The Hampton Jitney is a great leveler. Other than the media moguls and Russian oligarchs who come and go on private jets or noisy helicopters, most of us 99 percenters — when we eschew our own automobiles — are apt to find ourselves crowded into a true cross-section of East End residents and weekenders on the Jitney. And something crazy is always happening there, isn’t it?

I’ve been riding the bus since its first year of existence, and I’ve seen it all: fights between riders, quarrels between riders and attendants, even a rider booted from the bus and left by the side of the road by the old Grace’s Hot Dog truck. But the set-piece drama that played out when I was coming back from New York one recent afternoon really took the cake.

We had barely pulled away from 40th Street, and I had just picked up my Kindle, when my attention was drawn to a woman of a certain age sitting behind me who had started whispering.

My first thought was that she was rehearsing a script. There’s a lot of theater here at this time of year, after all, and it seemed to me that her conversation was somehow too clichéd, too Hollywood to be the stuff of real life. After several minutes of nosy-Parkering, however, it became clear that the truth was less glamorous: She was on the phone.

 Calls on the Jitney are supposed to take place only in emergencies and be limited to three minutes. You are advised to “let your fingers do the talking” (that is, text). The woman behind me was on the phone for almost the whole two-and-a-half hour ride. The attendant never seemed to notice.

Naturally, when someone starts whispering, one’s interest is piqued. Blatant attempts at secrecy only draw our interest more strongly. What can I say? I haven’t much excuse. Does it count that I’m a journalist and am supposed to be ever on the alert for news? No? Well, the fact is, I was losing interest in the book I was reading and felt that, besides, someone who talks for two hours on a crowded bus when specifically asked not to rather invites eavesdroppers.

I’m a certain age myself, and it’s possible that my hearing isn’t the sharpest, so I can only surmise that if I heard the whole thing, many of my fellow riders did, too. I missed words here and there as the bus rumbled over uneven pavement, but I got the gist of the conversation.

“How could you do this to me?” she stage-whispered. “You know how I feel. How could you do this to me?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Someone was learning about a lover’s infidelity on a phone call on the Jitney. It sounded like her husband had just told her — by phone — that he was in love with someone else.

I attempted to focus my attention elsewhere. I picked my Kindle back up. The drama continued to unfold.

“How long did it go on?” I heard her ask. “Three years? No, I can’t keep it to myself. My sister will take one look at me and know something’s the matter. No. Don’t come to Amagansett.”

Hmm. Maybe it was a cheating boyfriend on the other end of the line, not a husband. I couldn’t help myself; I wanted to know more. I actually pondered getting up to go to the lavatory (as it is referred to on the Jitney) to get a look at the speaker, but I didn’t. I think a few others on the bus might have.

After quite a long time, it sounded as if she was crying. Oh, dear.

The whispering stopped. She had hung up. Everything was quiet for a while.

Then she dialed someone else. “I just have to tell somebody,” I heard her say.

The whole episode would make a good cartoon in The New Yorker, I think. I can visualize it now: A busful of Hamptonites snug in their Jitney seats, snacking on free pretzels, slyly rolling their eyes and bending their ears toward a damsel in distress, as she tearfully exclaims into an iPhone: “I just had to tell someone!”

 This anecdote doesn’t having a moral, unfortunately, and I admit it doesn’t make me look terribly good. But it does inspire a couple of tidbits of Hamptons advice. The first is: “Everyone can hear you on the Jitney. That’s why they have the three-minute rule in the first place.” The second is: “If you’re looking for a reality-television concept, consider the bus.”

A phrase came to my mind last week. I have not thought of this phrase in the six years since I moved back here to the East End, and yet there it was, quite unexpectedly. Before I tell you the phrase I need to give you a bit of background.

I grew up here on the East End, in Montauk and East Hampton. I graduated from East Hampton High School. My father chose to live out here because of the surf, moving to Montauk in the late ’60s to raise a young family. Both my parents were “military brats,” and they spent their formative years living in Hawaii, where my dad met my mother and also learned “the sport of kings,” surfing. My parents owned the first surf shop in Montauk in the early ’70s called He’e Nalu, before its time, as my father often says.

