• • ~ 70 opinion * Herald & Lantern 8 August '84

Our Readers Write No Beach Tag Checks 2 Days To The Editor: At the commissioners meeting on July 24. Mayor • Dominic Raffa was questioned about the beach badge sit- j uation in Sea Isle. His reply was extremely vague, but he did acknowledge the same regim^was in control this year as last. j Inasmuch as Sea Isle lost money on its beach badge program in 1983, I feel he could have found a nj ore suitable group to administer it this year. j It was disclosed later (after the meeting^ that the city has no checkers at all two days a week, and a, very limited number the other days. So poor is the money that is being received by the checkers, they are quitting. It just does not pay to work for the piddling amount they make. The pay is so low and the hours cut so as to put o^ more personnel . Possibly we have too many ■ chiefs" and too few "Indians." Is this the way to run a beach program"' Our mayor is out soliciting aids from all levels. But . maybe, if he traveled, less with his so-called administrative assistant (who incidentally is on the city payroll a<£a clerk-typist », he could accomplish more in town. The other alternative would be to step down and let Wish Zurawski do the job. He seems to be partially running the city now anyway. Or wouldn't that leave time enough for picture taking? ISABEL R. GILLESPIE A Sea Isle City Join a VFW To The Editor: This is an open letter to war veterans. We have in Cape May County nine VFW posts Veterans who haven't joined one should do so now. As public relations officer for Post No. 386, Cape May. I get a lot of mail from the VFW Political Action Committee in Washington. D.C. You would be shocked at the numerous individuals and groups proposing elimination or drastic reductions in benefits for veterans, including VA medical care Ten percent of all VA hospital beds would be shut down. Other proposals include withholding income tax from disability compensation pay and elimination of compensation to those 10-20 percent disabled The list goes on and on Join a VFW post so you can be heard PAULF FARRINELLO VFW Post 386 Cape May $180 for Society To The Editor: We wish to thank all who supported our table at K'S Indoor Flea Market in Rio Grande for the benefit of the Cape May County Unit of the American Cancer Society We were able to turn over $180 to the unit CAROL MCDONALD Doris McKaig C'o-qhairmen American Cancer Society JRie Grande Hcrali l*o Wished Every Wednesday By P.O. Box 430 The Stiwivt Corporxtloc Capr M»y Cob rt Home. N J. M2)t Joseph R. Zeinik Editor Bonnie Reina General Manager Gary L. Rudy Advertising Director John Dsa woody Special Promotions Director Darrell Kopp Publisher Stswova Corp. 19M. All rioM* rosorvod. All property rights for the entire contents of this publication shall be the property of the Seawove Corp. No port hereof may be reproduced without prior writ. ten consent. DEADLINES News A Photos Thursday Advertising Friday — 3 P.M. Classified Advertising Friday — 3 P.M. | 4CS-54S5 For News or Advertising Information ~| Vithrr iurtii'i|ulinii «l>. rti~ rv m.r th. |Hilili.|i. r> th. 111. II VI II VM> I WfhHV Mill In- n-«|M.n-il.l. us lialib- fur ini.infurnutiun i»i.|.rinl. tMM«r»|ihirol rmir». in tin i««u. Hi.- iitilur n-~ rtf. tin- riuhl ens ktli rur ertirlr. .ultmilM fur pulili. eliun EBB' Fo Wished Every Wednesday By P.O. Box 430

/Withe typ* wcwj, , - — .. "I've Got The Solution To Our Financial Dilemma! We'll Merge With Continential Illinois!"

Deadly Trash To The Editor: Have you ever considered a plastic six-pack can binder deadly? How about a metal pull-tab? To wildlife that become entangled in them or choke on them, these items are life threatening. To a bird the plastic binder means strangulation when his continual efforts to free himself only makes the situation worse. Have you ever cut yourself on a metal pulltab? Imagine what it can do to an animal's tongue Now that picnic season is here, there will be a lot of people who leave these "disposable" items lying on the ground, within sight of a trash can. Many recreation areas are being turned into dumping grounds. If the plastic binders are cut into pieces, then the birds won't become entangled. Dropping the pull-tab into the can and then crushing it will help prevent the animal from having any access to the loose piece. Show you care Take the time to properly discard these deadly disposables NINA AUSTENBERG Director Mid-Atlantic Region Humane Society of the U.S. Bedminster

