneading and rising and punching down and baking on a special stone. Yeast dough is almost indestructible and does nearly all the work of turning into a golden, fresh loaf of aromatic bread all by itself.

The cook's actual time mixing, kneading, and forming the loaves takes about 15 minutes. The trick is to arrange the time so that it suits your schedule and not the other way around. Bread can rise slowly in the fridge overnight, it can rise sitting in a bowl on the kitchen table, or, if you're in hurry, it can rise more quickly sitting, modestly covered, in a deep bowl placed in any warm, draft-free spot where it is surrounded by warm air. (You would not, for example, put your rising dough near an open fire where one side might harden and cook and the other suffer a chill.)

You can mix it up, set it to rise, and go out on errands, then return, punch it down and shape it, let it rise again and bake it, all on a timetable that is convenient for you. Furthermore, bread is one of the most elemental and accommodating things you can make. It requires no special pans or fancy ovens and only the simplest ingredients. Yeast, flour, water, and salt are the basics, though bread baked with milk or buttermilk with some added fat keeps a lot better than the spare kind of bread, delicious though it is, really needs to be eaten within a few hours after it comes from the oven, otherwise it turns to stone.

Some of the things other than bread pans that can be used to shape and bake bread are flowerpots and deep clay pot saucers (cured in the oven with an oil rub), cake pans, oven-proof china bowls, Pyrex or ceramic souffle dishes, just about anything that can take the oven heat. Or you can just shape it free form and arrange the loaves, long, short, fat, round, whatever, on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan spread with some flour and cornmeal, or simply flour, to keep the dough from sticking.

The dough can be made entirely by hand, with a dough hook attached to an electric mixer or, in somewhat smaller quantities, in a regular size food processor. "Pro" size processors can handle dough for up to three loaves of bread. I always make at least two loaves at a time as the whole process takes the same length of time whether one, two, or three loaves.

Even if the family doesn't add up to 19th-century numbers, baking your own bread is a worthwhile pursuit: There's nothing like a freezer full of goodies to give you that warm, I-can-face-the-winter feeling. Yeast-risen doughs are the most forgiving. You can slap them around, arrest their development by refrigerating them, let them rise quickly or slowly, punch them down and let them rise again if you're busy with some other task. They're gluttons for punishment. If you can tell time and have reasonably clean hands, you can make bread.

Whole Wheat-Buttermilk Bread

Aside from being simple to do, the possibilities for variations on the basic loaf are almost endless. There's little point in making just one loaf of bread, even if you live alone. Bread freezes perfectly for up to two weeks, well wrapped. Depending on the rate of consumption, you might even want to double the recipe to four loaves.

Makes two loaves, one pound each.

1 pkg. dry granulated yeast

1/2 cup warm water

Pinch of sugar

2 cups whole wheat flour

21/2 cups unbleached white flour

1/2 cup flour for kneading

1 Tbsp. kosher salt

2 Tbsp. peanut or other plain oil

11/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature

Solid shortening for greasing pans

My usual pan for baking this recipe is a double baguette black steel loaf pan. However, it can be baked in two separate loaf pans of almost any kind, or shaped any way you like and baked on a flour or cornmeal sprinkled baking sheet. Sometimes I shape the dough into two round balls and bake it in two clay flower pot saucers I keep for this purpose. All pans must be greased well.

Traditional bread mixing bowls are usually of thick wood and can be found in any housewares or hardware store. But you can mix the ingredients on a bare board, making a well in the center of the flour. My daughter, Pam, who makes all the bread her family eats, uses a smallish plastic dishpan that holds many pounds of flour.

Sprinkle the yeast into a cup containing the water and sugar. When it thickens and bubbles this indicates that the yeast is alive; this is called "proofing." Mix the two flours together, leaving aside the half cup for flouring and kneading. Mix in the salt, oil, and buttermilk. Knead according to the directions with your processor or mixer, or, by hand, knead the dough on a wooden or marble surface sprinkled with flour for about 10 minutes.

