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Village Beacon Record

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

In some ways, the 2020s appear to be similar to the 1920s. We humans like to look for historical parallels, I think, in hopes of using the past to predict the future, futile as that might be. Call them coincidences between the two centuries, if you will, but let’s look at them and judge if history is repeating itself.

The most obvious is the raging coronavirus pandemic of this century and its resemblance to the Spanish Flu that began in 1918 and lasted into the early 1920s.The flu killed some 50 million people worldwide, with 675,000 being Americans. Covid killed 6.5 million, including 1.1 million in the United States. 

And although no plans existed for coping with a pandemic in 1918, individual cities did implement  school closings, banned public gatherings, issued quarantines and encouraged social isolation. Public health and medical advances have made huge strides, which account for the global change, although the world population has quadrupled in the last 100 years.

We can compare cultural shifts, too. Liberal views toward equality of women and minorities, drug use and sexuality blossomed then, as well as backlashes to these ideas, setting us up for issues that have followed. Marijuana became popular in what was termed “The Jazz Age,” especially among musicians and those in show business. These themes, along with their inherent tensions, are prominently with us today, even if we consider that we have made significant progress in some ways. 

Geographically, more of the population began to live in cities than on farms then, and that holds true for our cities and suburbs now. But the divide today is not so much physical as generational. Social media and video games are the provenance of the young, while older Americans still read, watch TV and film.

The stock market and the financial world are strikingly similar while a century apart. Stocks are roaring today, much as they did in the Roaring Twenties. America’s wealth more than doubled in the decade of the 1920s. But it was a time of immense economic prosperity for upper-class white American men. Most Americans, with minimal wages, only experienced income inequality. It was also a time of the one percent owning a widely disproportionate share of that wealth, some 23.9 percent. 

Sound familiar? And because the wages of the working class were not brought along with that of the wealthy, as consumers, they could not keep up their vital role. Consumers are responsible for as much as 70 percent of the economy. Depression followed. Again, today the top one percent own some 26 percent, and again income inequality is rampant.  

Then there was Prohibition. In 1920, the 18th Amendment banned the making and selling of alcohol. But alcohol didn’t simply go away. It went underground, making petty gangs who transported and sold liquor into powerful forces in the country. Fast forward 100 years and we have drug lords with the same sort of influence over society as a result of similar incredible profits. The legalization of pot is clearly an attempt to learn from the century-old Temperance Movement. The turnaround in policy toward cannabis has provided a big economic boon, as the product has made its way into fiber, food and medicine.

Technology in the 1920s was dramatic and had a profound effect on people’s lives. Fridges, vacuums, telephones, radios, electricity and automobiles changed daily living. Again, major technological innovations, coming along at an exponentially faster pace, are transforming lives today. Consider internet expansion, 5G connectivity, 3D printing and artificial intelligence among most recent debuts. A few people are amassing unprecedented wealth with these marvels. Here we go again with an ever-increasing wealth gap. Plus, both centuries saw workers worried for their job, first with industrialization and now with knowledge. Advancing technology provides miracles and threats. It is also a crucible for social unrest in both centuries.

And then there is transportation. Lindbergh crossed the ocean in 1927. We are on course to fly to Mars in 10 years. Both centuries’ 20s hosted marvels. But the 1920s set the stage for WWII. 

Are we learning from history?

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Richard McCormick. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

The State University of New York Board of Trustees has named former Rutgers President Richard McCormick, 76, interim president of Stony Brook University as the school continues its search for a seventh president.

McCormick, who will take over the reigns at the downstate flagship SUNY school on August 1st, replaces Maurie McInnis, who left Stony Brook after four years to become the president of Yale University on July 1.

Dr. Bill Wertheim, Executive Vice President for Stony Brook Medicine, has been serving as Officer-in-Charge and Stony Brook University Hospital’s Governing Body since July 1.

McCormick, who was president of Rutgers from 2002 to 2012 and has taught and studied United States political history in the 19th and 20th centuries, has over four decades of experience in higher education, including leading several highly ranked public universities.

