Vascular Flora of Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, New York

During the fall of 1965, a small group of people living on central Long Island, New York, with interests and concerns about a variety of environmental issues had begun to meet monthly in each other’s living rooms. Attendance of 25 to 30 included scientists from Brookhaven National Laboratory and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in addition to various conservationists and a few high school students. The group called itself by the noneuphonious name of Brookhaven Town Natural Resources Committee, which quickly became BTNRC for obvious reasons. BTNRC was fascinating and enjoyable, but hardly an organization. There was no office, staff, money, bylaws, elected officers, or any of the other ingredients usually present in an organization. It was just a group of people who met occasionally to foster environmental protection policies by our local governments, and we all had other daytime jobs. We discussed various environmental issues—pollution from duck farms, dredging of wetlands, sewage pollution, DDT use on local marshes, dump sites, groundwater protection, wildlife and habitat preservation, and so forth. Meetings usually ended with one-person committees assigned to go do something during the weeks that followed, typically writing a letter to a congressman, a local politician, or a local newspaper. There was no treasury or treasurer, so occasionally we tossed a dollar or two into the middle of the room so that Myra Gelband, one of Art Cooley’s dedicated high school students, could send postcards to announce the next meeting. Attendance was excellent because meetings were fun with good company, good humor, and coffee and donuts at the end. The only feature of this nonorganization was that we had a letterhead printed to give the impression that there was, in fact, such an organization. We needed a bit of puffery to appear greater than we were, for otherwise we feared nobody would listen to us. Everyone seemed to like each other and got along well. An enjoyable social mix is surely a motivational factor that helps explain which groups continue and grow, and which ones stagnate.

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Forecast: Chilly Overcast Light Drizzle No People Left

Swimming Lessons ◽

10.1093/oso/9780195148527.003.0014 ◽

2002 ◽

Author(s):

David Ehrenfeld

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New Jersey ◽

Long Island ◽

National Laboratory ◽

Short Wave ◽

Brookhaven National Laboratory ◽

Central Park ◽

The Look ◽

The One ◽

Weather Service

I used to enjoy listening to the National Weather Service forecasts on my short-wave weather radio. An endlessly repeated taped message updated every few hours might be less than thrilling, but the voices of the half-dozen or so forecasters made it come alive. Each one had an identifiable style and intonation; it was easy to assign personalities, even faces, to them. Ten years ago the announcers were all men. There was the one I labeled the grand elder, with his pontifical voice and distinctive, rolling rhythms. When cost-cutting forced the station to move from Manhattan to the grounds of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, way out on Long Island, he disappeared from the airways. Perhaps the daily commute on the Long Island Expressway was too much for the old fellow. I am sure I wasn’t the only listener to mourn the loss of his avuncular cadences. Another announcer who appealed to me spoke fluently until he came to an American Indian place name such as Manasquan or Wanaque (both in New Jersey). Then he hesitated. I could imagine the look of terror in his eyes when he scanned the next line of the script, and there it was, a word with fearsome Q-sounds or daunting combinations of con-sonants and vowels. If I had had any way of getting in touch with him, I would have comforted him by explaining how lucky he was to be broadcasting in the New York–New Jersey metropolitan area. Up in northern Maine, the forecasters have to cope with names such as Caucomgomoc and Chemquasabamticook. Some announcers proclaimed their individuality with what seemed like deliberately odd pronunciations of common words. The most original was the fellow who figured out a new way to say “climate,” an achievement I would have thought was impossible. He did it by lengthening the separation between the two syllables and heavily stressing the second: “cly-matt.”Eventually, the Weather Service hired its first woman announcer, a welcome addition; she made her mark immediately by shortening the phrase “Here are the latest Central Park observations” to “Here is the latest Central Park.”

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