As Meryl Streep’s character, Sister Aloysius sobs in the final moments of the heartwarming holiday film classic, Doubt — I have doubts.  Though, for the record — I have no doubt Father Flynn was guilty.  Please, with those nails?

Now I doubt there is a single theater person reading this who is not thinking: “Correction!  You unsophisticated, rustic beast — Doubt was originally a play — on Broadway.”  I also doubt any of those broadminded Broadway types know — that I know ­— all about John Patrick Shanley’s little Pulitzer Prize™-and Tony Award™-winning production.  Starring the two time Tony Award™-winning Cherry Jones.  Since I cannot cross the Shinnecock Canal without the toll being a debilitating migraine — I never saw the play.  I watched the movie.  On pay-per-view.

I doubt I will ever see the inside of a cinema again.  Not since an unfortunate dispute with a barbaric theater manager during a broiling, airless, garbage-strewn screening of WALL•E.

During the holidays (Thanksgiving through Labor Day) it’s only natural for those of us with a pulse to have doubts, lose faith, and grapple with a bout of uncertainty.  Or,  in my case — a particularly virulent, prolonged case of shingles.  When the myth of merriment eclipses the truth inside us all, how can you not question what’s really going on?  Feel a bit down?  Sob with preternatural, dramatic genius like Meryl?

I find it best to face even the most unpleasant feelings as they come up.  Head on.  Once I’m completely unconscious.

Every night for the past three weeks, I have had a recurring holiday-themed nightmare — so disturbing — I wake up swallowing my tongue.  Except for one aberrant apparition last Sunday featuring decidedly non holiday-themed cameos by Brad Paisley, Peyton Manning, George — and Rosemary — Clooney.  I still woke up gagging.  But it had its moments.

For perspective, I will provide a standardized unit for measuring fear in dreams — based on cold, hard, rogue science.  I call it: The Travis Night Terror Factor of Fear From One to Five.

A level “one” dream might contain a brief clip from the Kate Hudson/Sandra Bullock/Sarah Jessica Parker/Matthew McConaughey romantic, romp-with-an-unexpected-twist — The Wedding Sniper.  Undoubtedly due in theaters nationwide any day now.

At the far end of the scale, is a level “five” dream.  Which would involve me — finding the detached-at-the-hip leg of a daddy long legs spider mid-chew and mid-way through — a fried clam strip platter.  Again.  The first time was no dream.  Thanks un-named (sounds like “crunch”), crazy-popular local seafood joint!

The festive reverie triggering my most recent apneas is completely off the scale.  (Great!  Now I have to revisit that whole “Fear Factor Night Terror” thing.)  Lately, instead of dancing sugarplums and Pussycat Dolls — my neocortex has been churning out the following Currier and Ives negative:

It’s Christmas Eve.  And in the midst of a malignant economy, I’m strolling down a totally bogus street.  In a 100%, inauthentic seaside resort town.  Let’s say…”Newberry Lane.”  In…”  East Hamsandwich.”

As I pass by Newberry Lane’s impossibly clean storefront windows, I’m confronted by the same hollow-eyed, sallow-skinned, worried specter of my own reflection.  Apparently, certain aspects of dreams are wincingly accurate.  Gazing past my disappointed mug, I focus on the content of each retail display — featuring one criminally-out-of-touch, luxe-gone-wild, merchandising nightmare-within-a-nightmare after the next.  Did East Hamsandwich not get that memo re: The Great Recession?

One curiously named clothing store — “Fußball” — caters to recent college graduates flush with cash.  (Perhaps that memo is buried under the latest issue of Cigar Aficionado?)  Fußball’s aggressively pretty display features youthful mannequins with over-whitened, toothy grins (Dreams are so surreal — imagine bleaching one’s teeth to the cusp of translucence ever being en vogue!) — all sporting cashmere-lined, patent alligator fishing bibs and embossed anaconda leather hip waders.  With ermine trim.  Of course.

Moving on, the next window barely holds back a creatively unrestrained “Christmas in Val d’Isère” tableau — quite literally crawling with swans.  Flocks of Trumpeter swans to be precise.  Flapping, honking, snapping, live  Trumpeter swans.  Each stumbling bird wearing the same Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses.  Except for this one total jerk swan — working a pair of Tom Fords.  Interesting fact: If you really want to infuriate a swan, try hot gluing $1,200 worth of overwrought eyewear to his bill.

Tastefully framed inside the final storefront widow — on my tour of this hellish, epicenter of want — is the this sunny announcement:

“Thanks for another obscenely-profitable season!  We’re off to St. Barts.  Because we can.  You’re  staying here.  Because you have to.  Sorry.  But look for us in March!  We’ll be the bright-eyed, well-rested ones  — with creamy, glowing complexions.”

