Codger’s column: Season’s end
Codger needs a drink. Of water. Ever since the Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA) declared “a Stage One Water Emergency Alert,” Codger has been dry-mouthed with concern. And then the Gardiner’s Bay...
View ArticleCodger’s column: Paradise Lost and Found
Eight days ago, at exactly 4:47 p.m., Codger’s best pal on the Island, Jules Feiffer, called to say goodbye. “You already said goodbye,” snapped Codger, who is not happy about this. “That goodbye was...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: Yes or No?
Codger was born in the Bronx, raised in Queens, and lived for many years in Manhattan where his children were born, and where he owned a home before decamping full time to Shelter Island. Thus, while...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: Thanks for Thanksgiving
Codger’s frequent lunch buddy, Ye Esteemed Shakespearean (YES), last week rolled his eyes theatrically (the air seemed to crackle) when Codger said, “Ye Know Who is back on the front page and we don’t...
View ArticleCodger’s column: Ask Codger
Approaching the end of the year and a major birthday, Codger has decided to accept questions. So how is your old pal, Jules Feiffer, doing in his new upstate New York home? Jules will be 94 next month...
View ArticleCodger’s column: On the level
This is the year Codger will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Shelter Island. By Codger. Well, O.K., there were inhabitants on the Island when Codger arrived, but they were mostly...
View ArticleCodger’s column: Pickle and slap
Codger’s lumbar region attempted to secede from the rest of his back around the time when pickleball lines were being drawn on the school tennis courts, so he has never gotten to try this currently...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: A matter of ethics
Cur II, that prince of poodles, is booked for surgery next week to repair a ruptured ACL, so he and Codger have been limping around the neighborhood discussing to-do projects during convalescence. Cur...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: Thank Dog
Codger and Crone hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in two weeks, tending to Cur II’s uncooperative recovery from ACL surgery. The doctor’s orders were clear; the big poodle must not be allowed to lick...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: In the stacks
Codger has always loved libraries the way other people love ballfields or music rooms or auto shops or, these days, computers. As a kid he felt happy and safe in libraries. He thought everything he...
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Codger’s Column: Us vs. Them
After “transparency,” a term that has been carefully muddied on the Island, the go-to political word is “divisiveness,” which seems to be a way of accusing someone with strong opinions of fomenting...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: The Toy Department
When Codger was 19 years old, he answered a classified ad in the New York Times for editorial assistant. He needed a summer job. The job turned out to be copy boy in the Times sports department. He...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: A welcome home
It took Codger decades to realize that even with a home on Shelter Island he needed a vacation. How easy it once was, he says, to imagine the ferry ride as all the decompression necessary, the music...
View ArticleCodger’s column: Comprehensible?
Finally, Codger sat down, swept the crumbs off his desk and read the entire Shelter Island Comprehensive Plan Update, which bills itself as a “preliminary draft for informational purposes only.” Are...
View ArticleDEE-bate!
Codger feels apologetic for having urged people to attend last month’s meeting to discuss the current draft of the Comprehensive Plan, an event which turned out as unsatisfying as the document itself....
View ArticleCodger’s Column: Post-election reveries
Codger thought the election would provide Shelter Island with some sort of a mandate, but he had no idea what sort. Codger doesn’t know everything. He isn’t even sure at the moment who won, although...
View ArticleCodger’s column: Just another year
Let’s call it a year, said Codger. He was finally cooked by the hottest one in recorded history. Enough already. There may be more than two weeks left in 2023, but Codger isn’t counting on a surprise...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: The old president
Codger is not running for president this year. He claims it was an easy decision, but he may be putting up a brave front. How can giving up power ever be easy, losing the head seat at the table, the...
View ArticleCodger’s Column: Memory bank
The Beatles, Cassius Clay and Young Codger all met for the first time on Feb. 18, 1964, and, according to Old Codger, the era known as the Sixties formally began. The American president had recently...
View ArticleCodger’s column: What’s the deal?
Everywhere Codger goes these days, from a power lunch at The Islander to a Friends of Music concert to another summit confab of the Senior Citizens Foundation, he hears the same question — “What’s the...
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