Dog Poop Inspires Outrage in Hampton Bays, Chili, DWI

Another letter to the editor came in about dog poop the other day. It was on Main Street in Hampton Bays and something just had to be done about this. It was undoubtedly from the back end of a large dog, or a small dog who hadn’t gone in a long time, and once again the trash bins had been temporarily removed from the center of town and there was nowhere to throw what you might pick up, the letter said.

Bad, bad, bad. There should never be no place to throw bagged dog poop, and there should be doggie bags on Main Street in dispensers and this stuff should be picked up and it was an outrage. What are we to do? I just filed it in the folder labeled “dog poop letters.” Editors get dog poop letters.

On another matter, there is another chili competition coming up. I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked, as a newspaper editor, to be one of the judges at a chili-cooking event over the years. Just thinking about it sends me into a cold sweat. You go, people thank you for coming and then direct you to as many as 30 eager entries on banquet tables that have to be tasted, one at a time, and then scored on a grade between one and 10 with 10 being the best and then submitting that piece of paper to the master of ceremonies and have your picture taken. One does not look good after tasting 30 different kinds of chili.

Then there is the float judging on St. Patrick’s Day. We come, we editors, and join the public officials sometimes to rate things that pass by the reviewing stand, elves and forests on the back of flatbed trucks, bagpipe bands, library tableaus of Isaac Newton reading under a tree and young people in bathing suits sitting in bubbling hot tubs in the back of pickups and throwing out Tootsie Rolls. We rate it all in the “Order of the Parade” program with a ballpoint and in the end that too goes to the master of ceremonies.

Last month at Montauk’s parade, a woman drove into the viewing stand and faces a charge of aggravated drunken driving. This was after the parade and nobody was injured. It was just one of those things.

Back in the day, I recall a school principal with too much to drink putting his car out front of Jungle Pete’s Bar in East Hampton into forward gear rather than reverse and driving unceremoniously through the wall and back into the bar. Nobody was injured, just one of those things. All was forgiven.

It’s not always easy to be a newspaper editor

More news. East Hampton High School students, after lobbying the administration, have gotten a new bathroom labeled “All Gender” right near the boys and girls bathrooms.

That same week, word came that a suit has been filed against North Carolina for passing a new law requiring that there be no separately labeled bathrooms for transgender people and you get to go only in the bathroom that matches what it says on your birth certificate. The state has been sued by civil rights advocates. So East Hampton High School is right on the pulse of this controversial issue, and good for them.