FIREMAN’S PARK. by Caren Chesler Holmes of Ocean Grove

  

Fireman's Park. Christmas 2009. by Paul Goldfinger

It’s early January, and that means the Christmas lights at Fireman’s Park will soon be taken down. That always makes me sad. Sure, the New Year is supposed to be about new beginnings. It’s why we resolve to make ourselves better at this time of year. But each year when they take down the lights, I can’t help but feel like something has died, even if it’s something as trivial as the holiday season.  Some people were unhappy when the fire department replaced the old-fashioned jelly-bean bulbs with more modern looking lights. Me, I’m democratic about my Christmas lights. I like them tall, short, bright, dark, white, colored, even those new inky blue ones that glow like xrays.

Of course when they take down the lights, they pack up the little nativity scene in the center of the park. This year, I peered into the manger a couple of times and noticed the baby Jesus was not inside. Being Jewish, I’m no expert on the whereabouts of baby Jesus, but I wasn’t surprised to see him missing in the days leading up to Christmas. I assumed it was a symbolic gesture to leave him out of the picture until his actual birth. And then on Christmas, perhaps with some fanfare, I imagined they place the little doll in the cradle of straw to signify his arrival. But as I walked through the park last week and looked into the manger, I saw no sign of the little baby, and I wondered if perhaps he’d been stolen. It would surely be a sad state of affairs if the economy were so bad that someone had stolen Jesus out of the manger. I also wondered what the market for such an item might be.

I thought I remembered hearing that the baby Jesus had been stolen out of the manger last year or the year before, and I wondered whether fire officials thought it best to keep the little doll cloistered inside the fire house, only to be brought out on special occasions.  But I couldn’t help but wonder whether in fact the doll had been stolen again, and I imagined myself being a hero and going to a store and buying another one. I then envisioned the moment when I would place the doll back into its cradle, and instead of getting a pat on the back and being given a parade, I would be arrested because someone saw me rooting around inside the manger.

My husband and I bought a rental property around the corner from our house, and for several months, we’ve been dusting it off, propping it up, and making it more presentable. Okay, our contractor has been doing most of the work, but my husband and I have spent many weekends and weeknights toiling away at the fringes, tiling floors and walls, carrying in old bricks from around the neighborhood to build a path in our sideyard, and carrying out old boxes, tins, magazines, wrappers, dolls, kitchen gadgets and newspapers that had been collected by the former owner of the house.  Last night, exhausted and covered with plaster dust after a full day’s work, we walked out into the crisp cold night and made our way back to our own house around the corner. It had begun to snow, and it was a beautiful sight to see the flakes coming down among the Christmas lights in Fireman’s Park, for one more day.

Caren Chesler Holmes

Note:  Caren is a freelance journalist whose articles have often appeared in the New York Times in addition to numerous other outlets.  She has written about Ocean Grove in the Times.   http://www.iblndesigns.com/caren/

The Contractor Blues. by Vicki Bacolo. Words Now; Melody Later

The Saga of the Dance of the “Contractor” Goes On

by Vicki Bacolo

 

Its getting to be old and tired, but it just never ends.  I need a painter who will do kitchen cabinets for 2 kitchens.  I mentioned this to a neighbor over the holidays , and she said she knew someone who just did cabinets for her friend and the friend was happy.  Long story short, she hooks him up, and they come over, and we spend over an hour going over the specs of the job.  He seems to know what he’s talking about and says he’ll get back to us the next day.  The next day comes and goes and no word (not surprised) and the following day he says that he can’t take the job because he has to be ‘guaranteed a parking space’ directly in front of the customers house. He doesn’t take jobs in Ocean Grove.

Crabbing With Dad. Diane Hutchinson

From discoverseasideheights.com, with permission of Diane Hutchinson:

The following story is sent in by Diane Hutchinson. She is a painter that has been visiting the local area since her childhood. Diane has created evocative paintings of the shore that visitors to Seaside Heights can readily identify with. The picture included here is but one of many paintings of hers that you can see, and purchase prints of, at her website. You can also follow stories about her painting and other adventures at Diane’s blog.

