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Between You and Me

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METRO photo

By Leah Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

A friend is planning to retire at the end of the year. His wife is already retired, and we three talked about the future. Since none of us has jobs with pensions, they are understandably trying hard to discern economic trends for the investments they hope will carry them through their golden years. Currently their money is mainly in stocks, which are doing well enough, but they, and the rest of us, have duly noted the disconnect between the stock market and the economy.

The stock market, of course, is not the economy but rather is thought to be one predictor of future economic trends at least six months ahead. There are others as well, and one place to get some insight is the PBS program, “Consuelo Mack WealthTrack.” Mack is the host of this weekly financial program, and in the tradition of “Wall Street with Louis Rukeyser,” which ran on the same channel (13) and in the same time slot (Friday, 7:30 p.m.) from 1970 to 2002, a guest each time discusses with her their area of expertise.

Originally broadcast on Oct. 9, a recent guest was economic guru Nancy Lazar, who spoke of four forces she sees as driving the economy to a powerful comeback. The first is, as you may have guessed, technology, which helps make companies more profitable. Lazar emphasized the importance of reinvestment in their companies by executives in order to stay up to date and to increase productivity.

As an example, she offers the sad story of Sears vs. the strong growth of Amazon. Businesses must keep up or be left behind. Technology, especially software, is a critical driver in a strong recovery. Banks are another example. Their movement to online services has been enabled by software developments and now COVID considerations using that software. And as she points out, the United States is the technology leader.

A second driver is housing, which brings with it so many related businesses and jobs: carpenters, painters, spacklers, roofers, plumbers, electricians, cesspool servicers, landscapers, driveway pavers, furniture and carpeting salesmen, and on and on. Housing is doing well, driven by exceptionally low mortgage interest rates, demand from millennials and now single family homes for COVID refugees from the cities.

A third driver for Lazar is manufacturing. She refers to the Rust Belt as her “favorite emerging market.” Disruption in the supply chains due to the pandemic have made companies aware of how much safer it is to make it here if they are going to sell it here. This has even become something of a national security issue. She counts 176 companies that have moved back to or started up in the United States since the beginning of 2020. States like South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama have benefited.

And the fourth is capital spending. Lazar believes that the reinvestment that companies have made in their businesses as a result of the huge tax cuts has been underreported and underappreciated. While many companies have indeed increased their dividends and bought back shares, she has tracked reinvestment from some of that windfall and feels that will result in higher productivity, higher profits and more jobs. In order to grow, companies must reinvest, and when they do, the economy grows. A business cycle spurred by reinvestment — building new plants, hiring and training new workers -— lasts 30 years.

Meanwhile, many are out of work and there is a lot of pain. Lazar also recognizes that in every recovery, not all sectors improve. But she advocates for more business reinvestment to produce more jobs and believes that will lower unemployment to half by next year. Without a further stimulus package, she envisions a handoff from government to the private sector as a driver for healing unemployment. Consumers, meanwhile, are turning more conservative, having been hit by two shocks in the last decade: recession in 2008 and COVID now.

While Nancy Lazar is not an investment advisor, but rather an economist, she has pointed out areas that might be ripe for investment. Good luck to us all!

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief 

Blame it all on the pandemic, but in an effort to practice social distancing from my refrigerator, I have seriously begun to binge. On what am I binging? I plead guilty to the following definition of binging from my cell phone browser: “watching multiple episodes of a television program over a short period of time.”

Now I am not exactly an innocent when it comes to watching a serialized story all at once. Given the opportunity, I did just that with the last year of “Downton Abbey.” I got all the coming installments at once in return for a donation to PBS, and I stayed up past three o’clock in the morning, too hypnotized to turn off the TV until the series had ended. I guess that was the tip off to my plot-addicted personality. The reveal is that I love stories, and like the monarch lover of Scheherazade, Persian King Shahryar, in “One Thousand and One Nights,” I cannot leave a tale in the middle when I have the opportunity to see how it ends, regardless of my fatigue.

So on a recommendation, I started watching “The Crown,” and you guessed it. This marvelous series, a historical drama about Elizabeth II, the Windsors, and some of the events that have marked her reign, captivated me.

The first season starts with the marriage of Elizabeth and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in 1947, to the end of her sister Margaret’s involvement with Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1955. After dinner each night, I turned on the television and watched all the stories filmed to this point until I fell asleep in my chair.

