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Cold Spring July 1982 I suppose it wouid have been even more colorful with the red and white ginghim' tablecloth But last season's purchase for the porch got soiled over the winter and was relegated to covering the seatless rocker beneath the maple by the side of the house, the cotton folds home to countless earwigs (which I think are more plentiful this summer than mosquitoes and flies combined). Newspapers spread over the top of the redwood picnic table sufficed; that’s more traditional, and there was more than sufficient color anyway. The white wicker against the rustcolored indoor-outdoor carpet (its vacuumed fibers still integrated with the latest shedding frofn Lichen. a German shepherd whose brindled body exudes more white dog hairs than there are beetle-backed earwigs noting inside the tubular

arms of tie beach chair, also under the maple). Just beyond the screens, the porch is backdrop for impatiens and coleus, snapdragons, herbs in varied hues of green, and a couple of large sunflowers, their fullmoon faces and drooping manes succumbing to gravity and bending sturdy hirsute stalks. Further into the gazescape, the just-mowed lawn stretches out like a

upmioh

Herald A lantern 28 July '82

the face of the seed-swollen head from the top edge of the bowing flower. The secret, I have concluded, is using the tail as counterbalance.) . Such is the setting for summer's first Lobster Feast. To some, six people and six lobsters would hardly constitute a feast; an enjoyable summer, dinner with family and friends on the back porch, perhaps.

Country Note

new green carpet to the garden’s edge, this year’s demarcation* being two good-size, stands of sunflowers — compliments of the blue jays whose beak droppings last fall became spring’s first, and most sturdy, sprouts. (I noticed yesterday that Big Blue is out there reconnoitering this year’s harvest, and practicing his headstand approach to pilfering whereby he defies gravity by pivoting forward into

To me, a lobster meal with people you enjoy in picturesque surroundings is a feast, a festival of the senses in celebration of this most succulent of shellfish, the king of crustaceans, aristocrat of arthropods. Ah, the I^>b*ter! Here is now to eat one: Slowly. A lobster, eaten properly, is the antithesis of fast food. You do not devour, you do not gulp, you do not even talk with your mouth

full. Eating lobster is a give and take experience, a sacrament in which the symbol of life from the sea becomes nourishment for man, whose bloodline crawled onto land much eartier and whose reverence for the sea is prerequisite to understanding Earth’s primal blood. And withrthe body should go the wine pr beer, as both a toast add symbol of man’s mastering (ft nature’s fermentation of grape and grain. A green salad with feta cheese is good here too for similar reason, for milk is milk, and feta is milk’s fermentation in a mixture of milk and brine — the sea and the land together. Don’t forget the drawn butter — in this feast matching the color of those sunflowers nodding just beyond the porch in the summer breeze. This is how you eat a lobster: You suck. You savor. You examine. Experience. Enjoy. Extol. J. H. A

editorial ) Elephant Fight Since mid-June, the Herald has carried three major stories centering on politics — specifically the kind practiced by Jersey Cape Republicans. The first concerned Millicent Fenwick and why this interesting Congresswoman from North Jersey was the choice of the county GOP hierarchy for the U S. Senate nomination despite her more conservative primary opponent, Jeffrey. Bell, being more popular among Jersey Cape Republican voters. The second article was about County Sheriff Beech Fox, a longtime conservative and former GOP Congressional nominee, and his assertions that Mrs. Fenwick's loss in the county exemplifies what happens when one man or a handful of chieftains rule the party to the extent theyjiand pick candidates, instead of the homines being selected by all the district committeemen and women. The third article, published last week, presented County Treasurer and GOP leader Philip Matahicci's rebuttal and his rejoinder that it is Mr. Fox who is the loner in county GOP circles — the suggestion being that the sheriff’s latest public remarks may be the straw that breaks the camel’s (read elephant’s) back when it comes to future organization backing. IT IS NO SECRET that Mr. Fox and Mr. Matalucci, both veteran politicans, haven’t seen eye to eye over the years. Some say it's simply a personality clash. There has to be more to it than personalities; afterall, the makeup of county government leadership includes five disparate freeholders whose common ground is Republicanism despite different back grounds and personalities. So, what gives between Messrs. Fox and Matalucci; is this a continuing debate over ideology or a last ditch fight between imperious forces for party control? -e 1 1 ■■ 'v V" n* CAPE MAY II U J -V ^ fumti Published Kverv Hrdnrwdiv Bv P.O. Box • Hw cWynti— A»»t—, NJMIW John il. Andrus II Editor Bonnie Reina General Manager A Advertising Coordinator Darrell Kopp , J>ubliaher SMwoveCorp IW? All flgW» '•••rved All prope'ty ngtai lot Ih* enttr* ron'aefl d pwbtKoii®" (boll be the property of the ieewove Corp No port bored moy be reproduced without prior written content _______ News A Photos Thursday Advertising Friday - 3 p.m. Classified Advertising Friday - 3 p.m. r~W7-3312 For News 6r Advertising Information | \dlher potiklpeling aritrrthrr* noy the pcibllthert d Ihr HKKAl.ll AMI I.AYTKKn »UI be retpontlble or llablr for mltintormallon. mltprlnU. i>po«rapMral errorv fir.. In ant ittpr ’Pie editor retertpe Hie rislil loedll ant kllrr or artlrlet tubmllled (or pabllra-

