Bill Clinton became the first-ever United States president to play golf at Montauk Downs in the state-owned course’s 87-year history on Aug. 20.

Mr. Clinton, who had celebrated his 68th birthday the day before, and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, are renting a house in Amagansett for August. They have spent the past several summers on the South Fork.

The former president played with two of his brothers-in-law and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, according to Thomas Dess, the state parks superintendent in Montauk. Governor McAuliffe was co-chairman of President Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign and chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. 

“I don’t know of any other president who has played here,” Mr. Dess said. Mr. Clinton had shown interest in playing the Downs in the past, he said, but never got there until now.

Mr. Dess said the foursome kept a steady pace and did not hold up the golfers behind them, who that day happened to include members of the Downs’s men’s league, mostly Montauk residents. Kevin Smith, the course’s golf pro, accompanied the Clinton party as a caddy. They teed off at 11:45 a.m. and finished at about 4:20 p.m. There was no word on how the president fared.

Flanked by Secret Service agents, he greeted about two dozen onlookers after coming off the 18th hole. In answer to a question, he said he thought the course was “gorgeous” and called his round of golf “the perfect belated birthday gift.”

Mr. Clinton played the course wearing a baseball cap plugging his wife’s new book, “Hard Choices.” A few days earlier, on Aug. 16, Mrs. Clinton signed copies of the book for more than 1,000 fans at the BookHampton store in East Hampton.

Lauren Santich and Alfonso Maldonado of Montauk were engaged on Aug. 12 aboard the Mon Tiki at sunset.

Mr. Maldonado’s parents are Alfonso Maldonado of Patchogue and Zulma and Dan Boerem of Montauk. Ms. Santich’s parents are Gloria Rousell and Matthew Santich, both of Montauk. The couple first met in 2011. They are planning a 2015 wedding.

Chris and Marcia Schenck of East Hampton have announced the engagement of their daughter, Jordan Schenck, to John Foster Jr., the son of John and Cindy Foster of Hampton Bays.

Ms. Schenck is a registered nurse at Meeting House Lane Medical. Her fiancé is a teacher at the Springs School. They live in Hampton Bays and plan to be married on Sept. 12, 2015.

It may not be a date that will live in infamy, but June 13, 1942, is certainly a date of historic importance. Shortly after midnight, four trained German saboteurs landed in the fog on the beach near the Coast Guard station on Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett. They had rowed ashore in a collapsible rubber boat filled with explosives, clothing, several thousand dollars in cash, and a two-year plan to blow up aluminum and magnesium plants, canals, bridges, waterways, and locks, according to the Sea Frontier War Diary, a document held at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Thanks to a quick-thinking 21-year-old Coast Guardsman named John Cullen, the saboteurs were discovered and their plot foiled. Mr. Cullen’s actions led indirectly to the arrest of four more saboteurs, who landed four days later at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., south of Jacksonville. On June 27, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced the arrest of all eight men, and a plot that would surely have terrorized America and impeded the war effort was averted.

Today, a historical re-enactment of that night is an annual event on the beach and at the Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station. The latter, one of East Hampton Town’s most storied marine buildings, is a focus of “June 13, 1942: Saboteurs Land in Amagansett,” an exhibition that opens tomorrow at Clinton Academy in East Hampton with a reception that will benefit the 1902 structure’s ongoing renovation and restoration.

The reception is from 6 to 8 p.m. and tickets are $100. The exhibition will be open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. through Oct. 13.

A gift to the East Hampton Historical Society, bestowed last year by the Barnes family of East Hampton, made the exhibit possible, said Richard Barons, the society’s executive director. Carl Jenette, then a boatswain’s mate in the Coast Guard, had telephoned Warren Barnes, the station’s chief, when Mr. Cullen returned from the beach with word of his discovery. Chief Barnes later identified all the objects the saboteurs had buried on the beach, according to “Best American Crime Writing: 2003 Edition.”

