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OCEAN GROVE ANNUAL TOWN-WIDE YARD SALE. 6/27/16: LIST OF ADDRESSES AND SALE ITEMS BELOW: BLOGFINGER.NET.

June 15, 2026 by Blogfinger

 

This is Matt of OG in Firemen’s Park. 6/15/26. He loves our yard sales: He keeps reminding me of the lawnmower that has become his best tool. Molly is his pup. Welcome to  dog-town USA.    Click to enlarge.     Paul Goldfinger photo.

By Paul Goldfinger and Eileen Goldfinger.   Blogfinger.net.

 

To sign up as a yard sailor, send an email to Blogfinger@verizon.net and give us your address and a cross street.

 

Send your list of sale items  to the same address and you can add sale items until 6/26.  Don’t forget Neptune permit for $5.00 at the mother ship.  The “list” will be arranged by neighborhoods. This is a fine and fun  social happening, so put on a happy face.!  Any issues, contact us; Blogfinger@verizon.net.

Feel free to pick up flyers from our porch at  113 Mt. Hermon at Delware.  Help us with  listings on social network.  Interested parties can be steered to Blogfinger.net.  Remember that you can design you own sale: for example make your sale 9 am to 12 noon.

 

 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS AND SALE ITEMS  (Please send us cross streets and lists of items). You can show almost anything.  Show your art work as an exhibit or also for sale.

This list will grow over the next 12 days.    Please help us publicize this  event. One year we had 75 sites

Yard Sailors may add sale items up to and including June 26.   Email us at Blogfinger@verizon.net

 

TOTAL =15  ADDRESSES

91  Webb Avenue near Pennsylvania Ave.

130  Mt. Tabor Way

50 Central Avenue.  2 bikes, a push lawn mower, costume jewelry , books, CD’s, and other miscellaneous stuff.

76 Heck Avenue:  Household items, linens, small furniture items,

94 1/2 Heck Avenue:    This will be a group event with 3 families.

128 Heck Avenue:  Assorted dishes, glass, lamps, a stained glass lampshade, a wooden file cabinet, bench and assorted baskets.

26 Embury Avenue:

103 Clark Ave.   (corner of  New Jersey)

79 Fletcher Lake.  (New York).   Bike, surf  board, houseware, beanie babies, puzzles, jewelry

58 Cookman Ave.: (betweenPilgrim pathway and Central Ave.):  JUNE 27 AND 28:      DSLR cameras, camera bags, studio lights, telescope, antique full size  bed, outdoor furniture–wrought iron, vintage tables and chairs, antique furniture pieces, mirrors, wall decor, lamps, electronics, Christmas tree, home deco, clothing and shoes, antiques, Raleigh Cruise Bike, sports cards, collectables, home and kitchen items and much more.

130 Cookman  Avenue :  Vintaage Danish  mid century chairs. (2), tower fans (new), kitchen electrics new, household goods, Disney studio collectibles , CD’s, luggage, furniture, lighting.5

64 Asbury Avenue:   Selection of art, furniture, homegoods, and accessories

71 Mt. Pisgah Way. (cross street New York Avenue).  MUTIFAMILY EVENT:  Household goods, costume jewelry, some clothing and shoes, holiday decorations, some games, andlotsmoreX!

134 Main Avenue.    (cross Whitefield Ave):We will be selling many vintage kitchen tools and rolling pins, vintage toys, and beach and household items.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Sailors:    Be sure to send us cross streets and items list.

Folks who enjoy yard sales would be happy to come to our special shore town for the chance to visit even 10 yard saiL  sites.

So you Grovers wh0 might worry about numbers, we are there already. and there will be more sites added  through June 26

 

VISITORS:

Don’t forget that you can set parameters  for your event;  eg you can earmark your sale for 9 am to noon or whatever.   Also you can specialize  your sale to a certain category, for example just furniture. Or add Sunday to your event or add other dates.

And visitors can enjoy the sales and then go to the beach, the boards and our downtown and can visit our  unique shops including the newly re-opened Nagle’s.  And don’t forget the Great Auditorium and Tent Village.    We wll post a map here.

Park anywhere for free.  bring a bike to visit various Salle sites.

—Paul and Eileen.

 

JESSICA MOLASKEY. From her album” Pentimento”

 

 

TONY BENNETT.  FROM HIS COLUMBIA RECORDS ALBUM:

 

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Modern OG history—2011. The Knifeman Cometh (No, His Name Isn’t Mack the Knife—actually, it’s Mike the Knife…Sharpener)

June 18, 2026 by Blogfinger

BLOGFINGER RE-RUNS.   This feature is from August, 2011:

 

Mike Pallotta, the knife sharpener

By Paul Goldfinger (photos and text). Editor @Blogfinger

We heard the odd ringing of a bell. It was much different from the ice cream man’s. It could have been a tug boat bell, but there are no boats around here except for the swan boats, and they run silent.