Crabbing With Dad by Diane Hutchinson

“My memories of Seaside Heights and Seaside Park are so tightly woven with those of my Dad’s that I can’t seem to separate them. My times spent on the beach and boardwalk were infused with a deeper sense of enjoyment and respect because of the love that both my parents had for the area. My Mom grew up in Paterson and my Dad was born and raised in Little Falls, NJ. My Dad’s parents naturally vacationed in Seaside as did most of his neighbors and friends from North Jersey.

As a child, my time was mainly spent enjoying the beach and boardwalk rather than crabbing. The art of crabbing actually came much later for me. It was after I had developed a taste for hot and spicy crabs and overcame my fear of the pinching little beasts. In 1990, my husband and I bought a cottage right on the Seaside Park/Heights border. My parents would come down for a few days in the summer to celebrate their anniversary. Dad would walk down to the public pier on Barnegat Bay and crab for hours. Mom preferred the less-wilderness aspect of the shore and busied herself on the boardwalk or reading a good book. She would greet my Dad at the door with the pot of water boiling and the Old-Bay at the ready. As he would plop the crabs into the boiling water, she would count them and place a call to me at home in Pennsylvania. The reason I couldn’t wait to hear the crab report was because those crabs would become my breakfast, lunch and supper upon my arrival the next day. You see, after spending a couple of days alone to enjoy the romantic side of the anniversary, my parents were ready for my daughter and myself to descend upon their quiet time and start eating crabs.

After I got there, my Dad would take me along on his crabbing excursions to his lucky spot on the pier. He would take a folding chair and his pipe, his trusty knife, our old styrofoam cooler, the empty crab pail, two or three drop lines, bug spray, sunscreen, tongs, and our long-handled net with the measurement marks on it (to make sure our catch was of legal length). Sometimes he would let me carry something. As soon as we got to the pier, I would go into the bait shop and purchase the bunker (fish used as crab bait) which was frozen solid. We managed to get three separate pieces of bait from each bunker, the head, the body and the tail. We both liked the head section best, but Dad always gave me first pick. He showed me how to chop a hole in the frozen fish to insert the end of the lure and make sure the long string was secured around the post of the pier, just in case you dropped the string from your finger. Many people, including myself sometimes, use crab traps instead of drop lines. But, you see, Dad explained how the drop line required so much more skill and is more fun because you can feel the crab tugging and nibbling on the bunker. And then when you slowly pull the line out of the water you can actually see the little varmint clutching onto the line. If you’re lucky, you can carefully grab your net and scoop the crab onto the pier and into the bucket.

As soon as the lines were dropped into the bay, the real reason for our being there would begin. As Dad lit his pipe and sat back in his chair he would look out over the bay and recall times he had spent as a boy, a teen and as a grown man. Each experience unique but yet the same. He loved the bay.

I walk the path to the bay alone now. This will be my fifth summer without Dad. I fill our styrofoam cooler with our crabbing supplies, my camera and paints and head to the lucky spot. It’s a melancholy journey to the edge of the bay. But as I sit in Dad’s folding chair, I know I will never be truly alone.”

Diane Hutchinson’s paintings can be seen at:   http://www.dianehutchinson.com/

Greta Movie DVD to go on Sale January 19.

 

 

 

The “According to Greta” DVD will be available on January 19, according to this Web site.  It will be available on Amazon.com and Netflix.  The Ocean Grove readers might be especially interested in this news because many residents were extras in this film production which Ocean Grove was the setting.

Jim Eberle

Ocean Grove

 

NOTE   : Jim sent a link, but I got quite a few  startling popups, so I did not include it. You can preorder this video at  Amazon.com, or you can Google the film yourself and choose to click on the websites that come up.    Paul  @Blogfinger

UP (the Disney movie) at the Library this Saturday

UP, Disney Pixar Movie
Saturday, January 9 at the Library

Time: 2 pm – 4: 30 pm

Location: Neptune Public Library

By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Right after lifting off, however, he learns he isn’t alone on his journey, since Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior, has inadvertently become a stowaway on the trip….

