SpeakEasy
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•January 22, 2025
My Water Adventures Show Smaller’s Better Than Bigger
I’m talking boats, of course. My first boat many decades ago was a 12-foot aluminum pram. It weighed about 35 pounds. I could easily slide it into the back of my station wagon and take it anywhere.…
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•January 8, 2025
Coyotes, Turbines and Drones – Are They Here and Gone?
Several days after several days of consuming mass quantities of food, I found a pair of slippers that had been hiding from me. With what I now refer to as a senior groan, I hunkered down and located…
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•December 18, 2024
Christmas Trees: Big, Small – They Are All Very Special
Christmas and Christmas trees have always been magical for me. My very first Christmas trees are still very vivid in my mind. We have to go back to the 1940s. I was 5 or 6 years old, and we lived on…
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•December 5, 2024
Do Not Look Down – These Little Piggies Went … Downhill
Way back in the dark ages of the ’60s, or maybe the ’70s, there was a commercial that asked, “What’s the ugliest part of your body?” I was a teenager at the time, so the answer “my feet” did not…
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•November 27, 2024
The Holiday Parade Goes On With Some Jitters in Transit
We just experienced the month of October, a special gem of a month on our Island with brilliant sunshine-filled days, warm water and plentiful waves. This was a delightful gift for all to enjoy after…
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•November 13, 2024
These Calls Are From People Who Are Not Anyone’s Friends
When my cellphone rings at certain times of the day or night I can usually guess that the call is not from a friend, relative or business associate.
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•November 6, 2024
Clouds Are the Sky’s Imagination
There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the sea shores. — Matsuo Basho…
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•October 24, 2024
Risk Is Low, But Some Fish Can Make You Sick
Last June I got a call from my grandson Steven from Okaloosa Island in the Florida Panhandle. Steven and his wife, Bridget, were very sick from food poisoning. I asked what they had for dinner at one…
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•October 17, 2024
Five Years Later: Antics of My Fat, Feral Cat
Five years ago I wrote about my cat for The SandPaper. I’m not sure I actually called her “my cat” then as she showed up in my yard and I fed her from time to time.
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•October 2, 2024
Like LBI, Tri-Letter Words Are Simply FUN, FUN, FUN
It seems like four-letter words get all the attention, but their lesser competitor – three-letter words – needs to also be recognized. Three-letter words are all around us these days. We can’t escape…
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•September 25, 2024
First Visit to Beach Haven – a Town That So Inspired Me
I am a young Spanish historian who spent part of this summer for the first time in Beach Haven with my partner, Victoria, and her family. From a different perspective, I would like to share some of…
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•September 18, 2024
Fig Follies Followup – Our Tradition Continues
Perhaps you recall my story about figs which appeared in The SandPaper last year (“Fig Follies – The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” SpeakEasy, 10/24/23). It recounted my family’s love of figs…
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•September 8, 2024
Do the Right Thing: Let Female Blue Crabs Live
Is it right or wrong to keep a female blue crab when out crabbing?
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•August 29, 2024
Wanna Be an Islander? See You in Your Socks
Here you are around Labor Day in your bare feet or flip-flops, reading this while contemplations of the end of the summer season are starting to come to mind. No doubt you’re feeling that you’ve…
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•August 29, 2024
Paying Tribute on Labor Day to McGuire Versus Maguire
Labor Day is a nationwide federal holiday that is designated by law to be the first Monday in September. This year, Labor Day occurs somewhat early, on Sept. 2. Although summer officially ends with…
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•August 21, 2024
Discipline and Discovery Energize Running, Writing
I spend my summers on LBI. This summer I resolved to find a dirt trail off the Island to run on because I am training for a trail run and writing retreat in September. Trail running is a form of…
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•August 14, 2024
A Look Back at One of the Original Loveladies Lots
When my wife, Barbara, said we should start downsizing, like all dutiful husbands, my eyes rolled. Just what I always wanted to do. Well, this time there was a nice side benefit during the process.…
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•August 7, 2024
More Morrison’s Memories of Hard But Rewarding Job
This Memorial Day weekend I had the pleasure of reading L.J. Wallace’s SpeakEasy column titled “Surviving ‘The Hole’ in the Middle of Summer.” It was mostly about working at Morrison’s Restaurant on…
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•July 31, 2024
Face to Face With Desires, Fears of Ukrainian Students
My wife and I have just returned from a three-week trip to the Lviv region of Ukraine, our third trip in a year. Lviv is a beautiful, bustling, historic city 40 miles from the Polish border. It is…
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•July 22, 2024
Madcap Adventures of Summer Kid in Surf City
This is my story and I’m sticking to it. The names have not been changed because we are all either in our late 70s or dead and aren’t concerned with the authorities anymore.
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•July 16, 2024
Behind the Scenes at ’50s-’60s Holiday Snack Bar
Over the last year, there were several articles about a Beach Haven landmark, the Holiday Snack Bar, and ongoing controversy about its expanded outdoor dining. As many know, it is a small eatery…
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•July 3, 2024
Long May It Wave: Flags Wrap Up Ideas, Ideals
So I’m sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a’dyin’ And my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain. I have my ship, and all her flags are a-flying! She is all that I have left, and…
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•June 26, 2024
‘Sammy Starfish’ a Kids Book With Sweet LBI Backstory
Taking 60 years to bring a book to market is not usual practice in the publishing industry, but for my family from central Pennsylvania, which has been vacationing on Long Beach Island since the…
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•June 20, 2024
Yellow Fever, Red Menace, Blue Genes
My neighbors are newbies. Before building their dream house – and we all know that a true LBI dream house must include an elevator and a swimming pool – they had never been to Beach Haven. They are…
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•June 16, 2024
Life With Father on a Cuban Sugar Cane Plantation
My family is from Cuba, where they owned a sugar cane plantation that later was taken over by Castro as part of his new communist regime. In 1959, at 19 years old and having just finished high…
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•June 5, 2024
Overweight? Forgetful? Tired of TV Drug Commercials!?
I want to begin by saying I have no medical training whatsoever. The only thing I know about medicine is taking it when prescribed and applying Band Aids when needed.
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•May 29, 2024
Generation Gap Shrinks When Stephen Moves In
It was late August when our grandson innocently asked, “If I got a job down here next summer could I live here with you and Pop Pop?”
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•May 23, 2024
Surviving ‘The Hole’ in the Middle of Summer
It was six years since the Lucy Evelyn caught fire and burned. The Bee Gees’ songs were tops on the pop charts. Folks thronged to theaters to see “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Laverne…
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•May 22, 2024
Viewing LBI Road Construction in Another Way: Let’s Party!
In a nation by every issue you can name, there are few – very few – issues that unite us. Maybe our coast-to-coast devotion to team sports? Beyoncé’s country music album? Our addiction to cellphones…
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•May 8, 2024
Awards I Have Won – But There’s Always a Catch
I opened my mail recently and found I was selected to be the 2024 “Customer of the Year” for the Blair Woman’s Catalog. It is an official award proclamation and really quite impressive. My name and…
