Jim Carrano. In case you have never seen a Great Auditorium usher in a full dress uniform, here he is.    Blogfinger photo, with permission of Jim, the most respected usher in the Mountains of Ocean Grove.  Repost from August, 2014.

By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.

In order to read this post, you need to start the music first:

I went to photograph Jim—to ask him for help with Blogfinger,  but he looked at me through his sunglasses, he stared for short while, and then he said, “Paul, we’ve known each other many years, but this is the first time you came to me for counsel, for help. I can’t remember the last time that you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let’s be frank here: you never wanted my friendship. And uh, you were afraid to be in my debt. 
”

But it was Sunday morning, and Jim was wearing his Great Auditorium suit, complete with a white flower. So I offered him my respect, and he felt compassion and he let me photograph him. I didn’t dare position him on the hatched yellow lines—-no way.  I took only two frames for fear that he would make me an offer that I couldn’t refuse.

Finally he said, “Paul, some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But uh, until that day — accept this photograph  as a gift on this fine Ocean Grove Sunday and you will photograph the flowers in front of my house…….won’t you?  And you will put that photograph on Blobfinger!”  (sic)

And we did!

Editor’s note:  Jim Carrano and Lois  moved out of the Grove last year.  But those flowers remain. He returns once in a while to make sure that his flowers are OK.