Even when I use a mixer or processor, I always finish kneading the dough by hand to make certain of the texture. It should be smooth and elastic; if not, knead in another tablespoon or so of flour until it is no longer sticky. Form it into a ball and turn it around in a well-greased bowl. Cover with greased plastic wrap and put it in a draft-free place to rise. Depending on the temperature of your kitchen it will double in bulk in about 1 hour or so.

Or, if you wish to delay the baking, set it in the refrigerator and let it rise overnight, but not longer than 10 hours or the yeast may exhaust itself and go flat. Many experienced bakers are adamant about a long slow rise to produce the finest flavor in bread. I take a middle ground and find that ordinary room temperature (in winter) produces a fine-tasting loaf.

When the dough has doubled in bulk, knock it down (deflate it completely by pounding it with your fists), knead it a bit, and shape it into two loaves, seam sides down, before putting them into whatever greased pans you have chosen.

After 30 minutes, slash the loaves in three places with a razor blade held at an angle nearly parallel to the top of the dough and make cuts about one-quarter-inch deep. If your cuts are not exactly perfect, never mind. Attempts to correct the slashing will simply deflate the dough.

Let the dough rise for an additional 20 minutes or so, when they will be just about as high as they will ever get. The hot oven makes them rise a bit more, but not all that much unless you have a professional bread oven - that's how commercial bakers manage to get those large, air-filled loaves that weigh only half what they should.

During the last rise, heat the oven to 400 degrees and put the rack in the middle position. When the cuts have opened, spray lightly with cold water and put the loaves in the oven along with a cup or so of ice cubes tossed on the floor of the oven. The burst of steam forces the dough to rise higher. If you prefer to skip the steam/ice cubes bit, don't bother - bread rises inexorably.

After five minutes, lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake until the bread is light brown and sounds hollow when the bottom is thumped, about 25 minutes. Thick round loaves will, of course, take a bit longer than long thin ones. If the bottoms aren't brown, put the loaves turned on their sides, minus the pans, five minutes.

Cool on wire racks. When cold, wrap in plastic or foil and store at cool room temperature, or freeze.

Despite these lengthy, but necessary, directions, your actual working time is no more than 20 minutes. The dough does its own thing as you do yours.

You may knead in herbs, or chopped nuts, raisins or currants, tiny bits of firm cheese or coarsely grated Parmesan. But don't get carried away with the extra ingredients or your bread may be soggy and heavy.

Home-baked bread is surprisingly heavier than commercially baked bread because there is a much greater ratio of flour to yeast. Some commercial breads, the kind with slices you can roll into a small ball, are mostly air and yeast.

Homemade bread has a fine, firm crumb and slices cleanly. It costs almost nothing to make. The buttermilk bread here described uses more ingredients than most plain loaves, which are made with flour, water, salt, and yeast and little else. Baguettes, for example. But the lack of milk, eggs, or oil is the reason the baguette stales and hardens so quickly; they're delicious but must be eaten within a few hours after coming from the oven.

Frequent bread baking leaves "free" yeast spores floating around your kitchen, and the more you bake, the faster the dough rises. The aroma of baking bread is better than any room spray or scented candles I can think of. Added to these benefits, bread making becomes a relaxing, therapeutic pastime that gets easier and easier with every loaf.

And the possibilities of yeast-raised doughs are almost endless. Bernard Clayton has written some excellent books on the subject and one of my favorites is an old one, "Beard on Bread," as well as Elizabeth David's scholarly treatise "Yeast Breads in English Cookery," which is probably more than most people would ever want to know about the subject, but great reading.

A strong connecting thread of warm color ties together Anne Sager's paintings and photographs. And when she gave up painting to concentrate exclusively on photography, it is easy to see the urge of the born colorist in her decision to opt for color photography over black and white.