McCormick will oversee Stony Brook University and Stony Brook Medicine and will serve as part of the management team of Brookhaven National Laboratory.

“Each step we take in this leadership transition is important, and we welcome Dr. McCormick,” John King, Jr, SUNY Chancellor said in a statement. “His vast higher education experience will continue to move this esteemed university forward as the campus conducts a national search for its new president.”

McCormick welcomed the chance to lead Stony Brook during this transition period.

Stony Brook “has achieved national stature yet remains fully engaged with its Long Island community, for which it is an economic engine,” McCormick said in a statement. “My thanks to the SUNY Board of Trustees, Chancellor King and the Stony Brook Council for this opportunity.”

As an interim president, McCormick will not be a candidate to become the next permanent president.

In addition to his tenure at Rutgers, which started in 1976 when he joined the history department, McCormick also was vice chancellor and provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1992 to 1995 and was president of the University of Washington from 1995 to 2002.

The incoming interim Stony Brook president earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College in American Studies and his PhD in history from Yale in 1976, 20 years before McInnis also earned her PhD in the History of Art from the New Haven-based Ivy league school she now leads.

McCormick started his academic career at Rutgers, where he was a member of the history faculty from 1976 to 1992. He was also Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

McCormick is the son of Richard Patrick McCormick, a former Rutgers professor and Katheryne Levis, a former Rutgers administrator.

McCormick and his father co-taught an American history course.

An author of several books, McCormick is writing a book on the history of American political corruption from the 17th century to the present.

Rutgers achievements

McCormick, who earned his high school diploma from Piscataway Township High School in Piscataway, New Jersey, orchestrated constructive changes in his hometown university during his presidency.

McCormick helped raise $650 million while he was president.

Four years after becoming president, the university reorganized the undergraduate colleges on the New Brunswick campus into a School of Arts and Sciences and School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

The reorganization included a comprehensive new curriculum at the School of Arts and Sciences, first year seminars, signature courses, expansion opportunities for undergraduate research and honors programs and support for top undergraduates competing for highly competitive scholarships and awards.

In the final years of his tenure, he merged Rutgers with the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and divisions of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The New Jersey Legislature passed a bill to integrate almost all units of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey into Rutgers.

“Dr. McCormick’s notable accomplishments as president of Rutgers from 2002 until 2012 included reinvigorating undergraduate education, elevating its standing in the top tier of public research universities, realizing a longstanding goal of returning medical education to the university’s portfolio, and improving and strengthening connections with important partners, including alumni and local communities,” Wertheim said in a statement. “He is the ideal leader to help Stony Brook sustain its momentum as New York’s flagship university.”

The former Rutgers president led the school when it installed 40,000 high-efficiency solar panels over two large surface parking lots on the Livingston campus, producing over eight megawatts of power, which, at the time, was the largest renewable energy system built on a college campus in the country. Rutgers has continued to add solar panels.

Stony Brook momentum

McCormick’s experience with solar energy dovetails with some of Stony Brook’s recent environmental initiatives and successes.

With the support of the Simons Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Stony Brook University won the competitive process as the lead institution to create a climate solutions center on Governors Island. The New York Climate Exchange will develop and deploy dynamic solutions to the global climate crisis, will provide educational and research opportunities and will serve as a place for New Yorkers to benefit from the green economy.

The Climate Solutions Center will include 400,000 square feet of green-designed building space, including research labs, classroom space, exhibits, greenhouses, mitigation technologies and housing facilities.

McCormick takes over as interim president at a time when Stony Brook has achieved some important financial and academic victories.

A year ago, the Simons Foundation made a $500 million endowment gift to Stony Brook. The gift, which will be spread out over seven years, was the largest unrestricted donation to an institution of higher education in United States history.

The Foundation gift, which the state will match on a 1:2 program, and other philanthropic contributions are expected to increase the endowment by as much as $1 billion.

Stony Brook recently climbed 19 spots in the rankings of colleges from US News and World Report, ranking 58th in the rankings. That’s the highest ever rank for a State University of New York institution. The school also placed 12th among national universities for social mobility rank.