Growing up, the television show “Magnum P.I.” was a weekly highlight in our household due more to the scenery of palm trees and aloha shirts than for Tom Selleck’s cultured mustache and sweet car. Our family took only one “big” holiday and that was to Hawaii for three weeks. I had just started 10th grade. I fell in love with the place and dreamed of going back.

After I graduated I did a short stint in the Marine Corps, and when I was 19 that dream became reality and I spent my first winter in Hawaii. I ended up spending the next 20 years living on the islands.

Hawaii is known as the Aloha State. Aloha literally means “breath of life.” Locals will say aloha as a greeting and as a farewell or goodbye. Aloha is a way of living and treating each other with love and respect. The spirit of aloha permeates the culture, and is a driving force in government, business, and everyday island life. Aloha can be conveyed from a distance by a smile and a “shaka” — the shaka more commonly known here on the mainland as the “hang loose” symbol, formed by closing the hand then sticking out the pinky and thumb, giving a slight wave.

As a newcomer to the islands, aside from the incredible colors and tropical fragrances, you may feel overwhelmed by the number and combinations of vowels in the names of places and streets. The Hawaiian alphabet contains five vowels (A, E, I, O, U), seven consonants (H, K, L, M, N, P, W), and the ’okina, which is a backward apostrophe and signifies a slight break in the sound. There are other small nuances but when you see a word such as “humuhumunukunuku’apua’a,” “kalanianiole,” or “Kawaihau,” I think you may get my point. My first reaction to these strange words was to make fun of them in my own form of Hawaiian speak, “hawakahakahikihikiho, wikiwikitikitiki.” My father reprimanded me, “Learn to say the words correctly!” This was my first important lesson in aloha.

As much as the spirit of aloha permeates the Hawaiian culture, there is a very strong sense of localism that can at times be extreme. The first time Capt. James Cook, credited with “discovering” the Hawaiian Islands for the Europeans, came ashore, his arrival was celebrated. Cook and his men were lavished with gifts of food, crops, livestock, and women. Upon his return to the islands he was bludgeoned to death before he reached dry sand.

There is a Hawaiian word that encapsulates this localism and brings me to the phrase that inspired this narrative. The word itself is “haole,” pronounced in pigeon form “how-lee,” which literally means “no breath.” Traditionally this word was used to describe those of European descent or foreigners. Haole can be used in merely a descriptive manner or can be used as an ethnic slur.

The word implies that the foreigner is ignorant to local ways and literally has no spirit. This is quite the antithesis of aloha.

What I learned in Hawaii, often called the melting pot of the Pacific, is, aside from blood lineage, being local is not so much measured by length of time or ownership of property but by the degree to which one assimilates the spirit of aloha. As a newcomer, aloha starts with humility and respect. Not just respect for others, but respect for the “ ’aina” (meaning land, pronounced “I-na”). An awareness of one’s surroundings and a big smile go a long way.

So, in the words of the hugest Hawaiian in a crowded surf lineup, the phrase that resurfaced in my mind was “F’ing haoles, beat it!”

Have an aloha day.

Matthew Charron is The Star’s digital imaging specialist.

It was surprising at the beginning of the week to find myself in an art gallery in a small town in Northern California looking at photographs calling attention to that community’s housing crisis. The photographer, whose name by the time I wrote this, had slipped my mind, embarked on a project to document the people who have been displaced as the coastal unincorporated town of Bolinas changed rapidly in the past few years.

The blame, at least in the view of the photographer, lay in the fact that an increasing number of rentals were now listed online for short-term vacations — as on our own South Fork. This pulled potential residences from the pool available for the area’s workers, with the greatest impact among Latinos. The black-and-white images showed families, young couples, and older singles.

All the proceeds from the photos’ sales, after printing costs, were to be given to those in need of assistance. But more than that, the photographer wrote in an explanation posted on a wall, steps had to be taken to support landlords who choose to offer long-term rentals instead of short ones with revolving doors. Marin County, the statement said, was among the wealthiest in the United States; much more had to be done to assure its work force had places to live.