Then we spotted an old green truck parked at Main and Delaware. It was Mike the knife sharpener. It was his bell. People told me about him in the past and said that we should do an article about him, however he wasn’t in the phone book, and I never spotted him in the Grove. But I never forgot about him and today I got lucky.

Mike Pallotta of Elmont, Long Island is in the family business. His dad started sharpening knives, scissors and other tools in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. Mike still drives his dad’s 1941 Chevy truck with the wooden interior. Although Mike’s main job is director of security at a high school in Long Island, he comes to the shore every summer with the truck and stays with a friend in Avon. His wife comes down on weekends, and today Mike is accompanied by his grandson Frank Pallotta, who is a high school sophomore.

Frank likes to pose for photos and he, like Mike, is a big smiler. Frank helps out in a variety of ways, but one of his jobs is to keep an eye on Princess, an old dog who doesn’t seem to know any tricks. Her job is just to hang around and look content.

Mike and Frank spend their summer days going to shore towns to sharpen knives, garden tools, and scissors. The truck is equipped with original 100-year-old stone grinder wheels. Mike says that the ability to do the job properly is mostly about know-how.

People come to the truck window and hand their knives to Frank. Mike, a friendly bear-like guy, begins to grind away. He is focused because this is dangerous work. Sparks fly off the grinder. Frank gets the job of honing the finish.

While the customers wait, they chat and marvel at the sight of the truck and Mike and his vintage equipment. Somebody recalls the iceman. Somebody else remembers the peripatetic knife sharpeners ringing their bells on the streets of New York. We met William Schlenger, an artist, who was admiring the hand-painted lettering on the side of the truck. He had no knives to sharpen; he just wanted to wax nostalgic about painting trucks the old fashioned way.

Mike tells us that he spends a great deal of time in Manhattan in the winter because those fabric cutters in the Garment District depend on properly sharpened scissors.

Eileen had a bunch of her kitchen knives sharpened. Mike insisted that she carry them away on a tray because they are ultra-sharp. He demonstrates by making neat slices out of a small stack of paper.

You can’t make an appointment with this old-style craftsman. He comes into the Grove every few weeks in the summer. You just have to get lucky.

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Here’s Bobby Darin with Mack the Knife:

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True Conversations: Home Depot

June 17, 2026 by Blogfinger

communication2

 

Location: Home Depot in Neptune

Customer:  I would like to buy a yard stick

Sales person:  We only have the 3 foot size.

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Back Bay Boston

June 16, 2026 by Blogfinger

By Paul Goldfinger, undated. Published in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine. ©

By Paul Goldfinger, undated. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 

 

Eileen Goldfinger at  Michael’s BU graduation. Paul Goldfinger photo.

 

 

“MADELEINE”     from Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris  (or maybe he’s in Boston)

 

 

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Stucile water tower. A historic building in Ocean Township.

June 16, 2026 by Blogfinger

Stucile Farm Water Tower. Paul Goldfinger photograph.  Deal Road in Joseph Palaia Park.  Ocean Township.  2/18/23. This tower is over 100 years old. Recently it was structurally strengthened and lit for nighttime viewing by passing cars.  Click once to enlarge.

 

8/2024:  Now that structural improvements are completed, the Ocean Historic Society will be restoring utilities to the building.  When it was a water tower in the past it was supplying irrigation to greenhouses on the property. There also is a  historic building nearby.

 

Click once to enlarge.

 

FIONA APPLE:  “Across the Universe.”  By John Lennon.

 

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“No Time to Die”: Bond is back. Blogfinger review…2022

June 16, 2026 by Blogfinger

Review:    Paul Goldfinger, MD.  Editor Blogfinger.net

 

Paul Goldfinger still image. James Bond, 007, behind the wheel of his Aston-Martin.  Click images once each.

 

Ralph Fiennes (M) and Daniel Craig (007) discuss Bond business along the Thames.  Paul Goldfinger photo.

 

Bond in action.

 

007 with  a powerful weapon in his hands.  Paul Goldfinger photo.

 

Daniel Craig is excellent as James Bond.   The movie, No Time to Die, has a complicated plot, and like all Bond films is full of action, and the cinematography creates a fast paced and energetic visual theme, giving your eyeballs a workout.

New young musical star Billie Eilish provided a fine opening song which she wrote, and, suprisingly, the closing song is by Louis Armstrong.

The film is too long, and some cutting would have been helpful, but if you are a Bond fan, don’t miss it—streaming now for rent on Amazon.  It is 5.99, and you have access for 48 hrs once you start watching.

 

BILLIE EILISH:  “No Time to Die”

 

 

LOUIS ARMSTRONG: ” We Have All the Time in the World.”  I never heard this song before, but it is very effective.

