Embury Avenue block party. Paul Goldfinger. photo. 2013. Ocean Grove, NJ
Saturday, September 15, 2013.
This year, the Embury Avenue block party once again featured a series of big bands and ensembles performing in driveways and porches while the neighbors chowed down in the street.
This is an impressive event, with high quality jazz, dixieland and big band music. It’s a shame that this could not have been shared with the whole town somehow. Anyhow, it was a wonderful happening in the Grove: unique and marvelous. Congratulations to the organizers. —-Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net
BELOW IS WALT TORIE’S DIXIELAND BAND playing on Gail Shaffer’s porch. Video by Eileen Goldfinger
North End Redevelopment zone. Ocean Grove. Paul Goldfinger photo for Blogfinger.net. Click once to enlarge.
By Mary Walton. Blogfinger.net. And read the comments below:
As the 2012 Labor Day weekend drew to a close under cloudy skies, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association reported a somewhat gloomy financial picture at its traditional season’s end review. (Note: Sandy hit in October 2012. This meeting was on Labor Day 2012.
Operating income of $3,164,000 fell $39,000 short of operating expenses. Contributions to the choir festival, Camp Meeting week and other special events were down by $24,500 over last year. And ticket sales to the Saturday night entertainment programs experienced an especially severe drop. They totaled 20,347, compared to 27,588 in 2011, a 26 percent decline that resulted in the lowest profit margin in eleven years.
Dr. Dale Whilden, CMA president, attributed the fall off in Saturday night attendance to competition from new entertainment outlets in the surrounding area, particularly Asbury Park. The loss of revenues when Johnny Mathis cancelled his August 11 appearance was another factor. Whilden added, “And the economy has got to be a part of this.”
On the bright side, as of Aug. 20 beach revenues had outpaced expenses $928,000 to $760,000. Beach profits, however, cannot be used to defray operating losses.
More than 100 people attended the meeting, which was held this year in the Youth Temple rather than its customary venue, the Bishop Janes Tabernacle. In another change from past years, the meeting was closed to the media.
“This meeting is targeted for supporters,” Ralph del Campo, interim chief operating officer, told this Blogfinger reporter before the meeting began. I was invited to sit in, but told not to report. He explained that people were under the false impression that the CMA was a public entity, which has not been the case since it was a municipality running Ocean Grove, a role now occupied by Neptune Township. He noted that as a religious organization the CMA is not obligated to make its sessions public. There was no explanation for why the change was suddenly enacted. In fact, Blogfinger has covered the meeting in past years. “We’re not trying to hide anything,” Whilden chimed in.
The change in policy was not announced during the meeting, and Bonnie Graham, a reporter for the Coaster, took notes throughout. Graham was unaware of the no-reporting rule until I made an issue of it during the questions and comments session that concluded the meeting. I asked that the CMA reconsider its policy in the interest of openness. Graham also objected to the rule against media reporting, and afterward said she was shocked and mystified. Trustees apparently were not aware of the decision either. “What’s that all about?” one asked me.
On another subject, Joan Caputo spoke for Ocean Grove United, a gay advocacy organization that has often been at odds with the CMA, most recently over the appearance of actor and evangelist Kirk Cameron, the author of harsh anti-gay remarks. After an OGU protest, Whilden and other CMA officials met with a group from the organization to hear their concerns. Caputo thanked them for having “in many ways opened their hearts and taken the time to meet with us, to listen and to share. Let the dialogue continue.” She made her remarks available to Blogfinger.
CMA Trustee Douglas E. Arpert responded to a questioner who asked the status of the North End development of condos, homes and a hotel. The CMA and a company called WAVE (Wesley Atlantic Village Enterprises) are co-developers. Arpert told Blogfinger they hope to conclude a redevelopment agreement with Neptune Township by the end of the year and to break ground in 2013.
After the meeting Del Campo and Whilden sat down with me to review the information that had been presented at the meeting, so that it could be included in this article.