Nominated for two Golden Globes

From the New Yorker

"Will Kristen, Kirsten, and Kiersten please choose new names?"

MUSIC. Harry Allen on Tenor Sax: “But Beautiful”

It’s quarter to three. There’s no one in the place, except you and me. The party just ended, and here we are. I loosen the tie on my tux and I notice that one of your shoulder straps has slipped a bit.  You’ve kicked off your shoes, and we finally have a chance to be alone. Just one dance before we call it a night. Let’s turn down the lights and put on Harry Allen’s CD called “Love Songs Live” and let’s choose that track that we like so much, “But Beautiful.”  Put down the champagne glass, and let’s do it.

 

Guest DJ: Ken Buckley . Grover Finds Memories in JoJo’s Photo of Barnegat Bay, Including a Song

Check Jojo’s photo of Barnegat Bay by scrolling down. That is the image that inspired Ken to share his memories with us   @Blogfinger, the home of Jersey shore memories that just won’t go away.  From Ken Buckley:

“Oh! What memories this scene brings back. Way back in the mid 60’s we used to rent a small bay side house in Lavalette for just $90 a week (as long as it was before June 15th). This pier looks very much like the one that swimming lessons for kids were given by life guards at 8AM. Those poor life guards would stand waist deep in the water for the whole hour as kid after kid dove or jumped in….splashing the cold  water on the shivering guards. This was in the first 2 weeks of June, and the bay had yet to warm up.
   [With this start my daughter developed into a varsity swimmer for Hackensack H.S. years later...which is another proud memory . Not just because she accomplished it but because she would not accept the smaller "Letter" given to the girls team and successfully held out for the same large "H" Varsity Letter as the boys swim team received. Unhappily I also remember that the girls  had pool practice time before the boys because I had to drive her there at six in the morning.]
  An added benefit in those days: our sailboat (a 14′ Bluejay with mainsail and jib) was simply beached and tied up to a cinder black right near the house. Before they became teenagers my kids’ big goal was to sail solo.  This northern part of Barnegat Bay was mostly only 2 to 3 feet deep so you could WALK out to the boat if things went badly….the “must have” driver’s license so dreaded by parents was still years away.

BLOGFINGER:  Ken requested this song to accompany his memories above.  He probably liked Petula Clark, because Sandy Hopkins is a similar British pop singer from that era.  Ms. Hopkins, a young lady from Wales,  recorded this song in 1968 on the Beatle’s Apple label, and the song was produced by Paul McCartney. ”Those Were the Days” was number one on the hit parade here and in the UK.

Antidepressants’ Effectiveness May Vary According to Severity of Depression. AMA Reports:

 

 

FROM THE AMA “MEMBER CONNECTIONS”:  (special to Blogfinger)

  The New York Times (1/6, A12, Carey) reports that “some widely prescribed” medications “for depression provide relief in extreme cases, but are no more effective than placebo pills for most patients,” according to a study published Jan. 6 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. After reviewing “data from previous trials on two types of” medicines, paroxetine (Paxil) or imipramine (Tofranil), researchers found that “their effectiveness varies according to the severity of the depression being treated.”

        USA Today (1/6, Rubin) explains that University of Pennsylvania researchers “pooled data from six trials in which a total of 718 depressed patients were randomly assigned to take either an antidepressant or a placebo.” After obtaining “patient-specific data from scientists involved with each trial,” the team found that “antidepressants were more effective than a placebo only for patients with very severe depression, who made up 40% of trial participants but…represent fewer than 30% of depressed people who seek treatment in the real world.”

        While “antidepressant medications probably provide little or no benefit to people with mild or moderate depression,” the Los Angeles Times (1/6, Roan) reports that the study also suggests that “the mere act of seeing a doctor, discussing symptoms, and learning about depression probably triggers the improvements many patients experience while on medication.” Meanwhile, “other research has also found that antidepressants are most effective for severe symptoms, said” Philip Wang, MD, PhD, deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health. While antidepressants may not “work well for mild to moderate depression, it’s also possible that people enrolled in antidepressant studies have robust placebo responses that mask some of the impact of the medication.”

