Like feuding in-laws who come together reluctantly for a family wedding, people from across the political spectrum gathered at the Waterside in Noyac Tuesday night to cheer the passage of the Peconic County referendum, open-space proposals, and, almost as an afterthought, the overwhelming re-election of Republican Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.

"It's been a pleasure to serve you," Mr. Thiele said in a brief victory speech. He was interrupted by Southampton Town Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio, who has had his share of tussles with the Assemblyman.

Standing by Mr. Thiele's side and pointing to a television screen, which posted the results of the Republican's landslide victory over his Democratic challenger, Melissa Arch Walton, Mr. Cannuscio said, "There you are, Freddy."

"I couldn't have timed that any better," Mr. Thiele quipped as his supporters cheered.

At The Waterside

The Second Assembly District takes in East Hampton, Southampton, and part of Brookhaven. Of the 73,285 registered voters there, 56.4 percent, or 41,338, exercised their franchise.

Mr. Thiele took 62 percent to Ms. Walton's 31 percent, a tally of 25,685 votes to her 12,649. The remaining 7 percent was divided between Margaret A. Eckart, the Conservative candidate, and Michael J. Bradley of the Right-to-Life Party.

But the crowd at the Waterside, which included members of the Na ture Conservancy, the Group for the South Fork, Southampton and East Hampton Republicans, and a smattering of Democrats, who mingled tentatively, was more interested in the results of a nonbinding referendum seeking to gauge public support for the formation of Peconic County.

Peconic Passes

It passed resoundingly, with 70-percent in favor across the five East End towns. Shelter Island and East Hampton registered the loudest approval, 83 and 76 percent respectively. South ampton voters came out 70 percent for secession from Suffolk County and Riverhead and Southold, where the most resistance had been expected, weighed in at 66 and 68 percent.

Mr. Thiele, a champion of the move to secede, said, "It's the right time for Peconic County, because the people have waited 30 years." He praised supporters of the proposal "who got together on cold winter nights to put together a feasibility study. And after that was done, they knew they had to do a grass-roots campaign."

Hal Ross of Water Mill and Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village Administrator, who both serve on the board of Peconic County Now Inc., said they were "overwhelmed" by the results, which showed public support almost 3 to 1 in favor.

Legislative Pressure

"East Hampton was strongly for it. That doesn't surprise me," said Mr. Cantwell. "But I'm especially happy with the results in Riverhead and Southold."

Mr. Ross conceded that the referendum's success did not necessarily mean the State Legislature would act. "We'll bring every pressure we can to bear," he said.

Peconic will face challenges from both "the Democrats and the Republicans. We'll have difficulties with both of them," said Mr. Ross.

Mr. Ross and Mr. Cantwell both directed barbs at Mr. Cannuscio, who has publicly wavered in his support for Peconic in recent weeks.

Cannuscio Wavers

Mr. Ross said he was pleased the proposition fared as well as it did despite the fact "we didn't get the full support of the Supervisor of Southampton." Mr. Cantwell went a step further and said Mr. Cannuscio had tried "to sabotage" the effort.

In the meantime, Mr. Cannuscio was overheard talking on the telephone to a reporter. The formation of Peconic County would be an "uphill battle," he said and mentioned that he had received earlier that day a lengthy fax from a group of western Suffolk legislators who told him "if the East End wants to secede, they would not look too kindly on matching funds" for open space purchases.

"That's his problem," said Mr. Cantwell. "He's intimidated by that."

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Cantwell added that the overwhelming support for Peconic must, for the movement to continue, send a message to elected officials all over the East End that their constituents want them to help get the proposal across in Albany.

Counted among them was State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, whose First Senate District extends outside the proposed new county and who resisted the idea of the referendum.

Mr. LaValle, who will begin his 11th term in January, garnered nearly 71 percent of the votes cast in his district. The Democrat who ran against him, Gerald Manginelli, received 29 percent.

Veterans organizations in East Hampton and Southampton Towns are planning parades, ceremonies, and workshops in recognition of Veterans Day on Monday.

A short parade will be held on Sunday at 1:45 p.m. in Southampton, proceeding from the Presbyterian Church down Job's Lane to the Veterans Memorial Hall on Pond Lane. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Korean War Veterans, and Vietnam Veterans, their auxiliaries, and the Southampton High School band will take part.

The parade will be followed by a memorial service at Memorial Hall sponsored by the Combined Veterans Organization. William A. Frank enbach will be the master of ceremonies, and the Van Arts Dalen Family will sing.

In East Hampton, the Everit Albert Herter Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars will host a ceremony to honor veterans on Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. at the organization's headquarters on Montauk Highway in EastHampton. Hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar will be available.

Legal planning and rights will be the topic at a seminar in honor of Veterans Day at the V.F.W. from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

Commander Edward Moritz, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret.), a veterans advocate who is an estates attorney and associate counsel with the firm of Nancy K. Munson in Huntington, and Felicia Pasculli, an elder-law attorney and veterans advocate, will discuss health care, compensation, training, mortgages, insurance, and burial issues for veterans and their families. They also will discuss legal planning, including wills, powers of attorney, health care proxies, living wills, trusts and estate taxes, and Medicare and Medicaid.

The American Legion Hall in Amagansett will be the site of another ceremony followed by lunch on Monday. The 11 a.m. ceremony, for members only, will commemorate both the end of World War I and the birth of the American Legion in France soon after. A cocktail hour and chili lunch will follow.

In Sag Harbor, the Chelberg-Battle Post of the American Legion will hold its "11 o'clock ritual," in which bells are rung and Taps played to commemorate the signing of the armistice, on Saturday night following its annual dinner-dance.

The event begins at the Legion Hall, on Bay Street, at 7 p.m. with a social hour. Big Band East will play and prime rib or stuffed chicken breast dinners will be served. Tickets may be purchased in advance for $20 a person or at the door for $25.

On Monday, members of the Legion, the V.F.W, and other veterans, along with Boy and Girl Scouts, will meet at the Civil War Monument on Main Street in Sag Harbor at 10:30 a.m. for a parade to Legion Hall.

There, North Haven Mayor Robert Ratcliffe will speak. The speech will be followed by a rifle salute, the playing of Taps, and a prayer. Refreshments will be served in the hall following the ceremony.

