Two days after resigning as the chef at East Hampton's celebrated Nick and Toni's restaurant Paul Del Favero explained, "I've been cooking for 16 years, and now I want to do it the right way for the first time. I want to be my own man."

The Star found him relaxing at home in East Hampton during the holidays, at ease with his family, and looking ahead. Considering the success he has already achieved in his profession, his quest - to open his own restaurant here - makes sense.

Mr. Del Favero, 36, is credited with bringing Nick and Toni's into the big leagues. During his six-year tenure, it became the "first and only" East End restaurant to be reviewed by Ruth Reichl at The New York Times (she gave it two stars). It also has received a Gold Dish award from GQ magazine and has been featured in Food & Wine, among other publications.

Keep It Simple

"I like to think it was the food, not just the celebrities" that made the place "really take off," Mr. Del Favero joked, adding that insofar as cuisine is concerned, he subscribes to the classic French theory that "less is more."

He likes "simple and rustic," he said, including whole rabbit, whole fish, and langoustines, the small European lobsters ("when we could get them") that were "finger-lickin' good - roasted in the brick oven with olive oil, garlic, and parsley, and accompanied by a great Tuscan bread."

Porterhouse steak for two with grilled vegetables and Balsamic vinegar was another favorite. "Fancy haute cuisine with a lot of waitstaff attention at the table makes me a little uncomfortable," he said. "I like the casually elegant, with an emphasis on the casual."

High-Season Clientele

"As long as the food was profitable," said the chef, the owners, Jeff Salaway and Toni Ross, imposed "no restrictions. If I wanted to use white truffles and foie gras, that was fine."

In the high season especially, though, when Nick and Toni's dining room is often frequented by the likes of Kathleen Turner, Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Steven Spielberg, and more, work, though "exciting," could also be "annoying."

Mr. Del Favero recalled one night when "they were all there - De Niro, the Baldwins, Ron Perelman - there was a buzz in the place you couldn't believe."

Star-Gazers

"From the kitchen point of view, timing and an even flow are important - it has to work like a well-oiled machine." The machine slowed considerably that night because the non-famous lingered at their tables, craning to see and perhaps hear what the celebrities were saying.

When no one wants to leave, said Mr. Del Favero, it "isn't great for the reservation system, especially when you have to put out 250 to 300 dinners."

"Celebrities are very low-key," he observed. It's the gazers who create the glitch.

The success of Nick and Toni's seemed to inspire the restaurant's owners to broaden their horizons.

Hands Off

In time, Mr. Del Favero became executive chef of their expanding food family, including the Honest Diner in Amagansett and its next-door bakery; Rowdy Hall, which moved into Parrish Mews in East Hampton Village when O'Mally's moved out, and their newest venture, Honest Food, a "Balducci's-style" takeout that opened last year in Manhattan.

"I found myself drifting from what I want to do - hands-on in the kitchen - to administration and traveling to and from the city," he said, adding that he would have preferred a "Nick and Toni's Two" in the city.

"It wasn't making me happy. It was time for me to go."

La Varenne

Mr. Del Favero's mother was the "driving force" early on behind his interest in things culinary, though he also spoke of an uncle who worked as a professional chef for entertainers, including Zero Mostel.

Growing up in Larchmont, N.Y., he finished Mamaroneck High School in 1979 and worked for a short time setting tile with his father, in Clifton, N.J.

Not long after, he joined his mother in a cooking class at Peter Kump's School of Culinary Arts in Manhattan. Mr. Kump "got me interested in Paris," he recalled, and in 1981 he enrolled at La Varenne, a noted cooking school there, emerging with a diploma nine months later.

Khashoggi's Daughter

From there it was into a classical French training regimen: Mr. Del Favero became a stagere, an apprentice, for three years, working essentially without pay at various restaurants - "They give you bed and board" - just for the experience.

He was ready to head home when a paying job came up, as personal chef to the daughter of the Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi.

Nabila Khashoggi lived in Mougin, near Cannes, on France's Cote d'Azur.

"It was a different way of life," said the chef. "There were no budgets to restrain you, but you tended to feel . . . well, they could summon you at 3 a.m. if they were hungry."

Every Night, Formal

"Nabila was a partyer - in her 20s - and she often came home late looking for something to eat. I was on call seven days a week."

He continued to deepen his knowledge of French cuisine on the job, as the family had "some old bourgeois-style French chefs" working for them.

"Food is a representation of wealth to the Arabs," Mr. Del Favero learned. Dinner was a formal event every night, staffed with "white-gloved maitre d's." Elegant dishes were served, on "a lot of big silver."

Manhattan Restaurants

During the mid-'80s, Mr. Del Favero moved around a lot. Returning to the United States in 1984, he worked for a year or so for Georges Briquet at Le Perigord in Manhattan, under Antoine Bouterin, whom he had met in Paris.

His next boss was Jonathan Waxman, who owned an Upper East Side bistro called Jams and Hulot's, and then he became a chef at Mezzaluna, an Italian restaurant, and at Island, in Manhattan's Carnegie Hill neighborhood.

But in 1987, he was hospitalized with viral pneumonia and tuberculosis. He lost more than 20 pounds during the year it took him to recuperate.

"I think I had worried myself sick," he said.

Six Years Later

When he was well again, a friend from La Varenne called with a job offer in London, as a partner in the Blueprint Cafe, a restaurant in the Tower Bridge Museum on the Thames. He spent two years there before returning to New York City to work for Bobby Flay at the Mesa Grille.

It was in the summer of 1990 that he came to East Hampton as a sous chef at Nick and Toni's.

After six years there, he said, leaving "has been sad for me. I have a lot of good friends at the restaurant and a great kitchen staff. The place is practically an institution."

"But I want to open my own place in East Hampton or Amagansett, and I'm looking for backers."

"I love it to death out here," Mr. Del Favero added. "The lifestyle is much more agreeable and healthy."

How do the prospects look?

