Letters to the Editor: 09.25.97
Checking For Details
Tucson, Ariz.
September 19, 1997
Greetings,
To my great pleasure, I was snooping around on-line last night and I found your site!
I don't get back home much anymore but I often think about East Hampton and wonder what's going on there. Of course, my mother fills me in on most of the news, but I'll be checking in here for the rest of details in the future.
I've lived in Tucson since 1988 and now work as an editorial photographer, but I'll never forget where my photos were first published.
Thanks for the start!
Hope all is well and best wishes,
BRION MCCARTHY
Glowing Like A Dial
East Hampton
September 23, 1997
Dear Mrs. Rattray,
Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. My Great Aunt Filomina Tutti-lini of Sicily went for a casual dip in the Peconic River.
Upon exiting the river she was glowing like a dial on an old radium watch.
Thinking her luminescence was a blessing from the Madonna, she crossed herself and plunged into her pilgrimage. To swim around Long Island with one hand tied behind her back was Zia's holy goal.
Starting at Fishers Island, Zia was about 10 miles from land when, lo and behold, Filomina "the Sicilian Fish" Tutti-lini got snagged in a U.S. Navy scow's net. Thinking Zia was a Brookhaven National Laboratory carp, they unceremoniously dumped her along with oodles of toxin-laden sludge.
Utilizing Zen breathing techniques, Zia Filomina was able to hold her breath for seven hours. Fortunately for her, a six-headed lobster named Rocky assisted Zia to the surface.
Almost immediately she was gaffed and hauled aboard a Starship by a Viking named Bugsy the Seagull. At this point in Zia's story I got so excited I jumped two feet into the air and shouted, "Wowie, Zia Filomina, what happened next?"
Jutting her jaw at me she said, "Calm a down, Gooey, keep ona you pants. Ima tell you, Ima likea the Starship; gambling, music. Ah ha! Cha cha cha."
"Nice dancing, Zia, cha, cha, cha, but I hope this doesn't mean Coney Hampton in the future."
"Hey, Chooch, a little action, people having fun, people making moohlah. Thatza what bothers you! Stupido, if any foreign power poisoned your country's food supply, you Americans would consider it an act of war. Stopa the ferry anda stopa this anda stopa that isa nice, but next to your own Navy, poisoning your own waters, itza chicken shit."
"Zia, they're dumping chicken poop!"
"No, Guiseppe, thatza what some American ranchers are using as cattle feed, but thatza another story. Ciao."
Sincerely yours,
JOSEPH TOTO
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