Those of us who have been around awhile remember when there were no Hamptons. The South Fork was composed of towns and villages and hamlets that had singular characteristics — unique histories, unique environments (both natural and manmade), unique social characters. Few of us were savvy enough to anticipate a time when “the Hamptons,” as a place of the popular imagination, would become more familiar to the American people at large than, say, East Hampton ever was.

As it has come to pass, the majority of those who live or vacation in Amagansett or Springs or Wainscott or Water Mill have drunk the Kool-Aid and now refer to “the Hamptons” as if it were a homogenous unit. It is interesting that Montauk rose to its current phenomenal success as a weekend destination (or its ruin, depending on your point of view) largely because it stood apart from all this. It was supposedly a “un-Hampton,” that is, perceived not to be in or of the Hamptons. Sag Harbor was always a place apart, too.

These observations are not new, but I got thinking of them afresh while looking at some of the free, glossy summer magazines that are now ubiquitous here and that trample over each other for public attention and public space.

In them, the Hamptons are almost universally lumped together as a common denominator. I hesitate to say the “lowest” common denominator because luxury is what they are supposedly all about.

The glossies that brand themselves as covering the Hamptons, be they published in Manhattan or theMidwest, are sales vehicles. They promote celebrities, fashion companies, luxury-goods makers, home goods, and decorators and designers. Don’t get me wrong, almost everyone, even the old fuds among us, can have their interest piqued by pictures of what lots — and lots — of money can buy; there is a curiosity factor at work. But what these Hamptons-themed publications boil down to is commercial. They are selling products.

In case you are wondering, yes, I do think that a paper like The East Hampton Star is different: The Star and similar publications use words and images to disseminate news, whether it is about the government or a Little League team or a neighborhood sculptor. The entities that buy advertising space, be they commercial or cultural, piggyback on the content that we generate for our readers.

In my opinion, trading editorial space for advertising dollars is not only a questionable practice, but a dishonest one, since readers are unlikely to realize that stories and photographs have been paid for. It’s not surprising that such trade-offs are common among some of the lesser glossies you glance at on your way in and out of the gourmet food store.

By contrast, The Star will lean over backwards to ensure that no strings are attached to its coverage. We have always tried to keep the boundary between editorial and advertising sacrosanct. For example, we go to great lengths in our annual dining guide, A La Carte, to include every eatery here rather than limit coverage to those that advertise. Our publications are intended as a service for our readers.

The late Everett Rattray, in his more than 20-year tenure as editor of this paper, and his parents before him, set this standard. The rich and famous have come here since the late-19th century, and The Star has always wanted to help them get to know and appreciate the East End. We have never expended much energy attempting to exploit their celebrity (or notoriety, as the case may have been) to sell papers. We have championed the idea that the uniqueness of this place — of any place, and that is my point — should be guarded and cherished through careful stewardship of local lore, local place names, and local knowledge. We’re still at it.

There is a lot of talk in the culture these days about buying local. Everyone wants their corn grown and their beer brewed as close to home as possible, not just to support members of the community financially, but — as globalization continues to homogenize the world and our experience of it — to protect the natural variety that makes life worth living.

It is my opinion that, slowly, readers are coming around to an understanding that the “going local” philosophy can be applied to newspapers and magazines, too.

I like Jay Schneiderman. We go way back. I first met him when he was chairman of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals and I was assigned to the beat. We have kids roughly the same age. I figure his heart is in the right place. But if there is any other local politician now who slings as much jive, I don’t know who that is.

Case in point: About three weeks ago, I was asked to do a cameo appearance at a forum at the Parrish Art Museum called “Can This Town Be Saved?” At the outset, the moderator, Maziar Behrooz, warned that it wasn’t going to be saved that night. The audience, about 80 people, laughed. Jay, a Suffolk legislator now, was one of the panelists, with Filipe Correa, who is an accomplished urban planner, architect, and Harvard assistant professor. I was brought in to provide some population numbers, which led to a bunch of work that will eventually become a story for The Star.

During a question-and-answer period, a member of the audience asked about climate change and sea level rise and if East End governments were paying attention. Jay, a former Montauker who is running somewhat implausibly for Southampton Town supervisor, leaned in toward the microphone. Then he said something to the effect that the County Legislature was talking about it every day. He went on in this vein for a while.

Standing off to the side at a lectern, I resisted the urge to laugh and searched my recollection. Could there have been some initiative I missed? Jay mentioned having a hand in the money to elevate Dune Road in Southampton; I think that was about it.