"Enough black and white snobbism," she says with enthusiasm. "I love color."

Warm browns and ochers, a particular shade of chalky pink, rust, amber, Vermont-barn red - it's exciting to see an artist's sensual favorites reappear like a signature over the years, whether in a close-up shot of plumage, a junkyard still life, or a candid shot of a plump matron in a satin teddy.

Best In Show

This is the first year photographs have been allowed in Guild Hall's annual Artist Members Exhibit, now showing there, and Ms. Sager's print of two old gas pumps won the overall Best in Show prize - more food for thought on the theme of artist as photographer.

Ms. Sager started painting as a child in Westchester and had a painting included in an adult art show by the time she was 12. She continued to study art and to paint during her first marriage, which produced four children.

There were two things that made her change course and swap the chimerical world of the paintbrush for the decisive click of the shutter. When her daughter was 4, she tried to paint the child's portrait as Renoir would have done.

"I couldn't do it," she said flatly. "So I bought a camera, and that's what started it."

The second catalyst was the ending of her first marriage and her remarriage to her art teacher, a talented artist named Manfred Schwartz.

"There wasn't room for two painters in the house," said Ms. Sager.

As it turned out, there wasn't room for photography either. Soon after the marriage her husband fell ill, and she was unable to return to her work until after his death. They were married for only four years.

If her life had been shaken up by sudden tragedy, then her photography was shaken from the family-portrait rut by an article she chanced to read on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. The writer was the wife of a migrant farmer.

Migrant Workers

Ms. Sager could not forget her description of her bleak existence.

"I was so moved by it that I had to go and see for myself," she said. For four years she traveled to Florida to take photographs of migrant workers, an undertaking that resulted in her first exhibit, at Ashawagh Hall. (She now shows with the Arlene Bujese Gallery in East Hampton.)

By then, Ms. Sager had married her third husband, the psychiatrist Clifford Sager (they have eight children between them; two sons-in-law are photographers). In 1979 she had her first show in New York City, at the Neikrug Gallery, of photographs taken on a trip to China.

Journeys to Morocco and India produced further series but also made her aware that she wanted more from the camera than it was giving.

"I'd got a little bored," she said. "So I started to experiment with pure color. I made masks and tried to recreate the memories of trips by using my own palette of colors, combining painting and photography."

When the process worked, she was very pleased with the results, she said. But the trouble was that it was really hit-and-miss.

"Working in the darkroom, not being able to see the colors as you worked, meant you never knew how they were going to come out."

"Ripple" Photos

Then she discovered the computer.

"I'm addicted," she said. "You can change anything you like: color, shape, tone, sharpness."

She showed a couple of prints to demonstrate. In one, of trees leaning over Town Pond, she indicated how she had changed the color, softened the focus, and elongated the drooping branches. The changes were extremely subtle, but they were enough to enhance the overall mood of melancholy and winter.

In the other, the ripples on a pond had been orchestrated and shepherded until they formed a more painterly image. To the casual eye, the changes were undetectable.

These ripple photographs, where photography edges towards painting, contrast interestingly with the pastel seascapes by Brooke Chapman currently at the Lizan Tops Gallery, where waves and ripples assume a photographic quality.

An American In Prague

Since 1977, Ms. Sager and her husband have spent part of their time in a house at the end of a spit of land jutting out into Three Mile Harbor. It's an artist's paradise, where tranquillity alternates with fierce storminess. On a recent bitingly cold morning, the harbor's wind-lashed waves looked as if they might come bursting through the picture windows.

The photographer has been coming to the East End since she was a teenager and it is here that she gets to demonstrate her other interest - poetry. Ms. Sager has been a member of the East End Poetry Workshop since 1988; no sooner did her visitor leave, in fact, than she set off to read in Bridgehampton.

She is a member also of Professional Women Photographers, which had a group show in Prague two years ago. Ms. Sager was the only one to travel there for the opening.