"There are places to be had and deals to be made," he answered. "Everything is always basically for sale."

Voters here and across the state approved every ballot proposition in November that mentioned environmental protection. East Hampton and Southampton now are deciding where to spend the $5 million each approved for open space purchases, and New York State is deciding exactly what to do with the $1.75 billion that can be made available under the Clean Water, Clean Air Act.

Along with $100 million in the State Environmental Protection Fund this year and some millions more from the Suffolk County quarter-cent sales tax for drinking water protection, as well as other sources, 1997 promises to be a banner year for preservation.

East Hampton's first open space purchase of the year is shaping up to be a 24-acre parcel of low-lying land near Soak Hides Dreen at the head of Three Mile Harbor, for $667,000. The town is expected to contract with the Watchtower, a religious organization which was bequeathed the property, shortly. Southampton is negotiating for the development rights to four farmland parcels in Water Mill, Bridgehampton, and Sagaponack. And both towns have indicated they will continue to use operating funds for smaller purchases.

All of this is to the good. But the money is nowhere near enough to guarantee that our green places, wetlands, and dunes will be forever wild.

It is important to note that not every dollar approved in the name of open space winds up where voters expect it to go. While the proceeds from the towns' $5 million borrowing will be safe, there will be millions more from property taxes and other sources that are not "bulletproof," in the words of State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.

A lesson should be learned from County Executive Robert Gaffney's ability to take $25 million from the quarter-cent levy for pine barrens purchases to balance the 1996 county budget, using a loophole in the law. It could happen again; voters approved another ballot proposition in November that will allow up to 10 percent of quarter-cent tax proceeds to go for tax stabilization.

The ink had not dried on this editorial when the word from Albany was that Gov. George Pataki was ready to follow his Suffolk colleague's suit. It was reported Tuesday that the Governor intends to borrow millions under the $1.75-billion Clean Water, Clean Air Act to pay the salaries of state employees who administer the programs it will fund. State Democratic leaders say that although the wording of the proposition on the bond act makes such use of its proceeds legal, the Governor had assured the public that administrative costs would come from state operating sources.

Assemblyman Thiele said last week he was considering whether to introduce legislation that would guarantee that funds for open space are used for intended purposes. Provision for such "designated" funds was part of an unsuccessful bill last year.

Because the market value of open lands fluctuates not only with the overall economy but as a result of the restrictions placed on them by government, the costs of preservation are highly speculative.

One local gauge of the true cost of keeping the South Fork the place we know comes from estimates made for Southampton farmland last spring. The chairman of its Agricultural Advisory Committee suggested it would take $20 million to buy development rights - not title - to the town's remaining farmland. But only $2 million, a 10th, was allotted for farmland in the successful $5 million referendum in November.

The gaps have been recognized. Southampton came up with another way to raise funds for agricultural lands. It established a townwide tax district, through which it will get 20 cents for every $100 of assessed property and, by that means, raise an additional $18.2 million over the next 22 years.

Although East Hampton Town officials have all kinds of administrative hassles to contend with as they face the year ahead, they are starting to make new open space purchases and seeking grants for other parcels. Southampton has found an additional means toward meeting the land preservation goal. Its tax district is a model we should follow.

"Out of sight, out of mind" has to be the rallying cry of those who feel the need to stuff everything on God's green earth inside a plastic bag. The topper this week was a large Christmas tree swathed - it was too big to fully enclose summit to stump - in a white plastic bag and dumped roadside on Route 114.

Is it monstrous to offer the opinion that those now omnipresent Halloween leaf bags are equally unattractive? That a tidily tied plastic diaper is scarcely less offensive than its inner offerings? That the whole notion of sanitizing organic matter by sliding it into plastic bags is far more gruesome than natural decomposition?

Slipping a Hefty bag knot and lugging a formless sack this way or that doesn't really dispatch it: Not unless we plan on landscaping some other planet entirely in green, black, and white plastic hulks. Far better to leave at least a few things in plain sight - where we can remember their origins and consider how to prevent them from coming back to haunt us.

The Catskill Puppet Theatre, whose huge puppets have startled and amused visitors to Guild Hall's galleries through the holidays, will bring a live puppet show to the cultural center on Saturday, with large-scale puppets on a fully decorated stage.

The company will present "The Willow Girl," a tale geared for both children and adults, at 1 p.m. It is a story of a young Chinese girl who immigrates to the American frontier only to face discrimination along with the flurry of other new immigrants and different cultures. The heroine, however, has special gifts and is able to communicate with a mysterious spirit inhabiting a graceful willow tree.

The exhibit of puppets and puppet-related art on view in Guild Hall's galleries will end following the performance on Saturday.

Across the United States, the year-end statistics on violent crime were more encouraging than they have been in a long time. Homicides, rapes, armed robberies, assaults - all were on the decline in 1996, and not just in Mayor Rudy Giuliani's city.

But, although the national crime rate is dropping, one egregious offense persists. On the East End as in other localities hardly a week goes by without a few arrests for drunken driving, usually involving otherwise law-abiding citizens who have no intent to damage property or injure anyone, themselves included. Yet all too often those are the consequences.

Anyone with the ability to obtain a driver's license knows there is a difference between driving sober and taking the wheel after having had a few. High school and college educators, extensive advertising campaigns, and organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving have reinforced the message.

There was a signal last week that their efforts may be bearing fruit, at least hereabouts. New Year's Eve, traditionally the most dangerous night of the year on the roads, came and went without a single driving-while-intoxicated arrest in East Hampton, either in the village or the town, although police had extra patrols on the lookout.

That compares with four arrests a year ago, and four in 1994. Is the difference too small to represent a significant trend? We certainly hope not.

"He got famous this Christmas, didn't he?" laughed Kathie Persan of Amagansett. However, the Elmo in question was not a garish wiggly, giggly toy, but an extremely large, extremely handsome horse of distinguished demeanor and equally distinguished ancestry who, if tickled, would doubtless respond with a puzzled glance and a dismissive swish of the tail.

