Letters to the Editor 11.05.15

Made Reunion a Reality

Springfield, Va.

October 27, 2015

Dear Mr. Rattray,

The East Hampton High School Class of 1960 held a 55th reunion on Oct. 17 at the Osteria Salina restaurant in Wainscott. It was a most enjoyable evening that enabled those present to reconnect, reminisce, and reflect. Classmates and guests from as far away as California and the U.K., as well as those residing locally, were in attendance.

I know that I speak for all who were present in thanking the planning committee for making this reunion a reality. Gary DeAmario, Doris DiSunno, Joan Diamandis Field, and Irene Leonard Scott spent hours arranging the evening, tracking down “lost” classmates, and compiling a class directory for each of us. Daniel Webb composed and read a humorous poem that recollected classroom seating arrangements way back then! Dan also provided a CD of music hits from our high school years for us. Irene Scott created her delicious chocolates for us to enjoy as parting favors.

All in all, this reunion was a most pleasant evening that reminded us of how fortunate we were to have experienced our teenage years as East Hampton High School students 55 years ago!

Again, many thanks to the reunion planning committee for their dedication and efforts in making this event such a success.

Sincerely,

OSEPHONE BENNETT

DOMINGUES

Kindness and Support

East Hampton

October 19, 2015

Dear David,

With great sadness I said goodbye to my husband of 33 years.

Thank you for the lovely obituary by Christopher Walsh.

I want to thank all of my friends and cohorts, neighbors, buddies and pals, co-workers, and folks I don’t know well at all, who sent cards and messages of kindness and support, cherry tomatoes, flowers, and delicious soup and lasagna. I am also happy for the electronic support — in this modern world a message sent from California or Nashville comes in seconds. No air travel necessary to attend a “virtual memorial” online.

It might seem odd, but it’s really fun to wake up and see who emailed a funny photo from the old days, or to hear about old friends reconnecting electronically over the Facebook page of my late husband. Thank you to everyone who made an effort to help a new widow get her sea legs.

Most sincerely,

DURELL GODFREY

An Alien Presence

East Hampton

Oct. 27, 2015

To the Editor:

While much rain did not fall on Long Island this growing season, rain was abundant in northern New England. That rain produced a nut crop that expanded the rodent population beyond any I had seen in 50 years. I had never seen red squirrels, gray squirrels, and chipmunks all inhabiting the same areas in large numbers at the same time. What happened when these nuts started to fall to the ground last month resembled the frenzy of the Serengeti Plain. From sunrise to sunset the rodents went gathering food for the winter.

If you want to know what it feels like to be a human on an alien planet, drop yourself into this frenzy, as I did. I was there to pour cement for a deck post. Unloading the post, I stood still as a gray squirrel approached. It came up to my boot, paused, and then sniffed at my boot. For its weight and size a gray squirrel is a strong animal. It was obvious it had never seen or encountered a human before. It wasn’t running away. I began to worry it would climb up my leg or take up the challenge of biting into a steel-toed boot to see if I was edible. Then it looked up at me. The movement of its head and eyes and the expression on its face reminded me of a child that has been told to eat some unappetizing vegetable. It was the look of disgust. But I recognized that at this moment of alien encounter everything I thought I knew the squirrel felt wasn’t about the squirrel but was about me. Survival instincts took over. I moved and made a sound, and the gray squirrel scampered off.

This brings me to the more intimate subject of the chipmunk. Chipmunks are territorial and aggressive in chasing off other chipmunks. This aggressiveness might account for their low numbers in my backyard in East Hampton, where they appear in the spring and are decimated in numbers by the feral cat population by summer. He who hesitates is lost. I never see them in the fall.

My deck post was to rest upon one of the entryways to a chipmunk’s den. At first the chipmunk raced along its path to this hole, from where it had gathered nuts with incredible speed. But then it discovered the alien in its path because it almost ran over the alien! It had never seen a human either, and it didn’t choose to run away. Without the hoard of nuts it was building it wouldn’t survive the winter. I knew I was an obstacle to its survival. The chipmunk put on a real display. It came to within a few feet of me, made sounds, got on its hind legs, chirped at me while I worked, and treated me like a pest that it wanted to go away. Then it went back to surviving. Soon I found it running between my legs, showing up in unexpected places, looking for food where I had disturbed the earth, and hesitating on its runway to its burrow for me to get out of the way.

We co-existed in the same space.

To close up one of the entryways to its burrow I waited until dark, and put a rock over the opening with enough wiggle room for the chipmunk to push its way in if it had to. The next morning I observed the chipmunk from a distance. It went up to the rock, sniffed at it, turned around, and looked at me in the distance. I had become a serious nuisance. It now took longer for the chipmunk to get to its other hole, but that is where it now went.

So the scene was like this: cement mixer churning, me shoveling cement, chipmunk on its runway a foot away to its hidden hole.

One day when I had finished that portion of the raised deck I looked up to find the chipmunk now using my deck as a shortcut to a nearby tree. I had built it a new skyway.

Several weeks later, an unexpected early frost and snowfall put an end to this rodent frenzy. Where once you could not walk 10 feet without encountering a chipmunk, red squirrel, or gray squirrel racing about gathering food, the woods were silent and cold.