In addition to financial news, they said that the search for a chief operating officer is nearing its conclusion. After an initial round of searching last year failed to produce a suitable candidate, the search was widened in the spring. The search committee received more than 30 resumes, and has narrowed the field to three, all men. The committee will conduct interviews in September and expects to name the new officer by year’s end.
In other statistics of interest, the most popular speakers this summer were Ravi Zakarias, who drew 2,900 Sunday morning worshippers this past Sunday, followed by Kirk Cameron, 2,300, and Tony Campolo, 2,058.
Neil Sedaka attracted the largest Saturday night crowd, 2,722, followed by Diana Krall, 2,470, and Michael W. Smith, 2,316.
Interlaken is just across Deal Lake from Asbury Park. It is .4 square miles and consists of 395 homes. The population is 820. The land in that area was purchased from the Lenape indians in 1667. Later it was purchased by a Boston physician who called it Interlaken Farms (after a town in Switzerland). It was incorporated into a borough in 1922. Interlaken has no business district. Its business is having no business.
KATHY BRIER comments on taxes: From Boardwalk Empire:
5 scallion (3 thinly sliced on the diagonal & 2 for garnish)
1 1/2 tablespoons of fish soy sauce or oyster sauce
3 tablespoons chicken stock
2 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic finely grated *
Place fish on a microwave safe plate and top with 1 tablespoon ginger and garlic. Cover completely with plastic wrap and microwave for 4 minutes on high.
Sauce:
Heat oil in a small sauce pan until it simmers. Add remaining ginger and sliced scallions.
Add fish sauce and stock. Simmer for 2 minutes.
Remove plastic wrap from fish. Pour any juices from the fish into the sauce pan and simmer for another minute. Pour the sauce over the fish, garnish with the 2 whole scallions.
Serves 2
* Vivian’s recipe did not contain garlic; that was my addition (Eileen Goldfinger, food editor @Blogfinger).
Editor’s Note: Vivian Huang is an expert in Chinese cuisine. She is not a professional chef, but she is an excellent home cook who was born in Taiwan.
This recipe is a superb example of heart-healthy cooking. The fish is steamed. Cod fish is low in cholesterol, high in protein, and rich in nutrients such as calcium and potassium. This 2020 version by Eileen was prepared in June, so there are lots of heart healthy accompaniments shown in the photo above.
A small amount of extra virgin olive oil is used in the recipe which, in the prevention world, is considered to be a “good oil.” Ginger has been utilized for centuries for its medicinal benefits, and garlic is an herb with reputed health benefits in heart disease. The recipe is low in fat and calories and it contains, of course, omega-3 fish oils.
Note that Paul Goldfinger, MD and Eileen Goldfinger, BS, have written a book called Prevention Does Work: A Guide to a Healthy Heart.
Eileen’s recipe section stresses sea food preparation. The book is available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com
MUSIC. If you want some authentic Chinese sea food, you should take a slow boat to China with a really good friend, catch the fish yourself, and let the crew prepare it. Then eat it under the stars.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger. Posted originally in 2013.
It was February 1969, and this blizzard buried the Big Apple in 15 inches of snow. The city was paralyzed for 3 days, but in the park, the kids were having a great time. The politicians were being attacked for their poor performance in getting the city back to normal, especially Mayor John Lindsay who was so traumatized that he switched from the elephants to the donkeys.
So, while we are on the subject of wintry events, today is the start of Hanukkah in Ocean Grove and elsewhere as well. It is a tradition to eat latkes (potato pancakes fried in oil) and then to drink some ritual Maalox as it is written in the Old Testament.
So the next holiday before Kwanzaa is Christmas. And it is Christmas all around us (as a recent commenter pointed out), so what’s wrong with saying “Merry Christmas” to everyone?
You don’t have to be a Christian to enjoy this holiday and its messages of peace and good will (as well as great cookies, music and parties.)
MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR. With the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble and Percussion . The album is called Rock of Ages.
From MD Anderson Cancer Center. (aka MD Anderson Center). “SPF means “sun protection factor”
By Paul Goldfinger, MD, Dean of the Blogfinger Off-shore School of Medicine in Ocean Grove, NJ. author of the famous medical article: “The Parking Derangement Syndrome.”
In my late teens I worked summers at a resort hotel in the Catskill Mountains. (“The Borscht Belt.). My job was to run around all day in shorts, Hotel Nemerson T- shirts and sunglasses as a member of the athletic staff, organizing volleybal, basketball, hand ball, and softball games, being sociable with the new guests (Wowee!) and suffering sun exposure as a side effect. My nose was always peeling, so I would put thick schmeers of white zinc oxide on, and the guests called me “Chief White Nose.”
Anyhow, we didn’t know anything about the sun risks, and I don’t think they had invented sunscreens back then. They barely had just invented the wheel. I think they may have had Coppertone—the emphasis was on getting a tan and not avoiding skin damage. I remember the women lying all day by the pool “working on” their tans, and if they were really dark, they were much admired.
So then I became a doctor and learned about skin cancer, but very little about prevention. Of course now we all know about using sunblocks, hats, clothes, etc. to reduce exposure to the sun. But the sunscreen thing has been a bit of a mystery—even now. We don’t really know how protective they are and how to use them properly. The SPF numbers remain somewhat of a mystery. And how long do they last and how heavy should they be applied?
Have you gone shopping lately for a sunscreen? You could spend an hour and a half reading labels and still not be sure what to get. So you choose a product with an SPF of 1,000. But, it turns out that over SPF 30 is of dubious usefulness. If you are at a the beach, reapply sun screen every two hours.
Did you know that melanoma cancers are on the rise ?
Attention must be paid!
In today’s New York Times (5/29/13) there is an excellent discussion of this subject called, “New Rules For Sunscreen” by Roni Caryn Rabin. The piece includes a review of the latest FDA labeling rules , so below is a link. I recommend that you read it and then smear your entire body with large globs of sunscreen and don’t go into the midday sun, because only mad dogs and Englishmen do that.
Last week’s flash flood on Broadway was bad. But not unprecedented.
Municipal Clerk Richard Cuttrell found this newspaper photo on the Internet. It is from 1952 and shows people canoeing at the intersection of Broadway and Beach Avenue.
Since the eastern end of Broadway is the lowest-lying part of town, that’s where a huge proportion of Ocean Grove’s rain water flows. In fact, much of that area used to be part of Fletcher Lake.
Crew-members: Doolittle raid on Japanese islands, April 18, 1942. 16 B-25B bombers took off from the deck of the USS Hornet.
By Kennedy Buckley (late) of Ocean Grove, New Jersey (Re-posted from 2012; on Blogfinger.) Ken was a former writer for Blogfinger. net.
“I was 9, visiting Ireland, when the war started in 1939. To get home we embarked from Scotland, and Mom bought me some toy soldiers and a tank for the sea voyage home.
“The bombing of Pearl Harbor was what changed life in the US; now we were in the war instead of watching. Lots of small banners with a blue star in the center started appearing in front windows, meaning a family member was in the service. My two older cousins from Philly went in, and one would become an officer in the paratroopers (more about him later). Dad’s younger brother with no children was drafted — my dad not. Soon there were multiple flags in many windows.
“Nobody was allowed to go up on the roof of my uncle’s tall apartment building in Brooklyn because a spy could see all the ships in New York harbor awaiting convoy. All windows had to have heavy drapes to prevent light shining out. If light could be seen, an Air Raid Warden blew a whistle until you fixed it. Rationing books were needed to buy food and things. Tin cans and tin foil were saved and collected for the “war effort.”