One can understand where the property owners are coming from. Short-term rentals result in less wear and tear, and, in many cases, the money is better. Renting year-round can be demanding as tenants’ needs evolve; opting for the short term mean hosts can shut down whenever they choose just by refusing to accept a booking or taking a listing off­line. And weekenders rarely show up with a bunch of furniture and pets or want to repaint all the bedrooms.

As in the Hamptons, this adds up to a serious disruption of the bottom of the housing market. This is a huge social justice issue as the cost of commuting into affluent areas, like East Hampton or Bolinas, helps eat up income that might otherwise be spent on essentials or put away toward savings, education, or building a business of one’s own.

The $400 prints in the gallery were not of themselves going to solve West Marin’s housing crisis, but by drawing attention to it, they might just help. As for the East End, there is a proposed legislative solution in the form of loans for down payments on house purchases. But even that program, should it come into being, would deal only with workers already secure enough to buy a house; it would not help assure access to affordable rentals among those just starting out or of modest means.

Meanwhile, the Wainscott School Board has taken it upon itself to seek to block a town effort to build a small number of affordable apartments in that district. Signs are not good for a serious solution anytime soon. In fact, judging from the number of online listings, it’s only getting worse — all over.

Post-Memorial Day, it is a little difficult to decide what to write about. There are so many choices: traffic, noise, events missed, yard work.

Among other options are a pony on the beach at a kid’s birthday party, which drew the baffled attention of East Hampton Town Marine Patrol, and a maddening Montauk Highway tie-up on Sunday evening caused by the Cyril’s Fish House parking guys.  

But the thing that I think will stick with me as far as the first weekend of the 2015 season is concerned has to do with three young bike-riding visitors and an endangered plant.

Sunday afternoon, a little after 1, I was driving home on Cranberry Hole Road and noticed a bicycle on its side at the edge of the pavement. A young woman astride another bike stood nearby. As I got closer, I saw that a second woman, who I thought was not much older than 20, had crawled under the pines and  seated herself in a sprawl of small white flowers, apparently picking something. A young man waited in the grass by the side of the road a couple of hundred feet up the way. I thought about warning them about the ticks and the poison ivy, but it was clear that it was too late.

As it turned out, my sister, Bess, had passed these three only moments earlier. As we readied the kids for a trip to Montauk to play miniature golf, we laughed, rather unkindly, about what we had seen. “Ticks up the wazoo!” “Ha, hipsters!” That kind of thing.

Loading the car, with three kids in the back and my sister in the passenger seat, I headed east, turning onto Napeague Meadow Road. Near the big curve, where a new osprey nest on a pole is occupied, we saw them again. This time, a spray of pink flowers was bobbing from a backpack one of the women was wearing.

Almost simultaneously, Bess and I exclaimed, “Lady slippers!”

“Stop the car,” Bess cried, “I’m going to give them what for.”

Lady slippers, members of the orchid family, are protected in New York, as are the state’s other native orchids, all of which are rare. Cutting them from public land, like a road right of way, is a state law violation that can come with a fine. Even cutting them on private property is supposed to require the landowner’s permission. Anyway, in my opinion, a beautiful flower on the side of the road should be left for all to see. 

With a kid in the back of the car shouting “You are an idiot!” at the flower-snatchers, I had to roll up the windows, so I could not hear exactly what my sister said. Still steaming about it when she got back in the car, she said her remonstrations were answered by a repeated, weak, “Uh, okay.”

Judging from their blank expressions, it is  unlikely that they learned a lesson, although that is impossible to know. But they will not soon forget the encounter, that’s for sure.

And the season’s only just begun.