"It was my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame," she laughed. "Fifty journalists turned up for an interview with me."

East Village Collages

Over the years, Ms. Sager's photographic muse has elbowed her from one theme to another. Hanging on the wall of her living room are three 40-by-30-inch closeups of a duck's plumage, taken with fast film and a close autofocus lens at the East Hampton Nature Trail. The scale is so large that the prints almost become abstract, except that you can see the finest detail of each feather.

On another wall are a number of photo collages, some of them drawn from a series that Ms. Sager did of scenes in Manhattan's East Village. They were exhibited at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan and the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts.

"I was working with my Hasselblad and a tripod on the street," said Ms. Sager, "when two women went by. I heard one of them say to the other disgustedly, 'That's what's happening to our neighborhood - artistes!' "

Ms. Sager seems to love the changes that age brings about - the New York City photos focus on faded walls, ancient paint, worn metal and wood, the grime of life - and she positively coos when the word "junkyard" comes up. Photographs taken at a local one show those same warm colors of rust and dying metal.

Women Over 50 In Lingerie

"I told the owner, 'You have the most beautiful place in East Hampton.' He thought I was crazy."

It is age that is the subject of what is certainly her most riveting series - women over 50 in lingerie.

Ms. Sager recounted how she had gone shopping with a friend who turned up for the expedition in a black satin bustier and tight red pants.

"Cellulite and all," said Ms. Sager. "I said 'You look just like a Richard Lindner - you must let me take your photo!'"

One photo led to another - she seems to have many sporting friends who didn't mind letting it all hang out, so to speak - and, as Ms. Sager explains it, the rationale behind them is that "it ain't over till it's over."

One, an elegant member of the "ladies who lunch" crowd, is wearing a chic hat and a fur stole - and nothing else but fishnet tights and high heels.

Another plump model sports a hat and a feather boa and spills generously from a mauve satin teddy (this shot ended up in the prestigious Graphis book "Nudes").

It's a wonderful, funny, life-affirming bonanza.

The amateur biologists were sitting around the garden the other day watching the grass grow and talking about the remarkable performance the oldest daffodils have been putting on this spring. The record snows of two winters ago had to have something to do with it, all agreed.

Like childhood friends who move away, are almost forgotten, and suddenly pop up at a wedding or class reunion to be greeted with more affection than the people one sees every day, this spring's show features unexpected guests not encountered in years but all the more happily met. Not only in the formal garden but all along the roadsides and at meadows' edges, slender-stemmed flowers planted by another generation of gardeners, pale standards of Edwardian refinement, have returned.

Who put them in the ground? Did they ever think they - and their venerable bulbs - would live this long?

The Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor is wrapping up its spring weekend series on Saturday with "Julie2," an evening of comedy and song with the actress and comedienne Julie Halston and the songwriter and performer Julie Gold.

This new show was created for Bay Street and will be directed by Murphy Davis, the theater's producer.

Ms. Halston has played in New York City at Caroline's, Cafe Largo, and the Russian Tea Room. Her successful run at the nightclub Eighty-Eights earned her the first of a number of musical comedy awards.

She began her career as a founding member of Charles Busch's Theater-on-Limbo company, starring in such Off Broadway productions as "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom" and "Red Scare on Sunset," for which she won a Drama Desk nomination. She also wrote and starred in "Julie Halston's Lifetime of Comedy" for six months Off Broadway, receiving a Best Comedy nomination from the Outer Critics Circle.

Ms. Gold is perhaps best known for her hit song "From a Distance." Her songs have been recorded by Bette Midler, Nanci Griffith, Patti LaBelle, Judy Collins, and others.

Performance time is 7 p.m. Tickets can be ordered in advance by calling the box office.

When a bunch of guys - sans wives - are holed up in a two-bit motel 300 miles from home for four days, you can be sure the beer is going to flow and the malarkey will be flying.

So it was when a bunch of us clowns found ourselves together in Glens Falls for the 1997 New York State high school basketball tournament.

