Asbury Park, NJ. Sunset Avenue. Paul. Goldfinger photo. 2026
From Carousel:
Now is the time to sign up for the Town-Wide yard sales. Contact us (Eileen and Paul Goldfinger) by email; Blogfinger@verizon.net.
This Grover has gone head over heels to support our Town-Wide Yard Sales. Paul Goldfinger photo near Stokes’ Statue. 2024.
OG Town-Wide yard sales. Heck Avenue
OG yard sale
Anne was the only authentic Groverican I met at the Spring Market, home of cold $16.00 sandwiches. But our authentic yard sales will have real bargains offered by real Grovers.
By Eileen and Paul Goldfinger, Editors, Blogfinger.net. Contact; Blogfinger@verizon.net. As of June 1, the list is small, but it will grow as June 27 approaches.
We are beginning to collect addresses for the June 27, 2026 Town-Wide Yard Sale. Send us sale addresses, cross street, and name. (Name will not web posted unless the seller wants that.). Send us your lists of items at any time…You can send updates until June 26.
We anticipate an enjoyable and rewarding sale as we have had for the last 14 years.
From now until the sales, we will have this post in place, and this will be where we will communicate information and this is where we will begin posting “THE LIST.” which will contain the addresses of all participants including cross streets and, eventually items for sale. If. you want to have a sale, contact us by email at Blogfinger@verizon.net.
We will post the “LIST” here and add new addresses as they come in to Blogfinger@verizon.net New participants can be added to “The List” as the addresses arrive to us from now through June 26. Tell your friends; give them Blogfinger.net to find this basic information.
Send us your address sign-up now, and add your items for sale whenever you wish. We will save the item “List” until 1-2 weeks before. We don’t want early birds knocking on your doors. The List will be published here starting in mid- June. But you can start signing up now. We will not post your names unless you request that. Send your list to Blogfinger@verizon.net
Only addresses and, later, sale items will be on the list. The latter will be revealed about one week before touch down.
We are leaving this post here until June 27 so that those who go to Blogfinger.net for yard-sale information will not get lost. The content of this post will vary until the sale.
About parking it should be OK. If you drive into town, bring a bike and park anywhere.
This an Ocean Grove event run by We-The-People, and we expect that mostly Grovers will show up as before, but out-of-towners are always welcome to our historic town . Bring the kids, the dogs, your band, or your saxophone or flugelhorn. Have music at your sale.
Sellers will need a Neptune Township yard sale permit for $5.00. Get them at the Neptune Township Town Hall-building dept.
We have fliers now to help publicize the event and we welcome efforts by participants to publicize the sales. If you want to have some fliers, stop at our porch at 113 Mt. Hermon Way at Delaware. Help yourself to fliers which will be in a box. You can attach them legally to your porch columns.
Blogfinger headquarters 5/28/26. Click once to read. Ocean Grove: Pick up flies at 113 Mt. Hermon on the porch.
Seller groups of neighbors or friends will enhance the success, fun and games. We can use some volunteer citizen reporters with bikes who could monitor and photograph the sales and report back to the Blogfinger headquarters.
QUESTIONS? Email to Eileen and me: Blogfinger@verizon.net
This post will be evolving, so stay tuned.
Eileen and Paul Goldfinger. Editors at Blogfinger.net
ROBERT AND JOHNNY:
BEACH BOYS: ” Don’t Worry Baby-“-Come to our Yard Sales
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Members of Neptune United busting chops on Sunday morning after calling the cops. Blogfinger action photo 8/27/23
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net. 9/07/23. Ocean Grove, NJ.
They call it “An Ocean Grove Story” but it is as stale as yesterday’s dead whale. The Coaster must be desperate.
It is about a woman who has been swimming in the Ocean on some Sundays mornings since 2020. She clashed with the CMA and eventually was offered a deal by Michael Badger who would personally escort her onto the beach each Sunday as long as she kept quiet about the deal.
In April, 2023 Ms. Pamela Valentine confessed her secret during an HOA meeting where the Groaners wanted to talk about Sunday closures. We reported on it then.
Blogfinger June report on this subject.
Meanwhile others were also crashing the beach on Sunday mornings, and we all heard about it lately when a new radical group, Neptune United, took up the cause and started making a public fuss and an unruly stink.
Recently a number of local news sources have reported on the situation including NJ.com, Patch, and Asbury Park Press. Each of them did a careless job and printed inaccurate facts about the Grove. This is part of a journalistic tradition of covering our history and workings going back to when the National Geographic painted us as a hangout for religious zealots.
The Sunday beach situation got some more attention when NU complained to the DEP about the chain/lock impediment to Sunday beach access, but actually anyone, including Ms. Valentine, could have gone on the beach in a variety of ways with or without the chain/locks.