I’m shocked.  Struck numb.  I try to speak — but end up emitting a detached, swallowed howl.  Is this actually happening? There are Botox parties and proper places to get a chemical peel on a little island like St. Barts?

Good for them.  Better for me.  Because the one thing I know — without a shred of doubt  — is how blessed I am to live surrounded by friends who make me feel safe. No matter the threat.  Within the comfort of a real community.  Where we celebrate the best.  And share the rest.

Merry Christmas Sag Harbor.

Settle Now

Dear Editor,

Last Monday, when attending the Sag Harbor School Board meeting, I expressed to the board members my lack of understanding as to why they are refusing to sit down with our union representatives to negotiate the teachers’ contract. What I was unable at the time to verbalize was the sadness and despair that these twenty months of stonewalling are causing. The union, on numerous occasions, has explained that our positions are flexible, and that the teachers are most anxious to meet and resolve issues in the time-honored tradition of negotiations. I can only interpret the board’s tactics of refusal as disrespect and disregard for the people to whom they have entrusted the education of the precious children of Sag Harbor. Unfortunately, this disrespect has permeated into members of the community and the students, as well. 

It has been my pleasure and privilege to teach at the Middle School at Pierson for the past eleven years, and it is my hope that the school board will soon come to the realization that it is in the best interest of the community, and especially the children of Sag Harbor, that the time is now to put and end to this situation and plan in earnest to meet with the teachers and settle the contract.

Sincerely,

Melissa Luppi

Sag Harbor

Extraordinary Students

Dear Editor,

I’d like to extend heartfelt thanks to a few extraordinary students in our community!

On Sunday September 27, six talented young musicians performed classical music in a concert entitled “Classical Candy” held at Christ Episcopal Church Sag Harbor, to benefit Katy Stewart, an 11 year old sixth grader at Pierson, to assist in her struggle against liver cancer. Over $650 was raised.

Elizabeth Oldak, Luis Murilllo, (Pierson) Shana Polley (RossSchool), all recipients of the prestigious Elizabeth Brockmann Award for Classical Music from the Playhouse Project East Hampton, were joined by Christopher Beroes-Haigis, cello, Oilivia Kaminski, flute, and  Emily Verneuille, clarinet, (Pierson H.S.). The students were accompanied by pianists Christine Cadarette,  and  Amanda Jones, and introduced by a beloved teacher, Mr. David Fox.

More than sixty people enjoyed music such as Bach, Mozart, Faure and Bernstein while Shanna Polley performed an original composition for solo piano on a wonderful Yamaha grand. These teenagers should be commended for giving so generously of their time and talents to help one of our own. Their generosity of spirit is an important part of what makes the Sag Harbor community a special place to live and learn.

Stephanie Beroes, concert producer

Sag Harbor

Running Competitively

Dear Bryan,

As the days dwindle down to Election Day, I continue to aggressively wage my write-in campaign for East Hampton Town Board as an independent balance between all dems. or a republican majority. A full representation of all points of the political spectrum will work much better than too many of any one perspective, don’t you think?  Please write-in my name by lifting the small slot over Town Board candidates and writing “Prudence Carabine” after you have selected a second councilman.

Please know that my work in Sag Harbor with Habitat for Humanity and Maureen’s Haven will continue as a town board member, but from a different perspective. These programs will always be dear to my life.

As a resident of the Town of East Hampton, I am hoping that after the sad events of last week, we can move on to greater financial stability, as soon as possible. I encourage you to call the present councilmen and beg them to flat line the 2010 budget now, BEFORE the new tax bills go out. Please write-in my name as the only independent candidate for East Hampton Town Board (who is running very competitively) and will WIN on Election Day with your help! 

Prudence Carabine

East Hampton

Liberty Losing Ground

Dear Bryan,

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” This is a quote from one of our Founding Fathers. Lincoln or Reagan could have said it too. In fact, scholars from Roman times to present times could have uttered these words and understood them.

For safety and comfort, people have always been willing to give up pieces of liberty until the pieces become a whole. If you believe that I have made a good point, then you must ask the question, “How do we get that liberty back once it is lost?” The answer is, “Not easily do we regain liberty once it is given up.” And much more poignant is what do we say when our children look into our eyes and ask us, “Why did you let it happen?”

They will be angry that we allowed history to repeat itself. They will be angry that we knew that nationalized health care was one more entitlement that was demanded by the people even in spite of Jefferson’s warning that, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” They will be right to be angry and we will be right to be ashamed. 