I eagerly await the start of the fourth season, which I believe will happen Nov. 15 and include Margaret Thatcher’s premiership and more on Lady Diana Spencer. The fifth and sixth seasons are to cover the years in the 21st century. Sadly, though, I will be limited only to one episode at a time because I am caught up.

The problem with a series is that sooner or later, they end. I guess they just run out of juice or the talented people involved want to move on to something else. Having gone as far as permitted with “The Crown,” I started casting around for another compelling show and stumbled upon “Grace and Frankie,” with an incredible cast: Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Sam Waterston, Martin Sheen and a seemingly endless list of talented actors.

Far from being an historical drama, this series could only run in today’s world. Begun in 2015 and scheduled to finish in 2021, after filming resumes, the story begins when the lawyer husbands of Grace and Frankie announce that they are not only business partners for the past 40 years but also have been lovers for the last 20. They are “coming out” and wish to be married. The two couples, their relationships redrawn, now have to deal with their revised circumstances, and as they move forward in this comedy-drama, their lives touch on so many current themes with sympathy and occasional belly-laughter results.

Both couples, forced to recognize their advanced years, deal with physical limitations, retirement issues, health insurance frustrations, bigoted elderly parents, interracial relationships, sexual needs and computer challenges. Both couples have adult children, who bring into the plots some of the pain and satisfactions of the twenty-somethings: raising young children, not wanting children, addiction, being able to afford buying a home, and worrying how to take care of older parents who don’t want to acknowledge aging.

It is primarily the story, though, of two women, Grace and Frankie, who could not be more different. They cannot stand to be in the same room with each other at the start, yet we see how they slowly come together in trying to deal with their mutually altered circumstances. The characters are well drawn by the authors and actors, and they ultimately reveal much about the value of supportive friendships between women. Can Grace and Frankie, two women in their 70s, survive being outcasts? The answer is a resounding YES!

Be assured, there are already 78 episodes with more on the way, enough for a great binge.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

For some reason, this book tickles me, maybe because of the ending. And maybe because I am always interested in how women manage to balance being a wife, mother, housekeeper and cook with a demanding job outside the home. I haven’t read the book yet, only the review, but that was enough to hook me.

The book is Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre, and yes, it is a spy story. The reviewer, Kati Marton, writing in the Book Review section of the Sunday New York Times, calls the author “John le Carre’s nonfiction counterpart.” The main character in the book, Sonya, is based on a real person, Ursula Kuczynski. Born in a prosperous, bourgeois German family, she suffered a blow from a policeman’s rubber truncheon when she was 16 and participating in a street demonstration in the 1920s as Nazis and Communists brawled. It was enough to cause her to sign up with the Communists, who were the only ones apparently willing to shed blood in fighting the Nazis. She was further seduced by their promise of a workers’ utopia.

Her story, a “panoramic account of espionage from Weimar Germany through the Cold War is, above all, a woman’s story.” It is based on Sonya’s own journals, in which she captures “the stressful balancing act of spymaster, mother and lover of several men during the most dangerous decades of the 20th century. Like many supremely successful women, Sonya benefited from men underestimating her.” And by the way, the name, Sonya, means dormouse in Russian.

Are you hooked yet?

The scene shifts from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao Zedong’s Communists to Japanese-occupied Manchuria, to the bucolic Cotswolds of England, where she lived during much of WWII as a housewife and mother. In addition to caring for a husband (who was himself a lower level spy with no idea of his wife’s top level position) and two children, she managed spy drops and transmitted coded messages as an expert radio operator and in Morse code, all the while eluding the German, British and American secret services hunting for her. Without ever wearing a military uniform, she held the rank of colonel in the Soviet army. “Domesticity was the perfect cover,” according to reviewer Marton.

Sonya was right up there at the top of intelligence gathering. She was the spymaster to pass along secrets about the atom bomb from brilliant German theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs worked in Britain and Canada and ultimately at Los Alamos, and she was his handler, sending critical information to Stalin and the Soviet Union. Throughout the war, Fuchs played a seminal role in helping to develop the powerful new weapon. He ultimately confessed to the British to having spied for the Soviets and served a nine-year sentence there, then promptly emigrated to East Germany.