“With that collection came at least 25 newspapers from all over the United States,” Mr. Barons said, “original papers with headlines about the invasion in Amagansett.” Also to be exhibited is the original typed transcript of the report Mr. Barnes sent to the Coast Guard, which, Mr. Barons said, “in the end got him in a little trouble with the F.B.I. because he was following orders and sent it to the Coast Guard rather than the F.B.I.”

Photographs of two uniforms Mr. Barnes wore during the period are featured, along with a complete set of photos depicting all the objects discovered on the beach, photos of the saboteurs, and, of course, of the Coast Guard station itself. Also included is a translation of the log kept by the U-202 captain, from which the saboteurs were dispatched, for June 12 and 13, 1942.

But, said Mr. Barons, “it’s that Barnes collection that was such a surprise. There had been no discussion that any of the Barnes family had saved material, and then to go over, at the end of the summer last year, to the family house just outside the village and to see all of these notes and newspaper articles and all of this material that had been so carefully preserved, it seemed the perfect time to do an exhibit like this.”

The hope, he said, is that the majority of the collection will ultimately be housed at the station, once its renovation is complete.

Richard G. Hendrickson, a volunteer United States Cooperative weather observer since 1930, will be honored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for his longstanding service on Sunday at the National Weather Service's weather forecast office in Upton.

"Since Hendrickson is the first in the history of the program to serve for more than eight decades, the new 80-year service award will be named in his honor," according to an announcement on the NOAA website.

Mr. Hendrickson, who is 101, has been recording the weather conditions, including wind direction, temperatures, and precipitation, twice a day at his farm in Bridgehampton since he was 18, before NOAA existed, reporting his data in earlier years to the United States Weather Bureau.

He is still at it at 101, said his granddaughter Sara Hendrickson. "He still gets up every day to do it."

The station in his backyard is the size of a large birdhouse. It has slatted sides and doors and holds two thermometers that record the highs and lows for each 12-hour period of the day. Near it, there is a rain collector that allows him to measure precipitation and a snow board that helps him calculate snowfall. A wind vane in a field a few yards away aids in determining wind direction.

A farmer like his father before him, for Mr. Hendrickson checking the weather "went hand in hand with farming," his granddaughter said Tuesday. "It was part of his everyday life anyway."

Being a volunteer weather observer "is seven days a week and he's proud to do it," she said. "He just feels that it's his obligation. And it's kept him sharp. It gives him a reason and a purpose."

On the NOAA website, Ross I. Dickman, the meteorologist in charge at the New York weather forecast office, described volunteer observers like Mr. Hendrickson as "the bedrock of weather data collection." The thousands of weather measurements Mr. Hendrickson has collected over more than eight decades have helped "build the climate record for Long Island," he said.

Mr. Hendrickson is the author of two books, "Winds of the Fish's Tail: Eastern Long Island Weather Observations and Folklore," published in 1996, and "From the Bushy Plain of Bulls Head: Whisperings and Wanderings," published in 2006.

In addition to sharing his data with the National Weather Service, he submits monthly reports summarizing the weather to local newspapers. More than mere records of measurements and temperatures, they are filled with words of wisdom gained over decades of closely watching climate, development, and the unfolding history of the South Fork, particularly Bridgehampton. They include reminiscences from times past, references to weather at the same point in other years, and warnings about the power of the ocean and global warming.

In a report written at the end of July 2007, when he had completed 77 years of weather observations, Mr. Hendrickson recalled how things were when he began volunteering in 1930: "This was the Depression period. Milk was 20 cents a quart, delivered to your door, and eggs were 24 cents a dozen. A good carpenter was $2 a day, if he could get a job! It all changed after the 1938 hurricane. Those affected had to have the door, window, chimney or roof replaced."

"From our farm northward to the moraine of hills were two miles of sparkling and dazzling golden fields of corn, wheat, and potatoes, all dancing in motion with the evening sunshine breeze."

The award presentation on Sunday will be at 9:45 a.m. before an open house at the Upton weather forecast office.

