November 11, 1990

BAYARD COGGESHALL has been a pediatrician here for 41 years, caring for thousands of children from infancy through adolescence. For the last 40 years his office, cozy yet increasingly cramped, has been in a white Colonial house on Franklin Street, just around the corner from where he grew up. When Dr. Coggeshall opened the office in 1950, vaccines for polio and measles did not exist. And pediatricians routinely made house calls. In the ensuing years, as the pace of life quickened, Dr. Coggeshall's practice assimilated new medical technology and responsed to dramatic growth in the northern New Jersey suburbs. But its core -- the intimate relationship between a dedicated doctor and a sick child -- never changed.

"POUND for pound, Joe Hammond was the greatest basketball player to ever come out of Harlem. There is a major difference between Joe and legendary schoolyard players like Earl Manigault and Helicopter Knowings. The rest of them had a chance to make it and didn't. But Joe, he was certain to make it, and just didn't want to." -- Don Adams, basketball coach, Taft High School, the Bronx.

Even though dolphins are mammals, the National Football League team from Miami with that nickname is known as the Fish. This past week, before the Jets' second meeting of the season against Miami, they were often reminded about the big one that got away. That happened in week five, when the Jets had a 13-0 halftime lead against the Dolphins in Miami, and were still ahead, 16-13, in the fourth quarter after a field goal by Pat Leahy with 6 minutes 34 seconds to play.

TRYING to shepherd her four boys out of a social worker's office at the Milford Mental Health Clinic, a 26-year-old mother asked one of her 4-year-old twins to put down the "Star Trek" doll that he had been grasping for more than an hour. The boy stubbornly refused to give up his toy, alternately waving it in the air and clutching it to his chest. Taking cues from their brother, the other three grabbed dolls and clamored to play. Drawing on her recent lessons about composure and patience, the mother tried to reason with her children, using a newly discovered inner reserve.

IN the New York region's troubled home market, the rental alternative is becoming an increasingly attractive temporary haven for many would-be sellers and buyers. Among them are Samuel and Giedra Trocone, who see the should-we-sell-should-we-buy dilemma from both sides. The Trocones went house-hunting in New Jersey's Morris County in preparation for a move from Connecticut this year and found a real estate market as unsettled as the one they were leaving behind in Stamford.