The reviewer delights in descriptions of the flat-footedness and sexism of the British secret services as revealed in the book. Only one member of British M15 “smelled a rat” regarding the Cotswolds “housewife,” another woman, Millicent Bagot. “But her less shrewd (male) colleagues prevented [Bagot] from bagging her prey.” Sonya was interrogated twice inconclusively in 1947 by British intelligence agents. Years later, she was dubbed by the media as “Stalin’s
best spy.”

Sonya too spent the Cold War years in East Germany, leaving England the day before Fuch’s trial began. He did eventually unmask her. And this is the part that tickles me the most. She became an author, assumed the pseudonym of Ruth Werner, and wrote knowingly about spy adventures. Her books became best sellers. She died in Berlin in 2000 at age 93.

Almost all the spies she worked with were caught at some point, but she survived two intense decades, the 1940s and 50s. She led a fascinating life and was clearly exceptionally intelligent. The only pity is that she worked on the wrong side of history, believing in an ideology that was made up of lies.

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Pentimento Marketplace

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Local businesses continue to struggle and local employees continue to worry about job security. None of this is new, but perhaps we should stop simply waiting for matters to improve with a rebound in the economy or more stimulus help from Washington and take a more proactive role.

The word is: pivot. Some already have. Here are two examples to share with you. One is a restaurant in Stony Brook village, the other is action taken by two people in their 20s.

Many restaurants already have moved in collateral directions. They have developed take-out orders for curbside pickup, and while that represents only a small fraction of the volume they would normally do, we have given up on the word “normal.” With diners unable to come inside, restaurateurs have sent meals outside.

Then many took the further step, and made the additional investment to create outside dining areas as the world came to learn that eating outside was a lot safer. They built tents, leaving one side open to qualify as “outside,” so as to serve meals in the open air, and local governments cooperated by allowing tents to mushroom in parking lots.

Residents discovered the pleasure of eating “en plein air,” much as artists have when painting. Now some restaurant owners are hurrying to add heating devices to the tents so that patrons will continue to come and be able to eat in comfort despite cooler weather. European cafes have long ago mastered this arrangement.

While these are examples of rearrangements around cooking and serving food in order to survive, Pentimento Restaurant has made a true pivot. In addition to patio dining, which they are fortunate to offer behind their intimate restaurant, they have taken out the tables and chairs in one now unused room and turned it into a marketplace instead.

Featured by the owners are fresh produce, attractively displayed, and all manner of unusual high end foods in jars and cans, many from other countries. There are also prepared foods in the freezer to take out and even some delicious ice cream. Those who dine on the patio are a “captive” audience of potential shoppers as they pass the new offerings on their way out, and they seemed delighted by the selections.

The other example involves my oldest grandson. He is known to some of you as the filmmaker of the historic “One Life to Give,” telling the story of Nathan Hale, Benjamin Tallmadge and the beginnings of the Revolutionary War Culper Spy Ring that was shown at the Staller Center and is being viewed in school districts.

He had moved to the West Coast to continue his chosen career. After some initial success, but with Hollywood now locked down, he and a friend cast around for something else to occupy their creative energies and to pay the rent. Fanciful stickers caught their attention, and they started out by applying them to work calendars and back packs, taking orders to customize such utilitarian products.

They really hit their stride when they customized 32-ounce clear plastic drinking cups, the kind with covers and straws featuring stickers displaying different themes. These they then mailed to initial customers. Putting together their skills, they made a video of themselves creating the stickers and decorating the cups, then showed the video on the internet. A few orders trickled in, then their business took off.

He still intends to return to his dream career, but until then … bottoms up!

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Debra Bowling, owner of Pasta Pasta in Port Jeff, set up tables outside for Phase Two reopening. Photo by Kyle Barr

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Half a year in, how are things going?

There are signs of normalcy returning. The world outside the home is slowly coming back to life. I just returned from the first general membership meeting of a local chamber of commerce that was held in person for the first time in six months and not via Zoom.

I must say, it was wonderful to see people whom I routinely work with in three dimension. We all felt like hugging, but we didn’t. We stayed apart and we were outside, under a three-sided tent. By having the fourth side open, the meeting qualified as “outside.” So we sat at picnic tables, four apiece, or stood outside the tent, and we wore our masks, which we intermittently unhitched as we sipped our coffee graciously supplied by Starbucks. And we got some real business accomplished even as we enjoyed the new reality of it.

