Just Sayin': Can government provide sunscreen at the beach?

My husband and I enjoy all that Long Beach has to offer. And we love walking and riding bikes on the gorgeous boardwalk. We use sunscreen religiously and wonder whether others are so conscientious.

Because skin cancer is so prevalent — I’ve had a basal cell carcinoma and endured surgery on my nose — I have a suggestion: Could the City Council please consider installing sunscreen dispensers on the boardwalk?

Beth Rose Macht, Long Beach

Cyclists risk their lives on our streets

To do my part to reduce greenhouse gases, I try to use my bike on errands rather than my car. You would think more people would do the same. And maybe they would if they didn’t feel they were risking their lives while sharing the roads with bad drivers.

Last year, my husband had to jump off his bike to avoid a car that ran a stop sign. He ended up in the hospital with three broken ribs. The police officer who responded didn’t even ticket the car’s driver, even though the man admitted he had run the stop sign.

And if you’re lucky enough to make it to your destination, good luck finding a place to lock your bike. Racks are practically nonexistent on Long Island. At the supermarket, I must lock my bike to the shopping-cart rack. At the bank, I have to lock it to a street sign. Even my gym doesn’t have a bike rack.

It’s about time cyclists started getting the respect they deserve.

Nancy Lang-Feldman, Commack

Missing the days of the LI Philharmonic

This summer, we have been fortunate to be treated to two concerts of a sort of reconstituted Long Island Philharmonic — one in mid-July at Heckscher State Park in Islip, and the other on Aug. 13 at Heckscher Park in Huntington.

In leading the Concert Orchestra of Long Island, conductor David Stewart Wiley was at his best — exciting, expressive, interpretive and informative. He was lively in the first pop concert and more sedate at the classical presentation, but superb in both.

I returned to Long Island in the early 1980s, in time for the early days of the philharmonic. If you arrived early to concerts, you were treated to a captivating lecture on the evening’s selections by then-maestro Christopher Keene. It was a wonderful experience at a reasonable price. And so the philharmonic became an institution, perhaps one that we took too much for granted before it was shut down earlier this year.

Bill Bernstein, Dix Hills