The impetus for our trip was the fabulous Bridgehampton Killer Bees, the defending champions looking to repeat.

We were to leave Friday morning at 5 for the 3 p.m. semifinal game, but with the ominous threat of snow forecast we opted for a Thursday afternoon getaway. I rode with Sponge and Grillo. Jack Graves, an erudite penman for this newspaper, took off with two lesser lights (we referred to the three of them derisively as the peanut gallery) in a second vehicle. Bryant Carpenter, the stellar sports editor of The Southampton Press (who, I would argue over a couple of beers later that weekend, has toiled in my shadow for the better part of his career), made his own way up.

We were to spend an inordinate amount of time together during the next four days acting like adolescents, a degree of maturity I attained some time ago and have continued diligently to maintain ever since.

I met Grillo five years ago. I found out years later that he was a painter. Like a house painter, I figured. But no, he was an artist, and a famous one at that. Go figure. Who knew? I sat next to him for maybe 50 games, spent hundreds of hours with him, and never asked him anything about himself. We talked hoop, and only hoop. Hey, we were busy.

We pulled into Glens Falls in the midst of a severe snowstorm, fortified only by the two dozen Dunkin' Donuts I had purchased for the ride. Graves, Carpenter, and the rest were already bunked down. Sponge had a cooler of beer, bless his soul. We waited for Grillo to fall asleep, shoved a half-dozen jelly doughnuts under his sheets, and retreated to our room to watch college basketball and talk hoop.

I had gotten Sponge a press pass that allowed him free access to all the games and a seat at the press table. By the time the weekend was over he had become a fixture there, taking notes, interviewing players, keeping statistics, even taking photos. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked him at one point as he diligently recorded the action in his notebook. "My job," he replied.

"Jim," I had to tell him gently, "you're a carpenter."

The Bees faced a severe test in their first game Friday afternoon, taking on Notre Dame, an undefeated team that had won 25 straight games. Grillo, who often arrived at games before the players, was there by noon. The Bees started out slowly, and he fretted uncontrollably up in the stands. By halftime, they were still losing by three points. I left the press table to try and console him. He was nearly weeping.

But the Bees exploded in the third quarter. Their marquee player, Maurice Manning, put on a show. The trademark Beefense, the players strung like barbed wire, cut and gashed repeatedly. The Bees won by 30.

We went to the motel bar, played video crack, drank beer, and watched more hoop.

We all ended up back in our room. Sponge hid several more doughnuts in Grillo's bed. We ordered a pizza for the noisy family in the next room and giggled with glee when the deliveryman insisted on payment. We spilled beer on ourselves and the rug, ate junk food, and burped freely, as real men do.

Graves showed up with some scholarly book. During the entire tournament, wherever he went, he carried some book or another, the subject too complex for any of us jocks to grasp. We kept feeding him beers. Every time he went to the bathroom, we'd move his book marker back eight or nine pages. He'd unplug his hearing aid so he wouldn't have to listen to our nonsense and immerse himself in the book. He read the same eight pages over and over again. He never noticed.

The next morning Sponge woke me up at 7, stating that he was unable to sleep because I was snoring so loud, though I didn't hear a thing. "Do you realize a bunch of grown men stayed up until 3 a.m. talking about Mo Manning and the Killer Bees?" he asked. "Yeah," I replied. "And I'm looking forward to another full day of Mo talk."

We watched four more high school games at the arena - Grillo insisted on getting there early - and countless more on TV. The Bees played for the championship in their classification at 7 p.m. and quickly opened up a 35-point lead. Graves and Carpenter started writing their stories in the second quarter. I doodled in my notebook. The other reporters dozed. Sponge alone took his journalistic chores seriously.