What did I learn from this? Unlike East Hampton’s animal rights advocates, I do not suffer from the illusion that these little mammals have human-like emotions. In their world I was at best an alien presence, a nuisance, and a non-entity. Once they determined I was not a predator I was like paint on the wall. I was irrelevant to the business of gathering nuts for their survival in their world. If I had dropped dead from a heart attack from the effort of lifting cement they would have continued on with their concerns, not mine.

Recently I came across a map of sea levels and what East Hampton would look like if the polar ice caps melted enough to raise sea levels 50 feet by 2100. Montauk is an island, and the waterfront in Springs moves inland enough to drown the school and cut off Springs from access to the rest of East Hampton on the county roads.

If that happens I can guarantee you that not a chipmunk or squirrel will care. They have a survival plan for their species, built over millions of years of trial and effort. We, on the other hand, seem indifferent to our own survival whether as a community or a species. We just keep electing those politicians. You know, those sirens of the deep.

PAUL FIONDELLA

Dogs on the Beach

East Hampton

October, 28, 2015

To the Editor,

This past summer showed great improvement over past years for law enforcement policing our beaches. Village police issued more summonses than ever before to people who “walk” dogs on the beach at inappropriate times, unrestrained or in an improper manner. Well done.

So why is there poop on the beach? Why are village beaches dirtier, more dangerous, and offer less solace than ever before?

Because the mayor was right.

Many village board meetings ago, Paul Rickenbach warned me that I was hurting my own cause by asking for a solution to the devastating and ever-increasing problem of dogs on the beach. I didn’t know why, but by trying to bring awareness to the trustees of the abuse to our most precious resource I brought awareness to the use of village beaches as a toilet, and more and more selfish, inconsiderate people are rushing to pollute our beaches like victims of a new fashion trend.

We look to the trustees to protect our resources and our access to them. The beaches are no longer safe or accessible when lifeguards are off duty. Before 9 a.m., after 6 p.m. or any time after Sept. 30, beaches are no longer safely or comfortably accessible unless you are accompanied by a dog or, as recommended by police and the Suffolk County Department of Health, you go to the beach armed. It is threatening to be on the beach after 6 or after Sept. 30. To reiterate: When no lifeguards are on duty, it is safer to go swimming at midnight than to sit on the beach and watch the sunset.

The trustees are mandated to maintain the rural character of East Hampton Village. Walking a dog — a euphemism for taking it somewhere to watch it urinate and defecate — is an urban activity. Out of necessity, citiots, living stacked atop one another in high-rising apartment buildings, take the dog for a “walk” twice a day to watch it urinate on their neighbor’s doorstep and defecate on the sidewalk. Walking a dog is not a rural activity, and paying someone to do it for you is certainly not. There are professional dog-walkers now using the beaches as a latrine. Chauffeuring a dog at its beckoning to the beach to watch it take a poop so you can pick it up, bare-handed, with a plastic bag, is not Bonac! Few if any of the people ruining the landscape are even residents, and none of them have the courtesy of having a beach permit.

I am not going to be the next mayor. I want to thank everyone who had the confidence in me to ask me to run, and the many people who supported that request. Paul Rickenbach has been mayor for more than 20 years. He has the experience, political savvy, and cronyism of a career policeman and, with his pension, can afford to devote full-time attention to the office of mayor despite its part-time salary. He is uniquely qualified for the post. After more than two decades in office, dogs on the beach are still an ever-increasing menace; the PSEG poles are still standing, the summertime cacophony from leaf blowers and their resultant air pollution continue to plague us, and there are so many illegal aliens here now that they have a check-cashing office in the heart of downtown.

If such a well-qualified man as Mr. Rickenbach is so impotent as mayor to do anything about these and other problems with so very many years in office, I don’t feel that a common concerned citizen such as myself could do much better.

Thanks for the encouragement. I will, in my unofficial capacity, continue to work with the entire village board.

MATT NORKLUN

A Traffic Nightmare

Amagansett

November 1, 2015

To the Editor:

Wake up, Amagansett!

What is going on with the proposed 7-Eleven site in Amagansett? The dialogue has gone from “no 7-Eleven” over the past few years, due to town ordinances preventing chain stores, to granting access from the I.G.A. parking lot to the so-called “mystery store.”

What happened here, and where is the transparency of our zoning board that by default has granted site approval due to a technical oversight? Who is accountable for this, and why is it being swept under the rug of incompetence in secrecy?

What is at stake here is our way of life in this small and charming hamlet. Where is the traffic study that validates access to the post office, the I.G.A. and other local commerce, and the 7-Eleven, all through two access points, while assuring the safety of the elderly in the senior living complex across the street and easy access to the medical complex and offices directly in front of the proposed 7-Eleven — not to mention the future development of the land between the proposed store and V & V Auto, which is slated for more condos!

Good luck trying to make a left turn on Montauk Highway in either direction or a senior needing to cross the street at the crosswalk on 27 to buy a quart of milk.

