Whales

On the roads in Amagansett, in the shops, at the train station, the summer crowds have vanished, and those of us who spend time here “off-season” sigh with relief. Until we drive down the most exclusive street in town, Further Lane. Then we – some of us at least – seethe over the loss of something we loved. Last winter, a person or persons operating under the moniker Further Lane Barn LLC, bought two contiguous lots totaling seven acres, stretching from Further Lane to the magnificent ocean dunes that front the wide, sandy beach that is the chief attraction of the gorgeous east end of Long Island. The price for land, house, and a couple of outbuildings? A cool $70 million. So far, so 21st century.

This is Black History Month when we are invited to think through a certain spectrum of the people who came before us. As it happens, I am very much interested in black history. I wrote a book about it, 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project, and several books about diversity, and I have been working for several years on a nearly completed documentary about the early days of black theater and film. But, lacking any black ancestors, I must make do with my own sketchy line of progenitors. When I was growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, my father attempted to find his great-grandfather — GGF in anthropological parlance. GGF had an air of mystery since all anyone knew about him was his last name and GGM’s inveterate reply when asked about him: “He was lost at sea.