“All of a sudden, it got more exciting — don’t you feel that too?” I said the Friday of Memorial Day weekend to Jen Landes, our arts editor. “I mean, our chances of being in an accident have just increased a thousandfold! All of a sudden, the stakes are raised, the level of intensity has soared. As in wartime or in lovemaking, or in lovemaking during wartime, the blood is flowing, no longer congealed by winter’s icy clutch. In the next few weeks I’m going to be really alive, giving full rein to my emotions rather than simply going through the motions.”

And with that, I was out the door and wheeling into traffic just in time to see a woman who’d rolled through a stop sign near the flagpole remonstrating vehemently with blameless drivers heading east and west on Main Street. “It is you, madam, you who are at fault!” I was about to call out, but she, still raging, was gone, thus denying to me what Philip Roth has called the ecstasy of sanctimony. Choler interruptus.

And then, of course, there’s the local news of late: They say they own us, that they can do what they want with their property, they say they can make as much noise as they want on arriving and taking off. Oh, ecstasy of sanctimony! Does not the communal good exert a more worthy claim to conscience than the license invoked by “haves” equating license with liberty? The gorge rises, the heart pounds, the tongue lashes. This is really living, and whom do we have to thank for it, for having revivified our torpid souls? Them! So, I urge you, don’t rush to judgment — even though it’s fun. Rather than vilified, they are more to be pitied perhaps. Working so hard as they do, they have little time to relax and think of the greater good. And so I say, as the season begins, “Honk if you love peace and quiet.”

Having had a taste of excitement, then, we decided to go whole hog, and spend a day in the city. Soon we were swept up in it, in the huddled masses, yearning for falafels.

But, wonderful to tell, there was ease there, a calm we’d almost forgotten. The sun was out in the city and it was, we agreed, as we walked along, a nice place to be. We struck up conversations easily, wished others well in parting, and returned here at peace, our heart rates having returned to normal and our sense of brotherhood renewed.

So, what’s so bad about a man wearing a fedora? To listen to some, men in fedoras in the Town of East Hampton are a sure sign that civilization as we know it has come to an end.

“Here they come, with their fedoras.” You would think, the way people talk, that the fedora-wearing crowd was a bunch of weird cultists instead of young people having fun. I don’t get it.

Maybe it’s because I am older than many of the people I work and associate with. When I was a child, my father wore a fedora. The sight of a man in a fedora is not alien to me.

The subways that I rode when I was growing up used to have signs that warned men to hold onto their hats. One such sign was at the Third Avenue end of the I.R.T. station for the 7 train from Queens. (If I really wanted to date myself here, I would tell you that I.R.T. stands for Interborough Rapid Transit Company, the first subway operator in New York City, which opened in 1904, though I was not there for the opening.)

That sign showed a man holding onto his hat, as I recall. The reason for the warning was that every time a westbound train burst into the station, there would be a huge gust of wind that would blow straight up the long escalator to 42nd Street. Goodbye, fedora!

As I said, my dad wore a hat, as did most men. Just take a look at photographs of crowds from the 1950s or earlier. Practically every man is in a hat.

Then came the 1960s and beyond. My hair, as with that of most young men, was long, long, longer. A hat over that? Forget about it!

And so, the fedora disappeared, as did the cute signs in the subway. (My favorite sign, looking back, was the one in the cars that read, “Little enough to ride for free, little enough to ride your knee,” accompanied by a drawing of a happy mommy with an even happier baby bouncing on her knee.)

Hats are civilized. There are rules regarding hats. When you walk into the East Hampton Town Justice courtroom, you darn well better have that hat in your hand and not on your head or you will get a swift reminder from one of the guards.

Recently, I walked into White’s Drug and Department Store in Montauk and tried on a fedora. Nice. I plunked down the 15 bucks and went on over to the other side.

I am now one of them, and you can tip your hat to that.

T.E. McMorrow is a reporter for The Star who covers police and courts, among other things.

What to do with the sunny Sunday of a long holiday weekend? 