Elmo is an example of one of the rare breeds of domestic animals to be found on the East End. He is a Cleveland Bay, a breed of horse teetering on the brink of extinction. Hailing from Great Britain, Cleveland Bays were the most popular and influential breed in Europe during the 18th century.

As coach horses extraordinaire, Cleveland Bay stallions were widely exported to improve other European breeds such as the Hannoverian and the Oldenburg. But in modern times their fortunes have changed: The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy estimated in 1994 that there were fewer than 200 registered Cleveland Bays globally.

Ms. Persan had never heard of Cleveland Bays when she saw one advertised for sale in Newsday. Intrigued, she consulted local experts, all of whom had nothing but the highest praise for the breed. And, since she was looking for a big, good-natured horse for her daughter, Kirsten, to ride, it wasn't long before the big bay horse came home to her Amagansett farm.

Big And Strong

And Elmo is a big horse, not so much in sheer height, but in width of bone and expanse of muscle. The breed originated in Yorkshire, an area with very heavy clay soil. The horses had to have tremendous strength and stamina to pull plows, wagons, and coaches through this deep, often slippery, substance.

Like all of his breed, Elmo is a rich mahogany brown with jet black lower legs and an equally inky-colored mane and tail. But his most distinctive feature is his temperament. "He has such a sweet nature," said Ms. Persan. "There's not a mean bone in his body. He's tremendously willing to please and always tries his hardest to do what's asked of him."

Road To Hell

So what led to the demise of the Cleveland Bay, this paragon of equine virtues and the oldest indigenous horse breed of Great Britain? The ever developing science of road improvement, for starters. By the 19th century macadamized roads had been introduced and there was less need for a horse that could power its way through mire and muck. Speed had become more important than strength. Cleveland Bays might well adopt the maxim favored by many horseback riders of today: "The road to hell is paved."

In the 20th century, injury, in the form of the internal combustion engine, had been added to insult and by the 1960s there were only two purebred Cleveland Bay stallions left in Britain. Fortunately, a fairy godmother appeared on the scene, in the form of Her Majesty the Queen of England. Her promotion of these horses has led to a steady resurgence of interest in the breed.

It is quite probable that, if not for the intervention of this royal personage, Elmo and others of his breed wouldn't exist.

Elmo's individual existence was gravely threatened just over a year ago when he nearly succumbed to the number one killer of domestic horses, colic. Though the exteriors of horses could hardly be improved upon, the same cannot be said for their interiors.

Their digestive systems are particularly vulnerable. Horses are incapable of vomiting and this, coupled with the tendency of the intestines to twist if the animal rolls about violently while in pain, can lead from simple abdominal pain to a life-threatening condition very quickly.

Elmo's colic was terribly severe and utterly unforeseen. He was completely healthy, but, while rolling on the ground to scratch his itchy spots, as horses routinely do, he somehow managed to flip a section of his intestines over his spleen. It quickly became apparent to his alert owners that something was very wrong with Elmo.

"It was really obvious that this wasn't a mild case of colic," recalled Ms. Persan. "He was in horrible pain. Groaning and trying to go down."

Saved Again

His frightened owners loaded Elmo into the horse trailer and hurried to Huntington, the site of the nearest veterinary clinic that could perform the necessary surgery.

"They just opened him up and flipped the intestine back where it should be. He came home with a body bandage that stayed for two months. That came off and a week or so later the staples came out. You can hardly see where they made the incision now," Ms. Persan said.

So, even if his name has been temporarily appropriated by an obnoxious toy, Elmo has reason to be grateful. He's been twice saved: once by royalty, and once, more relevant to him, by his very loving owners.

It was never Ngaere Macray's intention to become a publisher. It happened because she couldn't find the classic gardening books she wanted, either in America, where no one had heard of them, or in England, where booksellers knew the books but couldn't find them.

On a visit to England, someone suggested she try Hay-on-Wye, a town of bookshops on the Welsh border. In an essay in Hortus, she wrote of how she and her husband rented a small plane and set out to this bibliophilic Ultima Thule.

"It was an eventful journey: First we flew through the Brize Norton restricted military air space, causing some emergency alerts and warnings, which we failed to understand because of the static on the radio."

A Complete Jekyll

"Then I managed to fly directly over the chimneys of a nuclear power plant, with the alarming result that our small plane was lifted straight up at the rate of a thousand feet a minute, while I struggled to keep it under control and managed instead to put us into a nosedive once we had passed through the thermal."

"Despite all this the day was a triumph because there, in Richard Booth's bookshop, I found a complete set of Gertrude Jekyll's books."

As the books had been out of print for 30 years, Ms. Macray tried to persuade her husband, who was a publisher, to reprint them. His response was, "Do it yourself."

Landscape History

And so in 1982 she started Sagapress, a horticultural and landscape-design press which she operates from the garage of her house in Sagaponack.

In the early years she resuscitated some of the out-of-print classics of English gardening, like the Jekyll books, and some modern classics by Brent Elliott, Will Ingwersen, Sir Roy Strong, and Hazel Le Rougetel.

But as Sagapress evolved, American landscape history has become its dominant interest, with the aim of introducing a public increasingly interested in gardening to such almost forgotten landscape stars as Beatrix Farrand, Ellen Biddle Shipman, Fletcher Steele, Lester Collins, Florence Yoch, and others.

Shipman's Gardens

As Ms. Macray writes in the introduction to Sagapress's catalogue, the books are published "in the belief that gardening is an art and that landscape design, like architecture, reflects the social and cultural history of the country of its origin."

Sagapress's latest book, "The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman," will be launched with a reading at Book Hampton in East Hampton on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

Between 1914 and 1946, Ellen Biddle Shipman designed and installed over 650 gardens throughout the United States, including that of the Maidstone Club in East Hampton and 17 others in Suffolk County.

