A Salute To James Brady, and My True Hamptons Christmas Tale

James Brady made his name writing national columns nationwide and penning a few best-selling novels. I actually read to Jim Brady the first article I ever composed in the Hamptons as we both sipped Pacifico Beers at the Blue Parrot. He picked up the tab and wished me luck. That's what makes this Christmas story so amazing. Before moving to Montauk I spent the winter living in East Hampton Village off Barnes Lane in a home that no longer exists. Roland Eisenberg rented me a bedroom in his Yankee Barn home while he spent that winter in Morocco. The home had a huge fireplace upstairs and a healthy book and movie collection. I used them all quite a bit that winter.

If you ever read a few of James Brady's books you know he somehow always mentioned Roland and the Blue Parrot in his novels and so Roland had a James Brady collection usually signed with a nice message. However, I had read most of James Brady's novels long before I moved into Roland's home. At this time I was estranged from my children post divorce and was literally invited nowhere for Christmas, so I made a huge fire and decided to read yet another book. With my East Hampton Library membership I was reading 2 to 3 books a week including the whole Stuart Woods collection, some 25 or so novels. But early that evening I found a James Brady novel I never knew existed titled, "A Hamptons Christmas", and began my escape from the holiday via binge reading. The idea of a young girl in an East Hampton home all alone for Christmas while her parents were divorcing drew me in real quick.

If you have ever been divorced with children you will understand how all holidays haunt you of better family days with Christmas perhaps haunting you the most. With my divorce papers still wet with the final signatures, I was tucked away in East Hampton half in shock and half in denial. Many times in the last 15 years I have written how the folks of East Hampton Town walked me through my worst days, with their wit, their kindness and teaching how a hard work ethic conquers all. This is yet another one. The humanity of the local community is really what makes East Hampton Town special, especially in the non-summer months. They truly take care of their own and even others.

So that Christmas Eve I raced through James Brady's, "A Hamptons Christmas," and finished it by 9 p.m. I was still thinking about it when a bartender friend of mine called and asked what I was up to. She was in a tough relationship at the time and asked me if she should go on a Christmas Eve dinner date with this other guy who wanted to date her. I suggested she ask a few others of her friends —even better, we both call around to those we knew had zero plans and put something together. In 10 minutes we had 14 willing and able but it was now 10 p.m.

I called the East Hampton Palm Restaurant at the historic The Huntting Inn on Main Street. Carol, who was a enthusiastic karaoke singer (as I still am to this day) was the manager at the time and answered the phone. I told her of the situation and the plan and asked if they "had any room at the inn for us stragglers on Christmas Eve?" How could she refuse us? Carol explained the kitchen was closing promptly at 11 p.m. but had an open table for a party that size. Within the next 15 min we were all seated at that table, ordering and then introducing ourselves to each other.

Folks who mostly started off the evening saying how Christmas Eve alone depresses them were soon deep in tales of crazy things over the years that have happened to them on this famed evening. We were of all faiths yet we were all together. The wine flowed, as well as some stiff drinks and the food rolled out and merry we all were. I remember famed personality, Tony Duke, who was there with his huge family stopped by our table to wish us all a Merry Christmas. We closed The Palm that night with the staff wanting to go home ASAP, and Carol let most of them go home early, meaning 11:45 p.m. We all understood, with many of us in the restaurant service industry as bartenders, waitresses and in my case back then a doorman. However, truthfully, a few of staff joined us and sat around our table. Until Carol, who had once been a nun, let us know in her most Christian way that we had to leave. Everybody hugged each other with big smiles. Off we all went into the night. People who had been strangers just a while before now felt a nice kinship. Soon their car night disappeared.

Soon after I left The Palm for my short walk home to my Barnes Lane room in Roland's house, located right behind The Golden Pear in the center of East Hampton Village, it began to snow. A gentle flurry of large white flakes were now listing in the gentle midnight breeze. The lit Christmas trees that line both Newtown Lane and Main Street in East Hampton, along with the lights of the small stores, illuminated the otherwise dark night. I noticed not one car parked on any of the main streets. And in East Hampton that is a strange sight. The acoustics of falling snow and that breeze is a sound I can still remember as I am keyboarding right now. I smiled and teared up, as I was crossed east to west on Newtown Road in front of Cittanouva (BTW that was its first season), as I headed the last 1500 yards to home. I now had my own Hamptons Christmas tale.