The first “Connections” was published in The East Hampton Star on April 28, 1977. It is now April once again, the forsythia is in bloom and the robins have returned, and the column is marking its 43-year anniversary. I have been attempting to “shine for all” — to paraphrase the motto on the cover of The Star — for a long time now.
How many columns does this make? By the end of this month, “Connections” will have appeared in print 52 times a year for 43 years; I am not sure if any leap years or extra Thursdays should be part of this calculation, but I am fairly confident I have written a column at least 2,226 times! “Connections” has varied in length over the decades, but at some point I eventually settled on a target average of 400 words. Let’s see: Four-hundred times 2,226 adds up to at least 890,400 words over five decades. Nearly twice “War and Peace.”
It is therefore with quite a bit of poignant nostalgia, but perhaps just as much anticipatory relief, that I have made the decision to write my final weekly “Connections” next month, for the big Memorial Day issue.
Of course, an old columnist never really says “quit,” and I expect I will continue to pop into print from time to time with “Connections” columns as the inspiration strikes me. (The editor is, after all, my son, and while he has never been an overly obedient sort, I am confident he will let me pick and choose my moments despite my self-removal from the weekly churn.) The fact is, the chore of coming up with something each week, like clockwork, has become, well, a bit of a chore.
Before I let go of this weekly ritual, in which I have chronicled so much of my adult life, however, I thought I might spend the remaining few issues revisiting columns of the past, the highs and lows of my musings through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, as the town “and the world” transformed.
Next week, we’ll begin at the beginning, with a snapshot of life in 1977, as I saw it in “Connections.” I may be retiring but, to quote Queen Elizabeth, we’ll meet again.