Opinion

Whenever my daughters complain about lugging an extra bag of groceries, climbing an extra flight of stairs, or enduring yet another Covid-related frustration, I remind them to “think about Shackleton.”

For the second time in less than a week a man with a gun engaged in a mass shooting. Flags lowered in memory of eight victims in Atlanta had not yet been raised when news broke of the newest outrage, 10 dead in Colorado. Tragedies like this have become so frequent that they cause scarcely a pause as America goes about its day. “Did you hear there was another shooting?” someone asks. Think about that for a moment: another shooting.

As the availability of Covid-19 vaccines improves, we should take a moment to acknowledge the volunteers who have so generously helped get shots into so many arms. This comes at a risky time because the dual effects of pandemic fatigue and a sense, rightly or wrongly, that its end is in sight have led to many people letting down their guard.

I had to say I wasn’t breastfeeding in order for my CVS questionnaire to be accepted, but, what the hell, I’ll say anything to get a shot.

The one I’m to have Sunday, at Mattituck’s CVS, will be my second, and then, two weeks hence, I presume I’ll be home free. Mary is to have hers at the same place the day after mine. Why they couldn’t do us both at the same time I don’t know, but we consider ourselves lucky to get them.

We’ll continue to wear masks and to wash our hands more often than we would have in the past, of course, wanting, as ever, to be good citizens.

There are better ways to keep records than writing in pencil on an exposed two-by-four in the basement, yet it works. For almost 20 years I have been noting the date when the first spring peepers sing out from the swamps alongside Cranberry Hole Road. And, for almost as long, I have marked the arrival dates of the earliest osprey.

Climate change is a fact. Science tells us that atmospheric conditions known as greenhouse gases from human activity are the cause. Electricity production generates about a quarter of emissions, trailing only transportation. This is why last week’s Public Service Commission approval of a key component of the planned South Fork Wind farm is so important. The project would be the first large-scale offshore wind power source in the United States (up to three times the size of Block Island Wind, which came online in 2016), paving the way for more and larger turbine installations.

In my salad days in Manhattan, my friends and I would play a barroom game in which we judged people by their footwear: a sort of reverse fortune telling in which you observed the sartorial selection and made a Gypsy-like pronouncement about who the wearer was. This was the 1990s. An adult male sporting unscuffed Top-Siders with no socks was judged to be a recent grad of Cornell or Duke — possibly Dartmouth — lately arrived on Wall Street, who still kept a poster of Pamela Anderson from “Baywatch” on his wall.

After four years of federal inaction, climate activists are pushing for action on the single-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, transportation accounts for over a quarter of the total and it is growing. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, for the last 30 years, emissions from transportation increased more than any other category. In East Hampton Town, transportation is clearly on the minds of a committee that drafted the town board’s recent climate emergency declaration.

It’s a welcome change that TV has of late become a unifier of families — at least for Marvel fans.

Long Island is in a precarious situation in terms of meeting growing energy demands. So how will the construction of offshore wind farms affect the grid?

The rate of new cases of Covid-19 has slowed on the East End since the end of January, but that does not mean that the public can be any less cautious. Only about a tenth of the Suffolk County population had been fully vaccinated as of this week, well below the number that would begin to stop the spread.

In light of the generous pandemic aid bill passed this week, legislation designed to lighten burdens, perhaps this country can be said at last to have seen the light.

A beleaguered Norway maple in the Star office driveway was brought down this week. How it had survived where it was, surrounded by bluestone pavement, was a testament to these trees’ toughness. In recent years it had begun to shed large branches, which hung up ominously above parked cars. But it also shaded the south side of the building in the summer, providing a screen of green leaves between my office window and the rest of the world.

­ ‘Water, in some respects, is like the Gospel, free, but he who diverts it from its accustomed channels will, in the end, find it expensive.”

These words of excellent wisdom were penned in 1920 by a graybeard named Samuel H. Miller, who grew up in what is now the Baker House, and printed as a letter to the editor in the March 2 edition of this newspaper.

Economically, now is the time to prime the pump, as F.D.R. said. “Do something,” as he also said.

What childhood traits and experiences promote an adulthood commitment to the natural world? A sense of wonder.

“So, what is your weakness?” my foot doctor asked. Aside from not being able to move, I couldn’t think of any.

Frost took the twitter from the dawn songbirds yesterday, which made me pay attention to something that had been at the back of my mind: When does spring start?

The East Hampton Town supervisor shared a truth this week when he explained that keeping sand on the denuded downtown Montauk ocean beach was not something that the town and Suffolk County could afford to do for the long term.

In my youth, the presence of rats — the four-legged kind — in the best zip codes was a source of high humor.

In some ways, it is disappointing that an effort among some Wainscott property owners to carve a new incorporated village out of about five square miles of oceanfront, fields, woodland, and lots of expensive real estate may not reach a vote.

A year into the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, there are many lessons learned, both good and bad. No one could fully anticipate how it would play out here on Long Island, and if one were to prepare a guidebook for the future, there would be plenty to write about.

Budd Schulberg’s “What Makes Sammy Run?” does more than hold up well, its heel of a hero reflects a changing America.

I’ve roamed 23 South Fork graveyards, from Southampton to Sag Harbor. I dig surprises, and what has more surprises per square foot than a cemetery?

I told O’en on our walk the other night that I thought winter was finally over, but he was too preoccupied with the evening’s effluvia to give the matter much thought.

Unlike us, it seems all the same to him whether the weather is fair or foul. He is just as happy to roll splayed out on the snow as he is upon the leaves or grass. He is the most temperate soul in our menage, an avatar of amity, a friend to all, regardless of race, class, creed, gender, age, or political affiliation. We who tend to compare and contrast would do well to learn from him.

At a moment when the country may finally be emerging from the Covid-19 crisis, New Yorkers cannot risk having the state’s top elected official embroiled in a lengthy investigation.

It has been some years since I pulled the iceboats out of the barn. The last time there was enough ice to sail was an early March, the third, I think. Late in the day, a friend and I took the old batwing boat out as heavy clumps of snow came down. It was as if we were sailing among stars.

There is something humorous about having launched a newspaper column of personal musings during the doldrums of a pandemic: Shall I write about how I procured a can of dolmas (stuffed Greek grape leaves) without going inside the grocery store, or shall I thrill the reader with the antics of the lone-ranger raccoon who frequents my backdoor trash bin?

A February break doing nothing much at all can get you thinking . . .

We have a new president. The virus cases are receding, hospitalizations and deaths, too. What is keeping me from yodeling in the streets? Could it be Post-Traumatic Virus Reprogramming Syndrome?