"Gardening," she wrote, "opens a wider door than any other of the arts - all mankind can walk through. . . . It has no distinctions, all are welcome."

Nomenclature

Beginner's luck played a part in Ms. Macray's first project. She asked her favorite garden writer, Graham Stuart Thomas, gardens adviser to Britain's National Trust and restorer of some of that country's great gardens, to write introductions to the new Jekyll editions.

Not only did he agree, but he also generously took on the task of covering changes in nomenclature.

"I was enormously grateful," she said, "but I didn't appreciate until years later just how big a favor it had been."

She later published enlarged and revised editions of all of Mr. Thomas's books, including the first big book she did by herself, "The Complete Flower Paintings and Drawings of Graham Stuart Thomas."

Three Years On

It is no small undertaking to start a publishing house by yourself, and Ms. Macray relied on the knowledge and experience of her husband, Arnold Zohn, to steer her way without disaster. Then, barely three years into the enterprise, her husband became seriously ill.

He died in May 1985, when Ms. Macray was in the middle of a book on Beatrix Farrand which would accompany a traveling exhibit of the designer's work.

"I wanted to quit, I didn't think I could do it alone." But knowing so many people were relying on her, she stuck it out.

In the years since, she has produced over 40 titles. The landscape design books are distributed by Harry N. Abrams and the horticultural books are co-editions with Timber Press.

They include a finely illustrated book on the gardens of Innisfree, an exquisite but little-known public garden on 200 acres in Millbrook, N.Y., inspired by a scroll painting of the eighth-century Chinese garden of the poet Wang Wei and designed by Lester Collins.

Hollywood's Landscapist

There is a book about Florence Yoch, who not only designed the splendid Hollywood gardens of such moguls as George Cukor, Jack Warner, and David Selznick, but conjured up the daffodil-filled meadows in "How Green Was My Valley," the antebellum gardens of "Gone With the Wind," and the lush oases of "The Garden of Allah."

When filming "Romeo and Juliet," with which he was passionately involved, Irving Thalberg had the designer create a complete garden just for the few moments of the balcony scene.

Money was no object: In perhaps her most spectacular assignment, for "The Good Earth," Ms. Yoch turned a large area of the hills of the San Fernando Valley into the terraced fields and flooded rice paddies of China.

Original Plates

While working on Charles Platt's "Italian Gardens," Ms. Macray discovered that the Platt family still had the original silver nitrate photographic plates stored in the attic, together with others that had never been published, which she was able to use in the reprint.

Sagapress has also done a series on foreign gardens and reprints of seminal books on individual plants - daylilies, peonies, narcissus, meconopsis, and crocus and colchicum - where the original book is reprinted together with new material and illustrations.

Perhaps the most stunning book the press has published is its limited edition of paintings, drawings, and text on Japanese plants, "Japonica Magnifica" by Raymond Booth.

What is particularly interesting is the Japanese aesthetic that imbues each painting, almost as if the artist had breathed it in from the plants themselves while half a world away in the gloom and drizzle of England.

Sold at a price of $150, no copies remain. It has become a limited edition because it is now economically unfeasible to reprint it.

Many Sagapress books are accompanied by traveling exhibits. "There's nothing risque about the subject matter," Ms. Macray said wryly, "so we don't have much trouble with grants."

The Parrish Art Museum has curated an exhibit for "The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman" which will open at the PaineWebber Art Gallery in New York City on Jan. 24. It will move to the Museums at Stony Brook in April.

When questioned tentatively about the financial side of the business, Ms. Macray groaned expressively.

"It's always a risk - everything that can go wrong does go wrong," she said. "The bookselling business is a nightmare, the cost of producing books is enormous, and the headaches of distribution are never-ending."

"Everything I Desire"

"But I'm here in my garage with just the part-time help of Carol Lewis, who handles production, and I go very slowly and cautiously."

In the past few years she has been helped by the Library of American Landscape History, an organization founded in association with Sagapress to fund books on the subject. It finances authors while they are researching and writing and is reimbursed from royalties when the books are published.

Three years after the death of her second husband, Ms. Macray, a skilled and enthusiastic gardener in her own right, married David Seeler, the owner of the Bayberry Nursery in Amagansett.

"I'm like Imelda Marcus in a shoe factory," she said. "I have access to everything I desire."

Ms. Macray herself, who was born in Nigeria and grew up in England and Switzerland, comes across as a quiet Indiana Jones of horticultural publishing, bent on preserving the best of the past for the benefit of the future and not afraid to face challenges along the way.

The year just past was a memorable one here in sports and the feats were broad-based.

During 1996, two East Hampton residents, Ed Petrie and Paul Annacone, were inducted into Suffolk's Hall of Fame; a 36-year-old Wainscotter, Dennis Oehler, a below-the-knee amputee, competed in his third Paralympics and set a course soon after for Sydney; the fabled Bridgehampton Killer Bees won a sixth Class D state title for the tiny school; Gary Cowell, a Pierson High School student, won the state Class B triple jump - the first Sag Harborite to win a state title in an individual sport, and the Montauk Rugby Club enjoyed its best season ever, making it to the national quarterfinals in 15s, finishing fifth in the nation in 7s, and repeating as the Met Union's Division II champion.

That Wasn't All

And that wasn't all. The Pierson baseball team won a county small schools championship; the East Hampton High School field hockey team won an overall county title - the school's third in four years; the Pierson field hockey team won a Long Island Class D championship, but went on to lose a heartbreaker in the state semifinals in Saratoga, and the East Hampton soccer team, with John Villaplana, the county's high-scorer, finding the nets four times, won its first playoff game, defeating Kings Park 6-4 in double overtime.

As for other firsts, 1996 was the first year in a decade that a Southampton College men's basketball team won as many as 16 games in a season. Credit Sidney Green, the former 10-year National Basketball Association power forward, who took over the hapless program in August of 1995.

