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JANUARY I9H2 'll wann'i tlw finl snow, , lumpily A few dayH before •here wa« h dieting that left the curled leave* of-the rhodendron IfKikmg like they'd been sprinkled with ParrTn**«n thee*e But it was the first rent *f»ow of the winter of lt«2 And if wa* a really mce’snow Among the eountle*H places it landed was within the brown, rwd-like bran ches of the mock orange outside our front door In tfw morning we could look out and up thru the Man ches' at the snow, backlighted by a new day made .even Inofe refreshing by the still falling snow Millions upon miliums of liny flake* were nesllrfig in crisp silence in I hi* orange blossom hush, its fragrant while petal* of spring replaced now by ice

cold cotton

Snow seem* to do for peq pie what it doe* to trees and shrubs and all the other stationary features outside It blankets thom in a common glory As for external objects, snow covers the'm. soften mg sharp edgi , s, smoothing abrupt contours, filling Igf,

voids and sounding out dif ference* with a common purity iH frozen crystal* so small, no innumerable that they seem lighter than the dropleti) from which they come, popcorn instead of

kernels]

Internally, m the mind, the spirt! of men. snowfall

too, and protest the Inconvenience and delay. But even in my 4lst year I still allow the child in me to prevail; the ebullient spun taneity. as if there lie* deep down inside a sachet for the soul to rid the body of the smell of accumulated mildew so ds to give the

piryi oi iiivn, nm/wion - Country Note

also hnK a common consequence an impact on the psyche not unlike the other immutable yet refr<t*hing .nuance* of nature usually a*sooiali*d more with spr mgtime than the other seasons of pur. calendar (probably Because it is only during he winter quadrant that wej humans are forced into a position of inferiority and oft »n times downright submissions Just as the aroma of the rose or the music if the songbird can send the human soul into ecstasy, so too. cad snow, (•specially the first snow It is just j as refreshing And just because it often results in annoyance* by altering our schedules is no reason to relegate its splendor Oh yes. I can grumble

will the chance to rid the body of the source of its

decay

In the freezer compart men! of the refrigerator in the kitchen of our home is a small grubby sriowbalL It was placed there .by my twelve-year-old son. who traditionally ha* fashioned such a sphere from tBe/lrsf snow of the season, whenever possible. Even at his young age. it is impor-. tant to attempt to preserve something of nature's, grandeur Like pressing the rose of importance between the pages of some favorite tome I had discounted that first snow as inconsequential, describing, rather, the emotion the first snow of substance had evoked in

me. Once again my son ha* shown me the importance of little things Earlier today, my son and I were building a snowman in the aftermath of the Hubutantlal snqwfall His teenage sister came out. briefly. She helped lift the heavy mid section of the eventual snowman onto the large base Without my daughters help, we couldn't have managed But she had other things to do Inside, and as she left she fashioned a snowball and hit me with it. tossing her blonde head back in laughter as she rushed to safety inside It wasn’t a hard snowball. She could have packed it tight until it became an icy rock. But she didn't. Later her mother described for me the delight on our daughter's face, the merriment a snowball's toss had given her My wife had been wat ching us working on the snowman, pitying in the snow, she was delighted watching It rbally was a realy nife

snow

J.H.A ■

editorial • ,

The Times Demand Broader Outlook

It’s .1 phrase you hear often, especially during the Christmas shopping season. But isn't ill contrary to one of, the basic tenants of capitalism competition? I( by way of competition the price of a comparable good or service can be obtained elsewhere more cheaply, wouldn't it be foolish not to go there to buy it. Keen during this era of energy consciousness, if a bargain really is a bargain, the trip to some mall or distant shop may be worth it. Not always, mind you; but occasionally, you'd be nuts if you didn't hike up to Bio Grande, or Court House, Plcasantvillc, Vineland, Deptford, Cherry Hill... Of course, when you can g?t the same brandpr equally good service for a few pennies or even a few dollars more locally, it makes sense hot to spend your time and energy going out of your way. Hire Locally. THE (TTY OK CAKE MAY HAS become the latest Jersey Cape municipalily to adopt a residency ordinance for the hiring of city employees It's a local law based on favoritism, much in the vein of the shop locally advocacy. It’s premise is based on the thought, as expressed in the preamble of the residency ordinance: That the local authority Has determined that a local resident "would posses greater knowledge of the municipality, its physical makeup and its residents.” That's fine — if you're dealing with the Cape May of a generation ago, when virtually all the residents did indeed know most of the other inhabitants. But.times <have changed. So much so that most residents^ Cape May nowadays lock their doors before retiring — almost unheard of in the good old days! Well, these aren’t the good old days. The

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1980s arc a time of cutthroat competition in the market place and elsewhere. Even the local governing body, which came up with the local preference cone, recognizes the need to go outside the city when it comes to such important positions as police and firemen — they are exempt from the provisions of the favoritism ordinance. Could this mean that the local governing body realizes there may not be suitable employees locally during a given time to hire as protectors against and fights of crime and fire; that the few thousand people (including children and elderly) within the confines of Cape May City may not constitute a large

enough labor pool?