Fact is, no one is doing much of anything, from East Hampton to New York City Hall. Albany wonks have produced a couple of highly detailed studies filled with recommendations, but they have not been taken up by any of the communities The Star covers. There is a whole lot of talk, but next to no action. Building goes on in danger zones near the bays and oceans. Questionable infrastructure investments continue to be made despite clear indications that the water is coming. And East Hampton’s supposedly binding waterfront plan designed almost 20 years ago to control coastal development is largely ignored.

In East Hampton, Mr. Schneiderman had his chance as a two-term supervisor to get something meaningful going. He did not. In fact, the only town official of our memory to even suggest that major shifts had to come soon was Bill McGintee, and you know what happened to him.

The other day, Hillary Clinton released a climate change plan calling for substantial increases in renewable energy with the goal of reducing global warming, and by extension, sea level rise. It’s a starting point, but local governments shouldn’t just wait around for help from Washington. And officials, even those running for office, shouldn’t be tolerated when they paper over the fact that so far, nothing has really been done.

Few people know that I moonlight as a longshoreman, occasionally helping to unload lobster boats in Montauk, or, in the early morning, packing shipments of same, thousands of them boxed, iced, and trucked to restaurants and markets near and far. It’s punishing work for a scrawny type like me, and it doesn’t pay nearly as well as catering, but I don’t mind.

Anyway, I don’t want to do catering anymore. Serving the 1 Percent has helped to keep me afloat these last few years, especially in 2012, when my bartending gig at Spring Close crashed and burned along with the restaurant itself. But forbearance isn’t my forte, and I just can’t steel myself to stand there for hours with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, or fetch drinks from the bar, or haul long folding tables and crates of liquor, mixers, and ice from trailer to sprawling, kelly green lawn and back. The money is good, but now I am weary.

I never play the piano anymore. I just don’t have the time, those catering gigs I’m turning down notwithstanding. There’s the office, and then there is dinner to be made, and the dishes to be washed, and the laundry, and the ironing, and if there is any time left over it’s down to the ocean, what with the days already growing shorter and the autumn bearing down.

And anyway, even if I became good at it, someday, and performed publicly, who would listen? No one, in my observation. Case in point: I recently heard from a professional pianist who’d quickly aborted his summer residency at a certain Hamptons restaurant-cum-nightclub. Why? “It just became overwhelming,” the musician said, “in terms of the noise and the confusion. . . . It’s just too trendy, too fast, too in-your-face. It’s not the Hamptons I remember. I have no plans to go back.”

He could have been Wolfgang f’ing Mozart and nobody would have listened, is my guess. And think of the poor customers: How can they be expected to listen to the American Songbook with a cellphone pressed to one ear while the other senses are devoted to scouring the crowd for celebrities?

A few Saturdays ago, I was due at the docks to help unload one of those aforementioned boats. As it happened, the 7 p.m. start time coincided with that of a particularly big concert at the Surf Lodge. After enduring the 35-miles-per-hour traffic all the way from Amagansett, and then the 10 m.p.h. crawl through town, I was running late and in a real mood on Edgemere.

Just outside this so-called surf lodge, the out-of-state motorist in front of me came to a complete stop, and another cut off all traffic, zipping out from Industrial Road as if shot from a cannon, and a team of cyclists rode three abreast on the shoulder, and a thousand beautiful people stampeded toward the chaos, and that was when I sort of lost it. When the blaring of the horn had subsided, along with a stream of expletives that would have made my father very proud, no lives had been lost. It could have gone differently.

When the work was done, I got back in the car for the 20-minute drive back to Amagansett. Except this time it took 65 minutes, thanks to the D.W.I. checkpoint at the easterly side of Napeague.

It’s just too trendy, too fast, too in-your-face. It’s not the Hamptons I remember. Where have I heard that before?

Forty summers ago, we all got into the old Buick and drove from Montauk to the East Hampton Cinema. It’s a long time ago, but I faintly recall the movie, a fable, perhaps, about a giant shark that eats people in a Northeastern resort town, and a mayor who, for too long, puts the local economy ahead of public safety and refuses to close the beaches.

There’s a lesson in all of this, I bet, but damned if I know what it is. I’m too tired to think.

Christopher Walsh is a reporter at The Star.

Richard Barons was leading a historical tour group late in the afternoon on a recent day. I was inside The Star reading in The New Yorker about Joe Gould, whose oral history really did exist, waiting for some interviewees who were not to show, and invited them in, unlocking and drawing back the weighty door.

“The paper’s been here — well not exactly here where we’re standing — but it’s been in existence since 1885,” I said. And, after waiting a beat: “And so have I.”

“The funny thing,” I said to Mary afterward, “is that nobody laughed.”

