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This might sound peculiar since I am in the news business, but for over the past weekend I disconnected myself from all news reports. I was unplugged, you might say. Now this is a confession from an ultra news junkie. I’m normally so addicted that if I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll switch on the bedside radio to catch up on what has happened since I went to sleep. But the past week, with the excruciating racist events and senseless killings, here and abroad, were more than I could process.

So I just turned off, or rather I didn’t turn anything on — not my radio, not the television, not the news apps on my cellphone. I didn’t even talk about the news with friends and neighbors.

What a luxury to be able to withdraw from global events for a couple of days.

I have a further antidote for all that has been happening in the world, and it’s even great fun to pursue. This Saturday is Culper Spy Day in Setauket, and it is the work of a number of local organizations committed to bringing history to life. The Culper spies, as you may know, were a small band of close friends who provided George Washington and the colonists with critically important information throughout the Revolutionary War at great risk to their lives. So engaging were their exploits, and so valuable to the eventual outcome of the war, that AMC has a cable TV drama, “Turn,” which has been drawing large audiences for three seasons to date. The series is what we call historical fiction, with the emphasis on fiction loosely — very loosely — based on real events. Those events belong to us because they are part of our local history and are a source of community pride.

This Saturday, July 23, you will be able to walk or bike or drive a designated route that offers views of key locations in the Culper story. There will be “colonists” in costume and signs along the way, helping the stories come alive. And we at Times Beacon Record have produced a multimedia map to enhance your experience. I refer to the newly released Three Village Map, complete with local roads and information from our business community. On this map is a QR code and also a link that, if you click on it with your mobile phone, will open up onto our website to seven different dramatizations of Culper stories — that we promise are historically accurate. In fact, the truth, we think, is more riveting than fiction, as we watch the dangerous exploits of these American heroes and heroines.

The actors in these episodes may be recognizable to you, and they do a fine job of conveying the gist of the story. We have used the services of a professional film crew, who shot the local scenes over the past several months. Community leaders introduce each film segment to set the scene. And in between episodes, if you are walking the route with your family, there are fun arcade-like games to play on your smartphone or laptop. The games, like the scenes, are our original creations and lots of fun. I predict your children — and you — will return to them many times to improve your score. I have.

Special thanks go to the participating organizations and their members for the vision to mount such an ambitious event and the enormous amount of time and effort that went into making history come alive. These include the Three Village Historical Society, The Ward Melville Heritage Organization and The Long Island Museum.

The Times Beacon Record has put together a special pullout within this week’s Arts & Lifestyles section with additional information about Culper Spy Day. Copies will be distributed for free in the historical society parking lot; our multimedia map is $3. Tickets for the more-than 16 attractions, including battle reenactments and colonial cooking demonstrations, are $25, with children under 12 free, from the historical society, WMHO Educational & Cultural Center in Stony Brook village and The Long Island Museum.

Have yourselves a worry free and wonderful day!

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“The Neck” — A view of Plum Island. Photo by Robert Lorenz

One of the things that instills great pride in North Shore residents is the unparalleled natural beauty of the place we call home. We are grateful to those who came before us for their discernment and diligence in protecting and preserving that — which, once developed, is lost forever.

Conservationists and environmentalists have worked to ensure that open spaces, clean water, nature preserves and pine barrens will continue to exist for future generations to enjoy.

A controversy is roiling Long Islanders and activists nationwide, over the proposed sale of Plum Island by the federal government. In 1954, the island was the secured location of an animal research facility run by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. More recently, responsibility for the island has shifted to the Department of Homeland Security.

Today, Plum Island, an important, pristine, ecological habitat, is in danger of being sold to a developer. The island has seen little human traffic in the last 70 years, which has enabled about 80 percent of the land to revert to its natural state. It is now home to some of our most imperiled species.

As the Plum Island Animal Disease Center has become outmoded, plans are afoot to create a new center in Manhattan, Kansas. To defray the cost of the new facility, the government wants to sell the 843-acre coastal island to the highest bidder.

