Relay: Passing the Baton, for Rusty

How lucky we were that the surf drew Rusty Drumm to Montauk and then to us. His loss leaves The Star diminished, and it is also deeply personal. Even after he decided to give semiretirement a try, he was out there, part of the human landscape we could count on for knowledge, sharp opinion, and advice. He had rare acuity, the capacity to see what struck his eye in profound detail, which made him a superb reporter and writer. Perhaps most of all, he was a passionate and compassionate man who shared the joy he had in life. H.S.R.

“Not bad, if you like beauty,” he’d say on a crisp sunny day or in a spot that was so much more than “not bad.” It might be Tobago, or St. Bart’s, Waikiki, or a place like Montauk, which he called “God’s country.” 

“Heading off to God’s country,” he’d say as he left the office for home or surf or a breeze that promised good sailing, and soon you’d come to see it his way. He was persuasive. He could wrap you up in a good story, in a perspective, and you’d believe it like doctrine. And if you remembered what was important — that happiness thing — it was a passport to the world through his eyes, a cooler, better world, where everyone got a nickname and they all knew him by name. C.K.

Drumm, as I called him almost exclusively, had many gifts. He was a surfer, father, writer, historian, fisherman, sailor, cook, and for more than a generation The Star’s — and Montauk’s — philosopher king. But his greatest gifts were the lessons he taught us all about how to live a life, to understand the past but not to be bitter about how much things might have changed, to embrace each and every day to its fullest. Toes on the nose, brother, toes on the nose. D.E.R.

Rusty was anything but. Always at the top of his game, he was a beacon for me inasmuch as he knew well how to balance work and play, how to make them one, in fact.

“He lived a good life; Rusty knew how to have fun,” Mary said amid her tears on learning the shocking news the other day that he had died. I remember him saying to me, “Moderation in all things . . . including moderation.”

It was last summer, I think, that he told me in the Star parking lot that he had prostate cancer. “Well, you’ll live at least another 15 years,” I said, hopefully, thinking of people I knew who had it, athletic, optimistic people like him.

He was always fun to talk to — about history, the natural world, lacrosse, skiing, surfing, squash, interesting characters, anything really — a constant for me, always wise, always good-humored, a North Star. J.G.

He was my touchstone at The Star — you know, a person with whom you’re completely at ease; you don’t have to say much and they get what you mean and what you’re feeling, because they know you, really know you. And you know them, too. 

It’s a scarce blessing to have such a relationship, such an effortless and gratifying connection with another human being. And that human being being Rusty, it was always interesting and fun. His ritual of pulling my hair when he’d come up behind me to sharpen his pencils at the old wall-mounted sharpener near my desk was straight from the pigtails-in-inkwell playbook.

And how could I possibly choose among 20 years’ worth of catchphrases and running jokes that we shared? However, as a fellow government reporter, I will mention one enduring one that we have all enjoyed, the stunning lead Rusty once wrote for a story on some bureaucratic report: “A thick document that took years to prepare was unveiled on Friday amid a flurry of press releases.” J.P.

In mid-February of last year’s never-ending winter, he wrote: “During Sunday’s brief thaw I took a walk with a few friends down the beach at Ditch Plain to the Shadmoor bluffs. As we walked, the sun turned the ice crystals in the bluff face to water that spilled like tears down to the beach in rivulets of mud, chunks of earth, and rocks.”

Pure Rusty, yes? I wonder if he went home that day and sat right down to write about a Montauk bluff and a monster rock near its edge, with 17th-century pirate gold buried beneath it. The bluff erodes over time and the rock plunges down to the beach below, cold-cocking two furtive lovers who are lying there entwined and killing them.

That’s one thread from Rusty’s last, unpublished book, whimsically titled “Confessions of a Pool Boy,” which it isn’t, though he was, briefly. I was honored to have been asked to copy-edit it.

“I’m so glad to have finished the book,” he emailed last month. “I think it’s good, but I fear I’m not going to have the strength to really finish it.” 

Jimmy Buffett had offered him and Kyle the use of his house in Hawaii after New Year’s, he said, or the one on St. Bart’s, take your choice. He was so looking forward. I.S.

I never enjoyed The Star more than my first year or year and a half when I worked next to Rusty tucked away in a back office. Happy memories. B.G.

I paid cash at the Montauk office, how could I have a bill? Back when I first started working at The Star, in 1988, Rusty and a few others were working at The Star’s office in Montauk. Whenever a client placed an ad and paid cash in that office, it apparently went toward lunch. “I paid cash in Montauk. . . .” It has been a running joke ever since.

His theory was that it was petty cash, and if he was hungry, well then. . . . Looking back, I’m sorry I never made it out to the Montauk office; they were sure having fun out there. 

Don’t sweat the small stuff. That’s the thing that I can take from being privileged to have known him. Rusty was always able to live life to the fullest. I will miss his generous spirit, his sense of adventure, his humor, and his lighthearted way. R.K. 

I first met Rusty in 1983, when he was recruited to sell ad space in Montauk in addition to joining the editorial staff to cover the Montauk waterfront. With his easy, friendly manner and great sense of humor he was a natural, but I always knew his first love and main interest was writing. 

Rusty did, indeed, increase The Star’s Montauk advertising lineage in the months he worked with us in the ad department, but after his first summer, we got calls from Montauk accounts saying that they had received incorrect bills for their ads. They quoted Rusty as saying that he would take care of it, which, always busy writing, he never got around to.

His main interest was writing, and what a writer he was! M.H.