“There was little car driving (gas and tires were rationed) so Esso (now Exxon) printed war maps instead of road maps on which you could follow the battle front as the Allies went through Europe and the Pacific. War news was really bad, defeat after defeat; however, our spirits were raised with very welcome GOOD news about a daring air raid on Tokyo by B-25 bombers flying off aircraft carriers. (The 70th anniversary of that raid just passed–in 2012.)
This family had 3 members serving. The service flag hung in many windows.
“As the war went on, many of the BLUE stars in the windows started changing to GOLD, signifying the death of that serviceman.
“Many of our neighbors in the tenements were Italian. Each family had a small storage room in the cellars. Italian families made wine there and stored it in big bottles. When V-E Day came, the celebrating started in the afternoon by bringing the wine to the street for huge block parties that went on into the wee hours. EVERYBODY drank. I was 14 and my buddies and I got falling drunk for the first time, rolling around in the street — nobody cared.
*Newsreels of color war footage of the island by island battles in the Pacific were shown in the movie theaters. The Japanese troops were so gruesome that when the atomic bombs were dropped, nobody complained — soon after came V-J Day. It was the end ….of that war.”
4 brothers from the Demby family of Bayonne, NJ (Paul Goldfinger’s family) returned home after serving in WWII. Three were in the Pacific, and one (Marty Litinger) was in the convoys that plowed through the North Atlantic with supplies for Russia and England. PG family photo. 1945. Front l to r. Ben Demby (Bronze star valor), “Duke” Demby (subs), rear: Al Demby on left (Sea Bees) and Marty Litinger (Coast Guard). Eileen’s Dad Bernard Harkavy served in Europe.
Postscript by Ken:
“The soldiers came back home in droves to try to begin a normal life. My cousin Jimmy, the paratrooper, was already back recuperating in an Army Hospital. He had jumped twice in Europe, D-Day in France and later in Belgium. He lost most of his men in the 2nd jump and was badly wounded. He never really resumed a normal life. He married (I was in the wedding party) a wonderful, beautiful woman, an ex-Rockette. He was in and out of Veterans hospitals until he died in his early 30’s.
“I fear for the returning veterans from our recent and current wars. Will they get enough care? I really worry.”
(Note: Ken Buckley died 2019 in Ocean Grove.)
Maxwell Air University: Regarding how to finish off Japan: “A policy of imposed starvation—of food, as well as materiel—would have weakened Japanese capabilities without reducing their resolve. Lewis estimates that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the extent that it induced Japanese surrender, saved the lives of roughly 30 million people.”
Civilian losses were not criticized.
Blogfinger: Perhaps 1 million American soldiers could have died if we had invaded Japan.
“Collateral damage” could not be avoided as we took Japan and Germany. And there were few complaints at the home front and around the Allied world. Paul Goldfinger Editor BF.
MUSIC from that era: A lot of the music was sentimental and often catered to the imaginations of homesick GI’s who literally spent years away from home and loved ones.
Here is Peggy Lee with the Benny Goodman orchestra with a song that undoubtedly reminded many GI’s of their girls back home. —PG
Tuscany, Italy. 1996. By Paul Goldfinger. Villa Antinori, near Florence. Tri-X film. Leica M camera. My darkroom print. Photo cards like this one are available, signed, for $10,00. Contact Blogfinger@verizon.net.
By Paul Goldfinger, MD, Editor Blogfinger.net
It is very difficult for one swan to do a pas de deux, but this Italian swan is capable. After all, he (or she?) is the only component in this photo which is in sharp focus. Recently we posted a photograph of a seagull in a boat, misidentified as a duck. But a swan?—–never mistaken for a duck.
Has professional ballet ever been presented in Ocean Grove? I’ve never seen it mentioned in the OG history books. We certainly had a lot of opera, instrumental, and choral music, but classical vocalizing was always emphasized here thanks to Tali Essen Morgan who’s buddy was Caruso. There is no mention of Tali hanging out in the Grove with prima ballerinas.