Well, for starters, I had to coordinate with the workers who arrived bright and early to fix our dilapidated old picket fence and plant some privet to hide the back neighbors’ pool from view. Then I wanted to cut and bring in some lilacs before their bloom faded. Also, I needed a few flowering plants for the three ceramic pots on the patio, and that meant I had to make a run to the crazy-busy nursery — where everyone and their mother was out buying hydrangeas and roses, it seemed — to get more potting soil. And then I had to thumb through cookbooks to decide what salads I was going to make for a family birthday dinner . . . and then shop for whatever ingredients were necessary, then whip the salads up . . . then off to an early cocktail reception, and then, by 6:30, the birthday party itself.

Because of all these plans — which somehow felt like a lot to do at one time, even though it wasn’t really — I blew off my usual yoga session on Sunday morning, for the third time in as many weeks. The deep-breathing exercises, not to mention the “letting go,” just weren’t on the agenda last weekend.

I decided on pilaf, and — while taking inventory of the fridge — noticed we were lacking quite a few pantry basics, including milk and Ajax, so I started a grocery list. Roasted asparagus seemed like it might be a nice companion to the pilaf, and I also had to find fruit for the fruit salad my husband had signed on to make for the birthday. The shopping list grew.

It was no longer early when I set out for the supermarket. Trying to make the most of a dwindling day, I decided to forget the Ajax and go straight to Citarella. It was, of course, jam-packed, too. Anticipating mayhem, no doubt, the management had hired attendants to stand by the parking lot entrance, directing cars. One of them, a young man with a clipboard, encouraged me to edge into a very narrow spot. When did shopping turn into such a brouhaha? Somehow, the checkers at the cash registers were still smiling. They told me it had been even crazier there on Saturday.

Making my way home, I followed the loop past the post office to Egypt Lane and stopped in a line of traffic at the light. Unfortunately, that is when my car — to my horror — somehow slowly slid into the Jeep ahead of me! The driver jumped out and, running toward me, shouted, “What the hell are you doing?” I had jammed on the brakes in enough time to avoid any damage, however, and he seemed mollified when I answered meekly that I was sorry. 

The truth is that Memorial Day weekend has never been my favorite moment of the year, no matter how fine the weather or how sweet-smelling the lilacs. Everyone arriving in town en masse seems determined to play — I think the term is “frantically relaxing” — but, like many of us who live here, I’m not on that wavelength right now. Summer is coming, but, for us, it’s not the start of vacation season but the start of work, work, work season. Maybe we can relax in, say, October? Something tells me I should get back to yoga class. 

In the spring of 2012, desperate for a change of scene, I lined up a bartending job in East Hampton and place to stay, but as moving day drew near I had still not addressed transportation. Money was tight, and I wondered if a scooter would do.

The New York Times website had been running an aggressive ad campaign for the two-seat, 106-inch-long Smart Fortwo, at just $99 per month, and I was intrigued. Smart cars had appeared in Brooklyn a few years earlier, and I thought they were fantastic. City blocks were already impossibly crowded, and it seemed that half the population drove grossly oversized and criminally fuel-inefficient sport utility vehicles.

The city-friendly Smart Fortwo fits virtually anywhere and, though the $99-per-month teaser proved misleading, its 41 highway miles per gallon would save me a small fortune.

Time was short; the due-at-signing figure to lease one was low. Thinking that I would need a car for a long summer  perhaps, I signed on for the 36-month miniumum.

Those months are in the rear-view mirror now, and I am still here. But, despite the persistent efforts of the good people at Smart Center Manhattan, the Smart Fortwo is not. My no-frills car had taken me near and far, and reliably, but I just couldn’t keep it.

It was just too damn small: I could transport music equipment, or a passenger, but not both. The previous winters had been marked by great vehicular adventures that included sliding across icy roads, searching for the (white) car among snowdrifts, and, once, frantically running alongside and leaping into it as it drove off, in reverse, in an icy parking lot.

But mostly I had grown weary of the wisecracks, the disbelieving stares often followed by laughter at what one onlooker described as a roller skate. As the lease’s expiration neared, I had a decision to make.

For months, I had been poring over the website auto.com, where a seemingly limitless supply of used cars beckoned from across the tristate area. To my surprise, many models I consider luxury were in an almost-affordable range. I searched and searched. Mistakes were made.