They’ve been talking about us getting Twitter accounts here lately — Titter would be a better word — and I confess I’m resistant. I just want to know enough technologically to get by.

“Nobody takes notes anymore,” our daughter who’s in the newspaper business said the other evening as I handed her a margarita.

“Well, I do,” I said. “Not that I can read them.”

I still remember fondly the time a Newsday reporter, who later took offense that I’d described him as “tweedy,” got into it with an East Hampton Town Board member who said the reporter had misquoted him when it came to his views on the (late lamented) Bypass.

I looked on, fascinated, as the reporter, his notebook having been flourished, said he happened to have the notes of that conversation at hand, and proceeded to thumb through the pages until he found what he was looking for. . . . “Ah! Here it is. . . . ‘When asked for his opinion on the Bypass, Councilman White . . . umm, uhh. . . . Councilman White said . . .’ ”

I resolved to throw away all mynotes after that, mindful of what an editor once told an interviewee who complained, to wit, “It may not have been what you said, but you should have.”

Equally delightful is the speaker at a public hearing who later says (and I’ve actually heard this) “that may have been what I said, but it wasn’t what I meant.”

One strives to be creative within journalism’s four-W-one-H straitjacket, and so it is that I find myself at 4 a.m. thinking of new voice messages. Then I try them out on Mary, who insists that they not only be witty but brief, knowing my tendency to go on.

The latest is this: “This is Jack Graves, the sports editor. I’m either stepping up to the plate, looking for a sign, or catching in the rye. Please leave a message.”

As Oscar Wilde said, “Life’s too serious to be taken seriously.”

At least I think he did.

Seriously.

“The fields are alive with the sound of athletes,” I sang, in my best Julie Andrews imitation, to Mary, who was happy the other day to hear it.

Girls and boys were playing soccer, and the football team was doing agility drills on the turf, and on the varsity baseball diamond it was East Hampton versus East Hampton — Vinnie Alversa’s gray team against Brian Turza and Mike Rodriguez’s maroons.

Alversa said that perhaps it’s been a dozen years since East Hampton had Senior (13-to-15-year-old) League teams. I don’t think I recall East Hampton High’s fields being so intensely used in the summertime. And that’s not to mention that three softball teams of seventh-through-12th graders, got together by Jason Biondo and Rich Swanson, are playing each other at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Or that cross-country runners meet at the track every Tuesday evening with John Conner, a former age-group recordholder in the mile.

When at a recent school board meeting Jim Nicoletti said he feared that the Bonac athletic program was, for various reasons, in a bad way, I worried that I might not have much to attract my attention hereafter. Nicoletti, to underline his case, had pointed out, for one, that three varsity coaches had been ousted as the result of parent-spearheaded drives that had outflanked the athletic director in the past 18 months, and that, consequently, at least some young teachers were reluctant to give coaching a try until tenure were accorded them.

He added, moreover, that the administration had in some cases he knew of passed over Bonac-born-and-bred applicants who had returned here to teach, and that given the fact most teachers now live up the Island, it stood to reason they would want to leave at 3 p.m. rather than coach a team.

And yet there is this seeming renaissance of sorts that greeted my eyes the other day. . . .

Obviously, inasmuch as it constitutes a great part of my life, I hope the ship of sport here will be righted. I’ve not had much of a spring in my step the past three springs. It hasn’t just been softball, but baseball and lacrosse as well.

It’s not so much the winning (though that is nice) I yearn for — it’s a competitive spirit. The Pierson girls basketball players had it, though they weren’t world-beaters. They — at least in the game I saw in Bridgehampton’s gym — were fiery and scrappy. What most spectators want to see is a good game. What most players want is a good game.

May we field teams again who, win or lose, give their opponents good games.

My parents met in New York City while working for the same accounting firm. I always thought theirs was a boring story: meeting at one of the most notoriously dull jobs, getting married six years later, having three kids, and living happily ever after.

All of the fairy tales and rom-coms told a different story: Boy sees girl from afar, falls in love instantly, overcomes seemingly insurmountable obstacles (usually in adverse weather conditions), and rides off into the sunset with his true love.

Where was the excitement in real life? Where were the passion-filled, standing-in-the-pouring-rain, tear-jerking moments?

Well, I thought I got my answer when I was 17. Boy saw me from afar, claimed to fall in love instantly, valiantly faced my disapproving family and friends, and promised happily ever after.

To make a long story short, let’s just say this one wasn’t Prince Charming after all, or even a toad.

