Opinion

East Hampton Town could once again set an example in banning balloons, but is it going a step too far?

May 17: Maybe that can be another “new normal.” It’d be good to get Tax Day a bit away from a risen Christ and the Easter Bunny.

One summer evening in 1943 I ran to Dad with a big request: It was time for a Daisy air rifle.

I probably should buy “Computers for Dummies,” but, given all the advances, it might be antiquated already.

The second round of dandelions has begun. Their bright yellow heads are close to the ground for the moment, as the seed puffs bob, waiting for a gust of wind.

It’s hard to remember what it felt like to walk around light and airy, believing that the world was getting better every passing year — rather than walking around as I do these days, with the chronic, sciatic understanding that everything is going to hell in a handbasket.

This week, East Hampton Village and the Village of Sag Harbor both implemented a pay-for-parking system that required users to download a smartphone app. This seems a lot to ask of both residents and visitors alike.

Even in a slow year, there were 12,500 flights in or out of the airport — an astonishing number in itself that should tell you that our kind-of quiet skies are about to get a whole lot louder as Covid-19 restrictions ease.

The high school prom: fun or fraught?

Memories of heavenly dates at Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor in Queens trigger thoughts of the recent loss of Scoop du Jour here in East Hampton.

While it would be nice to write off all state income and property taxes, as we used to, I’m willing to stand the gaff if it means that President Biden’s broad spending plan will pass. The New York legislators who have said they won’t vote for the bill if our state income and property tax write-offs remain capped at $10,000, should abandon that stand in favor of the greater good.

School district elections are Tuesday, and we encourage residents to take part. While there is a dearth of contested school board races, important ballot measures are proposed in Springs, Sagaponack, Sag Harbor, Montauk, and Amagansett.

I had a feeling that Tuesday morning was going to be weird. When Weasel, the Lab mix, rousted me around 4:30 to go outside, the peeper frogs in the swamp were especially worked up and a whippoorwill sang from a tree in the driveway so close that I could hear a clicking he made between choruses. Click. Whip-poor-will. Click. I went back upstairs and put my head down on a pillow.

Have you seen the commercial for Extra sugar-free gum, set “sometime in the not too distant future,” in which — as Celine Dion sings “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” — citizens freed from lockdown rush giddily into the streets, pop a spearmint slice into their mouth, and leap into the arms of strangers to make out?

A soaring vertical space broken up by horizontal catwalks, railings, and landings. This is what preservation can look like . . .

Time spent on the beach with a father, and the details a daughter remembers.

Sag Harbor Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy put it well during a public forum last week when she said that the village has the power to control the use, size, and character of development.

A fellow tennis player said the other day that he assumed I’d not been very busy lately, though I assured him I had been inasmuch as the high school teams had been pretty much in full swing since the end of February.

Nothing screams “suburban streetscape!” quite so loudly as Belgian block.

My son, bless his cotton socks, is of a scientific mind.

We can only hope that the more than 1,200 people who signed a petition demanding fast action for the eroded Montauk ocean beaches now begin to understand the folly in waiting for the federal government to save the day.

The East Hampton Independence Party’s support for a slate of candidates this week is important because it instantly injects a hearty dose of democracy back into the race.

History runs deep on the South Fork, and well recorded is the spelling Noyack, not Noyac. With the all-important K.

I think my interest in history, as in the history of the Presbyterian churches in Springs and Amagansett, is an extension of looking into my history. Who am I?

When East Hampton Town first floated the idea of running its own vaccination clinics, we were skeptical the town could pull it off. And now we are happy to have been proven wrong.

This may not be the best advertisement for the book of “Point of View” columns I intend to publish, a book to be known as “Essays From Eden,” but Mary nearly keeled over in proofreading them this past week.

This is a good time to bring up the longer-term question of sharing superintendents among the South Fork’s smaller districts.

A volcanic eruption on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent highlights the difficulty of living without electricity.

The only good use for a fence, in my opinion, is for leaning on while watching your kid play team sports in the sunshine in a field behind a school.

Once more unto the darkened theater — for escape or togetherness?