Bill Jones

Hampton Bays

by Jim Marquardt

Like probably 95% of all accidents, it’s a mere split second of carelessness that lays me out for months. It happens on a Sunday afternoon, a week before Labor Day. Returning from a stroll on the beach, I’m walking along the top of the bulkhead when I lose my balance and fall about eight feet down to wet sand, hard as cement. The pain in my right foot is excruciating. On hands and knees I struggle up the bluff stairs to the house.

Thus I begin an arduous trek through the American healthcare system, at least from my perspective in the Hamptons. My wife Ann and I decide to avoid a long wait at the hospital ER and go to an “urgent care” office.  The doctor comes in with the x-ray, “Wow! How did you do that? Don’t walk on it. See an orthopedist tomorrow.”            

Monday, by 9:15 I’m calling the two orthopedists whose names we know. One doctor’s machine is still giving out the weekend message. The other’s receptionist says he’s not in today and he has no openings tomorrow. Period. We decide we’d better go to the hospital ER. On the way there, I call an orthopedist in Hampton Bays. He can see me Wednesday, two days away. I take it. At the hospital the triage nurse says they have an orthopedist on call but he’ll probably be too busy to see me. About 45 minutes later they take me to the “Fast Track Dept.” As a former ad man I smile at the name but it actually does turn out to be fast. The doctor confers on the phone with the orthopedist in Hampton Bays and agrees to do a CAT scan as well as x-rays. The fast trackers apply a protective splint and tell me to keep the foot elevated.            

Driving home, I finally get the other local orthopedist. His receptionist says he can see me on September 14^th. Today is August 31^st. I tell her that’s too late to save my dancing career. On Wednesday, now four days after the accident, the doctor in Hampton Bays diagnoses a comminuted fracture of the calcaneous bone. That’s the heel. He shows me the CAT scan on his computer. He says I may need an operation and recommends consulting someone “who sees stuff like this all the time.”

I immediately think of the hospital in Manhattan where all the professional athletes go for repairs. Though I had heard some of its doctors no longer take Medicare, I spend Wednesday and Thursday calling surgeons there who specialize in the foot. One is on vacation. Another is booked through September. Another will call me back. I contact the offices of eight different surgeons and do not get an appointment.

My brother Charlie and my niece Jane both know people who know a surgeon at the Manhattan hospital and whether through their connections or simply because his staff is more responsive, I get an appointment to see him the Tuesday after Labor Day. Bring the CAT scan, says his assistant.

Ten days since the accident, Ann drives two-and-a-half hours to the East Side with me propped up in the back seat. The young doctor drops a bomb. “That disc you gave me of your heel? Well, it’s actually an x-ray of someone’s back.” Ann and I are too shocked to talk. When we were at the hospital in Southampton, they x-rayed my back to make sure there was no other damage. When requesting a copy of the CAT scan, I didn’t remind them that x-rays also were taken. The surgeon said it would help him decide the need for an operation. Notice, the doctor in Hampton Bays was able to bring up the CAT scan from the hospital in Southampton directly onto his computer, but the orthopedist we’re with in Manhattan couldn’t do that. Aren’t electronic health records part of the reform that Washington is struggling with? It’s now well after five o’clock. I say we’ll FedEx the correct disc to him the next day.

I don’t hear from his office until Friday, three days later and 13 days since my fall. They say I definitely need an operation, the scan revealed complicated fractures. He can operate on Thursday, Sept. 17^th, exact time to come.

On Monday I go to the hospital in Southampton for pre-op tests and they turn them around overnight. Wednesday the day before the operation I call in the morning to learn the time. The woman in the office says a nurse will call me between 4 and 8 p.m. I say I have to know sooner, that if the operation is in the morning we’ll drive in today and stay in a hotel. I’m put on hold twice for long periods and have to hang up and call back. I’m tempted to yell, “Hey, I’m a customer!” Finally we get squared away. The operation will be late in the afternoon and we can drive in the same day.

Nineteen days after the fall, at the hospital a therapist briefs me on using crutches and a walker. A male nurse spends a long time going over my medical history. Medical records, again! The young surgeon stops by and mentions screws and plates and smoothing the joint but I begin to imagine a machine shop and I tune out. The anesthetist comes next and I address him as the “most important guy.” He smiles modestly but I really mean it.            

The surgeon sees Ann afterwards and describes the great job he did. All I remember of the hazy post-op is a blonde nurse named Lola. I’m in pain for a couple of days but oxycodone (generic Percoset) relieves the worst of it. I share the bed with a tangle of wires and tubes and a button to push when the pain gets excessive. Worse than the pain is the problem that spinal anesthesia slows down bodily functions. At three in the morning I balance on one foot alongside the bed, watching traffic on the FDR Drive and hoping gravity will help fill the plastic jug I’m holding.