New stores and businesses are opening. Three cheers to those optimists who are starting up during a pandemic-caused recession. Clearly they feel the time is right for them. There were over half a dozen that just joined the chamber, some of them pivoting from their prior businesses that did not sustain them. Owners of established stores in Port Jeff Village were looking better than glum.

Children are receiving some combination of regular education, in person and remotely, which makes them and their parents and teachers a lot happier. Restaurants have largely managed to survive thanks to outdoor dining and curbside pickup, but now their owners worry about the coming colder weather. Outdoor heaters will be allowed, a la Paris, with appropriate permits from local fire department officials to ensure safety. Shoppers with masks and hand sanitizers are routinely grocery shopping. Following medical guidelines, we have learned how to cope in such situations.

A few residents are even taking vacations to destinations mainly within driving distance.

As we wait for vaccines and anti-COVID medicines, we seem to have come to some semblance of equilibrium with the virus. Of course we are greatly helped in this by the low numbers of those falling ill in New York.

That is not to say that we have forgotten the thousands who have died or their families who will suffer the pain of their loss for a lifetime. Nor do we disregard the many unemployed and the men, women and children on food lines. So many people are holding their breaths with rent coming due and monthly bills to be paid, yet there is no Congressional relief funding in sight.

Churches and community organizations have mobilized to offer food. Local governments have stepped into the breach, and to some extent, offered financial help. The U.S. Small Business Administration and regional banks have also provided low interest financing. Nonetheless, for some there is true panic. And for many, salaries, hours of work and budgets have been reduced.

Behind the scenes, we at the newspaper and website offices are busy at work. We believe the latest relevant information we bring to the public and the sense of community that is defined by functioning local media are essential to coping in these unprecedented times.

While our offices continue to be closed to the public, we still maintain our five-day, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. hours. Some of our staff work remotely part or all of the time, and unwillingly we have thinned our ranks. We can be reached by every sort of communication: telephone, email, texting, Facebook and just by knocking on our door. If the purpose for your visit is compelling enough, we will let you in, as long as you are wearing a face mask and that you maintain correct social distancing.

As we support our communities, we offer our resources and help to you, our readers and advertisers. For example, for several months we have run lists of restaurants open for curbside pickup and of other essential businesses open to the public at no charge. If we can help you with our communications platforms, please just ask us. If it is possible for us to do so, we will.

Even as we struggle to survive, we are committed to serving you.    

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From Photofest

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Normally, I’d build towards my request, but I know you’re busy. So, here’s the request: please send stories about your observations of graceful actions in our community. When I get enough of them, I’ll put them together in an article. If they keep coming, I’ll put together additional columns.

Now, onto the pitch: the challenges of today and in the uncertain times ahead continue to increase even as we are now only a few months away from the countdown to 2021. What kind of Halloween will we have this year? What kind of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or, if you’re a fan of the show Seinfeld, Festivus, awaits? We know we can’t plan for the kinds of things that we used to, like seeing friends and family in large groups, snuggling up close to watch movies or to tell stories of the triumphs of our children or our companies.

As of the date of this week’s paper, we have 47 days between now and the election and who knows how much longer between now and when an already-contested national election is actually decided. That means we will hear the word “disgraceful” bandied about as if it were the best way to take down the other side.

Democrats and Republicans will call the acts, thoughts and plans of the other side “disgraceful.” While you may agree with one person or party about how your favorite politician’s opponent is, indeed, completely lacking in grace and has ideas, thoughts or expressions that are as close to an abomination as you can imagine, those words and accusations don’t elevate your hero or you, for that matter.

Sure, it feels good to find targets for the frustrations and disappointments of a difficult year. However, during challenging times such as these, how about if we share the grace with which people are handling these challenges?

Teachers, principals, janitors and everyone else associated with schools are operating under extremely difficult conditions. Surely you must have seen one of the people in the education world come up with a graceful solution to these maddening moments?

Then there are all the people involved in health care, from first responders, to nurses, to doctors. I suspect we could create a wall of stories that reveal the grace under pressure that not only inspired you over the course of this difficult year, but also could inspire other readers looking for positive messages.

Police officers, fire fighters and other emergency services workers never know exactly what they’ll face in a day, from a cat stuck in a tree to an unstable domestic violence incident, to an escalating confrontation among protesters on opposite sides of a boiling nation. The grace some of these people demonstrate can lower the temperature and restore calm and peace.