A flag-raising ceremony and dedication also will take place at noon on Monday at the community flagpole in East Quogue. Quinn's Way, a brick walk around the pole will be named for Tom Quinn, a Vietnam veteran who lost both legs in the war. A free barbecue and cash bar will be available at the New Moon Cafe following the dedication.

Eighty-six years ago, State Supreme Court Justice Abel S. Blackmar looked out over his Riverhead courtroom and declared the Montauket Indian tribe dead.

His pronouncement that the tribe ". . . has disintegrated and been absorbed into the mass of citizens" stripped the Montaukets of their legal status under New York State law and ended their lawsuit against the descendants of Arthur Benson, a speculator who had bought the peninsula at public auction in 1879, to regain their ancestral land.

The decision proved to be an overwhelming blow to the small band of Montaukets, who had been systematically impoverished from colonial days on by the white settlers. Two subsequent appeals were denied.

Federal Recognition

The tribe, bankrupt and disillusioned, faded away as a cohesive unit after a 1923 delegation to Washington led by Maria Pharaoh, Queen of the Montaukets, failed to convince the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to intervene.

Next month, a great-grandson of Maria Pharaoh will return to the capital to renew the appeal.

Robert Pharaoh, the Montaukets' current grand sachem, or king, will begin what promises to be a long and complicated effort to gain, for the first time, Federal recognition for the tribe.

Recognition is the first step to "basically resurrect the culture" of the Montaukets, Mr. Pharaoh said last week. It would also set the stage for the tribe to try to reclaim some of its former land on Montauk.

Bureau Of Indian Affairs

Mr. Pharaoh, a mechanic who lives in Sag Harbor's Eastville neighborhood, believes the Bureau of Indian Affairs is on his people's side this time.

"They are very receptive. They know we are well-documented," he said. "They want to see us become a tribe."

While the bureau does help guide tribes through the recognition process, it does not take an advocate's position, said Rita Souther, a genealogist who works there.

The bureau assigns an anthropologist, a historian, and a genealogist to study whatever documentation is submitted, she said. "When you piece the whole picture together, you should be able to see how this tribe moved through history" from the point of first white contact to the present, Ms. Souther said.

"We're not inflexible," she added. "We know there were periods of history when there weren't good records. Things like racial designations and quirks in history are taken into account."

Government Demands Proof

Besides showing that a tribe has existed through history, Native American groups must also prove to the bureau that they have retained a community life and maintained political influence over their members. They must also produce some type of governing document, such as bylaws or a constitution.

Tribes are also required to show they are not a faction splitting off from an already-recognized tribe, and that they have never had their Federal status terminated. Mr. Pharaoh believes the Montaukets have their papers in order.

If a tribe's claim falls short in any area, the bureau issues a letter of "deficiency" and allows the applicants to conduct more research and submit more documents before rejecting the application outright.

Robert Stearns, an anthropologist with the bureau, said the process usually takes five years at a minimum. "A group really has to get focused to get done in that amount of time," he said.

"We are going to be under a microscope," said Robert Cooper, the former East Hampton Town Councilman who is of Montauket descent. "The bureau is not a prosecutor," he said. "They want to see us succeed, but they want to see us succeed properly."

Like Mr. Pharaoh, Mr. Cooper contends the group has a strong case for recognition. Referring to "The History and Archaeology of the Montauk," a 1993 book edited by Gaynell Stone, he said there was "no way possible for someone to put together a book of that scale and not have a sense that the people exist."

Unity A Factor

"With the proper research, they should be able to build a case," agreed John Strong, a history professor at Southampton College who contributed to the book. "But I don't know how the bureau is going to respond to it."

"It's really hard to say, because there are so many twists and turns in the process," Dr. Strong explained. "Some groups seem to have a good case and don't get [recognition]. Others would appear to not have as good a case and they get recognized."

"It's a crap shoot," was how Dr. Stone put it. Whether the tribe gains recognition will also depend on how unified its members are, a problem for the Montaukets in the past, she said. Dr. Stone, an archeologist, heads the Suffolk County Archeological Association.

Leadership In Contention

Over the course of the years there has been frequent squabbling over leadership. It apparently continues.

Mr. Cooper, for instance, who is also a great-grandson of Maria Pharaoh, said he and Ralph Bunn of Amityville were both elected about two years ago as chiefs, positions of leadership under Robert Pharaoh.

But Mr. Pharaoh contends he is the tribe's only leader.

"Nobody who is a Montauket has worked any longer or any harder for our cause than me," said Mr. Cooper, citing his successful effort to establish the Fort Hill Cemetery at Montauk and his endeavors to keep the tribe's history alive through talks at schools and before civic groups.

Money Would Follow

Federal recognition is important in many ways. Besides giving the Montaukets "more clout" if, for example, they ask East Hampton Town to protect ancestral lands that may be the sites of burials or native artifacts, it will loosen Federal purse strings.

"They can call on Federal lawyers and the bureau to provide assistance," Dr. Strong said. "That's the whole point."

Funding would likely be available to help establish a cultural research center, library, and museum, as envisioned by Mr. Pharaoh, said Ms. Souther.

Land Claim?

If recognition is achieved, Mr. Pharaoh hopes to organize annual pow-wows and other activities that would focus on the tribe's cultural achievements and crafts - "not a lot of glitz and glitter," he made clear.

New York State grants recognition only to tribes that own land, such as Southampton's Shinnecocks, but Federal law has no such requirement. If recognition comes, then the bureau of Indian Affairs could be expected to lend a hand legally and financially if the tribe does try to recover its land, said Ms. Souther.

The Montaukets, who once roamed over much of the East End, are now most often associated with land that has become part of Montauk County Park at Indian Field.

"We also have that in the works right now," said Mr. Pharaoh of a potential land claim. The tribe has hired a Chicago law firm, Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, to help it organize as a tax-exempt organization, guide it through the recognition process, and assist in any future land claim.

Casinos

"There is a long history of Indian tribes selling lands, getting them back, maintaining rights, losing them, and getting others in return," said Doug Chalmers, an attorney with the

The hardest part will be establishing the tribe's identity in this century.

Chicago firm, which also has a Washington office and has worked with Native American tribes in the past. "We'll have to sift through that record."