First 800 Series

Last year was the first in which East Hampton High School fielded winter track teams for boys and girls, under Bill Herzog and Diane O'Don nell, thus beefing up what had formerly been a somewhat skimpy winter sports menu, especially for girls.

Nineteen-ninety-six also marked the first time an 800 series had been spun at the East Hampton Bowl. Moreover, Steve Graham followed his singular 830 the following night with a 300 - his third perfect game at the Bowl since April 1994.

The first Ellen's Run, a five-kilometer road race in August put together by Julie Ratner of Amagansett in memory of her late sister, Ellen Hermanson, raised $50,000 for breast cancer research, detection, and education - undoubtedly a record for a first-year race.

Masters Runner, Soccer Champs

Other running news of note came in November as Burke Koncelik, 42, of East Hampton, just missed breaking three hours in the New York Marathon, a time that was good enough to place her 39th overall among female competitors, sixth among female masters runners, third among U.S. female masters runners, and first among female masters runners on Long Island. Not all that happy with the result, she vowed to "break three" in the near future.

Two firsts were recorded by Mexican-Americans who live in the area and who play soccer on the Sag Harbor-Mexico and Chivas Landscape Associates teams.

The Sag Harbor-Mexico team won its first Eastern Long Island Soccer League playoff championship by defeating three-time defending champion Southold-Robert's Jewelers 3-1 at Southampton College on Nov. 24. Ten days later, as Chivas, the team won the East Hampton seven-on-a-side playoff cup by defeating East Hampton-Bayberry 3-1. Gonzalo Cuev as scored the winning goals in both contests.

Artists-Writers

It can't be said that August's Artists-Writers Game, a fund-raising softball fixture in East Hampton since the late 1960s, was the first to merit attention, but Marty Lyons's two home runs - the second, a Ruthian clout well into the Herrick Park tennis courts, which tied the game in the top of the ninth - were riveting.

The Writers clawed their way to a 6-5 win in the bottom of the ninth. It was only the second time in six years that the once-vaunted Writers had won the annual agon.

Also in 1996, the former East Hampton High basketball coach, Ed Petrie, the winningest coach on Long Island and second in wins among coaches still active in the state, was inducted into the Suffolk Hall of Fame in April.

"He's one of the greatest coaches of all time in New York State," Jack Foley, a former county basketball chairman, said last winter.

Praises Exchanged

Paul Annacone, 32, who for the past two years has been coaching the world's number-one tennis player, Pete Sampras, was honored for a decade of playing on the professional tour, during which he rose as high as 11 in singles and two in doubles, with Christo Van Rensburg.

At the ceremony, Annacone ac know ledged a debt to Petrie. While he hadn't played basketball beyond his freshman year, he had learned from Bonac's coach character traits, such as persistence, courtesy, and humility, that had served him well in his tennis career, he said.

Petrie, in turn, said of Annacone, "I've always had great admiration for him, not just for his tennis skills, but for the type of person he is. . . . He would have been an excellent basketball player, he played on my freshman team. But obviously he made the right choice."

Retirements

The year marked, as well, the retirement of Ellen Cooper, a field hockey coach at East Hampton since 1975, who made Bonac a county powerhouse in the past decade, and her succession by Megan Barnett, one of her protegees; the retirement from boys track coaching of Mike Burns, a 20-year veteran whose Bonac teams in his last three years had posted a 25-1 record in dual meets; the naming of East Hampton's first female girls basketball coach in years, Krista Brooks; the hiring of Bonac's first female athletic trainer, Paula Hatch, a 1992 East Hampton graduate, and the revival of girls basketball at Bridgehampton - the first time the school has had a girls team since 1985.

Dennis Oehler, the Carl Lewis of disabled athletes, suffered some bad luck in Atlanta. A broken prosthesis kept him out of the Paralympics long jump final and out of the medals in the 100-meter dash, which he has run in 12.1 seconds.

To Change Lives

But, with a bronze in the 4x100 relay, the Wainscott resident extended a string of medal-winning in every international event in which he's competed since 1988. It was the third Paralympics for Oehler, who set world records in the 100, 200, and 400 at Seoul in 1988, and added a gold in the long jump (18 feet, 10 inches) and silvers in the pentathlon and 4x100 at Barcelona in 1992.

"I don't need to win another gold medal, but the fact of my competing in the Paralympics will lead someone to call me who's just lost a leg creates a will within me to perform at high levels, so I can change others' lives."

Bridgehampton's proud basketball tradition was no more evident last year than in the fact that the Killer Bees' coach, Carl Johnson, had played on state-championship teams coached by the school's former athletic director, Roger Golden, 15 or so years ago.

At Glens Falls

In the third week of March, at Glens Falls, Johnson closed the circle by coaching his charges to a state championship - the sixth in the history of the school, which is said to be the third-smallest in the state.

The championship did not come easy. In the final with West Canada Valley, the Bees went almost the first six minutes without scoring before Nick Thomas, the team's leader, now a freshman at New York University, rallied the troops to a 51-37 win.

The Final Four tournament was a showcase for a standout sophomore, Maurice (Mo) Manning, who can do it all, as well as for Thomas and Terrell Hopson, who, with Manning, were named to the all-Class D tournament team. Manning was named the tournament's most valuable player, and later was named to the all-state Class D team with Hopson, and to Newsday's all-Long Island team. Johnson was named by Newsday as Suffolk's coach-of-the-year.

Sag Harbor Feats

While championship performances almost have come to be expected in Bridgehampton - expectations that are both challenging and burdensome - Sag Harbor was treated to three outstanding athletic feats in 1996 as its baseball team, coached by Sean Crowley, went on to win county small schools and Southeast Regional championships; Gary Cowell won the state and county Class B triple jumps, and the field hockey team, coached by Debbie Jayne, made it to the Final Four in Saratoga Springs, losing a 3-2 heartbreaker in overtime to Rye Neck.