We applaud the efforts of Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) to block the proposed sale. The House of Representatives has passed two of his legislative proposals to date. Zeldin urges the Senate to act and pass the proposals as well, and we agree with his sentiments. We are hopeful that we can pursue a better direction for Plum Island than just private ownership, one that would allow for continued research, public access and permanent preservation.

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In a celebration on the July Fourth weekend, a Black Lives Matter banner is dedicated. Pictured are, Racial Concerns committee co-chairs Kay Aparo and Barbara Coley, Janet Hanson, John Lutterbee and Sara Lutterbee. Photo by Barbara Coley

It certainly has not been a quiet two weeks in America. A shooting in Dallas, Texas, resulted in the death of five police officers, and the killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minn., have sparked a national conversation, with many people on social media finding themselves in between #BlackLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter.

Supporting #BlackLivesMatter doesn’t make someone anti-police, and responding to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter does nothing to address the reasons the movement started in the first place. The same goes for killing police officers.

Yet every time a new video surfaces showing a young black male being detained, and in some cases killed by police, or another story of an attack on a uniformed officer comes to light, finger-pointing and politically motivated, unproductive talk ensues for as long as the given news cycle will allow.

There is one important question that needs to be answered and given substantial thought by every person in the United States, so that we can decide what kind of a country we want to be. It is also important to note that asking questions of your government or law enforcement does not mean you are against them.

But why do we see interactions between African-Americans and police officers frequently start at a place of such heightened tension? How is it that we continue to see citizens of our country killed by the people entrusted with protecting them, and how do we fix it?

Just like any relationship, this one is a two-way street that needs reflection and cooperation from both sides to provide any hope of one day fixing it. We believe it would serve America well to look past the conversation of #AllLivesMatter. This phrase would not have started without #BlackLivesMatter, which came to the forefront because of violent incidents in this country. We need to look at why these events took place, if we want to try to fix what many citizens now think is a national problem.

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Queen Elizabeth I and subsequently Catherine the Great have captured the attention and the imaginations of people over the centuries, but there was another such extraordinary woman whom I had never heard of until last Saturday night. She was Queen Christina of Sweden, born in 1626, and she was the monarch technically from the time she was 6 until she abdicated her throne in 1654.

Her father was King Gustav II Adolph, and he died on the battlefield at the Battle of Lützen during the Thirty Years’ War. Close to his daughter, his only legitimate child, as she was to him, he decreed that in the event of his death, she was to be educated as a prince — to receive a boy’s tutoring and instruction. Except for a brief, three-year period when she was raised by her father’s half-sister, Catherine, who then died, Christina was always in the company of men and was effectively overseen by the governing regency council and the chancellor. She took to her books eagerly, and throughout her early years she energetically studied 10 hours a day. Her education ranged from religion, mathematics, Greek and Latin, philosophy and alchemy, and she eventually learned at least eight languages: German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew and her own Swedish. She was also deeply interested in the arts and filled her palace and her kingdom with books, manuscripts, sculptures and statues, while encouraging theater and ballet.

When her chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna, wanted to continue the war, she sued for peace. Christina was interested in bringing scholars and artists from throughout Europe and surrounded herself and her court with learned men.

In 1648, Christina commissioned 35 pieces of art. By 1649, 760 artworks, 170 marble and 100 bronze statues, 33,000 coins and medallions, 600 pieces of crystal, 300 scientific instruments, manuscripts and books were forthcoming. Christina was widely viewed throughout Europe as one of the most educated women of the 1600s, nicknamed “Minerva of the North.” She was also regarded as eccentric since she often dressed in the most comfortable clothing, including pants and men’s shoes.

Christina stunned the royals throughout Europe by announcing she would never marry, although constantly pressed to do so by her regency council to produce an heir, and that she would abdicate her throne in favor of her first cousin Charles, with whom she had been secretly betrothed when she was 16. Impressed by a biography she had read of Elizabeth I, known as “The Virgin Queen,” and taken with the idea of Roman Catholicism celibacy — although Christina was rumored not to have been celibate, rather the contrary — she sailed from Sweden for Rome.