The Montaukets "would be satisfied with any reasonable piece of land in their historic area," he added.

While many tribes have opened gambling casinos on their lands in recent years, Mr. Pharaoh said that "gaming right now is not our intention. It's the furthest thing, but everyone asks about it."

In Prohibition days, several nightclubs in isolated Montauk harbored clandestine casinos.

Land Reclamation

As to whether the tribe will try to reclaim land that is currently developed or in private hands, Mr. Pharaoh was noncommital. "Maybe we will, maybe we won't," he said with a smile. "I have no intention of putting anyone out of their homes. That's all I'll say for now."

But that is what the Benson family did in the late 1800s, according to Mr. Pharaoh.

In the milestone case early in this century, the tribe charged the Bensons had defrauded it by illegally purchasing the property from the Montauk "proprietors," white men who, they said, had no right to sell the land.

Further, the tribe, citing its communal land ethic, claimed the Bensons had no right to make deals with individual Indian families in exchange for the deeds to their houses.

Chased Away

Although the Bensons' agent, Nathaniel Dominy, had made promises, apparently in good faith, that tribal members would be free to return to Montauk every year as they had always done - as insured by earlier agreements with the white population - he could not keep his word.

The Bensons did give the Montaukets some land in Freetown, north of East Hampton Village, and small payments in exchange for their deeds, but when members of the tribe returned to sow crops, gather berries, or hunt and fish, they found their homes looted or burned.

Some were "shot at and otherwise chased off," said Mr. Pharaoh.

In fighting the claim, the Benson family's lawyers convinced the court that the Montaukets, many of whom had intermarried with African Americans or moved away, were no longer a real tribe.

Ancestral Connection

Justice Blackmar's decision, made in a courtroom crowded with Montaukets, appears in hindsight to have been based in large part on racial stereotypes of what an Indian should look like.

It still rankles.

"Native Americans are the only ones who have to answer that question," said Mr. Pharaoh of the "mixed breed" stigma. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," said Mr. Cooper.

Today, the Federal Government allows a tribe to include on its roll anyone who can prove an ancestral connection. According to a Montauket census in the early 1920s, there were over 500 people who could do that, said Mr. Pharaoh.

Mr. Cooper estimated that the Montaukets may number up to "1,000 nationwide, not including those in Fond du Lac, Wisc.," who moved west in the mid-1800s.

Defined History

"The key issue is whether they will even get to first base," said Mr. Stearns. "They will if existing members can demonstrate ties to more than one individual." Both Mr. Pharaoh and Mr. Cooper say that should be no problem.

While the Montaukets certainly have a defined history - archeological sites are scattered across Montauk, and recorded contact with Europeans dates to 1524, when Adrian Block explored the East Coast, and continues through the era of the first Lion Gardiner and beyond - a stumbling block will come when the tribe tries to trace its history in the years since Maria Pharaoh's futile trip to Washington.

"They would have to prove from that point on a sense of who their members were, provide lists of funerals and marriages, guest lists of people attending those events, and some kind of leadership," said Mr. Stearns.

Depression And After

If there are a "couple of years with no data, sometimes we can overlook that, but we can't have too many years go by when there is no record of organization," he said.

Ms. Souther said, however, that the bureau recognizes that many tribes had trouble sticking together during this century. "There was the Depression, and people had to move away to get jobs. That was followed immediately by the war," she said.

The bureau will consider a variety of evidence beyond formal meetings, said the genealogist. "It could include a ladies' sewing circle," she said.

"We had meetings. I can remember as a child having meetings at my grandfather's with the Pharaohs and Fowlers," said Mr. Cooper. "And I can remember going to Sag Harbor to Uncle Sam's [Robert Pharaoh's grandfather]."

Must Collect Data

"But you have to understand, because of the intense demoralization and ostracizing that took place, we didn't make that public," said Mr. Cooper.

"We've learned that was a mistake," he added.

Dr. Strong said he had "found newspaper references to group meetings, pow-wows, social gatherings. That's the kind of data they have to pull together."

"It is important that someone talk to the elders and tape-record their memories of what happened during those years," said Mr. Stearns, the anthropologist. "Even if there were one or two individuals who kept people informed, they would be considered the leaders."

Three Marks

Mr. Pharaoh wants that role. He believes he was fated to lead the tribe in its quest.

"My aunt Pocy [Pocahontas Pharaoh] knew I'd be the one to get it back," he said. Once, he added, when the family gathered for a photograph, "she put a mark on the center of my head, and one on each arm. They mean wisdom, strength, clairvoyance."

Up to now, Mr. Pharaoh has coordinated the recognition effort mostly by himself. Mr. Cooper believes it is time for Mr. Pharaoh to call a tribal meeting to discuss it.

Plans To Meet

"That's where the tug-of-war comes in," Mr. Cooper said. "We have an opportunity to right certain things before we leave this century. We have to do this collectively, so everyone knows we need to rally."

Both men said they would put their differences aside for the good of the tribe. Mr. Pharaoh said he already planned to call a meeting in the coming months and promised to enlist Mr. Cooper "when it's time. But right now, there is nothing for him to do."

"The strongest tree in the forest is the one that bends," said Mr. Cooper. "I intend to work with anybody and everybody to attain this goal."

It was an election full of firsts.

The first Democratic President to be re-elected since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The first time in 68 years Republicans had kept control of Congress for more than one term.

The first woman to represent Long Island in Congress.

The first vote on Peconic County, which passed like thunder.

The first Election Night in East Hampton in 14 years without Tony Bullock on the ballot or the premises.

And the first Democratic Town Trustee since Tom Lester.

Bennett Surprises

Harold Bennett of Three Mile Harbor Road, East Hampton, had held out small hope of taking the one vacant spot on the nine-seat Board of Trustees. No Democrat has, not since the late Mr. Lester served as a one-man minority in 1992 and '93.

Mr. Bennett, who lost in his first try last year, had made plans to spend the winter in Florida.

He didn't even bother going on Election Night to the Laundry, the East Hampton Village bistro where the Town Democratic Committee was glumly eating hors d'oeuvres and watching returns on the television over the bar.

When it became clear that the Democrat was polling well against an Independence Party candidate, Stuart B. Vorpahl Jr., and the Republican candidate, Gregg de Waal, the Democrats went looking for their man. They found him at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett.

