Many thanks to readers who e-mailed in with congratulations on the Derbs’

wedding anniversary. We all went to a restaurant called La Casa in

Northport, right on the edge of Crab Meadow beach. Ate seafood linguine

(Rosie) and baked swordfish (me) looking out through the picture windows

across the beach to Long Island Sound. After dinner we went walking on the

beach–by that time dark and deserted. The kids ran off to climb up the

lifeguards’ chairs. Rosie & I walked along the surf line a while. I

declaimed–DECLAIMED!–”Dover Beach,”

one of my favorites, and in fact

one of the best poems in our language. Terrific for declaiming, as you can

do sound effects, conforming your voice to the “begin, and cease,…” and

the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.” I shoulda been on the stage.

Anyway, it was a perfect evening.