That’s my medical saga so far, nothing more boring than other people’s ailments. But here’s one important piece of advice. Be good to your spouse. When all others fail, including the medical community, she or he is all you have. If you’re not married, stay away from bulkheads. 

by Karl Grossman

It’s what has been very much needed: a group of East End citizens organized to fight the problem of noise from the helicopters ferrying people between Manhattan and the Hamptons.

Such a group took root this summer, put together by Shelter Islanders Ken Winston and Mike Loriz. Its e-mail address is helicopternoise@gmail–and the group could use your participation.

The position of politicians on the Hamptons helicopter noise issue has been mixed. Some have been active in trying to stop it, others not. The Federal Aviation Administration, meanwhile, has taken a do-nothing posture.

Clearly, what has been needed is citizen-pressure. That, not waiting for public officials, is how things usually get done—especially when up against powerful special interests.

The group in its first weeks has been growing and moving fast. It has a very clear plan for the choppers and the main source of helicopter noise: East Hampton Airport. It is crusading to have chopper traffic fly along the Atlantic coast—far enough out so the noise won’t carry—and  then jump the short distance over Georgica into and out of the airport.

A very important point was made at a meeting on July 29^th in Melville. It included Messrs. Winston and Loriz, Shelter Island Supervisor Jim Dougherty, representatives of Congressman Tim Bishop, Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, a delegation from the FAA, East Hampton Airport Manager Jim Brundige, helicopter pilots and a representative from the Eastern Regional Helicopter Council.

The line of the chopper pilots and the Eastern Regional Helicopter Council was that what is being called the “Atlantic route” was not possible because it would involve flying through Kennedy Airport airspace.

However, in Mr. Loriz, they were dealing with a professional aviator—he is a pilot for Delta who flies regularly out of and into Kennedy as well as LaGuardia airports.

He explained how there is perfectly good routing below Kennedy airspace and established that the would-be excuse had to do with money, not safety.

It would take a few extra minutes—Mr. Loriz said five, the helicopter pilots said 10—to fly below Kennedy and utilize this Atlantic route.

The operating costs of the sorts of choppers that are being flown in the Hamptons commuting trade are between $250 and $500 an hour—so the extra cost would be $21 to $82.

Those taking the choppers can “afford that,” comments Mr. Winston.

Mr. Winston, who is in the investment business, was inspired to embark on the challenge to helicopter noise because of the Hamptons helicopters “flying over my house.”

The choppers have become a scourge all over the East End.

As the group says in a statement: “If you live in an urban area, or right next to an airport, you have to expect aircraft noise…. But on the East End of Long Island, the pain goes to people who get no gain, and who have no say on how the pain is apportioned.”

“The Town of East Hampton,” says the group, “has decided it likes the convenience—and landing fees—of an airport, and why not? It has shifted almost all the pain to other places like Riverhead, Cutchogue, Mattituck, Peconic, Shelter Island, North Haven, Sag Harbor and Noyac. None of these places get the benefits—fees, service—from the airport…That’s a great deal for East Hampton, but the other areas don’t get any gain and they don’t get a vote.”

The group is now working with East End officials in preparing a letter to go to Congressman Bishop and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand demanding the Atlantic route be used by the Hamptons helicopters.

So far, said Mr. Winston, Supervisor Doughterty, Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell and North Haven Village Mayor Laura Nolan have signed on.

The group is asking for residents of other areas on the East End who have local officials that have not done so to contact them to have them join in the letter, too.

It calls its Atlantic route plan “an easy solution.” With it, says Mr. Winston, “we have a good chance of solving the problem.”

After years of research and study, this week New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. presented the East End towns with a final study on the feasibility and improvement of a public transit system on the North and South forks of Long Island.

On Wednesday, September 23 the study was unveiled during a forum at Suffolk Community College in Riverhead. Conducted by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, a Massachusetts-based transportation research firm, the study was prepared on behalf of the Towns of East Hampton, Riverhead, Shelter Island, Southampton and Southold and funded by a New York Department of State Shared Municipal Services Incentive Grant for the “Creation of a Coordinated Rail and Bus Network on Eastern Long Island.”

Looking at existing transportation on the East End and whether a combination of a light rail and bus system is feasible or cost effective, the Volpe Center presented its initial recommendations – to overhaul the East End railway system and create a shuttle train service with bus support to transport passengers into village centers.

While there was support for the proposal at the April forum, it was suggested that one unified transit system would not be appropriate for both the North and South Forks as the communities differ in population density, travel patterns and local priorities. While towns on the South Fork generally preferred a coordinated rail-bus network, similar to an expanded version of the South Fork Commuter Connection used to alleviate traffic concerns two years ago during the renovation of County Road 39 in Southampton, towns on the North Fork expressed a preference for the Flexible Transit Network. That plan is largely focused on increasing bus services. 

