Southampton Statue Trouble: Will Dan Survive the Removal Craze?

As you may know, a group called “Friends of Dan” erected an 11-foot statue of me alongside the eastbound lane of the Sunrise Highway in Southampton. It was put up just two months ago, but with this spate of statue removals around the country since then, I worry what might happen to me.

During all this time, I never tried to secede from the Union—except one time, when I led a drive to have the East End, which is so different from the rest of the United States, secede. Uh oh.

But my statue was put up, they tell me, because I have now spent 57 years writing these stupid stories, four or five of them every week, for Dan’s Papers, and they think I deserve a statue. Much of what I write is intended to be helpful, sometimes seriously, in local affairs.

The statue is located across from the old Lobster Inn, where Sunrise Highway narrows to become County Road 39. (Manhattan Media chairman Richard Burns refers to this narrowing as “the Dardenelles.”) I am riding a giant lobster.

Feel free to pull off the road there and go over and kiss either me or the lobster.