The pope, who pronounced her a “queen without a realm, a Christian without faith and a woman without shame,” welcomed her elaborately. As the eventual guest of five consecutive popes, Christina is thought to have been a symbol of the Counter-Reformation since she converted from Lutheranism and became a Roman Catholic. For the most part, she lived in high style throughout the rest of her life, mainly in her beloved Rome, and she certainly influenced continental Europe profoundly with her taste and protectionism of the arts. She militantly advocated on behalf of personal freedom, of charities and, interestingly, of Jews in Rome who were sometimes taunted on the streets.

So how did I come to learn of her remarkable life? I am a fan of Saturday night classic movies hosted by Columbia University arts professor Richard Peña on Channel 13 at 9 p.m., and caught the showing of “Queen Christina” (1933) starring Greta Garbo. From what I have subsequent read, the story is surprisingly faithful to the broader outlines of Christina’s life. She died in 1689 and is buried in a Vatican grotto.

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My brothers are getting ready to celebrate their birthdays, which are two days apart. OK, so, several years and two days apart, so, no, they aren’t twins who kept my mother in labor for more than 48 hours.

At times I thought perhaps I, the middle child, should have been born on the day in between them. That way, my parents would have gotten all the birthday parties for the year done in one week.

Then again, it would have been hard for any of us to own more than 24 hours if we were all making plans for something special in the same narrow window of time.

As a longtime baseball devotee and recreational player, I always imagined the best thing I could do on my birthday would be to attend a Yankees game.

Over time, the focus on my birthday has changed. Yes, I enjoy my wife’s chocolate chip cookies, which she bakes as often as I like and, yes, I enjoy the calls and the cards. However, I don’t anticipate the day the same way I did when I was my children’s age, as they count down the days, hours and minutes until their annual celebration.

My son, who also loves baseball — hmm, I wonder how that happened? — has often talked about going to a game on his birthday, which is, conveniently, during the summer. The biggest challenge to making that happen is that he plays baseball so often that his games often conflict with Yankee games. In fact, during some weeks in the summer, he plays more games than Alex Rodriguez. OK, well, maybe that’s a bad example because poor A-Rod, who is a shell of his former self, hasn’t gotten much playing time these days.

Back to birthdays, though, if I could choose between a summer and winter birthday, I’m not sure which way I’d go. Let’s lay out the advantages of a winter birthday: For starters, I might get one of those natural gifts, when a snow day would eliminate all the hustle and bustle as the world stops and is covered with a white blanket. Nice as that sounds, that never happened.

My school friends were around on my birthday. During the summer, some of my son’s friends go to camp, where they might send him a snapchat or a text message around his birthday, but they can’t hang out, eat cake and swim in a pool.

I could also go skiing on my birthday. I love racing fast enough down a mountain that my eyes water from speeding down a trail. And, after an incredible day at Killington or Mount Snow, both in Vermont, I could relax in a lodge, in front of a fireplace, with my tired feet and exhausted knees propped up on the hearth.

I also enjoyed going to the beaches during the winter, when the crowds were gone and I felt as if I owned the windswept landscape, from one end of West Meadow Beach to the other.

OK, how about the disadvantages? Tests were at the top of that list. When I was in school, a test on my birthday wasn’t as much of a wet blanket as a test the day after my birthday, when studying superseded any birthday celebration.

The movies around the middle of the winter never seemed as much fun to attend as the ones during the summer, perhaps because of the pressure to prepare for school.

Still, while the grass may be greener, literally, for summer birthdays and the baseball season may be in full swing, the winter birthdays give those of us looking for festivities during the colder, darker months something to celebrate.

Ideally, we can enjoy these festivities all-year round, as we celebrate with our friends and family, particularly during frenetic birthday weeks. 

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Servicemen and women salute the American Flag in Northport on Memorial Day. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Do you ever stop and think what the Fourth of July is really all about?

While we were enjoying our BBQs, lounging at the beach, sipping on a drink or lighting fireworks this Independence Day, we realized the meaning of this holiday, like many others, can be forgotten when we’re busy trying to have a good time.

Our nation’s founders fought for our freedom.

Following the American Revolution, the 13 American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, and with that, came a string of unalienable rights that we now mark with patriotic displays on July 4, to symbolize our pride and celebration of this freedom.

