opinion_

Our Readers Write Running Brings Out Worst

To The Editor: In the past few weeks a slanderous campaign was directed against me. Wht is it that when a person runs for office, it brings out the worst in some people0 They waste time and energy in digging out facts and then twist the truth. This can be destructive for both sides. People are interested in what they stand for. They evaluate them on their own merits. Voters today are intelligent and astute. They can think for themselves. Lack of good candidates can be the end result of "dirty tactics." Certainly salaries offered are not an enticement. They must have a desire to serve. In most cases, they are sincere about this. RESPECT IS an important factor in any campaign: Respect for your opponent, respect for your constituents, but most important, your own self-respect. In this election, I was slandered without being given the opportunity to«ply before the election. Is this fair play? My objectives in the past have been to work for all thepeople of Avalon, and I did. I 'have too much respect for myself and my fellow man to sink the level of destroying a person's character. I refuse to use such tactics at anytime. THE VOTERS of Avalon, after evaluating each and every one of us on our ability to represent them, made a choice. I feel that in the past four'years I put time and effort in trying to be the best council representative for all the peo- * pie of Avalon I believed that I have gained their respect and trust. My creed in life is "Love thy neighbor." not "Hate thy opponent." To all the people in Avalon who believe in me, thank you. JEANNETTE GLAZIER Avalon Gutter Attack \ To The Editor: The May 8 edition of the Herald carried a paid political ad which the Avalon Home and Land Owners Association finds repulsive. By unanimous vote the trustees and executive committee have directed me to register our disapproval. We are a non-political organization and back no candidate. but this "gutter type" attack dissolves all that we work for to keep Avalon's image of a^lean, family - oriented borough. I REFER TO the ad paid for by Gary Doyle castigating. Jeannette Glazier. There were seven candidates running for three positions >n Council. This vicious personal attack on one, to a raional person, n^akes no sense, and she could be passed over if these false implications were considered. Please, in the future, do not accept this type of ad from persons from Avalon. Our neighboring communities do not have to resort to this character assassination to defeat i person up for election, and Avalon would prefer to live without this type exposure j A HALBE President Avalon Home and Land Owners Association » Step Merge, Yield *To The Editor: After logging many miles on both the Atlantic City Expressway and the Garden State Parkway, I have frequent- • iy noticed that many drivers do not understand the words posted at on and off ramps. With the aid of the old "Funk and Wagnalls." I would like to define these words \ ^ • f (Page 75 Please)

(ED. NOTE: This letter was written prior to the May 14 election, in which Glazier won reelection to Avalon Borough Council.) Community Clamped Lid To The Editor: I was feiven a good chuckle at the prominence given my father and me in Joe Zelnik's column of May 15, but I cannot imagine how that will encourage others to pick up your newspaper. Surely it's the fun of his columns that will compel a greater readership. I must confess (which seems appropriate) that it was not your Murdochian headlines that caused me to read the column; a friend had circled my name and left it on my desk. » Just a point of accuracy, ft was not the Finckes who "clamped a lid" on porn in Lower, but the ministers from a majority of the churches in the township asking their people to help gather signatures, and the many, residents who signed the petitions and filled the township hall. Had it not been for thinking community ready and willing to respond, all my father or I would have gotten was hoarse. BACK TO ZEl.NIK'S column. It seems that the only clamping done was his foot to the gas pedal when rearending some unsuspecting bird-watcher along the marshland. Or could it be your flewly-recruited delivery people in the red 'Vettes clamping themselves to a mighty oak in their quest to get out the news? I might suggest a working creed for these "dare-do-wells." Neither ornithologists, nor pale map-reading Pennsylvanians, nor folk in obnoxious tee shirts will stay this courier from his appointed rounds (at the appointed speed). For the time being, I'll be thankful for the lumbering white trucks. I do hope you'll keep Rupert Murdoch out of your efforts and that Zelnik will stay the enjoyable, wake 'em up kind of guy we've come to love. REV. GEORGE B. FINCKE Associate Pastor Covenant Bible Ctmch North Cape^ay