The Neptune Police refused to intervene, and the DEP warned the CMA to remove the chains and locks. That matter is still under discussion with the Trenton busybodies.
There was an opportunity for major civil disobedience, but that never happened, and the NU flash-in-the -pan concerns are going nowhere, and now summer is over and full Sunday access has returned, thanks to Mother Nature: the passing of the seasons.
Why is Ms. Valentine’s story so fascinating now to the Coaster or to anyone else? So what if Michael Badger made a friendly agreement with Ms. Valentine? Who cares and why do they care?
The Coaster should get a Pulitzer for this article, aka “Much Ado About Nothing.”
But the real news is that this sequence confirms the relationship between the Home Groaners and Neptune United. Because the Neptune United agitators foresee attacking the CMA from all fronts. (see their web site and their recent public obnoxious behavior) the HOA should divorce itself from this dangerous group or risk losing much of its membership who want no part of the NU tactics and slippery public relations.
Ocean Grove citizens need to get focused on what’s really important. Paul Goldfinger photo. Blogfinger.net. 2023.
DAVID LEONHARDT
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Place Saint-Michel, Paris Left Bank. By Paul Goldfinger. Blogfinger. Click once to enlarge.
DJANGO REINHARDT from the movie Something’s Gotta Give: “Brazil”
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Paul Goldfinger St. Emilion, France. Dordogne region. Growers of Bordeaux wine. Silver gelatin dark room print by the photographer. Click once for full view.
SIDNEY BECHET (soprano sax) with “Si Tu Vois Ma Mere” from the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris.
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THE RED ARMY CHOIR. “Moscow Nights.”
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Lake Avenue. Ocean Grove. 12/7/22. Paul Goldfinger photo. I like having bicycles in my photos. They suggest the presence of people, and my photography is most often about people—either in the photo or not far away.
JOHN WILLIAMS AND JOANNE PEARCE MARTIN. From the soundtrack of The Fabelmans. (New film by Steven Spielberg).
Concerto in D Minor. Adagio. By Bach.
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Part of the D-Day invasion was the airborne component. Parachutes and gliders. Still image by Paul Goldfinger from Band of Brothers.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor, Blogfinger.net
160,000 Allied troops landed on the French beaches of Normandy, but 18,000 American and British airborne troops parachuted onto the Cotentin Peninsula, behind enemy lines; Some were transported in on gliders.
This operation was extremely dangerous, and many soldiers were lost. The movie Band of Brothers was about Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division. It is a remarkable story and is available on Amazon streaming. I watch it at least twice per year.
We honor those who participated in the D-Day invasion of Europe every year on December 6.
It was dark when they landed. Paul Goldfinger still image from Band of Brothers. 6/6/23.
Still image from Band of Brothers. Soldier is tense inside the plane. There will be no turning back. He gets ready to jump. Paul Goldfinger. Blogfinger.net
GLENN MILLER AND HIS ORCHESTRA. “Moonlight Serenade.” From the movie The Aviator.
Shortly after D-Day military orchestra leader and trombonist Maj. Glenn Miller vanished during a flight over the English Channel. He was 40 years old.
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Pride Parade. June, 2019. Asbury Park. Paul Goldfinger photo. Click once to enlarge
CARNATIONS:
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Rev. Alfred Osborn. Founder of Ocean Grove
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @ Blogfinger.net Re-post 2011.
Several weeks ago we received a flyer about a flea market sponsored by the Old Corlies Preservation Association (OCPA). It seemed innocuous enough when we posted it, until we read to the bottom where it said, “Hamilton—the birthplace of Neptune and Ocean Grove.” Hamilton is the site of an early settlement near Old Corlies Road. Its earliest name was Shark River Village, then Greenville and then it was called Hamilton in 1875, after the founding of OG. There was a church there, but it burned down in 1940 along with all its historic records.
Their claim was surprising, because it did not agree with the history of OG’s founding as we knew it. I contacted the OCPA and received an unsigned email linking to a YouTube video. Their claim is based on the assertion that Ocean Grove’s founding father Reverend William B. Osborn was working for the Hamilton church when he went off to start the community of OG. This seemed like a pretty flimsy linkage, so I hit the books.
Thanks to Ms. Marion Bauman, director at the Neptune Library, I was introduced to a pile of history books including the voluminous History of Monmouth County, a fat book that could give you a hernia if you didn’t lift it with both hands. I also had a history of Neptune Township, Gibbons History of Ocean Grove, and, best of all, I had, in my personal collection, a history of the founding of Ocean Grove written by Mrs. W.B. Osborn, the founder’s wife.