Reflecting on what it means, and why we’re honored to live in this country, several things came to mind.

Freedom of speech is something that Americans can take for granted. The ability to express opinions, either as an individual or as part of the media, is essential to the backbone of our country.

Two in our editorial department have backgrounds that extend beyond our borders.

One, a first-generation American, was raised with a particular appreciation for the freedoms we enjoy. Both her parents emigrated from Eastern Europe as children in the 1920s and were raised in New York. They faced challenges including learning a new language and adapting to American ways, but in America there was no tsar, conscripting male heads of households or, in retrospect, no dictator on the rise who would eventually annihilate most of the Jews left behind in Eastern Europe. The American Dream became a reality for her parents.

Another editorial staffer’s father moved to this country from Colombia when he was in his 20s. Hearing about his background, she loves that he was able to prosper in this country — not just survive — but pursue his dream job of teaching and find a career where he is still excited to go to work and see his students 30 years later. As the daughter of an immigrant, she’s proud to be a part of the country that welcomed her dad and let him follow his dream.

While we look back on what we were founded on, and why this country is unique in the freedoms it gives us, we can also look ahead, to what we want it to be. We can be thankful for what we have, and for what America stands for, but also strive to continue to make this country an even better place than it was when we became a new nation on Independence Day.

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After every July Fourth we hear about the sickening tally of those injured or maimed by illegal firecrackers and explosives that were fired off in the name of fun. We routinely say, “How idiotic. Why don’t they just leave the fireworks to the professionals and go watch the show someplace?” There are always places to see the artful displays, hear the raucous explosions and cheer together the red, white and blue. If all else fails, there is the television or the computer screen. Do we have to injure ourselves to fully honor the actions of the colonists almost two-and-one-half centuries ago?

This subject is of more than casual interest to my family. When my dad was growing up on an upstate New York farm, one of nine children, a neighbor brought the family some explosive caps with which to properly celebrate Independence Day. The children gathered around a large boulder and cheered with each explosion, as my father’s favorite brother smashed the caps in turn with a rock he held in his hand. But one refused to go off. To make sure he was hitting the cap in exactly the right spot, he bent his head close to the obdurate explosive and carefully aimed his blow. This time it did explode and blew out his right eye. Needless to say, that was the end of that in my household.

The trail of these stupid tragedies continues.

When we first arrived here, on the beautiful North Shore of Suffolk from our Texas air force base, at the end of June, 47 years ago, my husband, who was an ophthalmologist, applied for hospital privileges at St. Charles in Port Jefferson. He was admitted to the ranks with the news that his first “on call” day would be on July 4. His first patient, waiting for him in the emergency room, was a teenage boy whose eye had been destroyed by an Independence Day explosive. He tended to the boy, of course, but never got over the horror of that sight and was sickened by the memory every year. It had been more traumatic for him than the many cases he had treated during the Vietnam War.

With these illegal explosives, brought in gleefully from distant states, we are to this day making war on ourselves. There is the story of the young visitor from Virginia in New York City, who was romping over the rocks in Central Park with his two buddies, when he stepped on a plastic bag of explosives that went off and destroyed his foot. There are seemingly unending stories of hands blown off, faces disfigured, house fires started, bystanders wounded and all manner of ugly consequences from fireworks across America. Some 230 wound up in emergency rooms at the latest count.

When John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 4, 1776, envisioning a dazzling annual celebration of independence from Britain, he surely didn’t consider such carnage as part of the party. Nor did he imagine the single horror that brought about what was probably the first city ordinance in America banning the possession or sale of fireworks within the city limits.

It happened in Cleveland in 1908. A clerk in S.S. Kresge’s department store was showing a 4-year-old boy and his mother a “harmless” sparkler with which to celebrate the holiday when a spark flew into the nearby display of skyrockets, torpedoes and candles. The store was almost immediately engulfed in flames. Seven people died, including the little boy, and dozens more were injured as the store burned. The tragedy prompted the city council to act, and many more cities and states have outlawed explosives over the last century.