Speaking of grace, religious leaders can and do lead by example, writing sermons and acting with patience and dignity that encourage us to find the best of ourselves.

While it’s tempting to write that Mrs. Smith is a graceful teacher, please think about what she does that’s so endearing. When you show us the story, by providing an anecdote about how Mrs. Smith defused a bullying situation or encouraged your daughter to stop sucking her thumb with subtle hand gestures, you are taking our hand and leading us into that socially-distanced classroom full of masked learners.

Hopefully, whatever stories you share, if you have the time, will motivate us to follow the examples of others who have found a way, despite circumstances that may seem out of their control, to reveal the kind of grace that soothes the soul and brings meaning to each day.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Somehow reading about other troubled times makes for good escapism at this weird COVID-19 period of our existence. I just finished a wonderful, non-fiction, carefully researched book by Diana Preston, “Eight Days at Yalta,” and I recommend it for your next page turner.

Even though we all know how WWII came out and how the leaders of the Allies met at Yalta in Crimea to work out the details of the war’s conclusion and the post-war map, the story is still fascinating. The characterizations of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, their interactions, their motivations and their deceptions make for riveting reading. And incidentally, those decisions still affect us today.

Originally scheduled for the end of 1944, the meeting was postponed until February 4-11 of the following year at Roosevelt’s request. He wanted it to happen after he was inaugurated in January for his unprecedented fourth term. Despite his obvious illness, he agreed to travel thousands of miles in the middle of winter, and he got there via train, ship, plane and limo. He was the youngest of the three leaders, at 63, and would die barely two months later. His fragile condition was noted by many of the participants, and he was accompanied by his only daughter, Anna Boettiger, who tried valiantly to protect her father’s health and help him conserve his energies.

Churchill insisted on first meeting Roosevelt at Malta, where the President’s ship, the USS Quincy, delivered him and his entourage to Europe. Though just 17 miles long and nine miles wide, Malta served as a strategic position in the British supply line. As a result, it was subject to constant air raids day and night by German and Italian pilots. Twice the amount of bombs fell on the rocky island as fell on London during the Blitz. No business was discussed there because Roosevelt did not want to give the impression that the two were ganging up on Stalin.

Churchill, 70 and the oldest, was also accompanied by his daughter, Sarah. The two English-speaking leaders, surrounded by heavy security from both countries, then flew on to Saki, in the Crimea, in separate planes. From there, they set out for the milder climate of Yalta in cars, some 90 miles away. The road was so filled with potholes from bombings that one of the Admirals traveling with Roosevelt complained the ride, which lasted for five hours, “was breaking every bone in his body.”

Stalin, 65, made the 1000 mile trip by rail from Moscow. He disliked flying because his only experience had been a white-knuckled flight across the Caspian Sea to the Tehran Conference, the big three’s previous rendezvous. Both he and Churchill were short and stout, with Roosevelt measuring over six feet when standing. Foreign diplomats were surprised by the dictator’s seeming charm, the softness of his voice and how, unlike others, especially Churchill, he often seemed prepared to listen to what they had to say rather than to speak himself. They concluded the conference liking him. Of the three, he was probably the healthiest.

Roosevelt had two main goals that he wished to obtain from the meeting. He was determined to set the architecture for a lasting peace through the creation of a United Nations. And he desperately wanted the Russian military to join in the fighting against Japan when the war in Europe was won, which happened in April.

The American casualties at Iwo Jima were huge and foreshadowed the terrible cost in lives of an attack on the Japanese homelands. He achieved both but at a loss of Eastern European countries to the Soviet Union. And as it turned out, the United States did not need Russian help in defeating Japan, although as time went on, Stalin hastened to join the fighting, so as to share in the post-war spoils. The President clearly did not understand the coming power of the atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima only six months later.

There are, according to the author, disconcerting similarities between Stalin and Putin.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

This is the beginning of what many call “The Silly Season.” That term alludes roughly to between Labor Day and Election Day and refers to the many charges, counter charges, assertions, braggadocio and hyperbole that will be uttered by candidates and their parties in an attempt to win public favor. This year of 2020 seems like it will be an extreme example of this historic process.

Why this year? Because more than at any point in the memories of those still alive can there be found such partisanship and acrimony in the political arena. And those strongly held opinions and emotions have spilled over into our daily lives and interfered with our closest relationships.

