I’ve seen my wife worshipful, utterly transported, a few times in my life. Once in the cathedral at Chartres, and now, many years later, again, at the Baltimore Aquarium, where, beckoned by her hands, which she’d pressed against the glass, a dolphin gliding by faced around and came ever so slowly toward her, smiling, her eyes seeming to say, “I know you.”

While I read much about life and how to live it and how to explain it and how others have lived it (as for mine, it’s been examined and examined and examined), I’ve always known she senses truths so much more naturally than I, a being still bound up in words. Communicating with another species — I do not quite qualify, she has said — is a great joy to her. Yes, and a beauty forever. She and a lioness connected in a similar way at the Highland Park Zoo in Pittsburgh once, though, because of the interposition of a waddling mother with swaddled child, their moment was brief. Mary remembers the lioness, with half-closed eyelids (as were hers), searching around them for her.

“And what else did you like about the aquarium?” she asked me.

I answered: The razorbills’ mad dashes and flips on and around and under the water (mating maneuvers such as we’d never seen before! “I wish I had that energy,” a woman near me said) and the rescued 550-pound sea turtle with one flipper that had been sent down to Baltimore from Riverhead. It was as if — no, not as if — the male razorbill were saying, “Look at me, look at me!” as he flipped this way and that, furiously flapping his feathers before diving precipitously into the water and popping up in front of her. And as if the female, who continually outmaneuvered the poor fellow, speeding over the water like a Jet Ski, and then turning on a dime in front of him as he desperately tried to keep up, were saying, “Catch me if you can!”

“They’re mating, aren’t they?” I asked the guide who was sitting near the sub-Arctic birds exhibit.

“Things get a little frisky around this time of year,” he said. “They have quite the urge.”

“Well, don’t we all?” said Mary, whom I adore whether we’re in or far from Baltimore.   

Since my son is working on Sunday and one of my daughters lives quite far away, I don’t expect much for Mother’s Day. So I’ve given myself a gift — the gift of meditation.

It’s a skill I’ve been working on for months, but I’m having a really hard time with it. Meditation requires you to quiet your mind, but it’s really hard to quiet the white noise of a writer’s mind, even in the dead of winter when you would think there’s not much to think of.

Now that spring has arrived and finally blown in some warmer temperatures, I’ve opened all my windows to air out my house with plans to blow those thoughts right out of my head, and possibly go a little blonder while I’m up there.

But I struggle. I’ve turned to the Internet for some meditation tips, but one site took so long it froze my computer, allowing a virus to get in. A long-running script (on meditation, no less) was the opportunity for a sneaky little bug to get into my laptop.

I think it was Bill Cosby who noted that kids say the darndest things. Well, Mr. Cosby, as you well know by now, moms think the darndest things, and are rightfully vocal about them.

Last summer, my Word program, the one I use to file my reports for The East Hampton Star, needed renewing with Microsoft. I was directed to a technician with a heavy accent who asked for my phone number in case we got disconnected. I gave it to him and then we were conveniently, for him, disconnected. But lo and behold a man called back with the same heavy accent and said he was from Microsoft. Did I want to purchase the program for a one-time fee of $139 or pay $10 every month? I chose the one-time payment.

Thinking I was still on with Microsoft, I handed over my credit card information. Everything worked fine until I got my credit card bill and saw that I was charged twice for the $139. I immediately called Microsoft and another heavily accented gentleman said he would take care of it right away. But when he looked up my records he said there was no evidence that I had spoken to Microsoft and my program would soon expire. “Would you like to purchase it now?” he asked.

After some heavy meditating, I realized I had been duped and that Microsoft had a rat in its company. I believe the technician turned my information over to a crony in India, who then called me back, making as if he were the same Microsoft guy I had already been disconnected from. I know this because the crony was a bit stupid and included an email address that corresponded with a firm called Support Tech.

I called Microsoft over and over and finally was put through to the legal department. I told the woman, who was very blasé, that she had a rat in her firm who had scammed me. She said she would look into it and get back to me. Well, I’m still waiting.

One morning before beginning my meditation I was reading Newsday and tucked in a tiny corner of the paper was something about a Microsoft scam. If you thought you had been scammed you were to call the Nassau County district attorney’s office. For weeks I meditated on making that phone call. I thought they might drive all the way out here to Montauk to confiscate my computer, and though I have nothing to hide, I wouldn’t be able to work if they did that.

