REPORTER FILE PHOTO Question number four answered by Codger this week is: Why are Shelter Islanders making such a big fuss about helicopters?
Now that we’re on the downside of the Silly Season, it’s time to answer the six questions you’ve been too shy to ask Codger.
1. Could El Chapo be hiding out on the Island?
That’s ridiculous. It’s the kind of question the White House press corps would ask President Obama. Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, the Mexican drug billionaire who recently escaped from a maximum security prison, is simply too smart to hide here.
The Shelter Island Police Department has been very successful catching immigrants from south of the border for violating such laws as driving without a license. Shorty on a bicycle? Codger doesn’t think so. Despite the fact that these immigrants can’t get drivers’ licenses because of their undocumented status, they seem to have no trouble getting construction, house keeping and yard work on the Island. If they’re hiding, it’s in plain sight.
El Chapo is a daring desperado. But the clincher for Codger is this: Reading between the lines of the ever-tantalizing police blotter as well as listening to the Rock’s rumor mill, the alleged illegal drug trade here does not seem to be as well organized as it would be if Shorty were actually in charge.
Then again, who knows what’s going on in those big boats off Sunset Beach’s beach?
Can we have better questions, please?
2. How about this: Should I swim in Fresh Pond?
They don’t have to be this much better. So let me ask you: Do you want to believe Vincent Novak, the champion letter-writer who lives on the shore of the pond and claims that the water is filled with sickening toxins, or believe the politicians and business boosters who claim the pond is really fresh and Novak just wants to keep it as his own private Georgica?
Like the hero of Ibsen’s play, “An Enemy of the People,” Novak could be an honest citizen trying to warn of contaminants in his town’s water while greedy interests want to suppress any information that might turn away tourists and depress real estate values.
The truly hard choice is to believe neither and to go figure out for yourself what such words as cyanobacterium, neurotoxins and Class C (non-contact) ponds really mean.
3. My lawn is turning brown. Now what?
Try not to wear blue or green clothing, which only emphasizes the contrast. Why you should be wasting resources on a cosmetic patch of grass when you could be raising herbs and vegetables is another issue.
What’s wrong with forever wild? Behind all this, of course, is the Island’s dicey water situation. Weakly enforced or non-existent regulations allow people to build many-bathroomed Taj Mahals too close to wetlands or to sink deep swimming pools that allow saltwater to infiltrate neighboring wells. Chemicals, including natural ones, seep into the water supply from septic tanks and pesticide use.
Of course, if you can afford to irrigate your lawn with Evian or Pellegrino, you can wear any color you want.
4. Why are Shelter Islanders making such a big fuss about helicopters?
The ruckus over fly-overs has led rich people and their pilots to hire lawyers to challenge East Hampton restrictions on mind-shatteringly loud aircraft. Rich people, for whom time is money, can’t be expected to spend more time coming out from Wall Street by limo, car or jitney, or more money by using additional gas to swing out over water instead of directly over people like us.
Why should they be bothered about noise that merely spoils our lives? Also, they may be trying to wear down our resistance to bridges and tunnels so they can drive through us as well as fly over us. Recently, Martha Stewart used both ferries to cross the Island en route from the North Fork to the South Fork. The Martha Forker even dispatched her chauffeur to bring order to an unruly ferry line, for which we are supposed to be grateful.
5. Codger seems like such an old grouch. What does he do for fun?
Codger loves to play the Recycle Lottery at the IGA where he never knows whether glass, cans or plastic will accept his offering and reward him with a nickel or reject it because it can’t read the bar code.
Or is broken today.
This keeps him vital and engaged. The uncertainty, which reminds him of life itself, is more reliable than the machines in the Game Room at the Tuck Shop.
6. When is it permissible to run down annoying pedestrians?
Codger does not dispense free legal advice, but he’s a font of common sense. Even when people are walking three abreast down main roads like West Neck or Route 114 with their backs to traffic, they are considered as protected a species as plovers and ospreys.
This is true whether or not one or more of them is talking on a cell phone or texting. Sharply honking your horn and disturbing their notions that Shelter Island is their private pastoral retreat is just short of a tourist bias crime.
Get over it. We’re already half through August.