Victory Speech

Councilman Peter Hammerle predicted that when he did show up, the taciturn lobsterman would make the shortest victory speech in history.

It may well have been.

"If you're lucky, shit'll do for brains. If you're not lucky, you have to be one smart son-of-a-bitch. Thank you," declared Mr. Bennett, sometime around 11:30.

He later said he wasn't at all concerned about getting along with the eight Republican Trustees. "I'll get under their skin. They won't get under mine," he said.

In an unexpectedly large turnout, almost 70 percent of East Hampton's 13,698 registered voters pulled a lever in the Presidential race. That was substantially higher than the national showing, just over 49 percent of eligible voters.

Of the 9,555 who voted here, 5,344 were for keeping Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, or 55.9 percent. Nationwide, Mr. Clinton's tally hovered around 50 percent as of late yesterday, with Ross Perot drawing off 8 percent of the total.

Firsts aside, Tuesday was also a night for standing still. The incumbents kept their jobs and the G.O.P. maintained control of Congress and of the New York State Senate.

Incumbents Returned

U.S. Representative Michael P. Forb es will return to Capitol Hill, though by a significantly slim margin of 10 percent.

His fellow Republicans, State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., will go back to their offices in Albany with far more comfortable spreads of 41 and 31 percent respectively.

Though Republicans outnumber Democrats in East Hampton Town by more than 500, they appear to have been unenthusiastic about their Presidential candidate. Only 2,910 voters pulled the lever for Bob Dole. There are 4,921 registered Republicans in East Hampton Town.

Ross Perot was the choice of 1,026 voters, just over 10 percent.

Mary Ella Reutershan, a former Councilwoman and longtime Democratic activist, was one of those who stopped by the Laundry. She introduced a few acquaintances to each other, hugged some friends, and sighed with satisfaction at the news that Carolyn McCarthy would be the first woman sent to Congress by Long Island voters.

Mrs. McCarthy, a nurse from Garden City, took on the National Rifle Association and the Republican-Conservative incumbent, Dan Frisa, after her husband was murdered and her son wounded in the Long Island Rail Road massacre.

Her victory "must make every woman feel happy," smiled Mrs. Reutershan, who slipped out quietly soon after the results from the Fourth Congressional District in Nassau came over.

Grossman Loses

So did Stephen A. Grossman, a Sag Harbor lawyer who was again defeated in his quest for a seat on the bench. Mr. Grossman, who this time went after a County Court judgeship, came in fourth in a field of five.

The Republican-Conservative candidates, Ralph T. Gazzillo and Louis J. Ohlig, will take the two seats.

There was cheering at the Grill, a tavern nearby on Newtown Lane owned by a Republican committeeman, when the results came in for Congressman Forbes.

The incumbent overcame questions about honesty and performance raised by his Democratic challenger, Nora Bredes, in the last few weeks to win a second term. Mr. Forbes got 55 percent of the votes cast in the First Congressional District, 113,330 altogether.

Bredes Defeated

Across the district, comprising the five East End towns and parts of Brookhaven and Smithtown, Ms. Bredes took 92,767 votes, or 45 percent. As of yesterday afternoon, the County Board of Elections did not have figures for Lorna Salzman, who declared herself a write-in candidate just last month.

She and the Peconic Greens, an offshoot of Ralph Nader's national Green Party, withheld their endorsement of Ms. Bredes after the Democrat declined to support a shutdown of the nuclear reactors at Brookhaven National Lab.

Ms. Salzman was not expected to take more than a few hundred votes, though, not enough to give Democrats a scapegoat.

Disappointment over Ms. Bredes's loss was thick as smoke at the Laundry, blotting out any jubilation Democrats may have felt over President Clinton's hands-down win. For two hours after the polls closed, committee members and volunteers were tensely asking each other, over and over, "How's she doing?"

"Where's Tony?"

The second most repeated question: "Where's Tony?"

Standardbearer, jester, and flint and steel of the East Hampton Democrats for a decade, when he served as Supervisor and, before that, as County Legislator and Councilman, Mr. Bullock was on his way to Washington, where he starts work in a week as chief of staff to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Before he left, Mr. Grossman had offered that, if the Democrats took back the Senate, Senator Moynihan would become chairman of the Finance Committee.

"You mean Tony would," said Councilman Hammerle somberly.

Trustee Race

At about 61 percent of those eligible to vote, the balloting for Town Trustee was less than in the Presidential race, translating into 8,392 voters.

Just under 42 percent of them, or 3,511 voters, went for Mr. Bennett, who once told The Star that after retiring from his job as an ironworker in Indiana he had sailed his boat, the Bub Tub, from there back home to Bonac.

Just over 36 percent chose Mr. de Waal, a part-time bayman and fuel-truck driver. He collected 3,053 votes altogether, with 323 of them cast on his Conservative line.

Mr. de Waal spent Election Night at a table in the Grill, fuming still about what he called inaccurate reporting in another local paper on his campaign. He took a wooden stake and a hammer to the editor of that paper last week, and suggested the man drive it into his heart.

Councilman Len Bernard Jr. and Robert Savage, the town attorney, sat together at a table, silently watching the televised returns. Frank Duffy, the Grill owner, held up one end of the bar.

Only Manny Vilar, a committeeman from Montauk, seemed at all chipper and enthusiastic, fussing over the poster boards and markers he would use to mark down the local returns.

A veteran of five non-consecutive terms, Mr. Vorpahl came in third in the Trustee race with a tad under 22 percent, 1,828 votes. He and his "bride," Mary, ate chili and watched the returns at Elaine and Les Jones's house in Amagansett, the informal headquarters of the Town Independence Committee.

Vorpahl's Morning

Mr. Vorpahl talked about having spent more time than he wanted pulling "sputnik," spartina grass, from his nets that morning.

He took defeat in stride, unlike last year when he railed against a write-in campaign that went awry. His younger brother, Gordon, garnered more votes than any other candidate on that ballot.

This year, though, Mr. Vorpahl said only that he planned to "go harass some fish in the morning."

What's In My Head

Westchester

November 4, 1996

Dear Editor,

I'm sure your readers have had enough of the windy debate on my film, "Some Mother's Son." Can I put this thing to bed, at least until the film's release in December when I hope your audience will go and see the film and judge for itself?

