Dan’s Papers December 16, 2011 danshamptons.com Page 23
Winter Solstice There’s a Flaw in the Earth’s Ability to Smartly Circle the Sun By Dan Rattiner Next Thursday, December 22, is the shortest day of the year. You wake up in the dark, have breakfast in the dark, lunch in the dark and then the sun rises. And then, just before dinner, it sets. It’s awful. It didn’t used to be like this. I remember years ago when I was a boy, maybe it was months ago, well it was last June when the sun rose gloriously at a quarter to six in the morning, passed high overhead during the day and then set also gloriously around nine at night. I recall that a few weeks further on, on the Fourth of July, the authorities had to wait until 9:30 p.m. before it got dark enough for
them to start sending off the fireworks. Some people, tired of waiting, had already gone home by then. Those in the know tell me there seems to be something wrong with the earth. The earth is supposed to make a perfect circle around the sun. All the other planets dutifully make perfect circles around the sun. But somehow, somewhere, something went a little cuckoo inside the earth and it began to spin funny and wobble as it went around. It also tipped on its axis a certain number of degrees. Soon, the elliptical path around the sun it was describing became quite noticeable. You couldn’t miss it. It’s alarming and in need of repair, our earth
is. But nobody has any idea where to take it. Also, if it is taken in for repair, where do we go to wait while it’s in there? It certainly is a worrisome thing. The authorities, I think, have been keeping this awful situation from us. Why get us upset? We can’t do anything about it. It’s getting worse. Well, now you know the truth. One of the really bad things about all of this, besides the fact that you can see the telltale evidence of all this awfulness every uh, day, is that we have during the winter only a limited number of hours to get our Vitamin D. You can take Vitamin D pills to get Vitamin D—there are even chewable pills you can take—but it’s (continued on page 30)
300 POLAR BEARS RUN INTO THE OCEAN! By David Lion Rattiner Was that the Mayor of Southampton dressed up as KISS? Yes. Yes, it was. And this only can mean one thing, The Southampton Polar Bear Plunge at Coopers Beach is taking place. Mayor Mark Epley showed up at the Polar Bear Plunge on Saturday morning flanked by his two sons and a friend all dressed up as the band. The event drew hundreds of people to the beach, although it did look noticeably smaller than it did last year. On the beach, up high on the dune and off to the east side were four men dressed in full Revolutionary War era uniforms and armed with a cannon that they would fire to signal
plungers into the ocean. The water was 53 degrees, and there were many costumes on the beach, including a man dressed in drag, several Santa Clauses and a red M&M. The entire event is done to raise money for the Human Resources of the Hamptons charity. The Southampton Fire Department, as well as members of the Southampton Ocean Rescue team who were wearing full wetsuits to battle the cold, were on hand to save any swimmer if anything were to go wrong. But with the ocean as flat as glass, that didn’t seem to be an issue. Rumor had spread that many chickened out to do the plunge because the night before the weather report was rain. But ever since the Polar Bear Plunge in Southampton has been in existence, at least according to the emcee at
the event Bonnie Grice, who hosts a radio show on WLIU, “It has always been good weather for this event.” The costumes that were on display on the beach were worthy of a Halloween contest. Denise Corley and Tom Fitzgibbons, both professionals in the Hamptons and in New York City, dressed up appropriately as penguins. Jimmy Mack dressed up in full drag, and then there was Southampton Trustee Mark Yastrzemski who jumped in the water while dressed in a full business suit and sunglasses. “I wear the same suit every year,” he said. The event was very much a fun affair. When the cannon was shot, after a signal was given by a man dressed up in a polar bear costume (continued on page 32)