Columnists

A Star editor tries out a surprisingly injury-free exercise regimen: no warm-up, no cooldown, no stretching, no preparation whatsoever.

There used to be a bumper sticker you’d see around here that urged everyone to “strive for excellence,” not a bad admonition, though I’d prefer “strive for beauty.”

The East Hampton Town Democratic Party faced a significant primary in June, proving that intraparty differences of opinion were alive and well even though Democrats fill nearly all the town’s elected positions. It also marked a turning point for me.

There would have been agave-hibiscus margaritas at the beach party, but someone lost the bag of ingredients in the sand.

The distance between East Hampton and Southold is about 21 miles, and I am happy to say that despite the proximity, the latter has not been Hamptonized. Of course, even if you are traveling by ferry, it can take more than an hour to reach one town from the other.

‘We all have issues . . .” a fellow player said as he surveyed us, the three of us being well along in life, following a recent tennis doubles match. Heads nodded.

At the risk of self-aggrandizing, let me tell you what I did early Monday morning.

It’s a cliché around here to say, “I’ve never seen so many people in town!” but everyone agrees there really never were so many people in East Hampton than on the July Fourth weekend just past, and the days leading up to it.

I had just written about a “rite of summer,” namely the first day of the 2019 junior lifeguarding season, and was inspired, therefore, to take part in another, namely the opening for the season of our outdoor shower.

Sometime after 10 p.m. on the Fourth of July, the brake lights from stopped cars on Montauk Highway curved west from where we stood on the sidewalk outside Pizza Village. Like thousands of other spectators, we had come to Montauk for the fireworks, and now everyone it seemed wanted to go home.

On a day that I thought I should stay in bed — dragged down temporarily by a cough that came hand in hand with the fecund delights of spring — I went instead with Mary on a bus trip to the New York Botanical Garden, returning, if not cured, enlivened by what I’d seen.

This has been a fine week to be a bird. Judging from the noise outside the window before dawn, they are fat and happy — especially those that eat insects. This has also been a fine week, or year actually, to be a mosquito.