Wake up, people! We are being taken for a ride by the zoning board and it is in a traffic-congested nightmare that will change the character of our village forever. Have we learned nothing from the congestion and issues created with the 7-Elevens in Southampton, Montauk, and Sag Harbor? Due to insufficient parking, heavy truck traffic in and out, and foot traffic from day laborers hoping to find work.

In a village that is still in the planning stages of a public bathroom after 10 years of site studies and debate, I find it incredible that we let a major chain store sneak in through the back door in what looks more and more like a backroom deal that will create a traffic nightmare.

CHARLES WEILMAN

Trustee Evolvement

Amagansett

October 30, 2015

Dear David,

As you may be aware, my family held the Nicholls Patent, which created the Dongan Patent, from which spawned the East Hampton Town Trustees.

One of my trustee friends (a lady) cites these 17th-century patents as being among “the earliest forms of representative government.” Perhaps so — but only representative of men!

If you were a woman in the 17th century, outspoken as my friend is, you came in about equal to a nice trestle table. If you were a woman in the 17th century in East Hampton Town, you would not even be in the room with the trustees!

The trustee patents of the 17th century brief — to “serve the people” and “strike down all discord” — were not talking about Deb and me. Oh, la, not at all.

I’m rather pleased with the trustee evolvement to 2015 and beyond. Sometimes, don’t you think “now” is much better than “then”?

All good things,

DIANA WALKER

Priorities Out of Whack

East Hampton

November 2, 2015

To the Editor,

The Republican debate last week featured a strange group of poorly trained seals, but no conservatives. The lack of conservatives guaranteed that the subject of the U.S. military would be off the table for discussion. All present genuflect before our military complex in a fawning betrayal of the American people and our soldiers. Every word uttered about the budget and deficits is total bullshit if the military is not the primary point of the conversation.

The question of big government versus small government is raised but is really a P.C. issue, P.C. being defined as “phony conservatives,” not “politically correct.” The size of our government is a function of the ability or our economy to create jobs. When growth based on capital investment overwhelmed growth based on labor and demand functions, the government stepped in and became the largest employer in the country. If the powers don’t need labor to increase wealth the dilemma becomes what to do with all these useless workers. Government size and job creation are intertwined in a complex balance of maintaining the political stability of the country. No jobs, no stability.

Our military is another issue. If 9/11 hadn’t really happened we would have probably created it. The insertion of the military into the war on terror breathed new life into a moribund, anachronistic part of our government. Conventional wars have become a thing of the past, and the conventional threats to the country have virtually disappeared. Protecting the country and American interests abroad became a no-brainer. The question was, from whom?

Having the best-trained soldiers with the most sophisticated weaponry guarantees that no other country could attack us. But, who would? The combined militaries of the entire world don’t come close to equaling ours and don’t spend nearly as much money as ours does. If the rest of the world turned on the U.S. we would have the capacity to fight them off. So, when we identify Cuba, Venezuela, Korea, and Iran as threats to our security, we are selling wolf papers garbage to the American people.

Our nuclear missile capacity allows us to blow up the world at least 10 times over. Since we are the only ones who have ever used nuclear weapons; the rest of the world looks at us with an enormous amount of trepidation. How many members of Congress still talk about bombing Iran to avoid Iran getting the bomb? There are crazies everywhere, but only a few of them have the bomb.

From a cost-benefit perspective, what we get from our military makes no sense. Spending trillions for security we already have, and not having the capability to win a war in Afghanistan against an insurgency with a smaller budget than the March of Dimes, is at best wasteful. It becomes criminal when we look at the alternative uses of the money and at the growing deficits.

Our military is like an open wound that we refuse to treat and pretend that it doesn’t exist. At what point do our leaders rationally assess what we have, what we need, and what we get? The trillions of dollars in postwar compensation from Iraq and Afghanistan are unsustainable, so we will be obligated to royally screw our soldiers at some point down the road.

The problem is that when you have an enormous industry like our military-industrial complex that spends several trillion dollars annually and employs a million people, how does it get brought under control? What happens to the states that thrive on military spending? The companies that supply its products? The people employed to keep it functioning? The P.C.s rant about deficits and entitlements because they think the money is wasted. Philosophically, if we were really into saving money and reducing the deficit we would cut the military in half and not pretend we were at risk.

We have no serious discussions about our system and our economy. Our military is sacrosanct at a time when we are shredding the middle class. Our priorities are out of whack, and we move automatically with our heads in the sand. It’s not surprising that 9/11 and Iraq happened, but its hard to fathom why they don’t merit some serious reflection on how our country functions.

NEIL HAUSIG

Bolt of Cacophony

Amagansett

November 2, 2015

To the Editor,

The Teflon Madame, a.k.a. Mrs. Clinton, analogous to Richard Nixon and his Watergate criminal activity. The Benghazi questioning was the most enormous bolt of cacophony ever. The American people it seems lost their voice and succumbed again to puppets.

Now it seems the Republicans have to speak for themselves, because the country has been in dire trouble for seven years. The worst of it being re-electing Obama to a second term in office, putting everyone in the line of fire. Hopefully in January 2017 when B.O. leaves his office America will become great again.

Wake up, America!

LINDA PRINCE