THERE IS ONLY ONE THING a prospective muncipal employee on the other side of the Cape May boundary line cannot do that his, perhaps, inferor counterpart within the city can: vote in the municipal election. Now, Cape May is not alone in its parochialism. A little further up the road, we come to Middle Township, where a candidate for the office of Township Committee has come out against consolidation of the police departments of Lower and Middle Townships (The two most populated and sprawling of the inland municipalities) — an opposition that echoes the sentiments of Middle Township new Public Safety Director, a man who was just recently sworn into office for the first ’time as a Committeeman. Now this latter individual, the incoming Committeeman, just happens to oe a policeman himself (albeit in another jurisdiction). And he and this other

OPPOSING V

Helping Mother Nature hile Paying Your Taxes

John ft. Andrus II William J. Adam* Bonnlr Relna PniroMKopp

Editor 1 Advertising Director Qeneral Manager J Publisher

» Co»».AM >•*»»•• I* pvbiwrt-'on ihah *•>•01 may b* ••e><ttv<*d W

OF MM INKS New* Ji Photo* Thursday Advertising .Friday * 3 p.m. Classified Advertising Friday • 3 p.m. [~||7-33I2 Pof~New* tV^Ad^frtUIngTnformallon 1 NtMfctr MrtktfaUag mt.er. mar Ike IraMItkers of the HKRAI.ll AND I.AVTERN •III k» responsible or liable far misloformaUoo, misprints lyaograpfciral errors, etr . In hsor The editor reserves Ike rl|(kl lo eSH »n» letter or arltrles sabmltled lor puMk■ lloe i *... .

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LANTERN

P O Ho* «M CoM Spring. N J <*2W

A*

by David Moore

Take a close look at your 1981 New Jersey income tax form and you’ll see a line item which permits you to strike a tangible blow for our state's endangered wildlife species. If you put a check mark in the appropriate box, you will have donated$2,15 or $10 of.your pending refund to a special endangered species fund. This income tax checkoff program was signed into law by Governor Brendan Byrne last June as the Nongame and Endangered Species of Wildlife Conservation Fund Act. Thirteen other states already had simitar programs. Recently I wrote in this space about growing recognition of peril to human survival because so many thousands of life forms are Incoming extinct. Admittedly esoteric, this is the kind of problem too few will take seriously until it’s too late. The gist of it is. however, that all existing lifeJorms, including people, evolved over billions of years through a process of ‘‘cross-pollination" of species Without enough species to continue this process. life can wind down on this little planet I WROTE AI.SO THAT SOME state governments are

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fellow, the man running for an upcoming seal on the township governing body, feel it would be inequitable fpr the police departments of the two townships to be merged because they feel it would be more beneficial to Lower, and therefore, less of a benefit to'Middle. i ft's strange, ironic. Here we have two municipalities, little Cape May, and big Mid die Township, both advocating certain posi- ‘ tions based on protecting the home turf; each starting, in effect, We can function best without outside help. BUT THAT DOES NOT SEEM LOGICAL And for the very same reason that the shop locally rationale falls short: The bottom line — especially in these days of Reaganomics — is cost; how much is it going to cost the tax-

payer?

I/—and we stress the uncertainty — combin-

ing police departments results in longrun economy of size, consolidation would be a good idea. And if providing a larger potential work force can result in a better caliber of

municipal employee, so much the better. Today when the dictates of the Administra-

tion in Washington are on reducing the size of government’s intervention in the business place and on individual ^initiative, it would ' seem that, given such a commitment — we (officeholder and citizen alike) are obligated (if we are patriotic citizens) to practice frugality in the marketplace and hiring place.

Parochialism and more costly ways of pro-

viding local services are out. The economics of

competition are in. Let's get with it!

IEW POINTS

State Tax Checkoff Won’t Help Wildlife Friends of Animals, a non-profit, national animal protection organization with offices in New Jersey, has called upon the Garden State residents not to fall for the "scam" currently being publicized as a "tax write-off" to help

wildlife.

According to Alice Herrington, president of the organization, New Jersey's hunters and trappers, together with the Game Commission which they fund through license fees, achieved a supplementary tax on 1981 income tax forms that will in fact be used to promote hunting at the expense of the ecology. New Jersey residents are able to check off $2, $5, or $10 amounts for what the Game Commission has called "The Endangered and. Non-Game Species of Wildlife Conservation Fund." He emphasized that "those who check the boxes on the tax form will in fact make an additional payment to the state , it is not a 'write-off like the election return checkoff on the , federal tax form." THE PUBLIC HAS been told by the Game Commission that the money will help ■'‘non-game" species of wildlife through the hiring of additional personnel, by expanding (Page 27 Please)