In response, the Volpe Center’s new proposal is called a “Dual Concept” approach.

On the South Fork, the study recommends replacing the existing Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and Suffolk County Transit bus service with a coordinated rail-bus network with small shuttle trains used on a line from Montauk to Speonk with four now-defunct stations – Quogue, Southampton College, Watermill and Wainscott – re-opened.

According to the study, the trains would run every 30 minutes during peak periods of the day and every 60 minutes at other times, with 12 bus routes on coordinated timetables to bring passengers into community centers and areas not connected to the existing rail line. Additionally, the Center recommends seven smaller “demand-response” vehicles, which could serve a range of services including door-to-door service by reservation to defined pick-up routes.

Service on the South Fork would run 18-hours a day in-season and 14-hours a day off-season.

The North Fork’s existing transit routes and services would largely remain the same, according to the study, although there “would be significant improvements to the frequency of service and expanded hours of operation, including Sunday/holiday service on all routes.” Bus service would be expanded to run as often as every 15 minutes during peak periods and as late as 12:30 a.m. during the summer. In addition to routes traversing the whole of the North Fork, from Greenport west, one new route would be added connecting Greenport to Riverhead and to the Tanger Outlet Center. An express bus service would also run roughly every two hours from Riverhead, or further east, to the Ronkonkoma train station and Islip-MacArthur airport.

Minimal improvements to the North Fork rail system are also outlined in the study as are links between the North and South Fork systems.

The Volpe Center report states this kind of transit system is feasible on the East End provided a significant investment is made in upgrading and adding to the current transit system. Upfront capital costs are estimated between $117 million and $148 million with an estimated $44 million per year needed to run the system as proposed.

While the study does discuss the creation of a new East End transit authority, on Tuesday Thiele said his preference would be to get the LIRR and the MTA on board to provide this service for both forks.

“That would be the easiest and the fastest way to get this done,” he said. “We certainly have paid our fair share towards transportation.”

The alternative is the creation of a transit authority similar to one created on Cape Cod, which separated itself from a larger Boston-based transit authority in order to create transportation services better tailored for its needs.

“There was really a lot of initial research into what was done in Cape Cod because we have a lot of similarities as far as demographics, population trends and even geography,” said Thiele.

The next step, said Thiele, is determining whether the LIRR and the Suffolk County Transit authority are interested in helping the East End implement this final plan.

“I think certainly the LIRR interest in providing improved service to the region has grown,” said Thiele. “Five years ago, I couldn’t get them to return a telephone call on this, but the new president, Helena Williams was very cooperative during the County Road 39 re-constriction and has been following the Volpe Study.”

Also crucial to the creation of the transit system is federal funding.

“I think both federal and state funding is critical for this to move forward,” said Thiele. “If you look at everything, in New York, whenever they buy a new subway car it is heavily subsidized.”

Noting mass transit systems never support themselves fully, Thiele said there are a number of funding options for the plan.

“This was never envisioned as something the towns and villages would subsidize,” said Thiele. “They may provide support in terms of parking and the existing bus services through human services departments, but we are not looking to put the burden on the towns.”

Poised to “Make an offer they can’t refuse,” as station director Wally Smith said, the fans of radio station WLIU rallied last Thursday evening at Bay Street Theatre to both raise awareness of the fragile state of public radio on the East End, and to infuse some energy into the movement that has seen more than 600 people volunteer to help save the station from closing — or be sold to another operator.

The recently-formed non-profit Peconic Public Broadcasting, Inc. delivered a sealed bid late yesterday, Wednesday, meeting a deadline set by the station’s owner, Long Island University, and its broker Public Radio Capital.

Long Island University, which has underwritten the station since its inception and has contributed over one million dollars each of the past two years, has said the station is simply too costly to continue supporting and needs to sell it to the highest bidder.

In an interview yesterday, Smith said the non-profit group Peconic Public Broadcasting, Inc., was to make a “fair and full value bid that is about twice what we believe to be fair market value.” Porter Bibb, a media consultant who has spearheaded the effort to create PPB, Inc. and its fundraising arm, Save Public Radio on the East End (SPREE), said two weeks ago that consultants have estimated the fair market value for the license and equipment to be about $1 million. It is estimated the cost of acquiring the station and its assets, as well as moving it to a new location — likely Wainscott Studios — would cost about $3 million

At Thursday’s rally, Smith said he did not know how many other suitors there were for the station, which would need to be sold to an organization which would run it as a non-profit, but said he and others were prepared to establish a new operating company within eight weeks to take the station over. Yesterday, he said he knew WNYC was “very interested” in the station, as well as several religious organizations.

