Columnists

The train was like the Hogwarts Express, but only for women. An insider’s knowledge was needed to locate its whereabouts. Even the stationmaster, who sat under a twirling fan in his office of cockeyed grandeur, could only waggle his head and say, “No idea,” when I asked what time the next Ladies Special train would leave Bandra — a neighborhood of Mumbai — for Borivali, at the northwestern end of the city.

First off, I confess that I had no idea “Mad Men,” the popular cable-television series about the Madison Avenue advertising world of the 1960s, had arrived 10 years ago and continued for seven seasons. I was certainly slow on the uptake even though I had a vague interest in the show’s time and place.

Now what shall I write about this week. . . ? Silly question. Of course it’s John 3:16!

I know it’s St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s not corned beef and cabbage I’ve been wanting. It’s a Reuben sandwich: corned beef, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese, on grilled rye. There is nothing wrong with a good, traditional corned beef and cabbage supper — with boiled potatoes, I can taste it right now! — and maybe this evening I might find myself tucking in at the St. Pat’s dinner being thrown by the Lions Club of Sag Harbor, at the Whalers Church. But, still, as far as I’m concerned, a Reuben is in a class by itself.

It is a cliché for travelers to return from abroad marveling about rail transportation in another country. But, having just gotten back from Japan, where the trains, as they say, run on time, I must indulge.

What is it about staying in one place or, for that matter, moving around? I moved around a fair bit in younger days and still think of myself as that kind of footloose spirit, but the truth is I’ve been living in one place, here on the East End, for upwards of three decades, and in my little house on an old field lot in Springs for more than a quarter century.

People used to be surprised when I said that the beach along the southern reach of Gardiner’s Bay has eroded at about a foot a year since about the time I was born. When my parents had a small house moved to the property in the early 1960s, there were just over 400 feet between Cranberry Hole Road and the high tide line. One of these days, I’ll go look at a neighbor’s recent survey on file at East Hampton Town Hall to know for sure, but I’d say the distance is no more than 360 feet today.

Last week was the first birthday of the rest of my life.

A handful of parents, a batch of schoolchildren, and a pair of grandparents, including me, went to East Hampton High School on Sunday to see “In the Heights,” this year’s musical, and to say we were glad we had done so would be an understatement; we were blown away.

Recently, I moved some of the Durants’ volumes, about 20 pounds’ worth, from my office bookcase to make room for others equally as edifying.

At a time when Americans are lining up on opposite sides of what seems to be an increasingly wide divide, it was heartening that the film “Moonlight” won the best picture Oscar on Sunday night. The story of “Moonlight” follows the physical and emotional trials besetting a boy growing to manhood in one of Miami’s poorest black neighborhoods, Liberty City.

David Brooks lamented the other day that Americans are tending to stay put, while in the past they moved about quite a bit, were more adventurous. The short answer to that, I think, is health care’s exigencies.

Leo the pig does not do much in the winter. Actually, Leo, a house pet of unusual size, never does much at all. It’s just that on these early mornings, when I sit at the kitchen table thinking about what to write as he stands idly by, his easy ways are more obvious.

If digitization makes keeping track of everyone and everything easy, what do those of us with old, pre-computer address books do with them? I don’t remember how I managed to get all the information from my Rolodex transferred to my computer; perhaps I spent long nights keyboarding (or maybe I hired someone)?

Late on Sunday afternoon, only a few people were left on the trail down to Amsterdam Beach.

The name Dita Von Teese meant nothing to me, so I thought of nothing as M. and I neared the marquee at the Gramercy Theatre, where the burlesque dancer would soon take the stage and command the gathered crowd.

Asked by a colleague, with whom I share a birthday, how I’d spent mine, I said, “On the tarmac, in Houston — they couldn’t get us to a gate for the better part of an hour and kept thanking us for our patience.”

“So,” said Perry Silver, my dentist, looking at the chart. “You’re 76.”

The Rev. Samuel Buell never made clear exactly what kind of sin he was talking about in his account of an outpouring of Christian faith he observed in East Hampton in the winter of 1764.

On August 1981, Judge Shepard Frood married Christa and me under the big oak tree in front of East Hampton’s Town Hall. We moved to Los Angeles two months later to break into the movie business.

What do you do when you get up in the morning? Many people — provided they don’t, say, have proverbial buses to meet or children to stuff into snowsuits and send out the door to school — turn to the news of the outside world. My husband picks up his cellphone and checks out The New York Times right after waking, even though I remind him that the daily print edition is waiting just outside the door.

The day after the election, I was so freaked out that I moved all of my furniture around. I get it: the need to make myself feel safe, nesting in a time of crisis, etc. Well, it worked out, but not completely.

“In Aleppo Once” is a 1969 memoir by Taqui Altounyan, who spent most of her young life in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo, where her Armenian father and grandfather were doctors and her grandfather was revered because he established its only hospital after World War I. He had studied medicine in New York, coming to the United States with the help of American missionaries he had met during the Armenian genocide. Altounyan’s mother was an Englishwoman.

I want to begin by thanking our granddaughter Ella, who’s 8, for having turned my wife’s Ping-Pong game around, for having raised her Ping-Pong self-esteem (the fiery competitive spirit she’s always had) so that Mary and I are now on an even keel Ping-Pong-wise.

This week’s snow notwithstanding, this winter has been a letdown, at least as far as ice goes. For skating the only option has been to pay for time on one of the local rinks. Likewise, the chance that there will be iceboating this year declines every day that we get closer to March.

Well, it is true. I am a liberal and I sleep in. But so did my father, who was a Vermont Republican. As in politics, so in dress. I still have his black linen tie, which he often wore with a white shirt and a dark jacket, to such an extent that a woman once said he “shrieked of conservatism.”

Time was that people here bent small oaks to mark property lines. They were called lop fences, and more than a few remain visible on roadsides if you know where to look. Or not look; what seems to be a lop fence can be found at the edge my house lot in Amagansett on a plot of land that has been in the family since the 19th century.

On a cold and slippery afternoon this week, I found myself immersed in conversation about an idyllic summer house. And this time I could understand — or, I should say, almost understand — why some people who have tons of money would pay unbelievable sums for a summer rental. It really was gorgeous, with a long history, miles of lawn, and miles of white oceanfront sand.

The media had it all wrong. Don’t tell me the Steelers didn’t win that A.F.C. championship game with the Patriots. It just goes to show you to what lengths the lackeys of the press will go to distort the truth.

Sprinting down the asphalt path at Lowenstein Court in Montauk late Monday afternoon to get a look at the ocean before the light faded, I had a passing thought about how excited many of us who live on the East End get about a good northeaster.