“Stony Brook is a world-class institution, moving on an upward trajectory, educating the next generation of leaders and thinkers and bettering our society through research and economic development,” Stony Brook Council Kevin Law said in a statement. “I am pleased to welcome Dr. McCormick, whose accomplishments and vision in higher-education leadership are nothing short of extraordinary, as our interim president, and to begin the search for our next permanent president.”

Challenges ahead

McCormick will likely face the same some of the same challenges other university presidents, interim or not, have dealt with as protestors have expressed their frustrations over the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

At numerous universities, protests disrupted exams, classes and graduation ceremonies.

College presidents have tried to balance between the rights of students to assemble and express themselves and the university’s need to protect various groups of students from intimidation, bullying, or threats.

Local politicians welcomed McCormick. “I look forward to getting to know Dr. McCormick and collaborating with him to ensure that Stony Brook remains a premier institution of higher learning, providing a safe environment for students of all religions,” said Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY1).

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Smith Point County Park Facebook

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine announced on July 16 that two County beaches are extending their hours during the current heatwave. Swimming at Smith Point Beach in Shirley and Cupsogue Beach in Westhampton Beach will remain open an additional hour, closing at 6:30 p.m. until further notice.

“Residents cannot be left high and dry in the heat wave,” said Romaine. “Increasing access to these most popular county beaches is a matter of public health and sound decision-making.” 

Romaine also emphasized the importance of safety.

“Safety is the most important part of any day near the water,” said Romaine. “Please adhere to the rules, pay attention to lifeguards and signs. Be careful.”

Romaine offered the following Safety Tips: 

  • Only swim within the buoys with a lifeguard on duty. 
  • Be conscious of riptides and remember to swim parallel to the shore to get out current before heading back to shore. 
  • Swim sober.
  • Never swim alone. 
  • Check local advisories before swimming. 

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Update on July 15: The man who was pulled from the water on July 14 and died in apparent drowning at Outer Beach at Smith Point County Park has been identified as Michael Petruzzo, 64, undomiciled.

Below is the original press release:

Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad detectives are investigating the death of a man who was pulled from the water in Shirley on July 14.

Seventh Precinct officers responded to Outer Beach at Smith Point County Park at approximately 3:55 p.m. after good Samaritans pulled an unresponsive man from the water. The man was transported to Long Island Community Hospital in Patchogue where he was pronounced dead. The man, who is believed to have drowned, has not yet been identified.

Detectives are asking anyone with information on this incident to call the Homicide Squad at 631-852-
6392.

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METRO photo

We look forward to it all year. Your kids can’t wait to be free from school and you can’t wait to sip a cool drink by the pool.

But, the sun is a powerful entity. While it is clinically proven to lift your mood and regulate your circadian rhythm, the sun is chiefly responsible for one-in-five Americans developing skin cancer by the time they are 70 — and just five sunburns can double your chances of melanoma.

So, what can we do to continue enjoying the warmth of summer, while also remaining protected? First, let’s break down the forms of skin cancer most caused by sun overexposure.

Melanoma: The most dangerous of skin cancers, it can present itself anywhere on the body. If you are seeing large brown spots with dark speckles, moles that change in color, size or feel, moles with irregular borders and portions that appear black or blue, itching and burning or dark spots on your palms, soles, fingertips or toes, you should seek out a medical professional.

Basal-cell carcinoma: The most common type of skin cancer, usually found on areas of the body most exposed to the sun. This form typically grows slowly and rarely spreads (metastasizes). However, if left untreated, it can invade nearby tissues and cause disfigurement. It often appears as a flesh-colored, scar-like or pearl-like bump and is often shiny or waxy. The edges of the lesion are typically smooth and may have a rolled border. It bleeds easily when scratched. 

Squamous-cell carcinoma: This form presents slightly differently from melanoma and basal-cell carcinoma. Squamous-cell carcinoma occurs on sun-exposed areas as a firm, red nodule or a flat lesion with a scaly, crusted surface.

