Herald - Lantern - Dispatch 1 1 June '86 ^5

Our Readers Write The Horror in Stone Harbor

To The Editor: "The Seashore at Its Best"? About 12 years ago in a published interview the famous poet and author. James Dickey, said "Man does not have to worry about the atom bomb or the hydrogen bomb ; man will destroy himself by his own greed." Garden Club's Labor of Love To The Editor: "Make America Beautiful" is a slogan with which all can agree and contribute toward its fulfillment. But beyond this slogan is the further mandate to preserve the beauty of this land. Thus, the Lower Township Garden-By-The-Sea Club has made one of its projects the planting and caring for the flowers, shrubs, and trees on the grounds of the township building and the Lower Cape Branch of the public library The club began this project when the new township building was opened on Bayshore Road. The plantings are gifts of the club No tax money is used for the plant materials. Club members volunteer time, money, and labor to plant and care for the plantings. Their only reimbursement is the satisfaction of making and keeping this public property beautiful. The next time that our fellow-citizens come either to the Library of the township building, may they stop a moment to enjoy the beauties of their surroundings. And thank the club and its members for their gift and hard work in making this So. t LILLIAN E. MCCONOM Y ( MRS. JOHN A. ) Villas V ets Need (From Page 74) anymore. I was never offered a job with the casinos or the bus company. The MUA job was applied for by two veterans, myself and a friend, but another man was chosen ahead of us. Our veteran status was worth nothing. But his two brothers and a cousin who work for the township obviously were. I am proud of my military service to my country and I know all veterans are proud of their service. We shouldn't be treated like this. RAYMOND MELLOR JR. Town Bank

Never has this been more manifest than in this town of ours, Stone Harbor. , This is a truly unique and pristine shoreside community. It has always been truly, as its name implies. "The Seashore At Its Best." What made it unique was the way it was zoned so that, unlike most other shoreside communities, one house was not on top of another. THEN A FEW YEARS AGO, as we just plain started to run out of lots, some slicky decided to start tearing down one house that happened to be on an oversized lot and build two in its place. To witness the horror of this, just take a ride on 84th, 85th or 87th streets between the bay and First Avenue. In an attempt to put a stop to this wanton rape of the town, the Planning Board drew up a proposal to increase lot sizes in Residential "A" Zone to 6,600 square feet from the usual 5,000 square feet. This is simplifying the ordinance to its simplest terms, because there were ramifications to this. The prime reason, however, was to stop the building of two houses where one had been before which, in effect, was destroying the very character of the town — in addition to putting added strain on an already overtaxed environment. AT ITS VERY FIRST reading in April the proposed ordinance was handled badly by council and made to sound discriminatory while, in reality, it was not. Once council's intent was known, to pass this very necessary ordinance, the "Greed Merchants" really came out of the wall. They sent anonymous letters to the owners of large lots, telling them that the value of their property was going to immediately decrease, so sell right now. One of the greediest of the greedy went door-to-door with a petition for people to sign against the ordinance. Now, both sides were drawn up and it was just about a sure thing that at the June 3 council meeting, the ordinance would pass. WELL. SOME STRANGE things happened in a hurry. Some said the very one who had been circulating the petition (who is an attorney) had come up with some obscure statute whereby the borough had not properly advised the county of its intent. At any rate, at that time the mayor and one of his most ardent supporters did a complete flip-flop and. on the night of June 3. as people came to borough hall for a knockdowndragout battle over this ordinance, they were greeted by a hastily made sign on yellow legal paper stating that Ordinance 736 would not be discussed that night Incidentally, some people had driven up to 150 miles just for this hearing. Believe me, this issue is not dead. The Planning Board, the Realty Owners Association, and the vast majority of people in this lovely town, who want desperately to preserve it, are going to continue to fight the greedy few who think they can buy and sell Stone Harbor to suit their whims. RICHARD K. REESE Stone Harbor t. Letters Welcome N\ The Herald. Lantern and Dispatch welcome letters to the editor on matters of public interest. Originals, not copies, are requested. Writers must sign name, address and phone number. I -

Display It Saturday The Fourth Flag Over New Jersey

By DOROTHY D. FREAS Looking forward to Flag Day Saturday and hoping that our flag will fly not on ly on official buildings, but that it will be on display in front of the homes of good Americans who love their country. In New Jersey. 209 years have passed since the American flag first flew, with its 13 stars. It is interesting to learn that New Jersey of today had flown three flags before then. Each nation that ruled the area, prior to 1777, had its own flag that flew officially, starting with that of Holland. After Henry Hudson arrived to explore the new land, some fur traders from Holland came over and Dutch settlements were started along areas near the Delaware River. At that time. Holland's flag flew over these little groups of people. Surprisingly, after Peter Minuit bought the island of

Manhattan, for $24.00, as a new possession of the i Dutch people, he guided the ships of another country, Sweden, up the Delaware < Bay to start a colony in the south-west section of the I state. It was named "New i Sweden." I A special leader was I needed by the little colony < striving to exist in this wild ; country. A man who had I 1400 pounds of weight, and nearly a foot taller than the < tali Swedes of the colony, i became their leader. This was Johan Printz, a man for the times. Gov. Printz gave orders < for a fort to be built where ; Salem County is now. to prevent the Dutch from i sailing up the Delaware River. This protection ' lasted for almost 20 years i until Gov. Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam, later named New York, forced the issue between the Dutch and the Swedes, and he won. Thus the second flag, the Swedish one, was lowered.