Late one afternoon, Cathy and I finally arrived at a “showroom,” the ancillary site of an East Flatbush tire shop, onto which scores of vehicles in various states of function were jammed nose to tail. I was to test drive a 2002 Mercedes-Benz C230. When, after much maneuvering and searching for the ignition keys, the car was finally produced, Cathy had to climb over the seat to get into the back, and, when touched, several interior components crumbled. Needing plenty of work, this once-sporty coupe would not do.

More searching turned up a few promising cars closer to home, however, and one sunny Saturday last month the Smart car delivered us to a dealer in Patchogue. And there she was.

Suddenly, I didn’t want a Mercedes anymore, or even the BMW that had lured me there. No, she was standing next to that one, top down, low and lean, all nautic blue pearl and granite leather — a Volvo C70 convertible.

As I ogled it, the relentless wail of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant filled my head: “Fully automatic, comes in any size / Makes me wonder what I did, before we synchronized.” Talkin’ ’bout love, indeed. Three weeks later, as Memorial Day weekend crowds assembled in East Hampton, I cycled to the train station and bought a one-way ticket to Patchogue.

The day before, Cathy had driven the Smart car to Roslyn, site of the nearest dealer to which it could be returned, and I had followed her in The Star’s van. While I’d seen many a Smart car before, I had never before seen my Smart car, in motion, from afar, and I was mortified. It really did look like a roller skate, one that had somehow escaped the rink, never looked back, and was now single-mindedly weaving through myriad trucks, cars, buses, and trailers on the Long Island Expressway.

“My god,” I thought. “Is that what I’ve been driving for the last three years?”

Christopher Walsh is a reporter at The Star.

It is no longer a secret. Nicknamed Lip, he’s involved. Man knows some moneyed types. The mayor and town supervisor won’t say — they have guaranteed use of the old rescue boats stashed at undisclosed locations.

Why let perfectly good East Hampton rescue boats sit unused, then get stuck in yet another local museum? Let the lifeguards, the young at heart, the disabled, the striped bass pole wackadoodles, the aging delusional lifeguards command the boats to the oceanfront, launch them, sink them, retrieve them.

It is a crime to deny the young ’uns a ride in those old wooden boats. Enough with the stupid Jet Skis, plastic-composite goof paddleboards, the BZ so-called soft surfboards. Every man, woman, young ’un, maybe a dog or two should get something wood-planked under their feet on open Atlantic waters. Get out and live for once in your boring lives! The ink’s not dry! Some of the ink could be invisible? No doubt it’s a deal!

A couple of stealth lawyers are involved — people you know! To get on the movie or pilot TV payroll an East Hampton car registration must be presented. For those without car registrations — lots of people lose their licenses round here for driving offenses — two bona fide residents must vouch, “Said person lives here.”

A couple of 1960s surfboards will be needed, pre-2005 Ford trucks, a couple of older Chevy trucks. No Toyotas, GMCs, Mitsubishis, none of those awful trucks allowed in the production area camera line of sight. Traditional sunhats are required, no CVS or Waldbaum’s $10 Panama Jack hats are allowed. Bathing suits the East Hampton lifeguards wear will be de rigueur. Bathing suits that do not meet athletic requirements will be banned from all sets.

The “Baywatch Gone Bonacker” film extravaganza begins. First scene! Village of East Hampton lifeguards rowing past the second jetty at Georgica Beach headed for Main Beach in one of the surviving antique East Hampton rescue boats. A whale surfaces nearby: They’ve seen them before and don’t care. All kinds of bluefish gnarl around 30 yards from rescue boat. It is early fall and the guards are due back at school. It has been one of those fishy summers: Bluefish eating everything in sight was common this summer past.

Other fish surface. The lifeguards, male and female, don’t care. Their tans are dark enough; a couple of the lifeguards are slightly sunburnt, wearing pasty white sunscreen and large hats. An outsider might say, “What are they from ‘Gilligan’s Island’ or something?”