Having first of all written a commentary on my film without having seen it, Simon Worrall, when he had corrected that error and watched the film, has now set out in his letter to tell people that despite what they might see on the screen he, Simon Worrall, really knows what's in my head.

You'd think that Mr. Worrall, journalist that he is, might get on the phone and ask me what's in my head, but no, we get yet another long-winded annunciation of Mr. Worrall's fears couched as reporting. Also having in his first article shamefully compared Fionnula Flanagan to Goebbels, he now compares me and Jim Sheridan (a director who has earned 12 Academy Award nominations) to Leni Riefenstahl.

And, as he reports on a lecture he didn't bother to attend, he gets his facts wrong again! I never said the dance scene was my favorite scene. In fact, it's not.

I said it was the most complex scene and the one I thought most about because I was acutely aware of the power of glorification that the combination of music and violence has in cinema and video today, but that I wanted to use that power as it is used in Ireland and Britain with rebel tunes and jingoist band marches.

I was also anxious to show the proximity of the violence to the civilian population, namely the girl's school.

Lastly, Mr. Worrall has been most anxious to acquaint your readers to what I was doing 21 years ago. He says I've been trying to hide my arrest and conviction when in fact I think that for the last three months I've talked about little else. I would refer him to the text of my op-ed piece in The New York Times where I state my political beliefs clearly.

Can I state for the record that I find myself mostly in agreement with your extremely long-range reader, the former British soldier from Southampton, England. (Is The Star on the Internet or did someone mail him the text of this momentous debate?) The need in Northern Ireland is for peace.

I disagree with the soldier in that I think Gerry Adams is one of the major forces for peace. And I disagree wholeheartedly with Simon Worrall, in that I, the creator of "Some Mother's Son," think the film is also a force for peace. It's a film about one woman's humanism and how she is forced to make the most heartwrenching decision of her life.

What I found most amusing about Mr. Worrall's letter was how remarkably similar in tone and supposition he sounded to the criticisms of the film leveled by several members of Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing, who also tried to get inside my head, and declared that I had used the film to paper over the prisoner's righteous struggle in favor of the story of one middle-class mother.

I wish these invaders of my head space would be so good as to tell me whether they happened to come across the content and details of my next film while they were in my head. It would save me many tortuous hours at this keyboard.

Sincerely,

TERRY GEORGE

Director, "Some Mother's Son"

Yes, we are on the Internet. Ed.

Fondness For Rebels

Wainscott

November 4, 1996

To The Editor:

By means of his flawed and slanted review of the movie "Some Mother's Son," Simon Worrall has called attention to the centuries-old struggle of the Irish people for freedom from British rule. For that he deserves thanks.

In the Irish rebellions of 1798 and 1848, most of the leaders not killed were captured and imprisoned. Described by their English captors as traitors and bloodthirsty villains, they were transported or otherwise forced to leave their country for France, Australia, Canada, and America.

In their new homelands, these men rose to the highest levels, becoming state and provincial governors, military officers of high rank, educators, attorneys, and members of their national parliaments. One of them, Charles Duffy, became Prime Minister of Australia.

While these men were engaged in notable achievements, many of those who called them bloodthirsty villains were still in Ireland maiming and killing helpless Irish peasants. Some of those peasants, in their desperate yearning for freedom, charged the mouths of cannons with nothing but pitchforks in their hands.

Mr. Worrall just doesn't get it. We Americans have a fondness for rebels, particularly rebels aiming to throw off the yoke of British rule. Had the American Revolution failed, those leaders, described as rebels at the time, would have been tried as traitors. Mr. Worrall may see them as traitors, but I don't.

Colonialism is dead. It died a long time ago, and Great Britain is the only nation left on earth not to realize it.

HENRY CLIFFORD

A Colorful Lot

Calexico, Calif.

October 31, 1996

Dear Star,

I am writing from San Felipe in Baja California, Mexico, quite by accident. My Spanish did not include "proposed highway" on the map, so, thinking I was on a carretera to Bahia di Los Angeles and Mulege, I discovered, upon arrival, that the passable highway ends here. And just as well - San Felipe is the most charming place. I really have no desire to go farther south.

I am the only motor home in a tiny park. The sun comes up very quickly over the Gulf right in my back window. The showers are not hot but not cold either. The beach is two minutes' walk down an escalera which is simply rocks that keep you from falling about 40 feet to the bottom.

The water is delicious for swimming - very salty - the sun strong. The walk to town and anything I would need is easy and very colorful. This is a shrimping port, and the draggers remind me of home.

Martin and Claudia, who run the place, have been above and beyond in showing me how to use the phone, what the different monedas are, etc., etc. I will be leaving here tomorrow to go down the road a bit to Campo Marco, another tiny recreational vehicle park not nearly as nice as this but one-third the cost.

I have signed on there until the first of the year and then vamos a ver. The people I have met so far are a colorful lot. A heavily bearded and heavily scarred gringo called Satch ritually shows videos of his rotator cuff surgery every Sunday to anyone whom he can get to watch.

He plans to make a Super Bowl out of his knee surgery, which took much longer.

Another gringo has, alongside his trailer, a vintage Mercedes Benz convertible with a hood strap and all-gleaming immaculate white, which, it is rumored, he drives around San Felipe when the mood strikes him, hoping to entice a senorita or two.

I finally got myself a Post Office box so the mail will only take 10 days instead of at least two weeks. I would love to hear from one and all at P.O. Box 952, SF 143, Calexico, Calif. 92231.

Happy Halloween or Luna de Lucifer.

Love,

JUDY HUBBARD

The wizards were already assembled in the corners of the room, the Bag Lady was standing upright, and the North Wind was propped up against the wall, but War didn't have his head on yet, and the inflatable Yup-a-tsaurus was in a heap on the floor.

Donna Stein, Guild Hall's interim curator, bustled around in the midst of this surreal menagerie, overseeing installation of "The Puppet Show," which opens at the museum on Saturday.

Even without their animators, the giant figures filling one room of the museum seemed brimming with life as they waited to meet the public.

Sardine Cans

"War," a nine-foot puppet created by Ralph Lee, wears a grimace and an armor of burlap, with sardine cans and jar lids to deflect bullets or arrows.