reader's forum

Lower Touitahlp

LANTERN

Democracy Isn't Effortless

By Mary Grace Keen I read with deep concern (the'opinion piece in another newspaper, and news articles on the views of outgoing Ocean City Administrator Paul McCarthy, Countv Sheriff Beech Fox, and outgoing County Prosecutor Donald Charles). Each was practically making the rame point — our political system is being run by a handful of people who have a great deal of power But can we blame these people? I say No. For what has happened to our political system we can only blame ourselves. Wo must always remember, democracy is government by the people. What does that really mean? • It means that before we ever step into a voting booth, we must obtain as much knowledge and information as we possibly can about each and every candidate. • We must be politically active, by: — volunteering for Board of Elections; — volunteering to serve as Challenger; — volunteering to make phone calls, stuff envelopes, register people to vote. r- helping financially as much as you can give. A $1 or $5 from a majority of people won't put our candidates at the mercy of individuals who give out selfinterest. It will not put employees of government in the position that they must give or jeopardize their jobs. Then we can insist that people art hired by n> i

qualifications ahd merit. — attend local and county meetings (whether your candidate is selected or not), and follow each elected official's carrer so that you may know exactly what kind of job he or she is doing and whether you will want them for another term.

AGAIN. IT IS IMPORTANT to learn and gather information about every level of the political system. Talk to your local and county clerks, write or phone your state senators and assemblymen; keep informed on the federal level as well. By doing all of the above you will meet the candidates firsthand at your county organization meetings. Yob will get a chance to talk to them personally and privately. You will have a chance to insist on open primaries, thereby assuring that the best man will run jn November. Yes, it's alot of time and work for each of us, but this is the only way democracy can work, and truly be a government by the people. U we ask our men and women to fight and die for deihocracy and liberty, the least we can do is work for it. Mary Grace Keen is a member of Borough Council in Avalon.

GOP Linen Airing by Anne King Hooray and Hallelujah! The County GOP is airing its dirty linen in public. May I suggest that ardent new Republican, Dorn Raffa hold the clothespin bag! Phil Matalucci not.a “Boss”? Oh well, a rose by any name... Anne King is an Avalon resident. What Can They Fall Back On? by Owen Murphy It seems to me that of all the lies this culture teaches our children, the most insideious one is that happiness is to be found only in the company of other people. I can think of no other belief that is so guaranteed to cause a person anguish and misery at all stages of his life, no matter how rich or poor he may be. If your happiness depends on the presence and approval of other people, then you're addicted to a drug that will, almost inevitably. be withdrawn from you at some point. Sadly, this country is full of lonely, older people who’ve been stood up by society and their own children because their flesh is less attractive now than it once was And, left to their own resources, they've discovered they have none. During all the years when they should have been building a rich tapestry of personality, they chose instead to be “where the actib.n was”; and now that the action has moved on. they find themselves without rudder or centerboard, drifting toward the lee shore of senility AMERICA IS ALSO filled with millions of aimless young people who were never taught that poetry is better than pinball. They have learned, however, that solitude is something to be dreaded, and that the word "alone” is the most frightening one in our language Ac-

cordingly, they make sure that they are never alone, never alone with their own consciousness, never alone with the little voice whose running monologue accompanies all of us from birth to death By example, we have taught our children all the ways there are to drown out that little voice. Television is probably the No. 1 personality killer, but right behind the tube are radio (the collision of sounds known as Rock will totally obliterate the little voice), telephones, alcohoj, and other chemical mood-changers. If, God forbid, the electricity goes off, the phone lines are down, and the house is empty of booze and drugs, most older teenagers know enough to immediately get in the car and drive off to a shopping center where they can get a crowd-fix and play some electronic games. Thus do we respond to the lyric winds that blow from within us. PEOPLE TODAY SEEM MORE AFRAlb of their own consciousness than of anything else. Given the choice, most would probably give their self-awareness back to God and choose instead, the dim. hazy herdconsciousness of the so-called lower animals. But there’s no'going back. You either listen to your voice, educate it, develop it. refine it, expand and multiply it and build a beautiful flower of personality that you can live with happily throughout your Hfe, or you jam it, ignbre it, disown it, and go where the action is, until the day Life casts you up on a sandbar somewhere, truly, totally, and irrevocably alone. Owen Murphy is a Court House resident

NOTICE TO Letter Writers Opinions for our Reader's Forum shouiu: • Be signed by the writer and include the writer's address and phone number. Letters can be printed anonymously, but the newspaper must have writer verification. • Deal with one topic or issue in an accurate, nonlibelous manner