But finally, after some heavy meditating, I thought it best to do the right thing, so I called the district attorney’s office. After I told her my whole story, the woman I spoke to on the phone said I should download a consumer complaint form and send it in. I meditated on that for a while and realized it would be pointless.

So then my meditations focused on writing Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, asking for my measly $280 back. He throws money all around the world but what about the little guys here in the U.S.? I cannot afford to be duped out of $280, Mr. Gates.

I also emailed Support Tech and told them that had I found out they not only had scammed me but had charged my credit card twice. The technician apologized but warned me that a terrible system break was due to hit my area and my computer would crash unless I purchased their latest software for just $99.99. Nervy little dude, huh? Optimum confirmed it was a scam.

For one minute I meditated on how I should handle this and then gave the tech support guy hell. I learned they were calling from India by the number on my caller ID. Every day when I open my Word program, Microsoft sends me a pop-up telling me my program has expired. I emailed Support Tech again and told them that since they had charged me twice the least they could do was allow me to keep using my Word program, and so far it’s worked.

Now that a new season has arrived, I really hope to get this meditation thing down pat. I use visualization to inhale while I imagine an ocean wave building toward the shore and then exhale as it’s pulled back by the force of Mother Nature. But as I picture the wave pulling from the shore, I also imagine a shark quietly swimming by and the music from “Jaws” starts to thump in my head. I might have to think about writing Mr. Spielberg to complain about that.

At the very least the two moguls should call and wish me a happy Mother’s Day. But a check in the mail wouldn’t hurt.

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The Star.

Had I known that scones were relatively easy to make, I would have begun baking them years ago. I like to cook and consider myself pretty good in the kitchen, but that said, like almost any simple art, scones take work to get right. I’m not there yet.

One of the problems for me in particular is that I don’t eat dairy products, thanks to a longstanding food allergy. That means no butter in my scones. Instead of animal fat, I’ve tried several dairy-free margarines and refined coconut oil. Neither seem just right.

As to flour, an all-white, unbleached flour produces a boring scone, though an expert whom I respect, the estimable Ina Garten, has a recipe using just that in one of her cookbooks.

To my taste, the most satisfying scones around here, and vegan ones at that, can be had in Montauk at Naturally Good, a health food bakery and cafe recently moved around to a prime location on Montauk Highway. While the fruit and berries in amidst the dough change from day to day, the scones are reliably light, just sweet enough, and satisfying. It has become part of my weekend morning routine, particularly after an early surfing session, to stop in for one or two.

Puzzled and a little frustrated with my string of relative failures, I called Naturally Good this week and spoke to two people there, including its baker, about what they do differently. The answer was not much; the shortening is canola or coconut oil, the flour a mix of white and whole wheat, all organic, of course. They only mix their ingredients just enough to combine and no longer, but that’s about it. No real secret.

Baking, I suppose, is a bit like fishing. The more you do it, the more you realize you don’t know. A hot oven is not quite a stand-in for the unfathomable deep, but it has its mysteries nonetheless. One day, I’ll crack this scone thing. Or not. And that is perfectly okay.

My brother-in-law, presider over an annual Kentucky Derby party, couldn’t pronounce the horse’s name, and so, of course, I went for it — Mubtaahij. You can’t get more exotic than that, and, besides, the Post’s handicapper had thought he’d win. I bet $100 on Mubtaahij, and then $120 in reply to a counter bid, before my wife could jab me in the ribs.

Frankly, I was quite sure Mubtaahij would win, even though it had been said horses shipped in to the Derby from afar never did. I was wrong, of course, and not for the first time. Mubtaahij finished eighth in the field of 21, not bad, his jockey said. He’ll skip the Preakness for the Belmont Stakes — a mile and a half vis-a-vis the Derby’s mile and a quarter. Maybe things will go better in Elmont.

Not long after the Derby letdown, I found myself feeling singularly confident again, rolling the dice in a backgammon game with Mary. I just liked the way they were coming out of my hand. I was so confident, in fact, that, oblivious to the fact that she’d bumped me late in the first game, I doubled.

Even though I had to play catch-up, I won going away, continuing to blithely roll doubles as I went. I won the second game too, though she won the third, and raked in $3.25 (from my coin jar) for having done so, a serendipitous conclusion inasmuch as while I’d won two of three, she had won more money. So we each retained our self-esteem, which, in each of our cases, can be shaky at times.

Speaking for myself, it’s not so bad to let off some esteem now and then, for it helps you connect more, and connecting is really all there is.