Crowley was named Suffolk small schools coach-of-the-year. The trip upstate was Jayne's first in 24 years of coaching.

East Hampton, with whose Bonac track team Cowell competes in the spring, shared in the personable junior's triumphs. Cowell's was the first individual state championship East Hampton could claim since Sandy Fleischman won the state girls tennis title in the late 1970s.

Whalers' Title

There was also a townwide ring to the Whalers' baseball title inasmuch as East Hampton teams coached by Jim Nicoletti had won county small schools trophies in 1994 and 1995.

One wag said that the Montauk Rugby Club had become so good lately because its players had finally grown up.

If so, the ruggers crossed the threshold of their maturity with panache in 1996, repeating as the winners of their own 7s tournament in June; winning a berth, for the first time ever, in the national Division II tournament; making it as far as the quarterfinal round in Dallas, and, in its 7s incarnation, under Jerry Mirro, one of the top 7s coaches in the country, finishing fifth in the national 7s tournament after having been seeded 12th.

The Northeast regional Final Four beckons in the spring, and another try for a national championship.

Ebony And Phonics

East Hampton

December 1996

To The Editor:

Years ago it might have been called slang or street language. But not today. In our supposedly enlightened times of political correctness, where we dare not offend this group or that, we now have a new language. Its name is Ebonics.

Ebonics got its start out on the West Coast of our country, where countless other mind-numbing trends and new-wave ideas have been born. In Oakland, Calif., at a school board meeting, Ebonics was sired.

The name, Ebonics, comes from two words really. The words ebony and phonics have been bastardized to form the new word. Heck, why not? In America today, in these times of liberal-think and great compassion, anything goes.

Now here's the rationale. At this school board meeting, it was decided that African Americans were predisposed to speak in a certain manner. Like any other ethnic group, they had their own terminology, so to speak, within the bounds of the English language.

Toni Cook, the spokesperson for the Oakland School Board, went a step further, however. She claimed that African American students were much more than predisposed; Ms. Cook said that these students were actually born to speak Ebonics. It was in their blood, an instinctual thing. Dogs bark, cats meow, and young African Americans, well, you get the picture.

All of this, of course, begs the question, just what is Toni Cook smoking? Her outrageous and insulting remarks are so far afield that, almost to the man or woman, black leaders are disgusted by her assertions. Good for them! If any person of noncolor were to make such an implication about African Americans being unable to comprehend and speak proper English, that person would be castigated and humiliated by every pundit in the country. As well they should be.

Needless to say, there are many underlying reasons for Ms. Cook's and the Oakland School Board's strange position. By coming to the conclusion that black students in Oakland are really speaking a second language and not a street slang, these folks hope to open the faucet of Federal and state tax dollars to study and teach it. Yes, the teachers would learn first. After doing so, they would be in a better position to reach their African American students. So who's running the asylum?

All of this nonsense has other far greater negative ramifications, not just for the students of whom we speak, but for America too. Once more, because of a misguided and shameful grab for dollars and a desire for separation from broad society on the part of some, further disintegration between the two races is taking place.

All that can come of it is more resentment and polarization. I'm convinced that a small minority in the black community would welcome this. After all, race hate is a two-way street.

To succeed in America, or anywhere for that matter, people must learn to assimilate and become part of the bigger whole. Successful Asians or Koreans or Germans even must learn to speak English fluently and correctly to get ahead. That goes for everyone, not just immigrants. This is not to say a person must forget his heritage or leave it behind. The language of America is English, not Ebonics. Just ask some of the many accomplished African Americans what language they speak. Their reply? English, thank you!

RICHARD BYRNE

The Christopher Tree

Amagansett

December 26, 1996

To The Editor,

Christmas is a special time of year for all of us to reflect on our lives, the meaning of family, tradition, and goodwill toward others. This year, my thoughts have been both tremendously elated and deeply disturbed. And, while love and joy will prevail this Christmas, I carry just a note of uneasiness about our community and the future my children will face.

The story begins when a boy was born and his father planted a living Christmas tree in the front yard in his honor. The Christmas tree was long a source of joy and remembrance for a growing boy. It was thrilling each year to put lights on the tree and see it become a towering conifer both mighty and magical.

And though the father did not live to watch the boy or the tree grow past 5, the boy, now my husband, cherished the thought and wanted to repeat this Christmas tradition for our son. And so, on our Christopher's first Christmas, we decorated a living Christmas tree, counted our blessings, and continued a tradition. The beautiful little pine was planted despite the cold frozen earth and nurtured dutifully throughout the year.

We began to call it the Christopher tree and relished the time when the family could together stand at its base and peer up to the heights and remember a child being born.

A few days ago, my husband lit the Christopher tree, and others, to celebrate our love of Christmas and to share good cheer with the community. The trees shone out of the darkness on a windy winter road and warmed the heart as if to say, "Peace, joy, happiness, and good tidings to all."

As we approached home last night, I told my son he would see his special tree brightly lit for Christmas. We were both excited to see it, and as we rounded the corner we saw the twinkle of lights but something was wrong. I could not see the Christopher tree. I thought with a panic that maybe it was unplugged and I just could not see it in the darkness.

I squinted and strained for the Christopher tree. I thought it must be there, it's a tree. I got out of the car and I felt for it in the night. The Christopher tree had simply vanished. The next thing I felt was a stump flush to the ground. Someone had taken a buzz saw to the Christopher tree, carefully unplugged it from the extension cord, and taken it away.

My heart sank, and my mind jumbled. Who could do something like this? Will someone actually enjoy celebrating Christmas under a stolen tree? Will that family know that this already brightly lit tree was cut down, thrown in the back of a truck, and whisked away from my home? Has the celebration of Christmas sunk to such a low point that morals no longer exist, and happiness is purely in the material? Then I thought how mean-spirited it was that some stranger could simply destroy my family's tradition.