We debated how to celebrate. Always on the cutting edge, always willing to try something new, I suggested we go to the motel bar, play video crack, drink beer, and eat what at this point were three-day-old doughnuts. Instead, we retired to our motel room, where we hid petrified doughnuts under Grillo's sheets, drank beer, ordered pizza for other unsuspecting guests, spilled beer, and talked about Mo and the Bees.

Playing in a state title game is a dream never realized by most high school athletes. Winning one is a dream come true. Winning two in a row is an unthinkable, unfathomable feat. But these are the Killer Bees, who expect to win, and do. With that in mind, we began planning our 1998 trip to Glens Falls during the drive home. We argued most of the way.

"I'm not staying in the same room with you," Sponge said to me. "You snore too much."

"It could be worse," I replied. "You could get stuck with Grillo." We stashed some cream doughnuts on his seat for the way home. He sat on them, I'm convinced, willingly.

We all agreed to find a different motel for the next tournament. "Too many pizza guys running around this one," I pointed out.

The complaints heard at Town Hall on April 10 on the proposed upzoning of 140 parcels involving some 1,400 acres were twofold.

Those who argued against the elimination of commercial-industrial acreage, particularly in Wainscott, pointed to what could become a problem in the future - a shortage of places where those in the service trades can set up shop and can receive and store the tools of their trades without offending the neighbors.

Because much of the commercial-industrial land in Wainscott is inappropriately sketched over a deep water recharge area, however, the town has something of a dilemma on its hands. As the Town Board reconsiders this aspect of the proposal, some thought might be given to swapping C-I land important for groundwater protection with property near the town dump and other commercial-industrial uses near Springs-Fireplace Road. The time also seems to have come for a new master plan for the entire property at and surrounding the airport.

However, those complaints that came from property owners who have been able to hold on to undeveloped residential land were less convincing. The arguments raised against upzoning, for example from half-acre or one-acre minimum house lots to two, three, and even five acres, were pretty hollow.

The experience in real estate here belies the notion that subdivisions carved into large rather than small lots reap smaller profits for developers. In fact, two landowners sent their lawyer to the April 10 hearing to endorse upzoning their properties: They believe it would increase its value.

Land values are escalating here, beyond even wild imagination. What we are talking about, therefore, is not a fair return on an investment in land but how big profits might be. Such a concern cannot be the driving force of municipal policy.

Municipalities have more compelling obligations. The protection of groundwater and the preservation of agricultural and scenic spaces, for example. The open space plan was a reasoned approach to that future, adopted with the bipartisan support of the Town Board. It is not perfect, of course. Some individuals will find flaws in its recommendations, while others, especially those with large land holdings, may prefer to act privately to preserve it rather than to see it upzoned.

The overriding fact is that East Hampton voters hope to guard against ubiquitous suburbanization and to assure the town's place as a resort, at least for the foreseeable future. They have said time and again that they are willing to do whatever is necessary to keep this a place our children, and children's children, will be happy to call home. Affected landowners should be gratified that they can do their part - and still come out ahead financially.

On the question of affordable workspace for the service trades, a recent campaign issue, could it be that the members of the East Hampton Town Board actually are going to work together? Last week's board meetings indicated a willingness to do so.

With the caveat that more study is needed on the future of the town's commercial-industrial districts, The Star urges the Town Board to move ahead with its proposal. East Hampton will remain East Hampton only to the extent that all its people make it so.

"The Algonquian

Peoples of Long Island From Earliest Times to 1700"

By John A. Strong

Illustrated by David Bunn Martine

Empire State Books

Heart of the Lakes Publishing

$50

"We Are Still Here!' The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island Today"

$12

Can present-day Long Islanders, European immigrants of 400 years, presume to write the history of their predecessors of 10,000 years?

"The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island From Earliest Times to 1700," a book by the ethnohistorian John A. Strong, proves he can.

Mr. Strong is professor of history and director of the social science division at Southampton College of Long Island University, and he has made Algonquian history his life work for the last 32 years.

