Tony Lenzo loved to plant and watch the Lynbrook Community Gardens grow. He loved harvest time, when the garden was overgrown with long, green zucchini (“gogoots,” in Lenzo parlance, pronounced with a thick Sicilian accent), purple-black eggplant, squash, red and green peppers, tomatoes, basil, okra, cucumbers and Lenzo’s favorite — sweet, ripe figs from his precious fig tree, which reminded him of Sicily, his birthplace. more

People don’t take me seriously, and that’s OK sometimes. I know it’s my own fault. Even though I have a respectable job, drive an ordinary mom-mobile, and live in a … more

What fun would it be, as a serious journalist, to have an emergency surgical procedure and not write about it at length and in anatomical detail? Not one to disappoint, here are the gory … more

Twenty-six-year East Rockaway resident and Army veteran Richard Gogarty, 54, has been appointed by the village board as the trustee to fill Irene Villacci’s seat. Villacci resigned from the position last week. “Because I’ve served 20 years on active duty in the Army, I’ve had an opportunity to see cities and towns over the United States and the world,” Gogarty said. “After seeing all that, I moved to East Rockaway. This is my dream place — a small village in the middle of millions of people. … East Rockaway maintains the independent spirit and closeness found only in a small village.” more

Thank you, everyone, for your congratulatory calls and emails to me for this column taking first place in its category of “Best Column Writing” in the Suburban Newspapers of America contest for 2010. This week, I’m re-running one of my favorite columns that ran in March, 2009. more

The Herald Community Newspapers won two top awards, for Best Column Writing and Best Feature, in the 2010 Suburban Newspapers of America Editorial Contest, the SNA announced March 18. more

It’s that time again: School’s in, vacation’s over, and we can all get back to some semblance of a schedule, thank goodness. more

Shakespeare said that “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Easy for him to say. Actually, everything was easy for him to say. more

We finally made it to Woodstock last week — even though we were no longer wearing bell-bottomed jeans, paisley bandanas, or tie-dye T-shirts with bright yellow peace signs or smiley faces. We had a little more around the middle, a little sprinkling of silver among the gold, and we used our GPS system to get there — but we eventually “got ourselves back to the garden.” more

Letters to the Editor may be edited for space and clarification. Try to keep length no more than 300 words; Send to Mmalloy@liherald.com more