The crowds are all gone.

Montauk Highway is no longer a single lane parking lot extending from the Hampton Bays Diner to Montauk Point.

The frantic quality of life has given way to a semi-relaxed dawdling about one's business.

Why have they deserted the area? Isn't it still beautiful? The leaves are putting on a glorious Technicolor show which would make Darryl F. Zanuck proud. The farmstands are bulging with pumpkins, gourds, apples, pears, squash, cauliflower and huge zucchinis.

You don't need a passport for the Hamptons. The Hamptons are just sitting there, waiting to be enjoyed. The year-round restaurants are warm and cozy in autumn.

To smoke a cigar, I stepped onto the beach. You can't smoke indoors anymore, if you value your life and limb. The ocean, the sand and the dune grasses were very accepting and they chose not to reprimand me about pulmonary diseases or second-hand smoke.

In the distance, I caught a glimpse of the only other human being on the beach. I walked towards him puffing on my Panatella and breathing the crisp ocean air in alternate inhalations.

He was about 60 years old and he was wearing earphones attached to a metal detector. I called it a Geiger-Counter but I was wrong. A metal detector responds to metal and a Geiger-Counter measures radiation.

"How are the pickings?" I asked.

"Not all that good," he replied, pulling off his earphones to hear me better. "It's better during the summer. Now the beaches have been picked over too many times."

I asked, "How much can you expect to make for a day's work?"

"About $4 or $5 if I'm lucky," he said matter-of-factly. "I just enjoy walking the beach and getting out of the house. I don't expect to become a millionaire."

"Maybe you can find that Rolex watch I dropped last August," I kibbitzed.

"Sure, just tell me whereabouts," he said seriously, putting his earphones on again.

"I was just kidding. Good luck."

We walked off in opposite directions both enjoying the sand, the ocean and a beautiful morning.