Of course I especially like to connect — yea, cling — to her. Usually at the Derby party we end up horsing around out on the driveway’s basketball court. Full-contact basketball with a low net is our game, and, I must admit, it is wildly fun until something falls amiss, or until a miss falls.

We agreed with a friend as we left to bandage Mary up that we probably should rein it in a bit, that we should hereafter limit our bumping to backgammon. It’s a good thing we have a gravel driveway.

One of the first questions I’m always asked is, “How can you stand the smell?” I invariably answer, “What smell?”

I’m speaking, you see, of being a cheesemonger. That so-called smell just hovers in the background — a pleasant, comforting environment.

Of course there are those who object, almost all of them under the age of 12. I saw one little girl of about 8 who held her nose for at least a half-hour while her mother shopped.

Then there are those who do not object. They are the stinky-cheese crowd. When the stinky cheeses are brought out, they instinctively lean over the counter, their noses leading the way.

One of the interesting things about being a cheesemonger is the tools that are used.

Take for instance this double-handed rocker knife. This is an impressive piece of equipment. Twenty-four inches long, razor-sharp, with a solid handle on each end, it gives you the ability to take command of any hard-cheese situation.

Let’s start by placing the block of cheese in front of you, with the knife held across your body. Always work on a firm surface. A solid marble counter is the best. Never cut with the blade perpendicular to the axis of your body — if the knife should slip or break on the counter’s edge, you could find yourself in some serious medical trouble.

Hold the knife at both ends and raise up one end about a foot. With the other end, start your cheese cut with a quick, almost vertical, sliding motion. This will give you a purchase point to begin the rocking motion of the cut.

Now work the knife through the cheese, rocking the curved blade up and down. Keep the pressure continuous. If you hesitate, the cheese could break, a very humiliating thing for a cheesemonger.

The rocker knife has a T-handle on one end. Use this handle to control the path of the cut. You need to keep the path as straight as possible to present a beautiful slice of cheese.

Some people try to cut with a small, single-handled knife, a knife intended, for instance, for cutting a soft brie. After five minutes of frantic sawing, the path of the cut deteriorates into an awkward curve. How pathetic!

There, done. Your first slice of cheese professionally cut! Hopefully, you’ve estimated the target weight accurately. Weigh it, wrap it, and hand it to the customer with a smile.

Life is good, so take a deep, deep breath of the pungent, cheesy air.

When not working as a cheesemonger Greg Bullock works in the production department at The East Hampton Star.

This old house, pardon me, I mean office building, is full of surprises; you never know what will be unearthed in the archives, or a filing cabinet, or an old desk. What we need here is a resident historian.

Over the years we have stumbled upon all manner of fascinating artifacts — from glass-plate negatives from the 1880s to scrapbooks showing rascally teenagers frolicking on the beach before World War I — tucked away for safekeeping in unlikely places. I can’t remember what we were searching for recently when we came across the original bill of sale of this newspaper from George H. Burling, who was its editor and publisher from 1885 to 1890, to Edward S. Boughton, whose family owned the paper until Arnold and Jeannette Rattray bought it in 1935. The date was June 18, 1890. The price was $100.

The bill of sale is short, with the typed text taking up only half a sheet of ordinary stationery. Signed “Geo H Burling” (without periods) it also carries his seal — an upside down, deep red ziggurat, which must have been pasted down. The document is in remarkably good shape.

One would have to be a student of printing presses to be familiar with the devices that were sold along with “all subscription lists” and “good will,” although today everyone who uses a computer is familiar with the word “font” as well as “type.”

Quoting the bill of sale, it included “150 pounds brevier type, 50 pounds minion type, 10 fonts metal job type, 1 font wood type, 3 double case racks, 12 cases, 1 Washington hand press, 1 office desk, and all other office furniture now in the tenement now occupied. . . .”

Even though we have tons of ancient and quite beautiful type stored away — you can’t throw it away, can you, though I have the feeling that the Etsy.com “maker” generation would love to get its hands on it — I never before gave any thought to the type’s having to be set by hand, or to what toil was involved in working a hand press, although I’ve now scouted out explanatory images on the web.

In the supplement we put out for our 100th anniversary, The Star’s original staff was reported to be the editor and a 15-year-old apprentice or printer’s devil, Norman W. Barns, who was paid 25 cents a week. Lucky Norman! He turned the crank that powered the press and “still remembered 50 years later how his arms would ache.” Five hundred copies were printed.    