Mr. Lee, who is credited as the founder of one of the best-known shows of costumery and folly in the nation - the Greenwich Village Halloween parade - also made "Bag Lady," an equally imposing and exotic figure.

"The North Wind" and the wizards are processional puppets that can be as tall as 20 feet, depending on who carries them. Standing near them this week was a troll body puppet made for Poko Puppets, and on a table in front of the troll was "Knee-o-Fashism," a body from the waist down with faces on either knee and elaborate shoes.

How To Inflate

A ventriloquist figure, "Uncle Arthur," rocked in a children's rocking chair, lent to the museum by an employee. On a nearby base was a maquette for Pat Olesko's "Coat of Arms." The piece is exactly what its title suggests: On stage, a performer wears the life-size coat, with half a dozen or so arms flailing about.

Instructions for inflating Mr. Olesko's "Yup-a-tsaurus" lay on the table by "Knee-o-Fashism."

"Lay out the figures on the ground facing the same direction like so many shadows," they begin.

The piece will be hooked up to timed blowers, which will inflate it. Allow it to deflate a little, then inflate it again to create a bobbing effect through the duration of the exhibit.

Performing Objects

The larger puppets and performing objects, which include a piece from a Robert Wilson production, will occupy one gallery at Guild Hall.

In the other will be photographs, drawings, prints, and other art related to puppetry. A print of a "Punch and Judy" show in Paris, for instance, will be accompanied by Punch and Judy figures in a small tabletop theater.

"We wanted to give an historical view," said Ms. Stein. "This isn't allcontemporary."

The historic pieces will include classic hand puppets as well as photographs of puppets by Man Ray and Hans Bellmer, and drawings by the Surrealist artist Kurt Seligman and the Russian Constructivist Alexandra Exter.

Puppet Photography

In the Guild Hall library, Richard Termine's photographs of puppet performances will extend the idea of puppetry beyond what is shown in the exhibit.

Mr. Termine, who runs the National Puppet Theatre every year in Connecticut, is currently considered the primary photographer of puppetry in the world.

His photographs depict other styles of puppetry beyond what is shown in the galleries, depicting other styles of puppeteering, such as finger puppetry, shadow puppets, and hand puppets.

More Than Craft

There is a wealth of talent and inventiveness evident in "The Puppet Show." Ms. Stein hopes the scope of the exhibit will expand viewers' ideas of what art can be as well as "give kids an idea of the potential, the fantasy level of puppetry."

It takes more than craft to create such works, she says.

The master puppeteer Larry Eng ler of the Poko Puppet Company, which has lent several of its large puppets to Guild Hall for the exhibit, will join Ms. Stein on Dec. 1 to offer an exhibit tour and puppet workshop.

Because the field of puppetry is so broad, Guild Hall's exhibit had to focus predominantly on American and European puppetry, but in a puppet-making workshop later in December, the Long Island puppeteer Katie Polk will introduce puppet styles from around the world and the methods used to create and animate them.

The show will be up through Jan. 12. Visitors can wander among the puppets for the first time at the opening reception Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m.

Earlier in the day, at 1 p.m., the film "Muppet Treasure Island" will be shown on the big screen in the John Drew Theater.

More Films Set

Films and theater productions featuring some kind of puppetry are planned through the next two months. The National Marionette Theater will visit Guild Hall with its production of "Peter Pan" on Nov. 23.

Tim Burton's puppet-like animated film, "The Nightmare Before Christmas," will be screened on Nov. 30, and another Muppet classic, "The Muppet Christmas Carol," will be shown Dec. 14.

"Muppet Christmas Carol," which puts a frog-like spin on the classic Charles Dickens tale, will be screened in mid-December. Then, closer to Christmas, another takeoff on the classic, "Mr. Punch's Christmas Carol," will be brought to the John Drew stage by the puppeteers of the Crabgrass Puppet Theater.

Child-Oriented

Finally, after the new year, the Catskill Puppet Theater will stage a production of "Willow Girl."

"The Puppet Show" is part of Guild Hall's annual effort to plan an exhibit that is child-oriented. While this show will certainly appeal to children's imagination, adults will likely find themselves captivated by the fancifulness of the works as well.

To get inside the house that Sally Egbert built, you have to trust your intuition, not your logic: It's a right-brain thing.

A left-brain, verbally oriented visitor hammered in vain recently at the East Hampton artist's locked front door, sealed off to create an interior studio wall, before finally being shown in the proper side entrance to the house.

Moments later, a right-brain, spacially integrated photographer drove up and went directly to the side door, no problem. "I just knew that was how to get in," he said.

Aqueous Contexts

Infiltrating the alluring underwater world of Ms. Egbert's new paintings calls for right-brain approach. A frontal attack, and they'll clam up on you. But a casual plunge in from right field, mind a blank, heart agape, and they'll engulf you in their mysterious, biomorphic depths.

Ms. Egbert, a lyrical Abstract Expressionist whose current show at Fotouhi Cramer's Manhattan gallery will run until Nov. 30, has been obsessed with aqueous contexts since moving to the East End in 1982.

A critic for The New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote last year that her "jazzy, off-kilter designs have an organic quality that suits eyes trained by . . . humid vistas," calling her "a Yankee soul-sister to New Orleans artists who thrive on dampness and Gulf light."

"The Water Thing"

The poet Eileen Myles wrote in a recent Art in America review that "Sally Egbert's oil paintings are as hypnotic as aquariums." In one, she said, "the coloring is fanciful and light . . . with a couple of darker enclaves - big purple-gray vertical sections which ground the piece like castles in the tank."

"I'll live somewhere and absorb it for a long time before it slowly comes out in my work," the 37-year-old Ms. Egbert said. "The water thing came partly from swimming at Gurney's Inn in winter and looking at the bottom of the pool and the ocean outside. I love swimming underwater; it's like being in a landscape with little touches of still life."

Ms. Egbert paints on the floor, staying physically close to the canvas and working from every angle, equidistantly on every part of it. "If it's hanging on the wall, I feel remote from the top," she said. "I like my work to be intimate and touchable."

Without Brushes

She uses a brush only rarely, "the little ones you throw away," to add lines that incorporate drawing into the fluid suspension of color.