Mr. Strong examined archeological digs, anthropological findings, contemporary records, and oral histories, alongside reports by 17th-century observers, as he pieced together the lives lived by the Algonquian peoples. The result is scholarly, yet accessible and constantly fascinating.

What To Call Them

At the start, Mr. Strong faced the puzzle of what to call these first Long Islanders. He found no clear consensus among the descendants of the original inhabitants except for a shared antipathy to European nomenclature, "Indian" and "Native American."

They had originally called themselves by their geographical place names of residence, such as Shinnecocks or Montauketts, and had no other generic name to differentiate themselves from strangers. Mr. Strong adopted this practice.

He also looked to shared languages - "All of the original inhabitants in what is now Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and southern New England, for example, shared a common language root called 'Algon-quian' which distinguished them from their Iroquoian-speaking neighbors to the north."

Peace And Plenty

Mr. Strong prefers these terms, along with "original inhabitants" or "native peoples," which he considers "the only unencumbered generic references." This circumspection, which opens the volume, sets the tone for his entire work.

Mr. Strong paints the picture of a lost Eden, a vibrant society of peace and plenty on pre-European Long Island. The first inhabitants seem actually to fit the idealized image of native life that has often been imagined for them. He finds no evidence of the warfare that dominated the lives of the Iroquois to the north.

Villages spread themselves out spaciously over an acre or two and organized themselves around open public areas. The earliest Long Islanders picked sites on the banks of freshwater streams, at the point that they flowed into tidewater bays, where they had easy access to fresh water and seafood.

Extensive Networks

They preferred locations open toward the southeast, where the rays of the winter sun warmed their wigwams, but sheltered from the northwest winter winds by high hills or dense woods. These were beautiful as well as practical settings, popular with later European immigrants as well, a circumstance that has obliterated many archeological records, Mr. Strong notes ruefully.

Long Island wigwams, round or oval structures framed with saplings and covered with bark, provided warm and comfortable living quarters. They were "ingeniously designed to make efficient use of limited space," furnished with mats, benches, and sometimes beds, Mr. Strong believes.

These original inhabitants enjoyed a life of social and trade exchanges throughout Long Island and southern New England, as well as extensive trade networks with the mainland. Young people found marriage partners from throughout these many communities, and were free to select their future homes among either set of in-laws.

Ceremonial feasts marked the seasons of life. Algonquians greeted the emerging plants of spring with what is now called the "June meeting" and the autumn harvest with the "powwow." They celebrated rites of passage and buried their dead in cemeteries near the crests of hills on their southeast slopes.

Men occupied themselves with smoking rituals, still not well understood. They added tobacco to their local mixtures about 1,000 years ago when Nicotiana rustica reached the Northeast. The men tended their tobacco plots themselves, though the women of the villages cultivated and gathered food crops.

Mr. Strong best illustrates the abundance of early Long Island life when he describes the varied and bounteous meals that were the center of Algonquian social life. The archeological record, confirmed by later oral histories and written records, indicates that food preparation was an art.

Cooking As Art

Village women memorized herbal remedies. They prepared a varied diet of game, fish, shellfish, nuts, and berries - strawberries colored the fields red in June, and they were the high point of the June meetings.

The sweet white oak acorn was ground into flour for baking. They harvested ground nuts, small thin twining vines with tubers the size of hen's eggs, and Jerusalem artichokes during the late fall and winter thaws. In the spring they gathered green-leafed vegetables including chenopodium, or lamb's quarters, a relative of domestic spinach, and the new shoots of pokeweed. (Mature pokeweed is toxic.)

Stews were the cook's mainstay, but fish, fowl, and game were baked in clay molds - a meal of piquant delicacy and flavor. Clam bakes, prepared with hot stones and wet eelgrass, celebrated special occasions. Corn, beans, and squash, introduced from the Midwest and called the "three sisters" by the Iroquois, were adopted slowly on Long Island because, Mr. Strong believes, local food sources were abundant and satisfactory.

