Columnists

As the season changes from the calm quiet of winter to the raucous bustle of spring, the nature preserve where I live is teeming with new life.

Surfing out at Montauk Point last week, I was startled when a seal, make that a really, really big seal, popped its bulbous head out of the water just a few feet from where I sat straddling my board. It was a chilly, windy day, with few birds around and even fewer other surfers. I felt alone, and, had the seal been amorous or angry, there was little around other than me for it to take out its urges upon.

Two small daffodils forced themselves out in the greensward between the sidewalk and a picket fence in front of an old East Hampton house on Main Street about a week ago, and I admire them as I pass by.

“I dreamt I’d won a Peace prize. . . .” “No, no, that was my Peace prize,” corrected Mary, who recently had spent hours straightening out one of my bill-paying gaffes with State Farm, had painstakingly laid the groundwork for a tax grievance, and had raked leaves and edged until she was a physical wreck.

On the way to school on Tuesday morning, one of the kids announced that she and a classmate had a plan if a shooter ever turned up.

What would you do if you unexpectedly found yourself with two hours to kill on a Sunday morning in Manhattan? It didn’t seem civilized to call a friend, before 9 on a Sunday, with my old “flip phone” to ask if I could drop in. Art galleries were not likely to be open yet, and it was too early to go to a movie.

I felt a bit self-righteous — well, a lot self-righteous — the other night when I heard a woman say on the “NewsHour” that Facebook was nothing more than “a surveillance machine.”

Tuesday morning awoke with a snarl. Two raccoons had gotten into the chicken run and were squabbling over something or other, making an indescribable clamor, kind of a blend of exercised chatter, hisses, and a predator’s growl. That roused the dogs, which roused me, and together we ran out to see what was going on.

For four days last week I was immersed in beautiful music with the Choral Society of the Hamptons. At concerts held at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Manhattan, we were privileged to take part in a rare and rousing work — Rossini’s “Petite Messe Solennelle” — alongside virtuoso soloists, a visiting choral director, and gifted musicians at the piano and organ. It was an extraordinary experience.

Walk-off home runs, leadoff grand slams, great pitching, Elroy Face throwing out the first forkball of the season. . . . Is there to be no respite from excellence?

It had not been hard to gather up the thin strips that remained of the receipt, despite the fact that the garbage from the two bags had been strewn by sea gulls across the beach access.

If it’s spring — and we know it doesn’t feel like spring, but it is — it must be time for spring cleaning. In my house that means, at lazy minimum, an examination of closets and drawers.

What struck me most at the March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C., was how eloquent all the speakers, who ranged in age from 11 to 18, were.

Pedestrians in Mumbai have no zebra crossings, no rights, and, by the law of averages, not a long life expectancy. There are barely any traffic lights to give a moment’s grace to those who have to get to the other side. Unencumbered by rules, training, or insurance, Indians drive with an ethereal airbag of reincarnation. They follow no laws of the road, only some eternal and unwritten commandments of existence. Stopping for pedestrians isn’t one of them.

Town Pond was not always a pond, and I have long been fascinated by this bit of historical trivia.

Does a person really revert to childhood in old age? Clearly, that can be true in extremes, as when dementia sets in. But what about ordinary aging, the kind that I and many of my friends now testify to? Our bodies give evidence of our having grown older, sure, but have our minds inevitably followed suit? No way.

The vernal equinox has come and gone, the Northern Hemisphere is tilting toward the sun, and we local sportswriters are not yet saved. Snow on the sodden fields, snow on the tennis courts, snow on the track. . . .

A bald eagle was circling not far above the cupola on George Washington’s Mount Vernon when we visited this week. From the driveway at the end of the house tour, a sharp call could be heard, something like an osprey’s. It was a cold, early spring day, toward closing time, and most of the guests were ready to move on. A federal security guard standing by a wrought-iron stanchion did not look up. Nor did anyone else, as the national bird wheeled around several times and headed down river, still calling.

If you haven’t seen Guild Hall’s “Romeo and Juliet” yet, let me recommend it.

Ulf Nilsson, the Swedish Paralympics’ sled hockey team’s 53-year-old goalie, said, when questioned by a Times sportswriter, Ben Shpigel, that “the best would be to combine the speed I had when I was young and the knowledge I have now . . . that’s the problem with everything.”

My son had already begun sketching out his Pinewood Derby car when word came that the Shelter Island Cub Scouts had invited the Girl Scouts — his older sister among them — to take part this year.

Some years ago now, I took a call at The Star from Jared Kushner, then the dewy-fresh owner of The New York Observer. Mr. Kushner had the idea that during the summer he might somehow bundle his paper with ours as a way to reach Manhattanites whom he might convert come fall to regular Observer readers.

We were expecting guests for dinner the other night when I decided the spread needed a little something more: bread, in particular. Carissa’s Breads, a first-rate bakery off Newtown Lane in the village, was closed, and I wasn’t confident about the choices I was likely to find in a hurry at Stop & Shop (although Nature’s Promise Jewish rye is darn good). So I headed over to Citarella.

Not long ago, during an idyll in Palm Desert, Calif., I was doing the crossword puzzle and the first clue I came across was: “ ‘Serial’ podcast host Sarah.”

Midafternoon on Tuesday, as the snow seemed to be tapering off in East Hampton, I headed out from the Star office to have a look around.

Copies of The Star’s 100th anniversary edition were dug out recently for the edification of several new staff members, and we found ourselves reminiscing about people who worked here over the years.

“It’s sooo nice,” the young woman behind the counter at Trish Franey’s liquor store said last Wednesday evening.

It was strange, walking around an upscale Bangkok shopping mall, to happen upon the horrifying images captured by Nick Ut.

I am old enough and have lived in the same spot long enough to have a sense of how things should and should not be. The bay has been at odds with what should be, but scientists tell us this is the new normal.

As far as I recall, our little ARFan is the first dog I’ve ever taken on walks. In the old days, whether we were living in Amagansett or here in the village, we simply opened the door and let our dogs roam free. This was the common practice well into the 1990s.