Mostly, she pours paint directly onto the canvas, moving it around with her hand or a palette knife, creating works that are "energetic, gutsy, and spontaneous," according to The Star's art critic Rose Slivka.

Ms. Egbert was born on coastal Long Island in Bay Shore, where the Fire Island ferries dock.

An absent father - her only memory of him is of sitting in his car - and a young mother who often traveled, obliged her to live during the week with her grandfather and a beloved but strict great-grandmother.

Her Brother's Bar

She excelled in the Catholic schools she attended.

"After school I'd sit in my great-grandmother's house and boys weren't even allowed to call," she said. "Then I'd go to my mother's on weekends, and she wouldn't be home."

"So I'd do crazy things, like going to a Grateful Dead concert with my three older brothers when I was 11."

"I was very comfortable hanging out in my brother's really fun bar," she remembered. "I'd be home alone, and I'd ride my bike over and climb in the window of the ladies room. The people all knew me, and they'd take me in."

"It was weird, back and forth between the nuns and the bar."

Fire Island Summers

At 15, she and school friends began working summers on Fire Island as dishwashers and mother's helpers.

"There were no cars, so no drunk driving," she said. "The worst you could do was ride your bike into the woods. And there were these incredibly colorful gay guys in hot pants with flowers in their hair who'd take us over to Cherry Grove. This is the life, I thought."

Perhaps to compensate for her unsettled childhood, Ms. Egbert drew and painted almost religiously, although "always trying not to be an artist," she said.

"I thought I should learn a trade and have a stable career."

Waitressing

She decided not to be an X-ray technician after a day on the job, however, and dreams of becoming a receptionist with her own desk and phone collapsed after three days.

"So I just worked waitressing in restaurants, which I love," she said. "It's like having family bonds."

After earning a B.S. in visual arts from the State University at New Paltz, she moved to East Hampton to paint, and more or less followed the chef Laura Thorne around, waitressing at the Coast Grill, the Royal Fish, and C. J. Thorne's, among other local restaurants.

"I could come and go as I pleased, and didn't have to wear real clothes like pantyhose and shoes and makeup," she said. "I have a friend who works in a bank, and it would take me three days to put myself together the way she does in 25 minutes."

Back Of Menus

Having received no real formal art education or training at New Paltz - the art history course ended at Van Gogh and Gauguin and she'd never even heard of Andy Warhol - she began making figurative paintings that in retrospect look like Milton Avery's with "a faint psychotic edge," she said. She'd never heard of Milton Avery, either.

These views of slightly skewed suburban interiors, with their Diane Arbus undertones, are done on the backs of restaurant menus.

"COAST GRILL. Avocado and chicken salad, Clams on the half-shell, Thai beef," we read on one side. There's a semi-abstract painting or nude drawing on the other.

"I always took home the old menus when they changed them," Ms. Egbert said. "They were made of such high-quality paper."

A Living From Art

"At first," she said, "I gave all my paintings away, never seeing the connection between art and money even though I was hitchhiking back and forth between two jobs. Then I suddenly realized that artists are entitled to make livings; I began to sell my work."

She started showing locally at the former Bologna-Landi Gallery the year she arrived. Her work has since been exhibited at the East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art, the Springs Art Gallery, Renee Fotouhi Fine Art, Guild Hall, the Parrish Art Museum, the Islip Art Museum, the Heckscher Museum, and at galleries in New York and Tokyo.

She has won a New York State Council on the Arts grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, and, this year, a grant from the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.

"Pirates' Den"

While her sometimes exuberant, sometimes brooding paintings are always soothing to her, they are at times disturbing to others.

"They're emotional portraits that take on their own spirit and lead their own lives, but I feel safe with them around," Ms. Egbert said. "While I've always loved colors, I'm not afraid of heavy, dark works with a lot of black. We spend half our lives in the dark, and some of the lighter paintings are more subtly scary to me."

One of her blackest, most dramatic works, called "Pirates' Den," is "where pirates who've murdered people and robbed their gold go at night for the party," she said.

Colors Remembered

Another glowing, almost iridescent work is called "Medicine."

"It's gentle and beautiful, like medicine that heals the sick," she said. "But here's a subconscious tension: things could go either way, and that's what makes it exciting."

"I've been carrying shapes and colors from childhood around all my life," the artist went on. "One day I made a painting using a lot of this vivid orange, and I realized it was the color of my great-grandmother's kitchen chairs."

"Another time, this pinky-red kept coming out. It suddenly clicked that it was the color of my mother's nail polish - I remembered her nails jabbing into my arms. Wow, I thought, this is pretty wild."

This process of recollection keeps you focused on your spirit, Ms. Egbert explained.

"You have to take risks and let things into the painting even if they ruin it. Can you imagine Pollock thinking, oh, dear, maybe I shouldn't do this? Absolutely not; he held nothing back."

"And I love those big Julian Schna bel paintings with all the broken crockery in them, kind of like a smack in the face. You have to be daring, in life as well as in art."

Family Life

Along with two cats, Charcoal and Snowy, Ms. Egbert shares her house with her 81/2-year-old son, Bobby. His father, Danny Shea, a country-and-western musician and vintage guitar dealer, lives nearby, and the family is very close.

"Bobby has a schedule and a lot of stability, unlike what I had," she said. "I tell him to do what he feels he has to do, as long as he's not hurting anyone, to be true to himself, which is what being an artist is."

She thought a minute. "People told me I'd never paint again if I had a child," she said. "But just the opposite is true. A child is a huge responsibility that's made me more focused and disciplined. I don't have time to be self-indulgent any more, and I never have a creative block. My life is just much richer."

CTC Live threw a benefit party at Guild Hall Friday night to celebrate the smashing opening performance of its 15th season. The stylish silver and black balloons festooning the gallery were perfect choices for the bittersweet Noel Coward play that preceeded the bash: silver for the glitter of the theater - and those threads among the gold; black for elegance - and mourning.

"Waiting in the Wings," written five years after the death of Mr. Coward's stage-struck mother, takes us into a charitable home for indigent retired actresses in England, called The Wings. Here they wait, with varying degrees of acceptance and denial, for that last great curtain call in the sky.