        According to the Wall Street Journal (1/6, Dooren), study author Robert DeRubeis, PhD, pointed out that the majority of studies assessing antidepressant medications included patients with severe depression and that such studies were submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for approval of these medicines. In contrast, because far fewer studies have included patients with mild depression, it remains unclear just how effective antidepressants, such as fluoxetine (Prozac) or paroxetine (Paxil), are in this large patient population.

        Meanwhile, Bloomberg News (1/6, Bennett) reports, “doctors, policy makers, and consumers should be made aware that there’s little evidence to show antidepressants will benefit the majority of patients with less severe symptoms,” the study authors concluded. Forbes (1/6, Langreth), the Columbus (OH) Dispatch (1/6, Crane), and Reuters (1/6, Stern) cover the story, as did HealthDay (1/5, Gardner), WebMD (1/5, Doheny), and MedPage Today (1/5, Gever).

        Study suggests researchers have been focusing on wrong neurological targets for depression. HealthDay (1/5, Gardner) reported that Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University investigators suggest that “the reason about half of people who need antidepressants don’t respond to available” medications “is that researchers have been focusing on the wrong neurological targets.” Working with rats, the team found set about disproving that “stress causes depression and that reduced levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine also spur depression.” Not only did they find just five overlapping genes in the brains of depressed and stressed rats, but they also discovered that “genes that were altered in the depressed rats were not related to the neurotransmitters in question.”

BlackWhite Gallery. Auditorium Park, Ocean Grove, New Jersey

Photograph by Paul Goldfinger

Movie Review: Young at Heart

You have to rent this film.  It is so much fun, but it also is important and sometimes sad.  Here is the trailer video from YouTube.

Mayo Clinic in Arizona to Stop Treating Some Medicare Patients

 

BLOGFINGER HEALTHCARE EDITORIAL:

The Mayo Clinic in Arizona has dropped primary care services to thousands of Medicare patients because they have lost huge amounts of money taking care of those patients. Last year, the entire Mayo operation lost $840 million on Medicare patients. The problem is due to low reimbursements, significantly below those of private insurance.  The link at the end tells the whole story.

At Blogfinger we have been repeatedly wondering how the new health bill will reduce the cost of care while improving quality, as they have promised. The designers of the new plan have been unwilling to discuss these details, instead stressing other aspects like the cost of health insurance.

But one thing that the President has said repeatedly is that we need to follow the model of places like the Mayo Clinic. His administration has said that the Mayo Clinic has kept costs down and quality high by placing doctors on salaries, using evidence based practice guidelines,  restricting excess testing and services,  monitoring fraud and abuse, utilization of electronic records and better management methods.  It is true that Mayo has done all these things, but obviously, these methods are not sufficient to make the care affordable.  We can learn from places like Mayo, but let’s not be deluded into thinking that all those Mayo methods provide the only answers to the problems of expensive care.

The simple fact, which the Obamacare designers won’t admit, is that good medical care is expensive, and there is no way to avoid that fact. Making believe that costs can be significantly reduced by feel-good techniques such as electronic records and policing greedy doctors is just misleading.

In addition, it’s easy to say that we will save a fortune if we just turned care over to primary doctors, but that will never occur unless we pay a lot more for primary care and figure out how to get thousands of new idealistic salaried physicians to do an impossible job. We can’t even pay the Mayo Clinic enough to do primary care, and they are the poster child for cost efficient medicine.

 Recently a special bill had to be engineered to temporarily prevent a 20% reduction in Medicare payments to doctors, and the American College of Cardiology has just filed a suit against the government  (as reported last week in Blogfinger) over low payments.  This is just the beginning, as more and more doctors, especially those in primary care, will drop their Medicare participation.

But, counter to any logic, and amazingly, the new healthcare bill strives to make major cuts in Medicare and in payments to doctors.  Does that make sense?

Paul Goldfinger, MD, FACC

Mayo Clinic Drops Medicare Patients; Bloomberg news link