Numerous blocked numbers, a few changed passwords, a couple of about-to-call-the-cops moments, and three years later, I actually got my answer. That excitement and those dramatic moments are exactly where they belong, in the movies. Maybe that was obvious to everyone else, but it certainly took a lot for me to realize.

So I reconsidered my parents’ story.

They’ve been together for 29 years, “Twenty-nine long, hard years,” as they always joke. Together, they went from two broke kids just out of college to homeowners, parents, and life partners. They did what they had to do, which included taking those accounting jobs, to pay off their student loans and pursue the things they wanted. They’ve had their share of obstacles to overcome — watching me quite literally waste away when I was 17, for one.

Clearly, things weren’t always perfect; to be honest, I don’t know if things are ever perfect for anyone. But neither of them expected perfection, or even asked for it.

I don’t pretend to know if two people are “meant to be together” or if “true love” exists, and frankly, I’m not interested. All I know is that every day that they’re not together, even days filled with anger, disappointment, or heartache, Dad always calls Mom, and she always picks up.

If I had understood their story when I was 17, maybe I could have avoided some things. The excitement might not have been there, but if I looked closely, I might have seen that something else was.

Kelly M. Stefanick is a summer intern at The Star.

Sky watchers say this week’s Perseid meteor shower will be a good one. This is the annual show of sparkling streaks that last year was obscured by the light of a full moon.

Looking at the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, it appears that local conditions are going to be ideal, with clear skies and light to calm wind after dark. Early in the night, the meteors will be lower on the horizon, gradually appearing higher in the sky and increasing after midnight.

In our part of the world, the trails of flaming comet debris will be most frequent to the northeast, so open spaces with little light pollution and a view to the north will be ideal for watching. We are lucky that the South Fork has a lot of options that meet that description. I think of the bayfront, such as Long Beach in Noyac, Maidstone Park in East Hampton, the Alberts in Amagansett, and Navy Beach in Montauk as among the better choices.

For those eager for a little education with their sky show a free program will be offered by the Montauk Observatory at the Ross School Tennis Center on Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton this evening at 8. Following a talk about what is known by science about the Perseids, everyone will be invited outside to sit back and watch or take a tour of celestial bodies using telescopes the organizers will supply.

One of the repeated points on a number of websites advising how to see the Perseids is that you should get out of town, away from artificial light. It is sad that even here, where we still like to think we live in the country, this is true. Residential, municipal, and to the greatest degree, exterior commercial illumination has cast an unwelcome amber glow over many parts of the East End. Even where I live, down near Promised Land in Amagansett, we can see an orange haze from Connecticut.

For me, the Perseids are a reminder that a dark night sky matters, that creeping urbanization comes at the cost of getting in the way of our even contemplating space, our modest place in the universe, and the infinite sublime. That, and just enjoying a really, really good show.

“May you live in interesting times,” a familiar and ironic way of wishing bad news to descend on others, is not the ancient Chinese curse it has been purported to be, but more likely a 20th-century construction, whose popularity has sometimes been attributed to Robert Kennedy.

 Well, the 21st century is standing the curse on its head. We do live in interesting times and instead of disaster they are bringing positive change, at least to Americans. Our culture is spinning, and we’ve not even reached the first quarter of the century.

The slogans of our time are indications of profound recalculation of our collective mores. Black lives matter. Gay marriage. Gender identity. The 1 percent. Income inequality.

A group of friends at an annual barbecue last weekend, some two dozen of us, were all beginning to show our age. There may have been only one honestly brown, rather than gray, head among us. “Who’d have thought . . .” was the topic of the afternoon.

Between the ribs and the watermelon, we agreed that none of us expected majority opinion on the social issues we cared about to change as quickly as it has — if we had thought there was a chance of its changing at all. None of us imagined the Supreme Court would find unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman and was adopted by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. That EdithWindsor, the octogenarian widow who won the case against DOMA, lived in Southampton brought the decision close to home. And who expected the court to find marriage between persons of the same sex constitutional two years later even if Ireland had already done so by popular vote?

Conversations at the barbecue, at least those I heard, did not dwell on negatives. The national controversy about the Confederate flag, for example, was not on the table. Nor was there much lamenting about political polarization. No one mentioned the Iran nuclear agreement, although had it been broached; my guess is that the tone would have become tense, with some hailing the agreement as an extraordinary achievement toward Middle East peace and others avidly supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position that the agreement is a “historic mistake.”

On another occasion, after dark perhaps or if Congress proved irrevocably divided on this issue, the discussion may have veered into difficult territory. But because the food was delicious and the weather beautiful, no debate became heated. Actually, though, I think it’s more likely that the party remained upbeat because we really were friends, and friends of friends, who respected and admired each other — and we were ready to bask in the good news of the interesting times in which we live.