Europeans Arrive

Mr. Strong calls Algonquian life comfortable, with a rich religious system, lived in harmony with the environment - a beautiful environment little scarred by the passing of the first Long Islanders.

The arrival of Europeans in 1524 brought this idyllic life to an end. Mr. Strong recounts this more familiar story with patience. First, trading patterns changed. Wampum, made from Long Island shells, was in great demand among the inland tribes that trapped beaver. The Dutch and British traders made it legal tender, purchasing large quantities from the Long Island Algonquians and drawing them into a new economic network.

As the Dutch and English clashed in their grabs for Long Island land, the Algonquians became more structured politically to respond to these clashes. Their "sachems" engaged in intricate schemes to strengthen their power and influence, and they proved to be as adept at diplomacy and intrigue as the Europeans.

Dispossessed

The Montaukett Wyandanch was the most successful of these Algon-quian leaders, and his friendship with the English through Lion Gardiner, that nation's most powerful representative on Long Island, helped stabilize Long Island for Wyandanch's people. Wyandanch was proclaimed Grand Sachem of Long Island by the English in 1657. His death two years later marked the end of the Algonquian era.

The introduction of European diseases devastated the Algonquian populations. Lion Gardiner estimated that the smallpox epidemic of 1659-1664 took the lives of two-thirds of the Algonquians on Long Island.

In the latter half of the 17th century, European settlers took over Long Island, leaving just two tracts to the natives, Shinnecock and Poospatuck. "Cultural misunderstandings, deceit, patent violations, manipulation, the calculated use of alcohol, and payments made at roughly half of the market value characterized most of this tragic process of dispossession," Mr. Strong writes.

Still Here

But the original Long Islanders did not become extinct, as some reports claimed. The second volume, originally the final chapter of Mr. Strong's history, was expanded and published separately to tell the story of Algonquian survival and renewal.

Mr. Strong has written a contemporary classic to put on your shelf alongside James Truslow Adams's two volumes from 1916 and 1918, Henry D. Sleight's three volumes from 1929, 1930, and 1931, and Everett T. Rattray's 1979 "The South Fork."

Lois Beachy Underhill is the author of "The Woman Who Ran for President, the Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull," Bridge Works, 1995, Penguin, 1996. She lives in Sag Harbor, where she co-chairs the Sag Harbor Tree Fund and writes a bimonthly "Our Town" column for The Sag Harbor Express.

Suffolk County took on the responsibility for keeping its harbors navigable in the 1960s, when the number of recreational boaters on the East End was small. County government was run by a Board of Supervisors then, five of whom were from the five East End towns.

Over the years, the number and size of boats of every kind, including commercial fishing boats, have grown exponentially. What was true in 1960 continues to be true today, only more so. Many of the boats in local waters come summer are transient, and many come from other parts of Suffolk County, Huntington Harbor, for example, and the North Fork.

While the United States Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for keeping Montauk Harbor open, along with Shinnecock in Southampton and Mattituck in Southold, that leaves a lot of waterways dependent on the county.

In East Hampton, officials have been begging the county for over a year to do a thorough dredging of Three Mile Harbor, something that has not been done since 1974. All necessary permits are in place. The county, however, seems willing only to do a little of the necessary dredging at a time, leaving a good number of the boats hard aground and the marinas that service them annoyed that the harbor's condition is not good for business.

A dredge contracted by the county this spring, for example, left Three Mile Harbor on April 15 despite the pleas of the Town Trustees and Town Board, and despite the town's offer to lay out the $100,000 for channel dredging if the county would agree to return the money when it could. The County Department of Public Works, which is in charge, declined, citing budget and a prior commitment at Fresh Pond in Southampton.

As of this writing, County Legislator George Guldi was trying to see whether he could turn the Department of Public Works around before Memorial Day. Make no mistake: This is not some kind of political boondoggle or pork that's being asked for, and more than business is at stake. It's a matter of safety.