With a potential Long Island Rail Road strike looming, East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and his counterpart in Southampton, Anna Throne-Holst, have been meeting to discuss what to do should the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its L.I.R.R. unions fail to reach agreement on contract terms.

A walkout of 5,400 workers could begin at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday.

The railroad’s contingency plan includes alternative transportation for L.I.R.R. riders only as far east as Ronkonkoma, Mr. Cantwell said, and the supervisors are concerned about the impact here of a lack of public transportation.

In a July 10 letter to Patrick Now­akowski, the Long Island Rail Road president, Mr. Cantwell said he was “appealing . . . for a contingency plan to provide alternate public transportation bus service to and on the East End in the event of a strike.”

“Should a strike occur and no alternate transportation is available to meet the demand of second-home owners, visitors, and tourists, the East End will suffer a severe economic loss,” he wrote.

Concern centers not only on the economic effect, Mr. Cantwell said at Town Hall on Tuesday, but also on the additional traffic here that could create gridlock should many who would have arrived by train decide to drive instead.

Mr. Cantwell said that both supervisors had contacted the Hampton Jitney and that the bus company was willing to step into the void and provide additional service.

In his letter to the L.I.R.R. chief, Mr. Cantwell asked for permission to use the Montauk railroad station, which is owned by the L.I.R.R., as a bus stop and parking area.

Railroad union officials are reportedly preparing for a strike lasting as long as a month. Negotiations stalled early this week, but were expected to resume yesterday afternoon.

In a statement on Tuesday, Representative Tim Bishop, who represents the East End’s Congressional district, and Representatives Steve Israel and Peter King said they were “extremely disappointed to learn that the M.T.A. left negotiations” on Monday without presenting a counteroffer. “Both sides need to be at the negotiating table nonstop to work out an agreement that keeps the transit work force on the job and keeps     “A compromise must be reached,” the representatives said.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had said that he would not get involved, but he issued a statement yesterday calling the L.I.R.R. “a critical transportation system of Long Island and New York City,” and said that “we must do everything we can to prevent Long Islanders from being held hostage by a strike.”

A key sticking point centers on employee contributions to pensions and health insurance costs. The last L.I.R.R. strike was in 1994.

Another day, another bridge strike.

On Thursday, just before 5 p.m., a 2005 Isuzu box truck struck the overpass on Accabonac Road in East Hampton. The bridge strike comes less than 24 hours after the Long Island Rail Road finished repairing structural damage to the rails on the nearby North Main Street overpass that occurred when a garbage truck slammed into it on Tuesday.  

Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen said the box truck is stuck under the Accabonac Road overpass. A tow truck was called and police were routing traffic around the truck. No injuries were reported.

Railroad officials have been notified and will assess the damage, but it wasn’t clear whether service would be suspended on the Montauk line. According to police dispatch, service was not immediately suspended while crews responded to assess the damage. 

"They will likely suspend service until the bridge inspectors can get out there to check it out and determine extent of damage," Salvatore Arena, a spokesman for the L.I.R.R., said in an email on Thursday evening after hearing of the accident. 

Chief Larsen said it didn't appear the Thursday incident was as serious as the situation on Tuesday, when the garbage truck hit the North Main Street overpass so hard it caused a shift in the tracks. Train service was suspended immediately. A crane was brought in and crews worked overnight to fix the damages, completing them early Wednesday evening, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend rush.

After the incident on Tuesday, buses replaced trains east of Bridgehampton. 

     The excruciating pain Gina Bradley experienced after getting stung by a stonefish during a recent trip to Puerto Rico was like nothing she had ever felt before. "I would rather have 10 natural births than ever have this happen to me again," she said.

     It would be nearly 15 days before she would fully recover, and because she realizes now that she could have felt relief a lot sooner had she known the right way to treat the poisonous sting, she is spreading the word to her neighbors on the South Fork, many of whom travel to Rincon each winter.