The Christopher tree is now gone forever. Whatever possessed this individual to commit this crime will never be known. And, while I am sad at the loss of the tree, I am sadder for the chiseling away at my faith in the goodness of people and at the world my son will live in.

Thankfully, my son is still too young to understand this story so I do not have to explain it or mend any hurt feelings. When I replant a new Christopher tree, I do not know where I should plant it. Maybe I should secrete it away from public view to keep it safe. Or maybe I should stand up to this grinch and plant the Christopher tree where it was so that it can continue to share its joyful delighted dance and twinkle of lights with all of you each holiday season.

Peace be with you all.

JEANNETTE SCHWAGERL

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

The final page has been torn off the 1996 calendar and the 52nd chapter completed. Will the year be remembered as one of triumph or tragedy?

It was the year of record-breaking snow - snow to ski in, snow to build with, snow to blanket the roads and bring the entire Northeast to a halt.

Snow to spare - 84 inches of it in the 1995-96 winter. It began before the first of the year and did not end until the second week of April.

And just as the snow stopped, the rain began, seemingly ceaseless rain. Last year was also the year of rain.

Good, Bad, Ugly

It was the year of the cigar, when stogies invaded the East End. They were sold everywhere, it seemed, from the Sag Harbor 7-Eleven to the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton.

Brown tide made it a poor year for scallops. It wasn't a good year for farming, either.

It was the year of upscale jewelry stores and thwarted superstores, of big-dollar renovations to some East End schools and a big-dollar theft from one of them. The year of the superintendent/principal shuffle and some East Hampton Town Board scuffles, of plans come to fruition and plans short-circuited.

Here are a few of the most memorable, most curious, and most noteworthy stories from the 1996 book - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Tragedy

On July 17, off the coast of eastern Long Island, Trans World Airlines Flight 800, en route to Paris, exploded over the ocean. All 230 aboard, including several with local ties, perished. The shock waves were felt around the world. Relief workers, investigators, and the press descended. Patrols combed beaches from Montauk to Moriches for debris. The tragedy remains unexplained.

East End roads claimed several lives. Paul Koncelik of East Hampton died after losing control of his car on Swamp Road. Karin Harshmann of East Hampton was killed instantly in a collision with a State Police vehicle near Southampton College.

Accidents

Three East Hampton High School teens were injured, one seriously, when a dump truck hit a Lexus on April 2. Jennifer Gamble, the driver, was badly hurt, but was able to go back to school in the fall.

In May, a visitor from Roslyn Heights, Ann Marie Biondi, lost a leg in a Noyac motorcycle accident. Police charged Richard Bambrick with drunken driving in the aftermath of the collision.

A popular East Hampton Town maintenance worker, Gerard Eberhart of Springs, underwent seven hours of surgery after being struck by a truck while riding his bicycle.

Edward Prado of Montauk was the victim of an alleged hit-and-run driver in Montauk, while preparing to tow a car back to his service station. The driver, Jorge Astudillo, was found the next day and faces a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident.

Fires

In February, a fire destroyed the Montauk studio of the late artist Balcomb Greene. Twelve paintings were destroyed, others smoke-damaged.

On the Fourth of July weekend, an amateur fireworks display near the old Promised Land fish factory, following the Devon Yacht Club display across the harbor, ignited brush and debris but was contained before reaching nearby houses.

Local firefighters again averted tragedy on July 12. Thick black smoke over Bridgehampton was visible for miles after a fire at Hampton Tank Gas Service on Maple Lane ignited a tank truck.

A workshop burned down and several antique cars were destroyed, but the blaze was contained before it could spread to an 18,000-gallon holding tank. There were no injuries.

Big Busts

Southampton Town Police, aided by county drug enforcement teams, rounded up some 70 alleged crack dealers in one late-night October sweep, including four Bridgehampton men and one from East Hampton.

Less than a month later East Hampton Town police, aided by Federal Drug Enforcement agents, conducted a sweep of their own, primarily in Montauk. Fifteen alleged low-level dealers were arrested.

Curious Crimes

A gallery opening became a gallery closing when Farah Damji was arrested for trespassing in the middle of her opening reception. The owner of the rented space, at 75 Main Street in East Hampton, said she had forged his signature on the lease. Ms. Damji has since dropped from sight.

It was the year of thwarted superstores and upscale jewelry stores, of big-dollar renovations to some East End schools and a big-dollar theft from one of them.

The embezzlement of $80,000 from the tiny Bridgehampton School district was followed by the resignation of the school's treasurer, Lyllis Topping. Charged with the theft, she has since made complete restitution and awaits sentencing.

Schools Heads

In November, with the community still reeling from news of the embezzlement, the Bridgehampton School Board fired District Superintendent John Edwards, for unrelated reasons that have never been fully explained. He left the school a week later.

In Amagansett, School Superintendent George Aman surprised residents by resigning in October, citing what he called unfair criticism and a lack of professional trust. After many rallied to his side, he changed his mind and decided to stay.

Two East Hampton principals retired in June, Dennis Donatuti from the John M. Marshall Elementary School and Jay Niles from the high school.

More School News

On the private-school front, half the Hampton Day School's board of directors resigned in December 1995 and others announced plans to found a new school down the road. The Hayground School began classes in September. Meanwhile, Hampton Day fired its director, Barry Raebeck, who fired back with a $5.5 million lawsuit.

The new East Hampton Learning Center opened its doors to day care children and the district's pre-kindergarten program. Steps were taken toward establishing East Hampton's first on-site preschool special education program.

An alternative school for high school students at risk of dropping out was established in East Hampton.

In Springs, after nearly four years of contention, teachers and the School Board finally agreed on a contract, raising hopes that the acrimony that has plagued the district may come to an end. Whew!

Voters in East Hampton approved a $5.3 million expansion of the high school on Dec. 4.

Also in December, Springs and East Hampton reached agreement on a tuition plan for the next five years. At long last. And, the two districts, with Amagansett and Montauk, are studying the possibility of forming a centralized high school, or consolidating into one district.