It was, as on-air personality Bonnie Grice affirmed Thursday, an old fashioned rally. There were pickets and strong statements. Applause and fist pumps. It came with a drum beat, literally, and included a rendition of the 6os folk classic “If I Had a Hammer,” a tribute, in part, to Mary Travers the distaff part of the folky icons Peter, Paul and Mary, who had died just two days earlier.

Sung by local rock icon, Nancy Atlas, however, the song had lost none of its ‘60s-theme of hope and willfulness.

Atlas credited WLIU as being one of the venues through which local artists get their music heard over the airwaves, and urged the audience of about 200 to get ready to show their support.

“I’m up for the fight. Are you guys,” she called out to a round of applause.

Guitarist and singer Gene Casey of the Lone Sharks entertained with the song Louis Armstrong made famous, “What a Wonderful World.” And Casey was followed by singer Caroline Doctorow who did “Someday Never Comes” and thanked WLIU personality Brian Cosgrove and Grice for “playing every song I’ve ever played out.”

Audience members also took the stage to show their support. Walter Dunaway said he owed the station credit for helping him get his own cable television show about poetry. Dunaway said it was an interview on the Bonnie Grice show where he introduced his new book of poetry that helped him establish the contacts that led to his show,

“I’m going to support them,” he told the crowd, “and I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

Civil rights legend Bob Zellner says he gets to spend about four minutes a week saying things on the station that he could probably get arrested for in his native Alabama, and writer Linda Francke of Sagaponack said she remembered the “bad old days” before WLIU and praised the emergence of “this great new voice, Bonnie Grice.”

“It is unacceptable that we lose this station,” demanded Francke.

The evening was bookended by Samba Boom, a drum and percussion group that marched about thirty dancing musicians onstage, all dressed in white, beating drums and cowbells, filling the room with Latin rhythms.

“Stick with us,” called out Smith at the end of the evening, “we’ve got a long way to go.”

As negotiations between the three East End hospitals and the area’s largest insurer continue in silence, a spokesman for Empire BlueCross BlueShield confirmed this week that the company is arranging to keep local physicians in network, even while the local hospitals will not be.

Prior to this decision by Empire, local doctors who have admitting privileges to hospitals that are members of the East End Health Alliance — including Southampton, Eastern Long Island and Peconic Bay Medical Center — would have fallen out of network on September 29.

But a spokesperson from Empire confirmed yesterday that the insurance giant is working on a deal to keep the patients of those same physicians covered.

“We’re reaching out to the doctors now,” said Craig Andrews, media relations representative for Empire. “Members will be getting letters as well.”

The September 29 date falls 60 days after the hospitals’ contract with Empire was terminated, leaving patients on the East End with a choice of traveling further west on the island to an in-network hospital for such procedures as elective surgery, or going to a local hospital and be treated as an out-of-network patient. In response, the local hospitals, all agreed to waive certain fees in an effort to bring costs down. Patients admitted under emergency status, however, are still treated as in-network and enjoy the benefits of their specific plan.

Tentatively, and Andrews said details were still being worked out, the arrangement with physicians will allow them to remain in-network and care typically associated with a physician will still be covered based on an individual’s plan. In case of hospitalization, however, the patient would still be considered by Empire as out-of-network in an Alliance hospital. Andrews said Empire is working on an arrangement to allow local physicians to gain admitting privileges to other Long Island hospitals covered by Empire, including Stony Brook and Brookhaven.

On the East End, agriculture has always been inextricably linked to the local culture. From the early Native American inhabitants thousands of years ago to the first European settlers in the 1600s, the fertile ground of the South Shore has sustained generations of life.

For the scores of tourists who started to summer in the area beginning in the 1800s, the endless tracts of farmland were something of aesthetic value. Perhaps these bucolic vistas illustrated an idealized version of a simple life away from the bustle and stress of an urban existence. Soon, parcel by parcel, lot by lot, open space was converted into summer estates. Hedges upon hedges shielded tony mansions from public view, and views of wide open spaces became fewer and farther between.

Although local municipalities and conservationist organizations have made in-roads in preserving thousands of acres of open space and land used for agriculture, we must always be mindful of the balance between development and protecting our natural landscape and rural culture. We aren’t demonizing all construction in our area, for these business ventures create jobs and pump money into the East End economy. However, the local character of the East End with its fields and pristine beaches is what attracts tourists and second homeowners to the Hamptons and is the centerpiece of our long term economic growth. The great variety of crops that are grown on these farms, too, are now far more likely to stay in our area than they were a generation or two ago.