But there are still states where the sale of explosives is legal, and the present concern is that a growing movement seems underway to relax some of the current legal restrictions. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates the sale of fireworks, reported that in addition to the many maimings from explosives 11 people died in 2014 alone. Why?

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Chances are the day of this publication, July 7, i.e., 7/7, is your lucky day. Why? Many people believe seven brings them luck, whether it’s because of the seven days of the week, seven colors in the rainbow, seven continents or even the “7” Mickey Mantle wore on his back.

If you believe in lucky numbers, seven might give you the kind of confidence you need to say exactly the right thing in a job interview, to seek a date with a long-term love interest, or to swing at a fastball at just the right moment, sending the ball deep into the night.

Practically speaking, all those people who share that lucky No. 7 can’t be winners at the same time. What if a pitcher in a tight game, who is the seventh child in a family of seven and might have been born at 7:07, is pitching to a hitter, who grew up on 77 Main Street and who always bats seventh? Who would win?

Taking a step back from the “7” sports quagmire, what is it about numbers that can make or break our confidence, that can inspire or deflate us? Even for those indifferent to theorems and patterns, numbers can be beautiful and comforting. They can create order in a chaotic world, offering support and structure in their patterns and predictability.

There’s the alternating odds and evens. That’s a pattern that’s like looking at a checkerboard, with its alternating tiles. According to some news reports, zero presents a problem for some people because they are not sure whether it is odd or even and most odd/even discussions begin with “1” while evens begin with “2.” (Zero is an even number under the standard mathematical definition.)

Then there are those rules of numbers that can help in the prime versus non-prime consideration. If you’re looking at an odd number, how do you know whether it’s divisible by three? You add up the digits in the number and see if the sum is divisible by three. Take, for example, 4,197. The sum of four, one, nine and seven is 21, which means it’s divisible by three.

But then there are those well-known irrational numbers that provide memory challenges for schools. Some schools, on March 14 each year, hold a contest about the famous constant, pi, which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Students commit as many digits of pi as they can to memory. Most people recall the 3.14 part of pi, which is why those competitions are held on March 14, but some push themselves to memorize more than a hundred digits.

Then there are those numbers that signal the beginning or the end of something. The famous countdown to a rocket launch that carries with it the hope of finding something new, of taking humans somewhere we’ve never gone, or of exploring or seeing the Earth from a different perspective. Parents know the famous mantra, “I’m going to count to three,” before a potential liftoff of another kind.

For the sports fanatics out there, numbers are the game within a game. For example:

• How fast did he throw that pitch?

• How many goals did he score in the World Cup?

• How great was this player compared with another player?

Numbers are sliced and diced to make predictions, reconsider greatness or understand a player’s potential.

Perhaps the corollary to the question, “Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?” should be, “Would a superstar with a different uniform number play as well?” The answer might depend on the date of the game.

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As Independence Day approaches, Teddy becomes more anxious. Teddy is our 11-year-old golden retriever, and he still has not come to terms with the noises of the holiday in particular and summer in general. We can feel his distress. For no apparent reason he begins to breathe more heavily. He doesn’t remain in his guardian position near the front door of the house throughout the night but seeks to sleep in one of our bedrooms alongside the bed. During the night he will get up and push against the mattress, tossing his head as if seeking comfort in the form of a few reassuring pats. This happens repeatedly throughout the remaining hours of sleep.

Clearly that doesn’t go over too well with whichever one of us he has awakened. But just try shutting the bedroom door to keep him out, and he will go into another routine. He knocks with his paw, his nails tapping against the wood. When that gets no response, he throws his body against the door two or three times. If admission isn’t granted, he begins to cry, loudly and piteously.

At that point Teddy wins.

While we have been aware of his unease, it was not until we read an article about “noise anxiety” in dogs that we actually understood this behavior was part of a seasonal syndrome and not just the expected reaction to the firecrackers going off on July Fourth.