Merkel-cell carcinoma: This type presents as a painless, firm bump or nodule on the skin that grows fast as a red, scaly or ulcerated area on the skin and/or a new mole that changes in size, color or shape.

Sebaceous gland carcinoma: This is a very rare but aggressive form of skin cancer that begins in the body’s oil-producing, sebaceous gland. It can often be mistaken for pink eye, as it usually starts on the eyelid, and can cause growths to ooze fluid. The cancer can also develop in hairy areas of the body due to the fact that sebum is released by the hair follicle.

Luckily, there are many ways to avoid the risks of the beating sun. Here are some tips to stay safe this year. According to Harvard Health Publishing, at Harvard Medical School:

1. Always wear sunscreen, applying it at least every two hours but do not rely on it alone. Seek shade often and whenever available. SPF 30 and up is recommended, with SPF 30 protecting against 97% of ultraviolet B rays.

2. Wear sun-protective clothing, preferably made of polyester, nylon, wool and silk, to block the UV rays.

3. Avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when the sun’s rays are the strongest.

4. Be aware that some medicines and skin care products can increase your skin’s risk of UV damage. These include certain antibiotics, as well as some prescription medicines that are used to treat mental health disorders, high blood pressure, heart failure, acne and allergies. If you are taking prescription medication, and you normally spend a great deal of time outdoors, ask your health care professional whether you should take any special precautions to avoid sun exposure.

5. Early detection is key, with survival rates up to 99%, when caught. If something seems abnormal, have it checked ASAP. 

Now that you are armed with all this information, get out in the sun and have a safe but great summer.

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Daniel Marx in front of one of the magnets at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

In a world filled with disagreements over everything from presidential politics to parking places, numbers — and particularly constants — can offer immutable comfort, as people across borders and political parties can find the kind of common ground that make discoveries and innovations possible.

Many of these numbers aren’t simple, as anyone who has taken a geometry class would know. Pi, for example, which describes the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, isn’t just 3 or 3.14.

In classes around the world, people challenge their memory of numbers and sequences by reciting as many digits of this irrational number as possible. An irrational number can’t be expressed as a fraction.

These irrational numbers can and do inform the world well outside of textbooks and math tests, making it possible for, say, electromagnetic radiation to share information across a parallel world or, in earlier parlance, the ether.

“All electronic communication is made up of waves, sines and cosines, that are defined and evaluated using pi,” said Alan Tucker, Toll Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook University. The circuits that send and receive information are “based on calculations using pi.”

Scientists can receive signals from the Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977 and now over seven billion miles away, thanks to the ability to tune a circuit using math that relies on pi and numerous mathematical formulas where the sensitivity to the signal is infinite.

The signal from the spacecraft, which is over 16 years older than the average-aged person on the planet, takes about 10 hours to travel back and forth.

“Think of 1/x, where x goes to 0,” explained Tucker. “Scientists have taken that infinity to be an infinite multiplier of weak signals that can be understood.”

Closer to Earth, the internet, radio waves and TV, among myriad other electronic devices, all use generated and decoded calculations using pi.

“All space has an unseen mathematical existence that nobody can see,” said Tucker. “These are heavily based on calculations involving pi.”

Properties of nature

Constants reflect the realities of the world. They have “a property that is fundamental and absolute and that no one could change,” said Steve Skiena, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Computer Science at Stony Brook University. “The reason people discovered these constants as being important is because they are relating things that arise in the world.”

While pi may be among the best known and most oft-discussed constant, it’s not alone in measuring and understanding the world and in helping scientists anticipate, calculate and understand their experiments.

Chemists, for example, design reactions using a standard unit of measure called the mole, which is also called Avogadro’s number for the Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro.

The mole provides a way to balance equations, enabling chemists to determine exactly how much of each reactant to combine to get a specific amount of product.

This huge number, which is often expressed as 6.022 times 10 to the 23rd power, represents the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon 12. The units can be electrons, ions, atoms or molecules.

“Without Avogadro’s number, it would be impossible to determine the ratio of particular reactants,” said Elliot Smith, a postdoctoral researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who works in John Moses’s lab. “You could take an educated guess, but you wouldn’t get good results.”

