In connection with an interview I did recently with Bob Vishno, who coached golf, basketball, and baseball at Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School for a long time, and who coached the only Whaler boys basketball team, the one of 1978, to win a state championship, I read through Steve Bromley Jr.’s accounts of that season, and marveled at my predecessor’s energy and thoroughness.
A little more than a year later, he left local sportswriting for better things, and I, who had been going through the throes of a separation, which ultimately led to a divorce, was given a new lease on journalistic life by Ev Rattray, who tapped me as Steve’s replacement in what’s commonly referred to in this business as the toy department, but which I’ve found to be the joy department.
“Nineteen seventy-nine. . . .” Mary said after I’d returned from reading Steve’s accounts in the neatly appointed basement of the Amagansett Library. “That’s the year Georgie and Johnna were born.”
“And the year I was reborn,” I said.
As this is written, we’re about to spend a week in Vero Beach, where Mary’s brother and his wife have lived since selling out here a couple of years ago, and it’s just occurred to me that the Super Bowl is to be played on my birthday, Feb. 11, which, since my brother-in-law is an ardent 49ers’ fan, warrants a change in plans. Russell Bennett, who’s not so sure the 49ers can beat the Chiefs, suggested that, instead of the 11th, we celebrate my 84th with John and Linda the night before, when it’s likely the moods of all of us will be fraught-free.
I do wonder how they’re faring down there, in “Centereach with palm trees,” as Kathy Kovach refers to Florida. But the weather report is for temperatures next week in the 60s and 70s, and you can’t beat that, certainly not in this house, which, while it might not be insulated with seaweed, as older ones here were, is sufficiently frigid to drive Mary at times to cry out.
I tell her that this place doesn’t hold a candle to some of the East Hampton houses I’ve lived in, my former landlady’s being exhibits number one, where you risked immolation backing into the walk-in fireplaces. And there was always some Gallo Tawny Port if you needed further warming up.
A homebody — driving to Bridgehampton is a long-distance trip for me now, requiring that I remember to add a quart of oil, as I said the other night to some Killer Bee fans who had wondered where I’d been lately — I’m not utterly averse, as Mary sometimes thinks, to travel, though I’ll grant I like doing it mostly in an armchair.
Maybe things indeed will be better in Vero Beach. . . . Anyway, it’s only for a week.