     Stonefish, which get their name because of their ability to camouflage themselves, are dangerous in that they secrete potent neurotoxins from glands at the base of needle-like dorsal fin spines that they stick up when they feel threatened. According to Mother Nature Network online, stonefish are the most venomous fish in the world and can deliver fatal stings.

     Ms. Bradley, who owns Paddle Diva, a standup paddleboard business, was paddle surfing with her 10-year-old daughter on a remote reef at low tide when they decided to call it a day due to choppy waters. She slipped off her board, and was trying to heave herself back up when she felt something pierce the bottom of her right foot, which hadn't even touched the ocean's floor.

     "Immediately, I knew it was a venomous sting," said Ms. Bradley, who has been stung by sea urchins before. This, however, felt like a bolt of lightning shooting up her foot, she said. The puncture wounds were bleeding profusely, and though she tried to remain calm for the sake of her daughter, she needed help getting to shore.

     A friend then took her to an urgent care facility, where she waited in agony for an hour until she saw a doctor, who placed her foot in hot water to deactivate the venom, she said. The pain was still intense, but the hot water eased it a bit. The venom, she said, made it into her nerve pathways, which also caused twitching, too.

     For the next five days she rested. A bacterial infection of the tissue inside the foot, known as cellulitis, formed, and she went on antibiotics. When she got home, she saw her general practioner for severe nausea that lasted nearly three days. Once she came out of the nauseous haze, she realized her foot was swelling back up. It was triple its normal size, she said. "I looked like a diabetic 300-pound person," she said.

     At that point, 11 days after the sting, she went to the Southampton Hospital emergency room, where she was admitted.

     Doctors ordered a battery of tests, including X-rays and CAT Scans to look for any foreign bodies in her foot. She went on an intravenous drip of Cipro and Doxycycline. After three days of antibiotics and a contrast MRI that showed no bone infection, she finally began to feel relief.

     "I feel I escaped death twice," Ms. Bradley said, explaining that the secondary infection is often worse than the actual sting. She is most grateful to Dr. Darin G. Wiggins and Alice McGrath, a nurse, in the emergency room, and Dr. Rajeev Fernando, an infectious disease specialist, for the care she received. " Southampton Hospital was amazing from start to finish. They stepped up the task," she said.

     Because Rincon is a popular destination for South Fork surfers, Ms. Bradley has taken to her blog on PaddleDiva.com to educate people about what to do if they come into contact with a stonefish. Online sources, such as Medline Plus, instruct those stung to soak their foot in the hottest water they will tolerate — at least 113 degrees — for 60 to 90 minutes.

     "Had I known to run up to the bar for hot water, it would have been a different story," she said.

   Smoother roads are in the near future, as a much needed, much talked about repaving project on a stretch of Montauk Highway from Southampton to East Hampton is finally set to begin next Thursday.

     Details of the project are still being finalized, said Eileen Peters, a spokeswoman with the New York State Department of Transportation. The project is expected to be finished by the end of the year, with a hiatus taken during the summer due to the heavy traffic volume.

     The 8.2-mile stretch between Country Road 39 in Southampton and Stephen Hand's Path in East Hampton will be replaced with fresh asphalt, much to the delight of drivers who have been maneuvering around treacherous potholes following a particularly rough winter. The worst parts of Route 27 have not been resurfaced in over decade. An area of the highway from Buell Lane in East Hampton to South Etna Avenue in Montauk is due to be resurfaced later this year.

     "Hopefully, Mother Nature will cooperate," Ms. Peters said, adding that good weather and a certain humidity level are required in order to do the work.

     The private contracting firm, Inter County Paving of Hicksville, submitted the lowest qualified bid for the $7.6 million Southampton-to-East Hampton project, and will be paid through state and federal grants.

     Work will begin by removing the old layer of asphalt. "It will be a little rough there for a while," Ms. Peters said. In addition to a fresh layer of asphalt, new pavement markings and bike lanes will be added.