Smith often uses millimoles, or 1/1000th of a mole, in the chemical reactions he does.

“If we know the millimoles of each reactant, we can calculate the expected yield,” said Smith. “Without that, you’re fumbling in the dark.”

Indeed, efficient chemical reactions make it possible to synthesize greater amounts of some of the pharmaceutical products that protect human health.

Moles, or millimoles, in a reaction also make it possible to question why a result deviated from expectations. 

Almost the speed of light

Physicists use numerous constants.

“In physics, it is inescapable that you will have to deal with some of the fundamental constants,” said Alan Calder, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University.

When he models stellar explosions, he uses the speed of light and Newton’s gravitational constant, which relates the gravitational force between two objects to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them.

The stars Calder studies are gas ball reactions that also involve constants.

Stars have thermonuclear reactions going on in them as they evolve. Calder uses reaction rates that depend on local conditions like temperature, but there are constants in these.

Calder’s favorite number is e, or Euler’s constant. This number, which is about 2.71828, is useful in calculating interest in a bank account as well as in understanding the width of successive layers in a snail shell among many other phenomena in nature.

Electron Ion Collider

The speed of light figures prominently in the development and calculations at Brookhaven National Laboratory as the lab prepares to build the unique Electron Ion Collider, which is expected to cost between $1.7 billion and $2.8 billion.

The EIC, which will take about 10 years to construct, will collide a beam of electrons with a beam of ions to answer basic questions about the atomic nucleus.

“It’s one of the most exciting projects in the world,” said Daniel Marx, an accelerator physicist in the Electron Ion Collider accelerator design group at BNL.

At the EIC, physicists expect to propel the electrons, which are 2,000 times lighter than protons, extremely close to the speed of light. In fact, they will travel at 99.999999 (yes, that’s six nines after the decimal point) of the speed of light, which, by the way, is 186,282 miles per second. That means that light can circle the globe 7.48 times per second.

The EIC will increase the energy of ions to 99.999% of the speed of light. With only three nines after the decimal, the protons will be traveling at a slower enough speed that the designers of the collider will make the proton ring about 4 inches shorter over 2.4 miles to ensure that the protons and electrons arrive at exactly the same time.

The EIC will attempt to answer questions about the mass and spin of the nucleus. They hope to understand what happens with dense systems of gluons. By accelerating nuclei or protons to higher energies, they will get more gluons and will look for evidence of gluon saturation.

“The speed of light is absolutely fundamental to everything we do,” said Marx because it is fundamental to relativity and the particles in the accelerator are relativistic.

As for constants, Marx suggested that its value might look like a row of random numbers, but if those numbers are a bit different, that could “revolutionize” an understanding of physics.

In addition to a detailed understanding of atomic nuclei, the EIC could also lead to new technologies.

When JJ Thomson discovered the electron, he toasted it by saying, “may it never be of use to anyone.” That, however, is far from the case, as the electron is at the heart of electronics.

As for pi, Marx, like many of his STEM colleagues, appreciates this constant.

“Once you look at the mathematical statement of pi, and how it relates in various ways to other quantities in math and physics, it deepens your appreciation of how beautiful the whole universe is,” Marx said.

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Pickleball court. Photo by Pixabay

By Toni-Elena Gallo

It has a funny name and it was not something most of us grew up with. Now pickleball has gained the “likes” of the world. 

A sport developed to happily pass the summer days has become an international phenomenon. Despite its similarities to tennis and ping-pong, pickleball has a rule set all its own. Time has seen the creation of the International Federation of Pickleball as well as the World Pickleball Federation, and there has even been talk of it becoming an Olympic sport.

Long Island is no stranger to this relatively new sport’s growing influence. The Town of Brookhaven installed its first 11 outdoor pickleball courts at Centereach Park over the last two years and has recently brought that number up to 22.

When asked if pickleball has become a trend among Brookhaven residents, town Supervisor Dan Panico (R), simply replied, “It is.”