Walter Burling, George’s father, had started nine Long Island papers before The Star, including The Sea-Side Times, now The Southampton Press, in 1881. He established his son George as The Star’s editor and publisher. It also was reported that George Burling could compose what he wrote directly in type, skipping the step of writing it down and making the process sound as if it was even more direct than computers make possible today.

Quoting again from our anniversary issue:

“George Burling preferred to live in Southampton, a more convivial place for a young man. He commuted to his workplace” — it was an old carriage barn on Main Street, East Hampton — “by catching the train to its terminus in Bridgehampton and covering the last few miles in a bumpy and slow ride on a stagecoach. He nursed the paper through its first five years but in 1890 it was producing a profit of $15 a week, slim even in those days.”

Walter Burling thought a “married man should take the paper and settle down with his family as a resident of the place. . . .” Well, The Star has been edited by a “resident of the place” and a family man or woman ever since. Today, David Rattray, the editor, runs the show, and it won’t be too long before the Rattray family will have been at the helm for 100 years.  

My son said recently he thought I’d live to 100, submitting an article that found a link between longevity and vigorous exercise, though if there’s a danger point beyond which you shouldn’t go they haven’t ascertained it yet, nor have I.

I’ve always had 80, the age at which my father died, in mind, though his younger brother, who, as far as I know, was not particularly athletic — and who my mother said was the biggest hypochondriac she’d ever met — lived, with all his wits about him, until 103. He lived a quiet life, as I am, and as my father did finally; had he kept on the way he’d been going, he told me, everyone said he’d be dead by 40.

“Your father would go off and misbehave and then come back to Bennington and bury his head in a book,” an old friend of his told me once. Eventually he lit out for the territory — France in his case — and the company of a lively, lighthearted woman who took things as they came and who refused to admit any puritanical impediments.

“Don’t worry — I’ve got a pretty good thing going,” were his last words to me, as I lingered on the eve of our departure at his bedroom door.

Mere athleticism is not the panacea that my son may think it is; the recent suicides at relatively young ages of two outstanding athletes I’ve known come immediately to mind.

Lightheartedness seems to me more to the point. And that may be achieved less through moving (however purposefully) to and fro than by simply sitting, with awareness, which is what I think my uncle who lived to 103 did, certainly in his later years, most of the time.

Constant readers, especially those with a flair for gardening, would have seen and I hope enjoyed The Star’s gardening supplement, which was part of last Thursday’s edition. As sometimes happens, though (even in the best of publications), something unfortunate occurred between the time the pages were readied at The Star and their electronic versions arrived at the printing plant.

What in the old days might have been called a printer’s devil had made a “pie” of the pages, duplicating some advertisements and losing others. The word “devil” isn’t quite right in describing a the culprit. Nor am I using the word “pie” exactly right, because pie used to refer to the mess that occurred if a tray of lead type was accidentally dropped and the letters scrambled. So much for what could go wrong in the old days.

When I looked at the paper last Thursday morning, the first thing I noticed was that the supplement’s masthead was missing. It was to have the names of the staff members who put the supplement together. None of us has enough of an ego to be slighted by missing credit for such aspects of production as advertising sales and design, page layout, and, yes, editing, but the masthead was also supposed to explain the supplement’s front page, which was, we thought, not only good-looking but intriguing.

There, in 14-by-15-inch broadsheet glory, were 12 images of vintage gardening objects with a “Plant-A-Garden-Chart” at center. Of course, our readers are savvy enough, for example, to recognize images of wooden pitchforks and old-fashioned flower frogs without explanation, but it had been my intention to let readers know that the objects and the chart were from the collection of Durell Godfrey, The Star’s photographer, and had meant to explain how the chart, an honest-to-goodness 1938 artifact, worked.

Not everyone would have held on to the supplement (which was a good read, if I say so myself, and contained a massive calendar of events related to gardening), so I’m going to try to describe how the chart worked here. You can take a look at it below.

The chart has two layers; the top layer is a large circle that can be turned. You do so until the arrow at its center points to the name of a flower on the chart’s outside edge, where you can access all kinds of information about it. And it still works.

The chart originally sold for 25 cents, but Durell isn’t telling where she got it or how much she paid for it. Maybe that’s because she missed out on buying it in 1938 when, for $1, it came with packets of seeds for 10 prize-winning flowers.

P.S. Those whose advertisements were duplicated without charge were surprised, of course, and pleased, while we’re doing what we can to make good on those advertisements that went missing.