In August 1985 I saw a help-wanted ad in The Star looking for an advertising salesperson for the Montauk area. I was an English lit major, waitressing at Gosman’s with a husband and a 4-year-old son and needed a full-time job. I called Drumm and asked him about it; he said it was his job, he was switching to writing, and that it would be perfect for me. I started in October, and we worked together in the Montauk office. 

Drumm would do almost anything for a story, a true reporter. Then, on July 17, 1996, the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 occurred off Center Moriches, and Drumm was on the Coast Guard boat late that evening to aid with the search and rescue efforts. They were gone two days, and he was exhausted, both mentally and physically, when they returned. He became my hero when he told me most of what he had seen and done, a very brave soul. J.B.

On July 3, 1996, Rusty and I left Hamburg and motored down the Elbe River aboard the U.S.C.G. Barque Eagle. We were in Hamburg to take on supplies and begin the Baltic Sea Races the following week. I would stay aboard for the race, but he had to go home. Our four days in Hamburg included lots of great German beer. We would get a fresh pickle every day from a young girl who sold them out of a barrel in the town square. Rusty sometimes went back for a second, and even a third.

So he flew home, and I sailed to St. Petersburg in the race, an event that remains a true highlight of my photographic career, and for that matter, my life. 

I felt bad that he had to go home because on July 18 he stood on the deck of another Coast Guard boat. This boat moved slowly through the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 retrieving body after body after body after the plane exploded in the sky off Moriches the night before. I remember him saying that he didn’t have to be there, but the men and women of the Coast Guard did. He was there to tell the story. It was something he could do really well no matter what he wrote about.

I’m going to Berlin and Hamburg in the coming weeks to continue my ongoing project documenting the refugee crisis, and I’m going back to that little square to see if the pickle girl, now a pickle woman, might still be there. Either way, I’m getting a pickle and a cold beer in your honor, Rusty. D.K.

Rusty and I shared a love of the Hawaiian Islands, Waikiki and Diamond Head in particular. His smile was always infectious, especially the last time I saw him come up the stairs, despite his struggles. A true light. 

“Groovy?” Aloha nui loa, Rusty. M.C.

On my first day working at The Star, he gave me a welcoming smile, and then asked me my nationality. I told him “Thai,” and he said he had traveled there and loved it. 

The last time I saw him, this past summer at work, he said, “You’re back with us again? How nice!” And he took out his cellphone to show me a photo of his beautiful granddaughter, a look of love, happiness, warmth, and light in his eyes as we looked at the photo. It’s the look that I will always remember him by. Y.V.

I shared an office with Rusty from July 2012 until his semiretirement, at which time he brought me to a meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees, introduced me to the board, and took his leave, though not before an impromptu-yet-eloquent discourse on that body and its role in the town.

The following summer, I had the task of delivering copies of The Star to resorts in Montauk, including the Montauk Beach House. That was the best stop on the route because I knew there was a good chance I’d see him. He clearly relished his new career as the pool boy, and we would always chat for a few minutes. 

Rusty was a great storyteller, and while sharing this office he freely dispensed much of the knowledge gathered over decades of reporting, living in Montauk, and working on the water. I was happy to know that, in recent years, he vacationed on St. Bart’s, which I imagined the perfect destination for a man I perceived as equal parts Thor Heyerdahl, Ernest Hemingway, and Captain Kidd. C.W.

There is a term for him in Spanish: duende, which loosely means having soul or the power to attract through personal magnetism and charm. We might call it mojo. When Rusty smiled at you, you felt special. You wanted to be part of his galaxy. When he walked into a room, everyone noticed. When he left a room, you wished he had singled you out for a wave goodbye. The man had charisma. D.G.

Aside from the gift of just knowing him, I will be eternally grateful to Rusty for the eloquent and very personal obituary he wrote for my husband, Phil Presby. He spun the general biographic facts into an ennobling account of a life, precious in its sparkling concision. He gave us mourners a comfort we hadn’t imagined possible. I hope his family will have something as consoling to get them through their dark days.

“Yuck!” he said in one of the last emails to me, a fellow traveler through this grim journey. “I wish more people could share, just briefly, the rare perspective this disease visits on both the sick and the people taking care of them. The world would be a far better place. We have so much to be thankful for — why are we so blind?” I’m sharing some of those words here, Rusty. Let’s hope people listen. J.L.

Russell Drumm annoyed me constantly. Not because of his personality. In 26 years of working with him I only yelled at him once; he totally deserved it. He was one of the most positive, intelligent, humorous, insightful people I’ve known. He was a pleasure to work with, surf with, and just generally be around. 

What annoyed me about Russell Drumm is that my name is Russell and people would constantly call The Star for one reason or another, and if they asked me my name and I replied, “Russell,” I would have to listen to them go on and on about how great I was, how much they loved my writing, and how much of an asset I was to the paper and the community. Then I would have to say, “No, I’m Russell Bennett,” and endure the look or sound of disappointment. They all basically said, “Oh, I’m sure being Russell Bennett is nice, too.” 

I’m going to miss being mistaken for him. R.B.

Sitting at his desk, typing away at an old computer, Drifter Dog, as he referred to his black Lab, sleeping by his side — that’s how I will remember Rusty. Always smiling, and why not? There was another wave ahead, another sail to look forward to. He was one of those people a cub reporter was thankful to have known, as he was never stingy with his time or his contacts. T.K.V.

Russell Drumm was a senior writer and columnist for The Star. He died on Saturday. An obituary appears elsewhere in today’s paper. This tribute was penned by 18 of his Star colleagues, or as we like to think of it, his Star family.