A few of the young adults are thinking back to critical rescues they pulled off under hurricane conditions. The water temperature is warm, 70 degrees. The young lifeguards row along, picking up the southwest drift headed north on the incoming tide toward Main Beach. “Stellar beauty” could best describe it.

The second sandbars are visible under the boat 120 yards offshore. The low tide is turning to incoming. Clear visibility 12 feet down to the offshore sandbar under the rescue boat. It’s a lunar tide. A bonita makes a showing; oddly enough a parrotfish swirls by under the boat. One of the lifeguards says to his female friend, “Saw one of those last week.”

A lot of stuff happened this past summer, from the first jump into the frigid last-day-of-May waters off their hometown of East Hampton until this September day. Thank God no one was seriously injured! Five tropical depressions and one hurricane made swirl off Long Island — Atlantic-bound July and August storms. An 18-year-old lifeguard was called on to make a complicated rescue of a pregnant 29-year-old who got pulled off the beach by a freak tidal surge. He had to make a fast 50-yard sprint-swim and grab onto her; she was panicking, the surf was eight feet, one tumble through the nasty shore break and the ambulance would have been called — a miracle it was.

On the other hand, amusing situations arose on the rainiest days early in June. “Ha-ha, you’ve got to be kidding.” Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls. “O.M.G., did you see what Francine and Thomas did? Ha-ha, oh no.” It was the song: “We’ve been through some things together . . . we’ve found things to do in stormy weather . . . rollin’ down that empty ocean road, gettin’ to the surf on time. Long may you run.” Sing it, Neil!

In addition, lots of heavy stuff happened. One of the lifeguard’s parents took ill and died. One lifeguard’s parents lost steering on his 28-foot sport boat — flipped it — and managed to swim away unscratched. “There’s a light over my head, my Lord, let it shine, let it shine”: Neil Young. Nieces and nephews were born to families. A few lifeguards fell in love: storied days of summer.

A couple of super-strange characters showed up at a Village of East Hampton beach one week in late July. The F.B.I. paid the lifeguards a visit to ask about a couple of things concerning these visitors. Of course this was all hush-hush! The agent said wait two years, and if you want to make a movie about it, go for it.

He told the lifeguards, “Keep it under wraps with a lawyer and a movie guy. In two years our end of it will be totally wrapped up. You kids deserve to make some real money. We’re not going to interfere.” The F.B.I. man continued, “Thanks for the help! You’re all good kids. Try to do well enough in school and keep your day jobs. Ha-ha. Summer lifeguard jobs.”

He smiled, gave spin to his tires a bit, and off he drove in new dark-colored Ford Mustang.

Morgan McGivern is The Star’s staff photographer.

By chance, my son, Ellis, and I became East Hampton 7-on-7 soccer fans last week. With time to kill before meeting the rest of the family for a dinner out that never happened, my 5-year-old suggested going to the playground.

We arrived a little after 7 p.m. There was a little chill in the air. I pulled on an old sweatshirt from the back of the car. Ellis did not want his, and ran in short shirtsleeves toward the climbing equipment and swings.

Ellis’s attention was quickly diverted to the game just ending on the big field just behind the Waldbaum’s supermarket, however. We watched as the winning team, which I found out later was Hampton F.C.-Bill Miller, wrapped it up.

One of the next sides to come onto the field  wore blue uniforms, Ellis’s favorite color, so they instantly were his team. I told him I was taking the guys in black and white stripes.

Not that I know all that much about soccer, but the level of play looked good enough to me. Seven-on-7 is a fast game, and plenty physical.

Ellis, seated on a bench behind my team’s goal, yelled, “Go blue!” every time a team member touched the ball. He was right in his choice, of course, and, as the evening sun turned everything golden, the blues, Bateman Painting, took the win.

On a somewhat astonishing website devoted to the local 7-on-7 six-team league I later found a photograph of Ellis and me watching the Bateman game. I look far too serious, frowning in my wife’s old college sweatshirt. But Ellis is on the edge of his seat, excited and en