Columnists

Like many Americans, I have struggled to come to any kind of understanding of the violence and destruction taken to Washington just over a week ago. But one thing is clear to me as a late-coming student of slavery in the Colonial and early Republic North: Mob violence is no aberration in our history.

Nettie and I took a flying drive to Delaware this week to inspect the campus of a boarding school. Pandemic ennui makes even the shortest jaunt seem like a grand holiday.

Cable-less, I broke down and signed on for a streaming service solely so I could watch the N.F.L. playoffs and Super Bowl, which, after all, has practically become an extension of the holidays for the average American. And just in time.

Two strong guys took our two long, heavy couches to the dump the other day as part of a purging effort of Mary’s that I’ve warmed up to, though at times I fear I may be the next to go.

There probably were better moments than this for me to take up knitting. Yet here I am.

I’ve never understood why patience is a virtue. Patience makes life easier, sure (especially if you are a parent). But a virtue? Why?

Here was television at its best: a short documentary in the CBSN “Originals” series following asylum seekers coming up from Colombia into Panama through the Darien Gap. And then they take their chances at the U.S. border.

Howard Lebwith, who died recently, embodies the Christmas spirit for me inasmuch as he genuinely cared for and celebrated others, acted on their behalf, and always marveled at the beauty of life.

This week, for the first time, The Star has given over its news section to taking note of the people in the area’s hamlets and villages who have gone above and beyond during a time of crisis.

The foot and automobile traffic was considerable when we set out for a ramble at Barcelona Neck just before sunset on Boxing Day.

The drive-through Smith Point Light Show in Shirley is holiday entertainment, corona-style.

They say that in ancient times conjunctions such as Saturn and Jupiter’s were considered ill omens — the gods, people thought, were conspiring.

We could learn something about how to handle a pandemic from 17th-century England.

I would not be surprised to learn that there is a run on puppies this December, and a shortage, as there has been a run on and shortage of Christmas trees here on Long Island.

I never quite got over hearing how Silicon Valley developers and programmers who worked ingeniously to hook kids on social media would turn around and send their own kids to no-tech Waldorf schools.

Even James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, was in favor of a popular vote, and here we are more than 200 years later with the albatross still about our necks.

The bad-luck schooner Alice May Davenport spent the two weeks following Thanksgiving up on the sand near Smith Point.

In the spirit of New Year’s accounting, and things we want to remember, I present you here with 10 flashbacks from lockdown — a collage of moving images, in impressionistic order.

A brief snowfall triggers memories of Vermont and an uncle’s life there as a potter.

Presumably I have returned to work now, and am thus to some extent re-engaged in East Hampton’s life, and am feeling once again at least somewhat useful.

A revealing trip through an old Dominy weather diary.

We, the Rattray family, have a tendency to get lost in time, to misplace ourselves in its flow.

Fallen leaves. Is there anything in the world less satisfying to deal with?

After Edmund Spenser

After eight months of social distance, I think isolation is getting to me.

Leafing back through five months’ worth of “Shipwreck Roses,” I chuckle at myself as I realize exactly how much of my brain space is filled by thoughts of handsome movie actors.

Somebody once believed that gathering in offices was a grand idea. Now, post-pandemic, we may never go back.

We’ve made cardboard cutouts of family members so that Mary and I can be infused with the familial glow that has been so much a part of this holiday over the years.

Southampton's Dr. George Schenck returned to his practice Thanksgiving week in 1918 after being ill with influenza for nearly a month. A 25-year-old whose parents lived in North Sea died at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. 

The unknown previous owner of my secondhand copy of “How to Marry a Multimillionaire: The Ultimate Guide to High Net Worth Dating” (2005) left penciled-in checkmarks next to the self-help points she found most salient and helpful.