Origins of pickleball

Pickleball originated on Bainbridge Island, Washington, in the summer of 1965. Joel Pritchard, a Washington State legislator and future congressman, with his close friend, Bill Bell, stumbled upon Joel’s 13-year-old, Frank, in a very annoyed mood.

He told the two men that he was bored on his vacation and had nothing to do. When he sarcastically told his father to “go make up a game” for everyone to play, his father took the words to heart.

Pritchard, Bell and their friend Barney McCallum, developed pickleball out of a rag-tag assortment of ping-pong paddles, the perforated, plastic ball of a kid’s bat-and-ball set and a badminton net. The name was coined by Pritchard’s wife, Joan, in reference to the mish mosh of people delegated to the sport of rowing’s “pickle boats.”

And, so was the beginning of pickleball, a game that since its infancy has been all about family and community.

Pickleball in Brookhaven

“Around the town, there has been an impetus to install more pickleball courts, because the popularity of the sport has exploded,” Panico said. “The existing courts were so heavily utilized that we put additional monies in the budgewt to double the number of courts townwide.”

 He added that three existing courts, located at the Brookhaven Aquatic Center in Mastic Beach, will be resurfaced.

Panico said that the sport’s popularity is not only talked about, but visible: “When I left my house this morning, I went past the Moriches Athletic Complex, and I was pleased to see that the courts were full. And that was early in the morning, so people are utilizing them and that’s what we want them to do. We try to meet the needs of our residents to the best of our ability.”

There are new courts at the Moriches Athletic Complex, Sylvan Avenue Park in Miller Place and the Medford Athletic Complex. “So, you have South Shore, the middle of the town and the North Shore [covered],” Panico said.

The mass popularity of the game has caused courts to pop up throughout Long Island, including at Port Jefferson, Smithtown and Huntington. 

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File photo by Raymond Janis

Exploring the potential for using hydrogen fuel

Two weeks ago, on June 28, Port Jefferson Village Mayor Lauren Sheprow, then-trustee-elect Xena Ugrinsky and I visited the Advanced Energy Research & Technology Center at Stony Brook University. The AET is doing cutting-edge research on future hydrogen technologies and other projects that create businesses on Long Island. We were welcomed by David Hamilton and Kathleen Ferrell. 

The connections with Stony Brook University departments, New York technology leaders, researchers and public agencies that were made in this short visit were quite extraordinary and many appointments were made for future discussions.

The mayor knew Hamilton and Ferrell professionally. Our visit was designed to dovetail with the efforts of the Port Jefferson Power Plant Working Group that Ugrinsky chairs. The PWG is exploring the potential for repowering our base load plants using hydrogen fuel and we will be exploring this possibility with Haiyan Sun when she is scheduled to tour our plant on a trip from Albany July 10.

Sun heads NYSERDA’s (the state’s Energy Research & Development Authority) hydrogen and renewables division and is responsible for evaluating grants and New York State priorities for this fast-evolving future technology. I am proud to be a part of this village’s forward-thinking and well-connected leadership. Port Jefferson is fortunate to be able to have people with these kinds of professional experience and networks working for its residents.

Bruce Miller

Port Jefferson

Comsewogue Community Garden is a special place

My name is Danny, and I am a Life Scout working on the Communication merit badge. I recently started work on my Eagle Scout project at the Comsewogue Community Garden on Terryville Road in Port Jefferson Station. I am replacing the current garden shed with a new one. 

I am writing because I would like to share how impressed I am with the garden and the amount of work that volunteers have put into making the garden so beautiful and welcoming. This includes growing fresh vegetables and a pollinator garden. More recently a Girl Scout troop started a sensory garden. 

This is a special place in the community and I think more people should know about it. I am hoping that students can take field trips to visit the garden and community members can take advantage of this beautiful space. 

Daniel Cappiello 

Troop 354 Port Jefferson Station

Happy 60th birthday to public transportation on Long Island

This July marks the 60th anniversary of federal government support for public transportation. The success of public transportation can be traced back to one of the late President Lyndon Johnson’s (D) greatest accomplishments which continues benefiting many Americans today. On July 9, 1964, he signed the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 into law. Subsequently this has resulted in the investment over time of billions of dollars into public transportation.