 

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He Never Did That Before…..

June 15, 2026 by Blogfinger

Paul Goldfnger photo at the 2016 June 7 Pride Parade in A. Park.  Click once:   What did he do?

 

 

REBECCA  LUKER:

 

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Distraction on Fifth Avenue

June 15, 2026 by Blogfinger

Paul Goldfinger.photograph.   Firemen march in the Israel Day Parade, 5th Avenue, New York City. 2017.    Usually held in June.   Click to enlarge and see the action.

 

THE BEATLES:

 

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Tales from the Town-wide Yard Sale

June 15, 2026 by Blogfinger

The action heated up early on Mt. Hermon Way where there were 7 sales within 2 blocks

The action heated up early on Mt. Hermon Way where there were 7 sales within 2 blocks.  All photos by Paul Goldfinger

Despite some intermittent light rain and clouds, the yard sale event on Saturday was successful. Only a few of the 45 families gave up in the face of the weather. Actually, the morning was busy for most sellers, and many buyers, responding to our advertising, came from out of town.  By and large, this truly should have been called a “porch sale” because everyone who had a porch made good use of it.

Robin, a pre-K teacher from Ocean Twp, was buying fun and games for a PTO tricky tray event. She scored big on Inskip Ave at the far southern reaches of the Grove.

Robin, a pre-K teacher from Ocean Twp, was buying fun and games for a PTO tricky tray event. She scored big on Inskip Ave at the far southern reaches of the Grove.

We were supposed to start at 9 a.m. but there always are early arrivers—often dealers or collectors.  We had a vinyl collector show up first.  He chose a $1.00 Joni Mitchell album.  He said that he owns “thousands” of record albums, but “there’s always room for one more.”

Another guy asked us if we wanted to sell him silver or gold.  He said, “I can pay better than other dealers because I have no overhead.”  As I told him the bad news—no gold or silver on my porch— I imagined him under the Wesley Lake bridge weighing his gold and silver.  Three women named Vicki arrived at our sale at the same time–perhaps a world record unless there is a Vicki Association somewhere.

Carl Swanson ("CardsbyCarl.com) lov ed the action. "Now that spring is here, I have a new color palette." We'll show his latest work

Artist/actor Carl Swanson (CardsbyCarl.com) loved the action. “Now that spring is here, I have a new color palette.” We’ll show his latest work soon. He once played a father in the Fantasticks.

 

A group of 4 antique toy sellers had gathered in front of a garage on Inskip Ave. Because we had itemized the goods for sale on Blogfinger, they were able to connect with antique toy collectors, so they did very well.

Pat, a jewelry maker from Olin Ave, said that everyone who came to her sale wanted something that she didn’t have.  “I make jewelry from Swaroski crystals, and some buyers thought my name was Crystal Swaroski,” she said.  “I guess I need to bring my jewelry to a craft show.”

Pat Gordon. Ms. Swarosky. Lonely only on Olin

Pat Gordon. Ms. Swarosky. Lonely only on Olin.

 

But Carl Hoffman and I rode around to spot-check the sales, and almost everyone we visited said that they were having a good day. One seller complained that as the day went on, her pants got longer.  We were baffled by that one until she explained that the bottoms were getting wet, so her pants were losing altitude. We left before  critical mass caused chaos.

 

Rosemarie Smith and Michael Termni of Stockton Ave. This is what a real garage sale looks like (A rare event int garageless OG)

Rose Marie Smith and Michael Termni of Stockton Ave. This is what a real garage sale looks like (A rare event in garageless OG)

 

As a social event, it was really a lot of fun.  Grovers who were new  in town got to meet neighbors, and neighbors formed partnerships and bonded with the folks next door or down the block.

We had one buyer, a chubby guy with glasses, do an excellent 5 second impression of Rodney Dangerfield (“I don’t get no respect”—-In my mind I heard a rim shot).

A New Yorker named Nick  had just blown into town by bus and immediately hit the sale trail. “I read Blogfinger every day at work,” he said.  “Thank you for bringing us out-of-towners the OG  news.  I especially look forward to the crime reports.”  (I’m thinking, “I really have to call Chief Adams and tell him we need more crime news.”)

Another New Yorker named Hubert, a young man browsing through my photographs, could not stop smiling because of little Grover Eddie, age almost-two, who was waving his Woody doll around and saying “Giddyup” over and over.

A woman came up on our porch, peered in our living room window and asked Eileen if she could buy an oriental covered dish that she saw on a table inside.

 

The Ferguson's--This is what a porch sale should look like!

The Ferguson’s–This is what a porch sale should look like!

If any of you had some adventures at the sales yesterday, please click the “comments ” button” and share.

