Now, the town in which I live is much smaller than Richmond. Take the population for instance. The Village of Sag Harbor has a year-round population of about 2,300. Even the School District, which is quite a bit larger than the Village has a year-round population of only about 6,600. You’ll notice that when I mention our local population figures, I always qualify them with the phrase “year-round.” The reason for that would be obvious if you were in downtown Sag Harbor with me last Sunday. Now, it is well known that our population swells considerably during the summer months, but I didn’t realize that all 199,999 people that I did not see in downtown Richmond two weeks ago, would be  vacationing in Sag Harbor a week later.

The week-to-week contrast was startling. In Richmond one week, we could drive around the city unencumbered by traffic or even pedestrians, park when and where we wished, make u-turns with impunity, and have free and easy access to whatever we wished to do. One week later, in Sag Harbor, driving and parking were near impossibilities, and walking the length of our two-block long Main Street was almost as difficult.

I don’t really have a point here, unless it’s to say that Richmond is a nice place to be on a summer Sunday, if you don’t like crowds. Of course, Sag Harbor is also a nice place to be on a summer Sunday — unless you don’t like crowds.

To be fair, we did see a few people at a church in Richmond. One of them was quite agitated about something. When we saw him he was shouting, “give me liberty, or give me death!” I was so impressed that, after he settled down, I took a couple of pictures which I include here for your edification.

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Currently listening to: Harbor by Vienna Teng

At that point the staffer who had dealt with these two individuals and I, who had witnessed the carnage, shared a knowing look. “Summer must be here,” she said.

The second sign of the onset of the high season has been making itself known to me over the past few weeks as an ever increasing number of suicidal maniacs attempt to have their vehicles occupy the same spot on the road that the vehicle I’m driving happens to be occupying at a given moment. These folks are quite inventive in their single minded quest to to end their lives, and mine. I won’t bore you with the details. If you’ve driven a car anywhere in Sag Hampton recently, you have undoubtedly encountered the same idiots, or their brethren. There’s apparently no shortage of them. So far, I guess our luck has held as you and I are still here to laugh (ruefully) about it.

Then there’s The Golden Pear’s way of announcing the summer season. This Main Street eatery recently stopped offering/accepting their buy-ten-get-one free coffee cards and canceled the 10% discount they briefly and half-heartedly offered to employees of other Main Street businesses. The reason? “It’s summer,” they said, as if that explained anything. You’d think summer, being the busy season, would be a time when they could most afford little largesses. What they’re actually saying, though, is, “We neither need nor want local patronage while we’re busy fleecing the summer folk. Don’t bother us now, but please come back in the winter when when we won’t be full up with people falling over themselves to spend $13.00 for an omelet.”  Is there a more craven institution in Sag Hampton? In addition to the minor tackiness of the canceled discounts, the Pear also recently turned down a request to donate a prize to a raffle sponsored by a local non-profit. The reason given for not donating anything was because they have received “too many requests for donations.” Read that as too many requests from locals who don’t spend enough money here. Then there are those oh-so-friendly signs warning customers not to linger too long over their meals — another anti-local campaign aimed at the seniors who used to while away their mornings over breakfast and coffee, when the location now occupied by the Pear was the Harbor Deli. As if the local seniors could afford to eat breakfast at the Pear! There’s really no need for the signs; the Pear’s grossly inflated prices having already accomplished the intended result.

So, it seems that all the signs concur, summer’s here. Be careful out there.
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Currently listening to: Good Vibrations by Brian Wilson.