Building Department

Building and Not Building: After 10 years of planning and myriad stops and starts, the East Hampton Housing Authority broke ground in April on its 50-unit affordable housing complex on Accabonac Highway in East Hampton. In September, the Authority fired the project's architect. A new one was hired last month and work has resumed. To be continued.

Building: The construction of East Hampton Town's first-ever recreation center for young people made some large progress in fund-raising, though a promotional film shot during the Memorial Day parade delayed the parade and got veterans up in arms. The finished trailer, however, played to much acclaim at the East Hampton Cinemas throughout the summer.

Not building: A Sag Harbor skate-boarding park. The park, planned for Pierson High School property between two houses, incurred neighbors' wrath, and after liability insurance became an issue the project screeched to a halt.

Building: Construction moved along on the East Hampton Library's new wing. Funds are being sought for a speedy completion.

Building: Seven years in the planning, the new East Hampton Town Airport broke ground at last.

The Town Board

Republicans took over Town Hall in January, their first majority in 12 years. Some highly acrimonious meetings marked the Town Board's 1996 calendar, including disagreements over the direction of the recycling program, over a Republican push to move the Democratic Supervisor into a smaller office, over the capital budget, and more.

Despite its partisan battles the Town Board managed to expand a ban on all-terrain vehicles, adopt a new open-space plan, approve its first-ever capital plan, and approve moratoriums on new ferries and on superstores.

Two longstanding Democratic officials went their separate ways. East Hampton Town Justice James Ketcham retired after eight years on the bench and former Supervisor Tony Bullock headed for Washington, to become Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's chief of staff.

New Republican faces at Town Hall: Robert Savage, town attorney; Gary Swanander, Planning Board member, James Mangano, appointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Lawsuits

The A&P's plans to build a new store, roughly twice the size of the present one and larger than any other retail store in East Hampton, provoked a wave of public protest and ultimately a town law regulating the size of retail spaces. The new law makes the proposed superstore illegal, and in its wake the A&P corporation sued the town, saying the law was unconstitutional.

The town prevailed in other lawsuits. One involved an ABC Carpet and Home tent sale billed as a fund-raiser but banned by the town as an ABC bonanza, and another was brought by Montauk residents who wanted the hamlet to become an incorporated village.

A settlement of several suits involving former Councilman Robert Cooper and the Town Police Department virtually fell into the board's lap after Mr. Cooper had a public falling-out with his lawyer.

Southampton

Southampton Town made waves by firing the head of its Sanitation Department, Brian Gilbride, and 17 of his workers. Twelve others were given reduced chores and reduced pay. The Civil Service Association is contemplating a lawsuit.

Southampton voters passed a $5 million open-space bond act in November, giving the town leverage, among other things, to obtain county, state, and Federal land-preservation grants.

Up and Down Mainstreet

Jerry Della Femina, the Manhattan ad man turned local entrepreneur, ran for a seat on the East Hampton Village Board, and the 1996 campaign was like no other. It featured unprecedented fund-raising and spending, profuse print and radio ads, mailings, campaign consultants, polls, and a touch of mud-slinging. In the end, the incumbents, Edwin L. Sherrill Jr. and William C. Heppenheimer 3d, won by a wide margin.

Mr. Della Femina's very own Pumpkin Papers, his lawsuit against the village involving the display of pumpkins in front of Jerry and David's Red Horse Market, was dismissed.

Village offices moved from temporary accommodations on Cedar Street to the renovated Lyman Beecher house on the corner of Huntting Lane and Main Street.

The Long Island Rail Road eliminated its East End ticket agents and announced that new double-decker trains and higher platforms were on the way, by 1998. Residents were not happy.

Martha Stewart was sued by her neighbors on Georgica Close Road, Harry and Linda Macklowe, over a grove of trees on their shared property line. The Village was also named in the suit.

Sag Harbor Village

Sag Harbor celebrated its 150th anniversary, though not with a car show. Opponents short-circuited the Louis Vuitton luggage company's plan to exhibit antique cars on Main Street on a busy June weekend.

In another village-owned-property issue, the Bay Street Theatre was denied the use of Marine Park for its summer fund-raiser. Long Wharf was used instead.

After a village survey showed many Main Street stores and restaurants were spilling over onto public property, they were ordered to stop serving food, selling merchandise, and displaying flowers in the disputed areas. Business owners were furious, but were placated when a license was created allowing them to buy yearly rights to the property.

Women

Women played a visible role in the November election, but did not prevail at the polls. The most prominent, Nora Bredes, challenged Rep. Michael P. Forbes. She won East Hampton, but not the race. After reelection, Mr. Forbes said he would oppose House Speaker Newt Gingrich's bid for a second term.

Melissa Arch Walton, a Democrat chosen to take on State Assemblyman Fred. W. Thiele Jr., also lost.

Also in November, East End voters approved several open-space and clean-water propositions and gave an overwhelming nod to Peconic County, hoping the state will take a closer look at the idea.

Ride'em Cowboy

The East Hampton commercial district appears quite different from a decade ago. This was the year the president of the Chamber of Commerce compared Main Street to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

Having said goodbye to some of the older stores - Engel Pottery, the Whitman Gallery, the Village Shoe Store, and Diamond's Furniture - the village welcomed new ones, sometimes in long-empty buildings. London Jewelers moved into the renovated Veterans of Foreign Wars building and McCarver and Moser, another jewelry store, took up residency in the old Village Hall across the street.

So we open the book on the New Year. While we will continue to reap the benefits of 1996's triumphs, the year's peskiest issues will probably not go away. They will transmute, take on new life. Some may fizzle out. To quote William Butler Yeats, ". . . time and the world are ever in flight."

   With reporting by Julia Mead, Josh Lawrence, Michelle Napoli, Susan Rosenbaum, Rick Murphy, Stephen Kotz, and Russell Drumm.