It’s been a big week. No, I’m not actually talking about the big week in the halls of government, but about the week here at home. I’ve surprised myself by adopting a dog, I’ve sung with the Choral Society of the Hamptons in a superlative concert (if I say so myself), and been host to five young men. 

We year-rounders have a right to be ambivalent about summer. Sure, we appreciate the pleasures that bring others here — quiet corners of the beach in evening, June strawberries, July tomatoes, August corn — but most of us work longer, and often harder, hours come the season. And then, naturally, our homes become hostelries when guests arrive.

This time, our visit from house guests was an unadulterated pleasure.

One of the five young men was the husband of one of my husband’s nieces (I can hardly follow that myself!), a swell and interesting man, who was nice to get better acquainted with. The other four were musicians imported to augment the local members of the South Fork Chamber Orchestra for the Choral Society concert. 

Although we do sing, Chris and I mostly live vicariously where music is concerned. Our own concerts aren’t frequent. We tend to pounce at any opportunity to hear live music. Last weekend, our visitors played French horn, bassoon, violin, and trumpet. We could hear them practicing in their upstairs bedrooms, as we chased our new dog, Sookie, around the backyard. Is there anything nicer than music pouring down from an open window?

We had a great time talking with them . . . and because of Uncle Mor ris’s violin. 

Some readers may remember my eccentric Uncle Morris, an artist who spent a year or two here way back in the 1980s. He dressed in homespun woolens, made friends at the library, flirted with girls 60 years his junior, and was a generally notable presence, with his white beard, as he walked up and down Main Street. 

I inherited his violin many moons ago and just had it repaired. 

We gathered for dinner with our new musician friends the first night. At one point Ralph Allen — the violinist —  left the table and disappeared into the next room. Suddenly, we were listening to Bach. He reported that the violin was a little stiff and needing playing and he continued to pick it up whenever he could during the weekend. What unexpected joy.

For me, of course, Uncle Morris’s violin is more than a nice instrument. It is loaded with family memories, and hearing it played reminds me of the best of them.

Uncle Morris was said to be a child prodigy. I imagine him as a little curly-haired boy with a violin in New York City, but only knew him, much later in life, as an itinerant world traveler who told us he paid for passage on steamers  by playing music and earned food in even later years by drawing unusual, swirling portraits of strangers on the sidewalks of Reykjavik. 

I’m not sure any of my grandchildren could be called a prodigy, but one of my granddaughters studied viola for a while, and I keep imagining that she will pick up Uncle Morris’s violin and give it a try. Or that perhaps one of my husband’s grandsons, the one who is playing the violin as an elementary student in Massachusetts, will stick with it and merit the gift of Uncle Morris’s violin some day. 

A grandmother can dream, can’t she? 

In the meantime, I am pleased that another granddaughter is learning the clarinet and was chosen to play in a recent regional event. Yet another granddaughter is taking guitar lessons with the nice fellows at Crossroads in Amagansett. Music brings us such pleasure, and we fervently hope the younger generations’ lives — whether they play Bach’s E Major Partita or Van Morrison’s “Moon Dance” — are enriched by it, too.

A husband and wife were run down on Sag Harbor’s Division Street at about 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 20.

I saw it happen, though it may have gone unmentioned on the police log inasmuch as they were only ducks.

Returning from the Shelter Island 10K, which, despite the rain, was as pleasant as always, I had made a right turn onto Division near the village’s nexus, and saw the mallards sallying into the road in front of a small car that was up ahead. I thought of course that he would stop. He certainly had time to. It wasn’t as if a squirrel had had second thoughts and had reversed course, darting back the way he’d come.

But no, he ran them both over — killing the wife, spilling her guts on the pavement, and leaving the husband mangled, in agony.

And the driver drove on. I couldn’t believe it.

I pulled over — the traffic was fairly heavy, as always — and, putting the flashers on, walked up to where they were and picked them up and took them to the side of the road and put them down, and said, when a passer-by asked if animal rescue shouldn’t be called, that I’d go up to the police station, which was nearby, and tell them.

A young man who was behind me and had gotten out when I’d stopped, cried out when he saw. He couldn’t believe what had happened either.

It wasn’t the crime of the century — they were only ducks.

Actually it was a crime — one which, it’s safe to say, we all commit: the crime of heedlessness.

And heedlessness is never more evident here than in the summer, which if it teaches us nothing else reminds us — time and again, unfortunately — that howevermuch we are attracted by distractions we should pay heed. To others, to all others.