Columnists

Calling myself a country mouse may sound disingenuous, but the truth is that my knowledge of cinema comes almost entirely from visits to the local Regal and Sag Harbor Cinemas — and at most times of the year I only rarely go to the movies, waiting to hear of a film that is really good.

The last best hope for America, I’ve always thought, lay with the Kennedys, whose spirit was of the sort that would get us working with each other and for each other, but that was a long time ago, and, yes, in a different country.

As has been previously established in the pages of this newspaper, I am a nerd. But I have mostly considered myself an extroverted kind of nerd who never really had a problem making friends, whether in elementary school, summer camp, high school, or college (junior high, of course, being the exception, but let’s not talk about that).

For those who surf, like me, there should be a moment when we realize that waves like those generated by distant hurricanes which are so pleasurable to us meant death and property loss to others. The paradox should come with a sense of obligation.

Suppose we were chatting and I said, “I just got back from the SHAMF and went directly to East Hampton Town Hall because the board was discussing FIMP.”

Had I met Larry Brown at the pickup games the other night, I would, had I not been barred at the gates — “No media,” they said, though, looking about, it seemed I was the sole medium around — have told him that were he to coach here I intended to become the legal guardian of our 10 and 7-year-old basketball-crazed grandsons who live in Perrysburg, Ohio.

Why are there Russian teenagers wearing $700 down parkas on the popcorn line at the East Hampton Cinema?

A funny thing happened on the way to the Concerned Citizens of Montauk forum. I had been invited to take part by its president, Jeremy Samuelson, and had expected the subject for Saturday’s discussion might include summertime crowds, water quality, and short-term rentals. But as it turned out, the nearly two-hour meeting centered on only one thing: the United States Army Corps of Engineers sandbag seawall.

The editorial staff at The Star, who share the responsibility of gathering information for and writing obituaries, consider it a high calling. It has been our mission to portray each life of someone in this community as fully as possible, and, over the years, our obituaries — be they of a person of renown or someone known only to those near to them — have achieved significant recognition. We feel bad if we are unable to present a decent portrait of someone who has lived among us and died.

David Brooks wrote the other day about the lack of trust in our society, and how corrosive that is when it comes to a thriving democracy.

I never quite realized I was one of those people who loves throwing things out. When I was growing up, I had this relative who enjoyed “chucking” this and that — that’s how she would refer to it. It always seemed so odd to me that she seemed to get a euphoric feeling just by placing something she considered a piece of garbage in the trash. Euphoria might not be quite how I would describe it, but, damn, purging does feel good.

My own best debate story came to mind on Monday as I watched Lester Holt try to wrangle Donald Trump into answering a question about a previous statement regarding Hillary Clinton’s looks. Mr. Trump would not answer, and I wondered what was going through Mr. Holt’s mind at that awkward moment.

A lithe, strong man drove a Mack truck into the backyard on Tuesday, delivering a 30-yard Dumpster. I didn’t have a notion about what a 30-yard Dumpster was or how it would look, although we have had what I think is a 2-yard version in the yard for quite some time.

Two young women, Mormons as I learned, appeared at our door one late afternoon recently, and they were very pleasant even though I confessed I was no longer a churchgoer, which, of course, did not mean, I said, that I did not have a spiritual side.

With my kids in school once again and summer’s end this week, I have had a nagging sense of urgency about getting everything in.

What makes you choose chicken noodle soup rather than gazpacho when they appear next to each other at your favorite takeout shop? Is it mood or weather? One is the quintessential comfort food, the other somehow jaunty and zingy, bringing to mind an artists’ lunch under an arbor in Andalusia.

The phone rang and, seeing it was my daughter, I answered it. Why, she wondered, was I not already at the Hampton Classic?

I have always been able to draw. Not Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci draw, but I have always had the knack to make a thing look like the thing it is supposed to be.

Standing on the ocean beach in Montauk with East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cant­well on Tuesday, the question was why the downtown waterfront strip is the way it is. High waves from Hermine, a post-tropical cyclone by the time it passed Long Island last week, had eaten away almost all the fill that a United States Army Corps of Engineers contractor had placed there in the spring. As we looked over the damage, Larry pointed out that the sand level was more or less back where it had been when the corps project began.

I had been saying that I was going to Nova Scotia, but that turned out to be one of those typically American mistakes about Canadian geography that so horrify our neighbors to the north: Prince Edward Island, which we visited last week, sits above Nova Scotia and is a province of its own.

“This is the day the Lord hath made / rejoice and be glad in it,” I said to Mary as we and the puppy, whose first outing to Louse Point it was, took turns remarking on the glorious, cloud-filled sky, the light-green marsh grass, the gentle shore, the dark water, and the darker treeline beyond.

I came home from work two Tuesdays ago to find my 8-year-old daughter wearing a fancy summer dress, with her hair brushed nicely after a day at camp. “I’m ready to meet Hillary,” she announced.

Shorebirds, sanderlings, probably, dashed ahead of the uprushing water at Wiborg’s Beach on Monday evening as storm waves broke all the way out to the horizon. Hermine, which started as a tropical depression in the Florida Straits about a week earlier, had crossed into the Atlantic and by then had drifted to within 200 miles of Long Island.

Perhaps someone among our readers knows where a bundle of damp beach things came from and will tell me. I found it on an upholstered stool near the living room door one afternoon in early August, and accused my 15-year-old grandson of knowing who left it there. He had arrived that day alone and left on foot and was as puzzled as I.

I remember Arthur Roth likened dying to getting on a train. Here comes the train, he said, soon before he did. I’ve got to get on.

They never should have done it. They never should have released the news that coffee wasn’t bad for you, was in fact good for you, so you might as well drink till your chromosomes start crackling.

A biblical-grade plague descended on Montauk in recent days, according to residents and visitors. And what has people talking is not the oversupply of bros and hipsters.

Who would have thought an audience at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater listening to a panel discussion on “Presidential Politics” would take to booing and hissing? But, yes, that’s what happened on Aug. 15. Even Ken Auletta, the eminent writer, appeared nonplused in his role as moderator.

I had given one of my best sermons ever, though the phone, I discovered, had gone dead.

Some months ago, I wrote an essay, here in The Star, titled “The Last California Christmas.” It was about the last Christmas my family spent at my parents’ house on the West Coast.