Just ask divorce lawyers. According to one from New York City quoted in The New York Times, “Presidential years are typically very quiet for divorces because of the uncertainty of the presidency,” said Ken Jewell. “This year has been beyond insane.” What in the past might have been reasonable discussions about politics between couples have now become ranting confrontations. “And while people aren’t citing political differences as the sole reason for divorce, the topic is certainly compounding matters,” he explained.

Couples have been known to fight about Supreme Court rulings, the handling of the pandemic, wearing a mask, immigration and the repeal of DACA — the program that protects young immigrants — and even whether to eat indoors or outdoors at a restaurant.

Dating services have felt a similar impact. For example, according to the article by Nicole Pajer in the NYT Aug. 30 issue, 84% of the singles using Dating.com “won’t even consider dating someone with opposite political views.” And within families, feelings can run as high about marrying outside the chosen political party as they once were against marrying outside the family’s religion and ethnicity.

This is ultimate partisanship. This is also such a waste. Giving up on close relationships that have otherwise withstood the test of time merely because of different political opinions, is a decision that needs to be reconsidered. Unless that partisanship is only the straw that otherwise breaks the camel’s back, as the saying goes, in a relationship with more serious problems, those different perspectives can be made into intellectual exchanges and even result in personal growth.

Knowing how the other side thinks in a disagreement is enlightening. It can also be a bottomless well for thoughtful exchanges throughout a lifetime. What must be present, however, is mutual respect. Some couples have been able to bridge and perhaps even enjoy such a divide. The first that comes to mind is the Republican consultant, Mary Matalin, and the Democratic consultant, James Carville.

Matalin was deeply involved with the GOP as a Republican strategist serving under Ronald Reagan, functioning as a campaign director for George H.W. Bush, for whom she was then assistant, and even working as counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

James Carville was the lead strategist for the successful campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton for president. Carville went on to elections work abroad, including in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Colombia and Argentina. He was also involved with Hillary’s 2008 campaign as well as media and film efforts and public speaking. He is known for his outspoken style, which includes his comparison of Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama: “If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.”

Both Matalin and Carville have said they don’t discuss politics at home. Maybe that’s one way for those in a committed relationship to deal with ultra partisan differences. Others have handled the matter differently. Wende Thoman and William Sterns, both 72, of Delray Beach, Florida, sometimes loudly disagree about politics. “But this is the sport we’ve engaged in for a long time,” Ms. Thoman said. Mr. Sterns actually enjoys the banter. “Politics should be fun!” he said.

And yes, differing opinions can add a layer of passion to a relationship. The trick: not demeaning each other. While all’s fair in love and war, I vote for love.

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

An old friend visited, one who had lived here many years, and we used the occasion to have a mini reunion of sorts. The half dozen or so of us wives and mothers, who had come to Long Island in our 20s and raised our children here as our husbands built their careers, are now widows together.

We gathered at the beach, then again over breakfast, then on to another beach over two days to catch each other up on our lives and the progress of our children and grandchildren. It was a moveable feast of personal histories and philosophies.

The good news is that our children and grandchildren seem to be doing pretty well.

Some of the children went into the same careers as their fathers or mothers, others went in different directions. Almost all moved off the Island, although they return for regular visits or Zoom during this unprecedented time. Watching the grandchildren grow and develop their own lives and ideas with little responsibility needed from us is a delight.

Of course, we talked about our various health issues and traded advice, but not too much since there were more interesting subjects. One theme that came up was our appreciation for what life has given us. We all treasure our families and the love among the members. We also deeply rejoice in our friendships, especially those of a lifetime. Old friends cannot be replaced. They remember our parents, they laugh with us over what seemed in the past like serious problems and they bear witness to our lives. They know us for who we are, and best of all, they don’t see us as aged, but rather essentially as we looked when we first met.

Over the years, we swam together at the apartments’ pool, we cooked for each other with late dinners — “gourmet groups,” we called them — after the kids were put to bed in our new homes. We skied together in Vermont, played tennis at the school courts and then in the tennis clubs, we sailed together on the Sound, we cheered as our offspring moved through elementary, junior and senior high schools, we applauded as they went off to colleges of their choice, and we began to dine out regularly with each other. We comforted each other as, one by one, we began to lose our parents. We were becoming the older generation.