Lacking much of an idea for a column this week, I took a short walk over to the East Hampton Library. After tiptoeing past a number of people focused on their computers, I went into the magazine room and settled in a chair after picking up a copy of Treasures: Antique to Modern Collecting, which got me thinking.

My own collecting has no particular form, unlike, say, people who scour the markets for cast-iron tractor seats or frog figurines. Still, I am fascinated by those who develop passions for whatever it is and pursue them. Then, too, the differences between the genders, at least in our house, are notable.

The guys, counting myself, assemble action-related objects. Ellis, who is 5, likes Lego kits to make specific battle figures, although he also likes his blue stuffed animals. I go in for surfboards, of which I have perhaps 10, though only about half are in good enough shape to ride; the others are what one might charitably call projects. My other sizable accumulation is of fishing gear, more rods than I can estimate and, in the basement, cardboard boxes of lures, hooks, line, wire crimpers, waders, nets, weights, and who knows what.

As for the women in the house, as best I can tell, they collect bottles of shampoo. I’m not kidding.

Nearly every horizontal surface in one of the bathrooms is lined with them, all shapes and sizes, some precariously designed so that if I so much as look at them the wrong way they will cascade to the floor.

All shampoo puzzles me. The way I see it, you find a brand you like and then stick with it. Not so the ladies, apparently, that is my wife and two daughters. Our house has bottles boasting avocado, bounce enhancement, color control, jojoba, and argan oil.

This last shampoo reminds me that on our honeymoon in Morocco we saw goats climbing argan trees, though it is not likely that my wife bought this particular shampoo concoction in fond memory of the trip; the sad, half-used-up bottle spent the winter in the outdoor shower on the deck.

Although the jokey nickname is often used, calling Montauk “The End” doesn’t really catch the spirit of the buzzing community at the tip of Long Island. It has always felt like a place apart — though it is part of East Hampton Town, of course — but the wind-blown, isolated atmosphere that for so long made it feel like an island has diminished as crowds and commerce have descended in force. Still, genuine Montaukers are a breed apart, and those of us from other parts of town are undoubtedly “from away,” as East Hamptoners have called outsiders for generations. 

I didn’t expect to find myself thinking about what makes Montauk unique when I went to a delightful concert there last weekend, but the evidence was clear that the hamlet is still different. As regular readers of this column are probably aware, my husband and I are fans of classical music and frequently attend concerts on the booming classical scene. But even we must admit that the standard South Fork audience for classical music is, you know, white-haired. Not so in Montauk.

Lilah Gosman, a Montauk native and vocalist, and her husband, Milos Repicky, a pianist who is on the staff of the Metropolitan Opera, have revived the longstanding series Music for Montauk, taking it under their wings after the unexpected death of the extraordinary woman who was its spark plug, Ruth Widder. As professional musicians and new parents, Ms. Gosman and Mr. Repicky have a broad circle of accomplished colleagues, whom they plan to call on as they continue the tradition of free concerts for children at the Montauk School, as well as popular concerts for the general public, also free. 

The season’s inaugural concert on Saturday filled the Montauk School auditorium (which also is its gym). Not too many outlanders seemed to be in the audience, but what was surprising was its composition. Yes, the white-haired music-lovers like my husband and me were in attendance, but so were lots and lots of kids. And, guess what? They were almost unbelievably well behaved. 

One little guy, who I learned later was only 1, sat quietly in a stroller seat or on his mother’s lap; a pacifier obviously helped. Another mother, up on one of the side bleachers, held a sleeping child in her lap, while another young girl sat next to them quietly. Several prettily dressed little girls stood attentively and politely for the whole concert at the rear of the auditorium, where they didn’t have to remain absolutely still. They were quiet as mice. 

Two violinists, a cellist, a bass player, and Mr. Repicky were joined by a mezzo-soprano in a program dedicated to spring that was for the most part familiar. But it also included a most unusual premiere: The viola line of the Spring movement of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” was sung by the mezzo. She also brought down the house with a provocative aria  from “The Barber of Seville.” 

The concert was in late afternoon, which may have had something to do with children’s being there, but I bet some of them were Montauk School students who liked what they heard and were willing to listen again after, as is traditional, the concert was put on just for them on Friday, the day before.

Various new venues and innovative programs are slated for this summer, and judging by the enthusiastic crowd at a benefit party at Gosman’s restaurant following the first concert, Music for Montauk in its new incarnation will be a wonderful success. Like Montauk itself, it promises to be sui generis, which is to say, in a class of its own.