Millions of Americans today on a daily basis utilize various public transportation alternatives. They include local and express bus, ferry, jitney, light rail, subway and commuter rail services. All of these systems use less fuel and move far more people than conventional single occupancy vehicles. Most of these systems are funded with your tax dollars thanks to Johnson.

Depending upon where you live, consider the public transportation alternative. Try riding a local or express bus, para transit or commuter van, ferry, light rail, commuter rail or subway. 

There is MTA LIRR, NYC Transit bus and subway, Suffolk County Transit Bus, Huntington Area Rapid Transit (HART) Bus and Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) Bus.

By using MTA Metro or OMNY cards, there are free transfers between the subway and bus. This has eliminated the old two-fare zones making public transportation an even better bargain. Purchasing a monthly LIRR or MTA subway/bus pass reduces the cost per ride and provides virtually unlimited trips. In many cases, employers can offer transit checks which help subsidize a portion of the costs. Utilize this and reap the benefits. It supports a cleaner environment. 

Many employers now allow employees to telecommute and work from home. Others use alternative work schedules which afford staff the ability to avoid rush-hour gridlock. This saves travel time and can improve mileage per gallon. Join a car or van pool to share the costs of commuting. 

The ability to travel from home to workplace, school, shopping, entertainment, medical, library, etc., is a factor when moving to a new neighborhood. Economically successful communities are not 100% dependent on automobiles as the sole means of mobility. Seniors, students, low and middle income people need these transportation alternatives. Investment in public transportation today contributes to economic growth, employment and a stronger economy. Dollar for dollar, it is one of the best investments we can make.

What better way to honor the late President Johnson and all that has been achieved these past 60 years in public transportation by continuing funding the federal Highway Trust Fund and Mass Transit Account. 

Larry Penner

Great Neck

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

If sweat were a valuable commodity, I’d be in high demand.

As it is, however, my thick, heavy high-volume sweat is as welcome as a cup of warm water on a hot, sticky day.

When I was a teenager and attended basketball camp, I used to sit in the back seat with two other campers, squeezing my thick thighs together as much as possible to avoid sharing the sweat that coated my legs.

I had and continue to have the kind of sweat glands that would give marathoners from Ethiopia a run for their money.

No, I can’t run as far or as fast as a marathon runner, but I still sometimes looked like one, especially on those summer days when I walked a few miles to work and arrived in a puddle-stained suit.

Fortunately, the public, even before the notion of “fake news” became trendy, rarely had high expectations for the attire of a reporter.

When the temperature and humidity are high enough, I can picture the various characters from the Disney/Pixar movie “Inside Out” pushing and shoving as they try to climb into a small raft in a sweat-drenched control room.

The process almost always starts on my upper lip. That’s where beady sweat scouts come out, checking to see if it is indeed worth alerting the rest of my body that it’s a good time to join the fun.

Within seconds, my arms and wrists have the almost modest effect of glistening, as a thin layer of perspiration can catch the sun at just the right angle, giving my skin a mildly reflective look. After a few short moments, the production line kicks into higher gear. My fingers, which often swell when I walk more than a mile or so, become drenched.

I have had a few occasions when I’ve run into people who introduce me to others in this condition. When they stick out their hands to shake mine, I’m stuck.

While holding my hand back is disrespectful, soaking someone I’ve met with a soggy handshake makes the wrong kind of first impression.

My sister-in-law carries a collection of mostly healthy snacks in her purse for when my typically charming and delightful brother enters the hangry stage of the day and needs food to carry him to the next meal.

I don’t often become frustrated or angry when I’m hungry. I do, however, become embarrassed when I can feel the thick, heavy drops of sweat racing down my back, slaloming down my legs and collecting in my shoes.

Maybe I should suggest to my wife that she carry wipes, paper towels, an electric fan, or a magical towel that comes out of a tiny purse but can absorb a full day’s worth of sweat. I bet Mary Poppins could pull that off.