Most fun of all, we began to travel with each other. Places we visited, in no particular order and with various combinations of friends, included Canada, Alaska, France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Monaco, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Bali, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Grand Cayman, St. Thomas, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Italy, Italy, Italy.

For each and every one of those destinations, we have indelible memories, and always of some combination of us together. And we have the endless number of photographs to remind us of the details.

What are we left with now? We are enormously grateful for our lives, our health, our children and grandchildren, our memories and our future, we hope, to some degree together. We are more mellow now and able to distinguish the minor irritations from the major challenges. We think of ourselves as in the autumn of our lives, grateful for all we can do and aspire to do. And interestingly, none of us has moved to live with any of our children, although some of us have moved to smaller quarters or warmer locations. If we could just get past this pandemic and go back to kicking up our heels, we would look forward to that.

The underlying theme from our gatherings is our profound gratitude and appreciation for life. One friend said she notices birds more, listens to their songs, admires their colors, enjoys nature in a deeper way now. I think she spoke for us all.

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2nd Place winner for Spot News Photo by Kyle Barr

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Consider this a big Thank You card.

First, thank you to the New York Press Association for awarding us 17 prizes in their annual Better Newspaper Contest for 2019. Please check them out in the Arts and Lifestyles section of today’s paper or read about it on the web. These awards are normally given out at the spring convention up in Saratoga Springs in March for work done during the preceding year. But we know that there is nothing normal about 2020, and so the good news arrived this past week via — you guessed it — the internet. The physical prizes, wood plaques and certificates, will follow at some future time, but the news of the winners was flashed to us digitally.

The purpose of the contest is twofold: to honor the winners and to help improve the more than 400 weekly and small daily newspapers across the state with examples of good work for the membership to view. It is indeed an honor to be selected by our peers, who are the judges, and we deeply appreciate the recognition.

There is a third consequence of the awards: bragging rights. We are able to share with our communities, whom we serve, the peer-reviewed quality of our efforts. We can do our jobs because you, our readers and advertisers, support us. So please accept this as a report card of sorts, along with our deepest appreciation for your continuing faith in us. We do our best to bring you the latest news and issues in the towns and villages we cover in an honest and unbiased fashion.

We also serve as a sounding board for opinions and analyses, clearly labelled as such. We enable others to have bragging rights too, for their family members and community groups and even pets, by proudly printing their accomplishments. And we like to amuse and entertain you with contests, beautiful photos and interesting stories just for the fun of it. The bottom line there is, Thank You to our communities.

I would like to call your attention to the nature of our awards. We consider our job to be publishing both editorial and advertising content, the two together making up the news and our primary focus. So I am pleased to note that half of our prizes are for editorial excellence and the other half for advertising effectiveness. And for this distinction, I thank our talented staff and salute their commitment, especially during these times of few numbers both in the newsroom and in the art, production and sales departments.

And of course, we have to have the support of the business office to maintain our company and the circulation people to pick up the papers in the middle of the night and get them to the post offices and the newsstands in time for you to read them with the rest of your mail on publishing day.

But even as our staff numbers have shrunk, their work has increased. For we are no longer a weekly newspaper group but a daily and hourly news source, thanks to the internet. We have brought you daily briefings and news stories about the various aspects of COVID-19 since March, along with other news scoops, breaking news and advertising — all for the most part in addition to the content in the newspapers — on our website and also on our social media platforms. This enormous effort was made possible by our overworked and underpaid staff.

So a heartfelt and deeply appreciated Thank You to the following, by departments: Kyle Barr, Rita J. Egan, Heidi Sutton, David Luces, Donna Deedy, John Broven, Ernestine Franco, Bea Ruberto and Daniel Dunaief in Editorial.

To Kathleen Gobos, Kathryn Mandracchia, Elizabeth Bongiorno, Robin Lemkin, Minnie Yancy, Jackie Pickle and Katherine Yamaguchi in display sales.

To Sheila Murray, Ellen Segal and Joann Brady in Classifieds. To Beth Heller-Mason, Janet Fortuna, Sharon Nicholson and Lauren Vohrer in Art and Production, and to Courtney Biondo in Legals and her team in Circulation.

To Sandi Gross, Meg Malangone, Diane Wattecamps and Cathie Kitz in Business. To Sheila Murray again in Business and Subscriptions. To Rob Alfano, for Internet Strategy. And to Johness Kuisel, our General Manager, who is everywhere. Please all take a bow.

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