Now England, a strong nation, claimed all of North America as its possession The king, Charles the Second, then gave the Duke of York, his brother, all the from the present northern Maine down to the Delaware River. At this turn of events, the new owner sent four warships and soldiers, to "take the from the Dutch." At the same time, all of our New Jersey area was deeded to Lord Berkeley and to Sir Carteret. When the warships and soldiers sent from England arrived, the people of New . York asked that the territory be turned over to the English without resistance. Swedish colonies along the Delaware had sur- ! rendered, and now the . Dutch flag came down to be replaced by the British nag. In June of 1777. our fourth flag, the 13 stars and 13 stripes, flew at last over the state of New Jersey. I

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joyride III dk By Libby Demp Forrest \J JJ" 1 Ah, the joys of recuperation. For once in my life I don't have to make excuses for what I'm doing or not doing I don't even have to look intelligent. All I have to do is look sick and everybody's happy. I don't have to make excuses for dozing off when a boring visitor stops at the hoyse. The visitor assumes I'm too weak to stay awake, and I'm happy because I don't have to bother yawning and doing all that stuff healthy people have to go through when they're bored. If I feel like daydreaming. I can do it without guilt that I should be up and around and terribly busy. I've got about 10 years worth of daydreams to catch up with and quite honestly, I'm enjoying them. A week or two ago, people kept asking me how I was feeling and was I keeping busy. Did they expect me to be moving furniture or lifting weights'' Now things have settled into a more pleasant routine of light chores so I can mumble something about having done some light chore before being told, well, don't overdo it. I am finding that June is an exquisite month in which to recuprate from surgery. I can hear all the mowers going in the neighborhood and not feel even a twinge I can sit out on the front porch and watch people passing by laden with beach chairs and umbrellas and beach tags, knowing full well I'm prohibited from carrying anything heavier than my glass of iced tea. As it sit on the porch. I can enjoy all the fragrant flowers the neighborhood gardeners are setting out without feeling guilty about the sparseness of my own garden this year. Another pleasant pastime of recuperation is an afternoon nap. It's been many moons since I could doze off when feeling tired — but now I can do it peacefully in the privacy of my own house, lulled by the sweet enchantment of bird songs. Most importantly, as a recuperator, I am. at last, as Rodney Dangerfield says, getting respect In the past I might have been taken for granted, but no more. It is clearly understood now that I'm the only person in the universe who knows where the extra key to the garage is kept. Now people slop by the house to ask what they can do for me. How can they help? Respect at last. Keep it up. (ED. NOTE: See below.) 'Come Back, Twelvetrees' (ED. NOTE: In this column. Dorothea F Cooper of North Wildwood takes the part of Libby Demp Forrest — Joyride columnist above — recently charged by an editorial note with excessive recuperation while b asking in flowers and chocolates. ) She was awakened by the gentle swish of rich fabrics draping the windows of her three-room, 15th-floor hospital suite. As she lay in her king-size bed. memories slowly began to come to her: the four green-suited surgeons sweaty but triumphant in the recovery- room smiling down at her "It was a grueling, seven-hour operation that took all our skills." one of them said, "but we made it ! Your little toe is free of the ingrown toenail and will be able to trip merrily once again to the market!" Meanwhile, back at the Herald office, there was KroolWhip Joe. so named because of his penchant for cracking , his knouted whip as he walked up and down the long halls of his enormous newspaper plant where the next issue of the paper was being readied to satisfy the millions of read- _ ers who hungered after news of the progress of the North Wildwood Mall As he flipped the whip at the back of a cringing minion who had dangled a participle, his face blackened. He was passing the huge hand-carved mahogany desk, where the faithful Smith-Corona sat mournfully without his faithful drudge in her accustomed place. He had to face the fact : HE NEEDED HER ' HE NEED ED HER! But alas, she was in hospital under critical circumstances recovering from surgery. He would break the damned notice on the door knob: "NO VISITORS POSITIVELY!" Again meanwhile, back at the hospital. L.D. Twelvetrees pondered amighty: Should she succumb at last to the lures of that porch-turned-office, with its Onfettered . vista of Main Street traffic? Did she miss the day-long fix of gasoline fumes, more potent and nostril-tickling than a bag of crack? Suddenly she heard the familiar wails of K-Whip Joe outside her door, echoing through the corridors of the hospital as he intoned in the tri-linguistic fashion he had learned at the knee of an old Slovenian grocer at the age of three: "COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA'" <He never was any good at remembering names! > Would L.D. Twelvetrees give in at last, a victim of her old boss's heart-rending plea to return'' Then, hunking down into her luxurious satin sheets, she made her decision. Biting into her 12th chocolate of the day. and turning excitedly to page 230 of Joan Collins' sister's latest gift to the literary world, she shouted triumphantly. "NOT ON YOUR BLIPPY, DIPPY!" Revenge (with a Reese's Cup) is sweet!