Swan Lake made its debut in Moscow in 1877 by the Bolshoi. Tchaikovsky wrote it, and it has been almost constantly on tour ever since.
Maybe someday we will have Swan Lake on the stage in the magnificent Great Auditorium of Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
But we can dream.
Here is a pas de deux from Swan Lake Act II, It is called the Love Duet, and the star is Ulyana Lopatkina. Can you imagine these two going to Days after the show for hot fudge sundaes?
Tchaikovsky must be kvelling wherever he is.
Video below: Click on the full screen or picture in picture mode to enlarge all these ballerinas hopping on one leg.
We used to have parties at the west end of Mt. Hermon Way encompassing about 5 blocks. Other “blocks” did the same in other parts of town. You just have to schedule the event with NTPD to plan to close off the streets involved and to bring over some cones.
They were great fun, and there also were house parties for the same neighborhood. But in recent years those parties faded out and were gone, partly because of demographic turnover. I don’t know if other blocks still do it , but the best ones were on Embury and Heck. Some blocks are more friendly than others.
And here is a link from 2021 where Blogfinger covered a block party on Embury: Great fun!
I was invited to participate in a panel discussion at the FM studios of Montclair State University on Monday, October 14. After parking on the fifth floor deck of the Red Hawk parking facility, we (Eileen came along) found ourselves on a busy campus trying to locate Shmitt Hall, a new building, tucked off to the side.
I noticed that most of the students are coeds, and it turns out that 61% are, in fact, female. We don’t know why, but by comparison, at Princeton, 49% are female. We stopped two students to ask directions, but they were a little lost also: one was a freshman and the other was a transfer student. But it seemed like a dynamic and vibrant campus.
Finally we made our way to the elegant Shmitt Hall where we met Mary Mann and Debbie Galant of NJ News Commons at the School of Communications and Media. The studios were modern and impressive. My two fellow panelists were heavy hitters from the world of New Jersey media. I felt like the kid with short pants in the room. Those guys were engaged in “big talk” about issues such as rating the Governor’s performance in the Sandy recovery, the importance of tourism to the NJ economy, the poor people who have not been able to get their homes back, the rising ocean levels, global warming, and media performance. I almost fell out of my chair when they actually spent a while talking about why the barrier islands should be or not be abandoned.
But I did have the opportunity to make some “small talk” about our situation in Ocean Grove, however the conversation was not geared to spending much time on our problems. I irritated the Star Ledger columnist by complaining about imprecise media coverage of the OG FEMA story. I guess I missed his column, but there were quite a few stories in the press that claimed that our FEMA denial was because we are a private, non-profit entity, but the real reason is more complicated than that, and Mark DiLonno of the Star Ledger got it right during this panel, so pay attention to what he says which is the best explanation I have heard so far to describe our problem with FEMA.
I do think that I was able to offer the example of our unusual situation which could be described as part of a tapestry of current New Jersey post-Sandy troubles, many of which will have ramifications for many years beyond now that are economic, personal, environmental, political and social. If you listen to the 30 minute podcast (below) you will hear some interesting discussions about the Jersey Shore post-Sandy.
I did get to make the point that Ocean Grove is unique in our volunteer and fundraising efforts, and that we are not facing some of the daunting financial problems of other towns around here who have borrowed millions, but who have not received much repayment from the Feds so far. But that part was edited out.
However, I am grateful to the fine personnel at MSU and NJ News Commons for allowing me to participate in the discussion. NJ News Commons is a really good and unique source of NJ information on the internet. They are cutting edge for local news.
I was criticized recently by a BF commenter for essentially beating a dead horse with my FEMA exhortations, but repetition of issues that are important to us represent keeping a metaphorical spotlight lit, so that we are not lost in the shuffle. That’s why I went on the radio and why I will continue keeping this subject flying from our town e-flagpole. We will get our boardwalk back, and we all can help by keeping the hope alive.