Next year, let’s see if we can get 100 addresses.  And don’t forget, we will advertise your garage sale. Just send an email to Blogfinger@verizon.net.  It’s free, so let her rip.   (Why are we offering this? Yard sales bring people and life into the Grove on Saturday mornings, and then they go home.  I remember when OG was a boring place. )

—Paul Goldfinger, MD, editor  Blogfinger.net

 

Dedicated to all the yard sellers who participated and made our event a success:

 

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Modern OG history: 2017—–Is there a luthier in the house? Don’t fret, we have one in Ocean Grove.

June 15, 2026 by Blogfinger

Daniel Hickman, luthier. “Don’t Fret Music.” Jersey Shore Arts Center. Paul Goldfinger photograph © Here Daniel checks the “playability” and alignment of an instrument that he has been working on. 7/18/17. Click to enlarge

 

By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net

Did you ever dream of traveling around the country in a van with a rock band?  Well, Daniel Hickman of Tennessee, currently of Ocean Grove, did just that for five years when he was in his twenties.  But he wasn’t a musician. He was a technician who made sure that the group’s guitars were fit as a fiddle.  Daniel loved the experience;  is there any doubt? ——– especially if you read  Keith Richards biography.

Daniel has trained for years working on guitars—-repairing them and building them.  He continued studying his craft with experts along the way as he traveled all over America with the Latin Rock group  “de Sol.”  He calls himself a “luthier”  (definition:  “a maker of stringed instruments such as violins or guitars.”)

Daniel comes from an artistic family and he probably inhaled guitar music living near Nashville.   His career as a luthier has been progressing since 2005.  After that rock gig, he moved to New Jersey and found himself with a very special business opportunity at the Jersey Shore Arts Center in Ocean Grove  (66 South Main Street in Neptune) where he has had a workshop/studio since 2015 called “Don’t Fret Music.”

Daniel is  grateful to the late  Herb Herbst and the staff at the JSAC for providing him with a rare situation. He not only builds and repairs guitars and other stringed instruments,, but he has begun a program to provide lessons in  guitar,  piano,  and uke.  Dan has recruited a talented young teacher to work with students of all ages, and the lessons are given in a separate space off Dan’s workshop.  He also repairs amps and he is moving into “retail.”  Daniel plans to develop a “full service guitar shop and music store.”  His shop is downstairs off the parking lot, with a private entrance to the left.

At the age of 32, Daniel is ambitious and enthused. “We are in the infancy of Don’t Fret Music.”

Daniel’s workshop/studio is a fascinating place, and to watch him work, you get the impression that he is highly competent. He worked on my guitar–he is an exacting craftsman.

Daniel is excited about the future of the Jersey Shore Arts Center. “There is a lot going on here,” he says;  “The venue is full of talented artists in residence ,some of whom paint, do screen printing, social media, and photography.”   There also is an acting ensemble “La Strada.”    He wants to be supportive of his artist colleagues at JSAC.

One of his ambitions is to see a variety of new music performances in the  JSAC theater.  He hopes for bluegrass and jazz among the choices. This ambition seems very real given the recent downsizing of the secular  programming in the Great Auditorium and the real need for some musical variety to satisfy OG’s diverse demographics and to balance against the music scene in Asbury Park.

Blogfinger will help promote new music  and arts programs in Ocean Grove. It sounds like the JSAC  may be on the threshold of something more than yoga and children’s ballet.  Currently there is an arts show going on. Call them for details.

Daniel’s shop is open Tuesday through Saturday 3 pm -7 pm except Saturday which is 11 am to 5 pm. Call 732 361 5060  or DontFretNJ@gmail.com or the web site: DontFretNJ.com.

And, for the record, Daniel lives in Ocean Grove and he “loves the town.” It makes him happy because he knows his neighbors, people say hello, and the town is charming. Daniel knows most of the business people in the Grove and he feels at home here.

de Sol   “Blanco y Negro.”

 

 

Here is a link to a 2018 piece about “Don’t Fret.”

 

https://wp.me/pqmj2-BBu

 

 

 

 

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Words of wisdom from Bardfinger via the New Yorker.

June 14, 2026 by Blogfinger

New Yorker    Blogfinger revival.

1999 Revival of Kiss Me Kate:

 

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Modern OG history—2017: Girls in their summer clothes at the Don’t Fret Music Block Party

June 14, 2026 by Blogfinger

Paul Goldfinger ©. Ocean Grove. 8/20/17. Enjoying the fun: Johanna Castillo (R) Dominican Republic; Gabriello Nieves (C) Puerto Rico; Grace Pollioni New Jersey (L)

CHUCK BERRY:

 

 

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The sun never sets on lap dances…

June 13, 2026 by Blogfinger

 

NJ Turnpike near Newark Airport. Paul Goldfinger photo. 9/15/21. Click once to enlarge

 

 

THE NIGHTHAWKS.  “You Made Me Love You”

 

 

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