Since I’m not always with my wife and this isn’t her problem, I rub my hands against my legs. That kind of works, although that then leaves a soaked hand print on the outside of my pant leg which is usually met by the layer of moisture accumulating on the inside of my pants.

Now, dry fit shirts have become a true gift for me, as they don’t immediately become drenched with perspiration. Maybe some day someone will invent a dry fit suit, which looks like normal business attire, but doesn’t become a magnet for moisture.

I know astronauts drink a purified form of urine, the moisture they exhale and their own sweat. When I interviewed Astronaut Scott Kelly several years ago, he mentioned that he particularly enjoyed the taste of the purified water aboard the International Space Station, where he lived for 340 straight days.

I suppose that means I’d be a valuable commodity as an older, slower moving astronaut, assuming that I didn’t need to drink every ounce and then some, of what I produced when I sweat.

Oh well, that probably won’t work and I’m not that eager to travel into space. In the spirit of reduce, reuse, recycle, maybe I should figure out how to turn my own sweat into an icy cold drink.

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

Aging has become a frequent subject in the media, perhaps propelled there by our presidential race and its elderly candidates. We are all, of course, aging, and we all want to age well. This plethora of information gives us a chance to measure our health against standard values for our age. The statistics are also comforting: we are not alone with our symptoms and infirmities. We want to be equal or better than predicted for our age.

But are we?

I accepted a delivery from the messenger at my front door and reached for my wallet to pay him the charge. But herein lies the story. 

Years ago, I gave up carrying a pocketbook because I was getting lame from carrying everything in there but the proverbial kitchen sink. My doctor, whom I had visited with complaints of an aching shoulder, and who noticed my dead weight tote, pointed out that most men don’t carry pocketbooks and they seem to do fine. Men, after all, keep everything they need for daily living in their pockets. 

He advised me to do the same.

He was right. I observed men carefully at checkout lines in supermarkets and in restaurants. They settled the bills with whatever they withdrew from their pockets and went merrily on their way. They carried their door keys in their pockets, and some even took out a comb occasionally to run through their hair. I reasoned that I could do that, too,  with my lipstick. The doctor changed my life that day. And my shoulder never again bothered me.

Since then, I have bought clothes with pockets and used them instead of a pocketbook for my routine needs unless I am wearing a gown or a bathing suit. So I was wearing shorts that day, when I paid the driver, then replaced my wallet in my pocket. 

Or so I thought.

Later, when I was getting ready to go to my annual dentist appointment, I reached into my pocket to check for my wallet and panicked. It wasn’t there. I could feel the coarse material at the bottom. The pocket was empty.

What had I done with my wallet after I paid for the package? I pivoted to look next to the still unopened box on the front hall table. Nothing. Thinking I absent-mindedly carried the wallet into the living room and put it down next to my reading chair, I entered and found only the day’s newspaper there. Concern mounting, I quickly walked around to the kitchen and scanned the empty counters.

Now I was beginning to panic. If I didn’t find my wallet quickly, I was going to be late for my appointment. It came to me in a flash. I must have brought the wallet to my bedroom. I rushed up the stairs and into the room, searching the bedside table, the thickly padded bedroom chair, the ottoman and even the bathroom. No luck. 

Then I ran downstairs and repeated all those steps, hoping I had missed something the first time around. Still nothing. Wait. Had I looked in my closet, where I had earlier pulled out my sandals? Taking flight, I charged back up the stairs and into the walk-in closet. No sight of the stupid wallet.

Overheated and gasping for air, I realized I was going to miss the dentist. I sat down in my bedroom chair, dialed his number and got his receptionist. Breathlessly I explained my predicament and that I would call for another time. She was sympathetic and told me how often that happens to her with her car keys. I wasn’t mollified. I had everything in my wallet: driver’s license, insurance card, credit cards, money.

I hung up and leaned back into the chair, only to feel a lump against my lower back. What had I left in the chair? Nothing, but there was something in the back pocket of my shorts.

There it was. I had forgotten I had back pockets in these shorts. My wallet was running around the house with me the entire time. Duh! 

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