We are afraid that in the midst of the financial turmoil facing both Southampton and East Hampton towns, protecting land and farms for future generations will be put on the back burner, leaving these parcels vulnerable to purchase from investors able to wait out the current economic storm.

Partnerships between the state, county and/or towns should be formed to purchase properties or development rights on farmland with futures that aren’t yet secure as a way to protect the area without one municipality having to foot the whole bill. Although money is tight across the board, it doesn’t mean we can’t preserve open space and farms. In fact, we have to.

So eat local — our future depends on it. 

By Karl Grossman

A few weeks ago, after another weekend of raucous noise from the helicopters ferrying people between the Hamptons and Manhattan, I heard a guest on National Public Radio talking about how helicopters can, in fact, run quietly.

What’s that? The conventional thinking is that choppers are noisy, period, and the only relief for folks on the ground is their flying much higher or out over the water.

But James R. Chiles, interviewed on his book on the history of helicopters, was talking about a helicopter called the “Quiet One.” As he described it in his book—which I quickly obtained—“probably the quietest turbine helicopter ever fielded was the limited edition Hughes 500P, dubbed the Quiet One” used by the CIA “for a secret mission to wiretap North Vietnamese telephone lines in 1972.”

 “How quiet was the 500P?” he asks in the book. The “average person would not hear the Quiet One when it was 500 feet above his neighborhood.”

If only the helicopter industry, I thought, would be subjected to the same kind of pressure applied by the federal government to the airplane industry, also because of noise, which resulted in a new generation of much quieter jet aircraft. Or maybe helicopter manufacturers could produce quiet helicopters voluntarily.

Mr. Chiles writes about the “Quiet One” not only his book, The God Machine, From Boomerangs to Black Hawks: The Story of the Helicopter, but in a March 2008 article in the Smithsonian Institution’s Air & Space Magazine (available on-line) in which he provides even more detail.

He begins noting—as folks on eastern Long Island are quite familiar because of the Hamptons choppers—how “a helicopter is a one-man band, its turbine exhaust blaring a piercing whine, the fuselage skin’s vibration rumbling like a drum, the tail rotor rasping like a buzzsaw.”

But then there was the “Quiet One.” He quotes “Don Stephens, who managed the Quiet One’s secret base in Laos for the CIA” as saying, “It was absolutely amazing just how quiet these copters were. I’d stand on the [landing pad] and try to figure out the first time I could hear it and which direction it was coming from. I couldn’t place it until it was one or two hundred yards away.” And he also quotes “Rod Taylor, who served as project engineer for Hughes, [saying] ‘There is no helicopter today that is as quiet.’” That’s an understatement.

Mr. Chiles explains: “The slapping noise that some helicopters produce, which can be heard two miles away or more, is caused by ‘blade vortex interaction,’ in which the tip of each whirling rotor blade makes tiny tornadoes that are then struck by oncoming blades. The Quiet One’s modifications included an extra main rotor blade, changes to the tips on the main blades, and engine adjustments that allowed the pilot to slow the main rotor speed, making the blades quieter.”

He writes that the “idea of using hushed helicopters in Southeast Asia came from the CIA’s Special Operations Division Air Branch, which wanted them to quietly drop off and pick up agents in enemy territory.”

By the time the quiet choppers were ready, the Vietnam War was nearly over and their only mission involved dropping commandos to place taps on the North Vietnam phone lines. Then, after the war, “no more were built.” And the near-silent chopper “remained a secret for more than two decades,” until a 1995 book, Shadow War.

A reader of Mr. Chiles’ on-line Air & Space Magazine article asks: “why” doesn’t the helicopter industry make “less noisy helicopters now” as long as “the technology exists?” That is an important question not just to us on eastern Long Island but to others around the nation besieged by helicopter noise (another focus in the Chiles’ book.)

I called the offices of some of the public officials—Congressman Tim Bishop, Suffolk County Legislator Edward Romaine, Senator Chuck Schumer—involved in trying to do something about the Hamptons helicopter racket. Their staffers, like I had been, were not familiar with the technology mastered decades ago of producing extremely quiet helicopters.

If only now the helicopter industry could do it again.

by Jim Marquardt

Before there was Sag Harbor, before the Hamptons even existed, the Woodland Indians of the Algonquian Nation enjoyed a relatively peaceful life on the East End of Long Island. The local Indians got along well together and spent their time hunting, fishing, planting crops and raising families. Several hundred years before the “beautiful people” discovered the Hamptons, beautiful people were already living here, and they didn’t have that long commute on weekends.

Italian explorer Giovanni Verrazano described the natives he met.