Since this blog posting is not an academic treatise, I will simply tell you that the OCPA’s claim is frivolous. Rev. Osborn singlehandedly promoted the camp meeting concept in New Jersey and it was his energy, commitment, and enthusiasm which resulted eventually in the founding of Ocean Grove
The idea was first presented in 1867 at a national camp meeting conference in Vineland, and the group appointed Rev. Osborn as their official agent to find a suitable site in New Jersey. After an extensive search up and down the Jersey coast, the site now known as Ocean Grove was chosen in 1868. Rev. Osborn named the town and he recruited a team of supporters from places like Farmingdale, Philadelphia and Long Branch.
A group of them set up tents in the summer of 1869 and had the first prayer meeting on July 31, 1869, amongst the bushes, trees, briars, and dunes at a location now known as Founders’ Park. In December 1869, the founders met in Trenton and set up the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association.
Rev Osborn was put in charge, although he was assigned a part time job, to help support his family, performing Sunday services at the church in Greenville (later known as the Hamilton Methodist Church).
None of my sources give credit to anyone or any church or any organization other than Rev. William B. Osborn himself as the founder of OG. The claim by the OCPA has the effect of diminishing Rev. Osborn’s role. I believe that the claim should be formally challenged by the Ocean Grove Historical Society and the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, in order to set the record straight.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Subsequently the OCPA gave up its paternity claim regarding Ocean Grove.–PG
RIVKA ZOHAR. “The Road to the Village” In Hebrew from a collection of Israeli folk songs.
CREDITS:
1. History of Neptune Township. “Four Score and Five”. 1964
2. History of Ocean Grove. Gibbons. 1944
3. History of Monmouth County, 1964
4. Pioneer Days of Ocean Grove. Mrs. W.B. Osborn c1910.
5. Mr Ted Bell. Ocean Grove Historical Society
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Paul Goldfinger photograph. Deal Lake branch. Allenhurst., N.J. Oct 27, 2021
THE WESTERN SWING AUTHORITY
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Paul Goldfinger photo. Market begins to wind down. 5/31/26. Click once to enlarge.
Gazing at the boardwalk. Paul Goldfinger photos. Blogfinger.net
BEATLES: “Day Tripper”. Album 1.
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Blogfinger.net: Nagle’s opened today Monday, June 1, 2026. The menu seems to be very promising, and most everyone has been hoping for a first class new restaurant in the Grove.
For those who dine there, please send us your brief reviews. You can use your name or not. Send to Blogfinger@verizon.net
From Woody’s movie “Everyone Says I Love You:”
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St. John’s Island at Sunset Lake. A. Park 9/13/20. Blogfinger.net. Paul Goldfinger photo. Click to enlarge.
St. John’s closeup. Paul Goldfinger ©. Click to enlarge.
Sunday on St. John’s. Paul Goldfinger photo. © 9/13/20. Click to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, MD, Editor Blogfinger.net
There are those in Asbury Park who believe that the city’s music traditions helped keep it alive over the years. Recently, in addition to restaurant row, arts resurgence, condo heaven, youthful bar scene, and all sorts of special events such as the Pride Parade and the Zombie Walk, music is still very much alive in multiple venues within walking distance of Ocean Grove.
Some think of rock and roll, a la Bruce Springsteen, when they think of A. Park, but there is much more than that. I used to attend the yearly jazz festival.
But now, a new musical idea has begun, and that involves Sunday concerts on St. John’s Island in the middle of Sunset Lake. It began on Sept 13 and will continue each Sunday through October 25.
We went over there to get some photos. It is a lovely venue. You walk onto the bridge off Sunset Avenue and then stroll down to St. John’s where a well distanced audience on folding chairs enjoyed a concert by folk-rocker Steve Forbert and his trio. The music was very good, and the audience enjoyed it. Others watched from the nearby bridge.
Steve Forbert performs. Paul Goldfinger photo. click on images to enlarge. 9/13/20. Blogfinger.net
There will be different performers each Sunday, and the lineup sounds terrific.
This series is sponsored by the Asbury Park Music Foundation and is advertised as an “acoustic music series benefiting youth music programs in Asbury Park.”
This Sunday series will be very popular, so get your tickets early at asburyparkmusiclives.org
Hardly anyone wore a mask at the concert, but that seemed to be OK given the distancing. (see our photos) Others kept away by sitting on the bridge.
STEVE FORBERT. from his album Jack Rabbit Slim”: “Sadly Sorta Like a Soap Opera.”
Another artist to appear on Oct. 18 is singer songwriter Glen Burtnick. Here he is with “Where Music Lives” (down by the ocean.)
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