Think about it. With the advent of more beautiful weather, we humans get outside more and do things like mow the lawn, blow the leaves, drive back and forth frequently, and play outdoor games like baseball or even catch amid screams and laughter. Air conditioners switch on and off and summer storms with rolling thunder and crackling lightning come and go. With the far-more-acute hearing of dogs, is it any wonder that such bursts of sound can send them into panic? They can hear far beyond what we can hear, so the volume of what to us is a deafening storm must be like a rock concert on steroids to their ears. This excites their norepinephrine, the brain chemical that triggers a fear response, and they sometimes do frantic things to try and escape what they perceive to be great danger. They may become agitated hours before a storm arrives, and they may continue to shake for hours after the offending storm leaves. No wonder their nervous systems cannot easily calm back down. A few comforting pats in the night just doesn’t do it for them.

There is a new medicine, as reported by The New York Times, which is the first drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to counter what is now officially termed “canine noise aversion.” It is called Sileo, distributed by Zoetis, and it works by inhibiting the effects of norepinephrine. I don’t know how you feel about administering medicine, but I prefer the loving, comforting approach so far.

There is one room in our house that is quieter than the rest because of its location, and I might take Teddy there and sit with him as I read, if all else fails. There is even a cot in that room. That seems to work — for him and for me. But depending on the severity of the dog’s discomfort, medicine may be required.

Meanwhile there is a movie coming called, “The Secret Life of Pets.” For those of us who enjoy animals and even tend to treat them like humans, the trailer looks amusing, so I recommend the film.

Happy Fourth!

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We all have them and we can laugh about them — later. In the moment, they are the shortening fuse that converts us from rational people capable of responding to any challenges into people who can’t control the frustration boiling inside us.

Recently, I visited with a friend who couldn’t get through a security gate on the way to a party. She had to wait as several people working at a gated community discussed whether to admit the car in front of her.

My friend is a brilliant person who is capable of erudite speeches, has keen insights and is informed about a wide range of subjects. She is among the most charming people in a room — most of the time.

Sitting in a line that came to a complete standstill, however, she “lost it.” She walked up to the glass partition, shouted at the security guards and demanded that they let her enter a party that would last for hours.

Even in the moment, she says, she could see herself saying things out of intense frustration, but she couldn’t regain control.

Those raw and exposed moments can be — and often are — the subjects of YouTube videos, as people around the action whip out their phones to chronicle someone who reached the point of no return in his or her actions.

From what I understand, our fuses get shorter during the summer months. It’s an ironic time for us to become so irate, when we dial back the pressure and take trips to our national parks, to Niagara Falls, or to a college or high school reunion. Maybe the heat shortens the fuse or speeds up the travel from when the fuse is lit to when it triggers us to react in a way we would just as soon avoid?

To some degree we need moments to blow off steam, to let it go and to release the toxins that have built up in us over the preceding days, weeks, months or, in some cases, years. Letting go of the control we maintain over ourselves through all the hundreds or thousands of nuisances and annoyances can cleanse us and restore our equanimity in a way that yoga classes, deep-breathing exercises or a repetition of a mantra like “serenity now” doesn’t quite cover.

To be clear, I’m not talking about those moments when someone commits some grievous act but, rather, the times when those of us with considerable calm suddenly throw spirited temper tantrums that are visual or verbal displays, without injuries to anyone other than our pride.

In those contained but still surprising displays, is it possible to stop the reaction before we start flapping our arms, jumping up and down, banging on glass doors, or unintentionally releasing saliva when we make our anger-laden point about the inconvenience someone is causing?

Generally, I’ve found that a lit fuse finds its mark, no matter how many James Bond movies I’ve seen where he stops a detonation with 007 seconds left.

So, who lights our fuses? I think it’s people on either extreme: those we know incredibly well, who have a talent for throwing darts at our anger bull’s-eye; and those people we may interact with only once, whose commitment to a process keeps us from accomplishing some task.

Then again, no one can light our fuse if we didn’t let them. We bear responsibility for a lit fuse because we ultimately sit in the control rooms of our brains, like those characters in the animated movie “Inside Out.” So, when the red guy in our brains takes over and he starts stomping our feet and demands that the car in front of us should “go, go, go,” what’s the solution?

Maybe if we anticipate laughing afterward, we can short-circuit that red guy and neither laugh at him nor with him, but laugh about what he might have done.

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