Lookin' and Listenin' s 4 Lucy ' Outlasted Tight of Asia ' By DOROTHY Di FREAS » As we ride the highways, we often wish that more nature and less advertising lined the roadsides. Huge signs tell us where to eat or what to buy. Sometimes we are fascinated by the designs of these colorful billboards. From a cigarate advertisement in Times Square with "the huge face that blew smoke-rings from the mouth, to the small replica of the "Leaning Tower of Pizza," built and so labeled in the northern end of New Jersey, inviting customers to eat, to the words on a combination lunchroom and gas station sign in Pennsylvania, suggesting that you "eat here and get gas," the list of clever words, colors and motion to sell something is endless. Just about 100 years ago, a. new way to advertise and sell property occurrelkjo one James Rafferty. First in Margate, then in Brooklyn, and last, in south Cape May, there stood in each area a huge elephant constructed of wood and tin. THE ELEPHANT named "Lucy" still stands in Margate, and has been a tourist attraction for many years. Now, over 100 years old, it has been named as a Na - tional Historic Landmark The exterior has been repaired after some deterioration, but the restoration jo f the interior has not yet been completed. y Once rooms were drifted as in a small hotel, sightseers climbed up to the tflp, and souvenirs were sold in a gift shop inside "Lucy-, uie Elephant." The largest of thif pachyderm trio was the one in Coney Island, that famouibeach of Brooklyn. This one also had the longest name, Elephantine Colossus," but sad to say. it had the shortest life-span It burned to the ground after two years of great Popularity and use as a hotel and some 1 shops. /I I ALTHOUGH Mr. Rafferty planned a chain of advertising elephant stCuptuBes all down the coast, be constructed his last one in ojgFCwn county in 1884. A million pieces of wood and over 13,000 square feet of tin helped form an elephant named the "Light of Asia" " that stood in the meadows along the ocean-front, south of what is now Sunset Boulevard. * The 10-ceQt Admission took you inside the big beast, where steps wimin the back legs led to aqother stairway leading up to howdah. nearly 60 feet in the air. The view was good, but only two years later, the "Light of Asia" had a real estate advertisement painted along one said Sadly, this last built of the three elephants never was a profitable venture and only 16 years after its beginning, the demolotion crew left "Lucy" in Margate as the only survivor of a strange advertising scheme of 100 years ago.

-Most Readers Back Writer — Tossing and Turning in Gowanda

By JOE ZELNIK My appreciation to readers who responded to my appeal last week with a strong vote in favor of my remaining at the Herald and Lantern. Despite by posing semi-nude for a Sears catalog in 1934, a total of 1.467 cards urged me to "hang in there" and a mere 1.444 cards advised me to resign, some in harsh language I understand a newly-formed organization called the "Friends of the Herald-Lantern" intends to challenge the vote in court They claim there's something fishy because I hand-carried a couple hundred pro- Zeinik ballots to the publishers And they're suspicious because another 400 of the "hang in there" ballots came, postage-due from Gowanda. New York We have onlv one subscriber in western New York — my father AT FIRST I was proud that my dad would care enough to possibly vote for me 400 times Then I began to wonder why he was so interested in saving my job. The answer became clear. If I lost it, I'd go "home" to Gowanda ( an Indian word that means, swear to God, "beautiful valley between the hills"). I called my dad, but couldn't reach him for quite some time. Turned out he was at the doctor's, getting something to help him sleep He said he had done nothing but toss and turn ever since he read that I might get axed here and return home. ! was hurt, of course. I DO THINK he panicked Losing this job wouldn't necessarily mean I'd be unemployed. I have all sort of well-paying offers to endorse hair sprays. That's because the copyrighted "Zeinik swirl" I use - combing hair from left to right to cover baldness — has been imitated nationwide. The only threat to the swirl is a strong wind from right to left. This is easily solved. Either always have the wind at your left. Or use hair spray. I use so much hair spray that, if I one day sheered my hair — as some so-called friends recommend — I could

probably bring the hair spray industry to its knees But let us suppose the hair spray endorsements did not pan out and I found myself unemployed and hungry (one leads to the other > and did, in fact, return to my childhood home What's so awlful about that? OF COURSE there might be sorrf£ stress and tension. But my father has en>oyed an "empty nest" for 28 years. Why shouldn't he suffer from the "return to the nest" ex plosion currently under way in this country thanks to such diverse factors as the divorce rate and the unemployment rate"' • My father has indicated it's not my mooching off him that he dreads as much as the fact that Km messy and don't clean up. Cleanliness, I point out, is relative. My ex-wife, for example, a fin? woman except for her flawed choice of a husband, keeps a house so clean that no one dares to enter it. That can make life lonely. You can eat off her kitchen floor. You can eypn eat off her back yard, which is nice if you charcoal and one of the hotdogs rolls off the grill. WHEN I JOINED the majority of Americans and became a divorced person, I made a decision that I would either dust or vacuum, never both. Usually I elect to vacuum, a Freudian choice if you think about it. But I do not. OVERvacuum. There is no reason to wear out the rugs. I think in 10 years I've changed the bag twice. •' * . ' ! I do sweep, on the other hand. Every February or March, if I remove my Christmas tree through the kitchen. I sweep up the pine needles. Not dusting is beneficial. The coating on the furniture can be very useful as a place to write a note if you can't < find a pad and pencil. Besides, dust mgkes my eyes water. Finally, the bathroom. The toilet's got a little thing in the tank to make the water blue. And the rest of the room is permeated with natural cleaning agents: soap, water, steam, mildew I figure it never gets dirty in the first place, so why worry about cleaning it?