“The people excel us in size; they are of bronze color, some inclining more to whiteness, others to tawny color; the face sharply cut, the hair long and black, upon which they bestow the greatest study in adorning it; the eyes black and alert, the bearing kind and gentle.”           

They dressed modestly, not in bikinis or Speedos. The men wore breech cloths of deerskin front and rear, and in winter, robes of deer hide or animal fur. The women wore skirts and tops of deerskin while both braves and squaws wore skin moccasins, leggings and a belt.

One historian, William Golder, wrote that Indians lived in wigwams constructed by digging a circular trench two or three feet deep and 15 feet in diameter. They drove saplings into the trench and lashed the tops together to create a framework on which they laid grass mats. A hole in the dome let out smoke from a cooking and heating fire within the shelter. A replica of one of these dwellings sits outside the Shinnecock Museum on Route 27A, a little east of Southampton College.

 The women cultivated corn, beans and squash, prepared meals and clothing, and wove fish traps and nets while the men hunted and fished and chased the occasional whale that appeared offshore (today’s husbands would love a deal like that). They also ground chestnuts and acorns to make flat bread. Meat sources abounded – raccoon, opossum, fox, squirrel, groundhog, rabbit, beaver, muskrat, and, most importantly, deer. John Strong, a professor of history at Southampton College who has written extensively about the East End Indians, says that the natives here usually prepared communal meals in a large stew pot made from clay. And long before today’s sophisticated chefs discovered the technique, the Indians baked fish, fowl and small game in clay crocks to retain the juices and flavor. Clams, oysters, mussels and scallops were plentiful, and long before it became a special summer event, the Algonquians baked clams in pits heated with red hot stones and covered with eel grass.

Cynics probably think wampum was invented by Paramount Studios, but it actually was an important art and craft. The East End Algonquians had a ready supply of hard clam shells, especially quahogs, which the women (in their spare time) laboriously fashioned into wampum beads using crude stone and bone tools. Wampum adorned necklaces, bracelets and decorations for clothes and moccasins, and was assembled into bands and belts which conveyed messages to other Indians and later were a form of exchange with Europeans.

Colonists from Massachusetts arrived in North Sea Harbor in Southampton in 1640, seeking to establish a village, procure land and plant crops. The local Indians were friendly and helped the settlers survive their early difficult years. But a critical confusion involving land ownership eventually arose. To the Indians, says John Strong, land was part of nature to be used by all the people and it made no sense to divide it into privately owned parcels. Europeans considered land a commodity that could be bought and sold, as we do, or try to do, today. Indians considered goods and gifts from colonists as gestures of friendship for simply sharing access, not as payment for land. This cultural discord inevitably led to disputes when the Europeans claimed property ownership and wanted to keep it for their own use.

Strong notes that popular history generally lists 13 tribes on Long Island, as if these were formal sub-tribes within the Algonquian Nation. Initially, there were no such official entities, the Indians more likely identifying themselves with clans or communities. After 1650 a tribal system emerged among the Montauketts, Shinnecocks and other groups as a means of survival against encroaching English settlers. (Even today, hundreds of years later, stresses continue. The Shinnecocks are pressing Southampton for protection of newly discovered burial sites which might be found on private properties.) 

Place names grew into tribal names. The Montauketts living in the area from Bridgehampton to what became Montauk Point and Gardiner’s Island, took the Algonquin word for “a fortified place;” the Shinnecocks adopted the word for “at the level land” covering Eastport to Bridgehampton; the Manhasets’ name means “island sheltered by islands” from their home on Shelter Island; and the Corchaugs, dwelling from Wading River to Orient, used the Algonquian term for “principal place”. Their numbers were surprisingly small. Several sources say there were perhaps 6500 Indians on all of Long Island in the mid-17^th century with 500 more or less in each tribe.

A chief or sachem headed each of the small tribes, mainly through respect and persuasion, exerting power only when necessary. Like a chairman of the board, the chief of the Montauketts, Wyandanch, was grand sachem of the East End Indians, and the primary contact with English colonists. He was regularly criticized as being too accommodating. Though the Algonquians on the East End were peaceful people, they were forced to defend themselves against aggressive clans from Connecticut and Rhode Island. Ninigret, sachem of the Rhode Island Niantics, was a constant threat and in one episode raided the Montauketts, kidnapping Wyandanch’s daughter, supposedly on her wedding day. Wyandanch asked for help from the English, and Lion Gardiner came to his aid. Wyandanch’s tribulations will be recounted in another article.

To learn more about the lives of the East End Indians and see some of their handicrafts, visit the Shinnecock Museum (287-4923) in Southampton or the Southold Indian Museum (765-5577) on the North Fork. Be sure to call ahead for open hours.