Dan's Papers - May 30, 2008 - Sea Serpent In Long Pond & CBS Helicopters

This weekend, I continue on with my quest to read each chapter of my new book, In the Hamptons: Fifty Years With Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities, in the location where the chapter takes place.

On Saturday at 11 a.m., meet me at Long Pond, a body of water that is only accessible by a dirt road leading off to the west from Widow Gavitt's Road between Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor. There I will read a chapter of the book called "Jim Jenson," who was the anchor for CBS News at the time the events described in this chapter occurred, a frequent visitor to the Hamptons and who should have known better than to believe everything that is written in Dan's Papers.

I got one of the worst tongue-lashings imaginable in a phone call from Jenson. And it was all because I had written an article about the sea serpent who lives in Long Pond and was seen in colonial times by a woman who was then tried as a witch, by an encampment of soldiers during World War II who saw the monster in the middle of the night and unleashed a fusillade of bullets at him, and also by some students from St. John's University in a camper bus who were camping on the shores of Long Pond hoping to get a view of him.

Jenson, having digested all this information, dispatched a helicopter with cameramen and reporters to interview those students. When he found out he was had, he gave me low marks in journalistic integrity when he got a chance to speak to me. It's Chapter 22 in the book.

To get to the reading at Long Pond, come down Montauk Highway from either direction and at the light where Sagaponack Road crosses the highway, proceed past the Wölffer Estate Vineyards and across the bridge over the railroad tracks to where the road forks. The right fork is Sagg Road, but take the left fork, which is Topping Path, and after just over a mile turns into the zigzag road of Widow Gavitt's Path. At a point where there is an iron gate on the right behind two large boulders, there will be two balloons attached to a tree by a dirt path. Park on Widow Gavitt's and walk up the path about 30 yards and you will see the Pond, me and the microphone and the speaker system off to your right. From the Highway to the balloon is 2.3 miles on your speedometer if you want to find it that way. The reading, as are all of the readings, is free and open to the public.