In John Mercurio's splendidly handsome and functional set, The Wings is a drafty old manor house shrouded in an institutional gloom the residents hope to lift with the addition of a solarium, where they could take the sun protected from the frigid east wind.

This matter is up before a committee that thus far has refused to fund such a sybaritic project. But Perry Lascoe (Sandy Rosen), The Wings's cheery secretary, has promised to have another go at it for the sake of these frail "old shadows" he genuinely loves.

Stirring The Plot

At rise of curtain, the buzz among the residents is the imminent arrival of Lotta Bainbridge (Serena Seacat), a former first lady of the stage and a sworn enemy of May Davenport (Vay David), The Wings's reigning grande dame whose husband Lotta stole.

Thus the plot points are deftly established: Will the solarium be built? Will Lotta and May claw each other's eyes out? Which old trouper will be the first to make her final exit?

Gallant Humor

The expert handling of the little skirmishes and incidents that move the drama forward make this one of CTC Live's most moving and memorable evenings.

Theater at its most affecting. Don't wait in the wings for a minute; see it.

"Waiting in the Wings," briskly directed by Ms. Seacat, is also extremely funny. With British jocularity, the actresses try to minimize the tragic circumstances that bring them together, as if old age and poverty were, somehow, egregious errors in taste.

The large, very talented cast captures this gallant humor perfectly.

Blue-Ribbon Cast

While it's hard to pin a blue ribbon on one, rather than all, the actors, the moving performances of Ms. Seacat, Ms. David, and Mr. Rosen must be mentioned first. All are strongly motivated, funny, and beautifully believable: They're the evening's firm foundation.

With this solid base to play off, the other actors are free to go for the abundant laughs, and tears, Mr. Coward so knowingly provides.

Andrea Gross, doing little else than trudge back and forth with trays of rattling crockery, brings the hapless character of Doreen, the maid, to hilarious life. By the end of the play, the mere sight of her brings howls of delight from the audience.

The always amusing Katie Meckert is also wonderful as the sardonic Cora Clarke, while Gillian Ames, a native of Scotland, makes her CTC debut with a bang as the weepy Estelle Craven.

Virtuosos

Sara Beck gives a virtuoso performance as the quite loony Sarita Myrtle, a Norma Desmond type more ready for her close-up than her life.

David Parker is tenderly, and oh so touchingly, charming as the elderly Osgood Meeker, a gentleman caller who brings violets every Sunday to an off-stage old beauty, for years confined to her room.

Laura Flynn, last seen in Dark Horse Productions' "Twelfth Night" and "Glengarry Glen Ross," here plays a hard-hitting television interviewer with considerable panache.

To Die For

The inimitable Vaughan Allentuck is splendid as a rosary-oriented, Irish Catholic religious fanatic, and Stephanie Brussell makes her CTC debut as a singer once known for her squeaky rendition of "Miss Mouse."

Elizabeth Sarfati is sympathetic playing The Wings's manageress, as is Gerry Gurney as one of its saner inmates. Judith Minetree, John Bazazian, and Bill Cowley are fine in smaller parts, while Deede Windust make a final entrance to die for, just when we thought she would never appear.

One of the most remarkable things about this excellent evening is that when an actress's last-minute illness forced the elimination of her character from the cast, whatever plot points she carried were so seamlessly integrated into the script that we never missed her.

Fantastic Ms. Seacat

Another is that the director, Ms. Seacat, is filling in on a week's notice for one of the leads, who also fell by the wayside. She does a fantastic job in both crucial capacities.

What with Eric Schlobohm's evocative lighting design, Chas. W. Roeder's Broadway-worthy costume design, and the Noel Coward show tunes that drift into the John Drew during scene changes, "Waiting in the Wings" is theater at its most affecting.

Don't wait in the wings for a minute; see this soaring performance.

The Long Island-bashers are at it again. No sooner has a year managed to pass without any Joey Buttafuocos or Amityville Horrors hogging the headlines in the supermarket tabloids than someone decrees that Long Islanders - sorry, Lawn Guylanders - talk funny, and sets out to make us all sound like we just got off the bus from Omaha.

Perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising. These, after all, are the dogged '90s, the self-improvement decade that strives not just for personal fitness but for personal perfection, the era of stomach reduction, thigh reduction, breast reduction, and reduction ad every other possible absurdum, so why not "accent reduction"?

"Karen will attempt to make people aware of how their mouths make the horrible sounds they produce," assures a straight-faced press release. "She will help Long Islanders to 'tawk' less and 'talk' more."

What exactly does a Long Island accent sound like? Flushing? Hewlett Harbor? Babylon? Mattituck?

Depends where you come from, and also where you go. A friend who was born and raised in Nassau County but has relatives in the South remembers suffering agonies as a child every Christmas, when it came time to visit the old Kentucky home. His parents would make him stand in front of a mirror saying "cahndy" instead of "caaan-dy" and "ahnt" for "aayent" over and over again, until they were sure Grandpa and Grandma would have no cause to say he sounded like a nasally challenged Yankee.

It does seem too bad, though, when accents and dialects all across the nation, including this region's distinctive Bonac, are disappearing faster than you can say "national television," to help the process along. For those who disagree, Karen will be waiting at the Jericho Library at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

There aren't too many people around who personally remember when Harry Truman won an unexpected victory over Thomas Dewey in the Presidential race of 1948. Just about everybody, however, remembers the story of the hapless Chicago Daily Tribune, which went to press before the polls closed and was on the streets the next morning with the banner headline "Dewey Defeats Truman."

The world of crossword aficionados may be a small one, but it is ardent, particularly when it comes to the daily puzzle in The New York Times. On Tuesday morning, seemingly showing even more hubris than The Tribune (which took the risk because of its deadline), The Times's puzzle had a clue that read "Lead story in tomorrow's paper (!)" The answer was "Clinton Elected."

What if there had been a big upset? We imagined angry Republican and superstitious Democratic crossword puzzlers descending on The New York Times en masse and, quite rightly, rending Will Shortz, the puzzle's editor, limb from unsagacious limb.

As it turned out, The Times had cunningly hedged its bets. As the next morning's solutions revealed, one could have equally well filled in "Bob Dole Elected," with an alternate set of answers in adjacent spaces to mesh with that choice. Machiavellian folks, these puzzle makers.