STZO0D«NlG- TAU. Rambo First To The Editor: Read with great interest Mary Ann Nyblade's May 8 letter about Cape May's Dutch heritage. I guess the same can be said of Christopher Columbus discovering America, when others know Leif Erickson was here years before he arrived. I guess it is up the Swedes to assert themselves. It is quite true the Swedes arrived in the new world in 1638. The first person to come ashore was a Mr. Rambo, if I recall correctly from a book called "The Sewed es on the Delaware" which I donated to the local library some years ago. (A glance through the local phone directory lists a number of Rambos here in Cape May County.) IF IT IS OF ANY comfort to Mjs. Nyblade, I'd like to say Sweden was well represented at the Tulip Festival in Cape May City by me, a Swedish Swede from Stockholm, Sweden, (not a descendant) . I had a crafts table set up the full three days with many lovely things from Sweden. Also the Hoffnagle Band played some Swedish, music. So we were included. Also the tulip happens to be Sweden's most favorite flower, perhaps. Songs are sung about it. After World War II, the Dutch people sent to the people of Sweden one million tulip bulbs to plant in our cities to thank us for our help to them during the miserable war (Page 75 Please)

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r-Why Leave a Good Home I Big Day Only Hours Away

By JOE ZELNIK One of the more exciting dayfrof my life is just hours away My father comes to visit tomorrow. This will be the first time he's seen the ocean since he came across it as an eight-year-old immigrant 72 years 1 ago. He saw plenty of it then ; they were in steerage, below ' the water line. That trip, for his mother and four children, the youngest in diapers, started on a horse-drawn wagon in Yugoslavia j and ended with a nighttime arrival in New York. ' Darkness shrouded the Statue of Liberty and he never has ; seen it. ' I've been trying without success to get my dad to leave downtown Gowanda, New York, and visit me at the shore 1 But he's just not big on travel. I tried tempting him with ' the ocean. "It looks the same as Lake Erie, doesn't it?" he 1 said. Finally I hit upon this great idea. I'd. invite him to my ' wedding. It worked. ' IT'LL BE EASY to recognize my dad. He looks like my brother. He has a lot less hair, but that's by choice. He could do as I do — let it grow long on one side and comb it over — but he probably doesn't have an hour every morning to fuss with it like I do. If you see my dad, for God's sake don't ask him his secret to longevity. He's only 80 and it has never occurred to him that he's beyond middle age. That's why he never joined a senior citizens club. He didn't want to hang around with older people. I can tell you about his diet. All-Bran every morning, plenty of vinegar and horseradish, and soup and sand-, wiches for his main meal. Wifeless for 40 years, he could hardly get fattened up by home-cooking, could he? He says he didn't remarry because he didn't want to inflict a stepmother on me. I have a feeling it may have been the other way around. WHICHEVER, he did what he had to do: be father and mother, while running a grocery store 12 hours a day, 7 to 7. He didn't neglect me. The store was (still is) connected to the house and so even when he was working he was steps away from "home." But he pretty much let me learn by example, and ex- 1 perience, and trust. I guess I failed him once in awhile, but 1 I was a quick-learn. I only had to throw up once to understand the evils of drink. Strictly speaking, my dad has a sixth-grade education (

But he will point out that he was passed from the sixth to the eighth grade when he had to drop out to go to work. Despite the Kck of a formal education, however, he can predict the weather 10 times better than those perfectlycoiffured people on TV. And he is full of good advice, like don't even go to a doctor cause sure as hell he'll find something wrong with you. I WENT IN -f97i to my dad's birthplace, a two-room in Slovenia. I was thrilled and came back to urge to take the same trip. It didn't interest him a bit. He's an American now and he puts "living in America" second only to "good health" in the list of things he's thankful for. Vacations are probably our biggest area of disagreement: I'm always planning one; he hasn't had one since he went into business in 1942. Why would anybody want to travel when he has a perfectly good home? my dad wonders. He also has a pathological fear that his grocery customers would starve to death if he closed the store for a couple days.

I DOUBT I've ever told my dad most of the reasons I'm proud of him. The list is long, and Lonly have space here for one. It happened around 40 years ago. Gowanda was a two-indus-try town: tannery and glue factory (I can smell it now). The workers at the tannery decided to organize a union and a strike resulted My dad, who has never belonged to a union, went into the store, sliced coldcuts, and took dozens of sandiwehes to the people on the picket line. I asked my dad the other day what he was proudest of, It didn't take him long to answer. "That I don't have any enemies," he said.

L * •Recent Photo of Zelniks