     Ms. Peters said the state has taken measures to lessen the impact on traffic and business in the area. To start, work will take place during midday, off-peak hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Later, night work will be implemented from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

     The highway will not be shut down during construction. Instead, workers will shift traffic while they work on one side of the road in small segments. "Traffic will be slowed. We do advise people if they know of an alternate route to take it," Ms. Peters said.

     Construction will stop by Memorial Day and pick up again after Labor Day. The full project is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2014, although work usually stops by the end of November due to weather conditions.

            A 2.3-mile stretch of the highway, from Stephen Hand's Path to the intersection of Buell Lane in East Hampton, was milled and resurfaced last spring for $1.53 million

    Eight of the nine East Hampton Town Trustees voted to approve the repair of a rock revetment on the beach in front of 7 West End Road in East Hampton Village at a special meeting on Tuesday.

    Anthony Manheim, the owner, submitted plans for the proposed revetment to the trustees in August. The proposal had been the subject of some dissent on the board. Deborah Klughers, a trustee, was unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting but asked that her letter opposing  the repair be read into the record.

    The project, Ms. Klughers wrote, “does not meet the common trustee practice of permitting and rebuilding preexisting structures ‘in-kind, in-place.’ ” The revetment “will be 14 feet above beach level and 16 feet above beach level once covered with sand,” and greater in scope and size than what currently exists, “therefore said project is not ‘in kind, in place.’ ”

    Repairs, she concluded, would potentially harm adjacent and nearby properties.

    “I don’t think it’s going to be a wall 14 to 16 feet higher than it is now,” Diane McNally, the trustee clerk, said. “It’s repair and replacement of the top layers of an existing structure that is 14 feet deep.”

    One end of the revetment, which was constructed in 1978, has “lagged” after storms in 2011 and 2012 exposed it, said Sean McCaffrey, a trustee. It is “in kind, in place,” Ms. McNally agreed.

    The trustees, who own and oversee the town’s beaches on behalf of the public, would have to make certain that any planting of beach grass not affect title, said John Courtney, their attorney. “We need to get some sort of a mechanism to ensure they keep it covered with sand,” he said.

    “But this one has been covered,” said Stephanie Forsberg. “That’s what makes this one stand out. It truly is a repair — they’re repairing something that hasn’t been unearthed since the ’70s.” The trustees, she said, have been consistent in their approval of revetment repair.

    Mr. Courtney and the trustees considered the wording of a covenant mandating that, should the revetment be exposed for a continuous period of 12 months, the trustees were authorized to install sand and beach grass to cover it and to be reimbursed for the expense, or to remove the revetment entirely, also at the applicant’s expense.

    The trustees’ approval would stipulate the height and depth of the revetment and the sand covering it, Ms. McNally said, which she felt would allay Ms. Klughers’s concerns. “We do understand that hardening structures along the shoreline, in the long run, are detrimental and we are trying to minimize them wherever possible. But this is pre-existing repair,” she said.

    “I understand Deb’s concerns,” Ms. McNally summarized, “but I think it doesn’t apply to this particular structure. Based on what I see from the survey and the maps, they’re not enlarging it.” The original revetment will not be modified or expanded, she said, and no planting of beach grass will be allowed except via a separate application.

     The applicant will be required to notify the trustees before starting work, which is expected to last two weeks, and a trustee will be there when the work commences.

    The trustees were successful last fall in halting the construction of a revetment on the beach in front of the adjacent parcel, at 11 West End Road. The owner of that property, Mollie Zweig, had received approval from the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals over trustee objections. The Zweig project is now in litigation.

    David Eagan, as special counsel, was the attorney who represented the trustees in their suit against Ms. Zweig. Mr. Courtney said he had discussed the  Manheim application with Mr. Eagan, who had no objection to the trustees’ approval of that project.

    In her clerk’s report, Ms. McNally told her colleagues that because of the weather, a scheduled meeting of the East End Trustees, from East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold, had been postponed from last night to Wednesday at 6 p.m., at Southampton Town Hall.