SpeakEasy
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•May 1, 2024
Disappearing Act: Who Took My Once-Lovely Eyebrows?
I’m one of those people who showers in the dark – not pitch black, mind you, just off-site light filtering in from the hallway. Somehow, this tepid glow is enough to keep most of me in shadow so that…
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•April 10, 2024
Road Detour Leads to a Near-Death Experience
Editor’s Note: Everyone who lives or works on Long Beach Island has come to expect the unexpected – and intensely annoying – during the seemingly endless construction on the incoming and outgoing…
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•April 4, 2024
It Was a Wonderful Life … for Shore
Author’s Note: As an avid writer of tales and tidbits, religion, Hollywood, politics, life and love, I’d like to think if my dad, a contributor to this page, were here to write one more article about…
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•March 27, 2024
LBI Housekeeping: Host Guests, Clean Up, Repeat
I’m somewhere between a slob and a neatnik. I’m embarrassed when I hear neighbors, friends and relatives talking about their wonderful sweepers, Swiffers and other cleaning devices. New products…
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•March 21, 2024
In Remembrance of The Wolf of Long Beach Island
Winter is coming to an end on Long Beach Island. With that comes the promise of serenity in the spring. You can hear it in the whisper of an ageless song on the wind as it gusts off the ocean…
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•March 6, 2024
The Gray Tortoiseshell Cat That Walked Into My Life
Our award-winning Ocean County newspaper, The SandPaper, featured an article one or two autumns ago about a Beach Haven gentleman, a long-time resident, who walked to the beach every day. He also had…
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•February 21, 2024
Following in Dad’s Wake and Environmental Legacy
My father, Paul Joseph Contillo, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, Feb. 6, following a brief illness. He was 94 years old. He had had very few bad days throughout a long, full and vibrant life. He…
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February 15, 2024
Flowers for Valentine’s Day Strike a Chord With Dancers
“Flowers for me!” I howled. “Valentine flowers and they’re roses!” They were wrapped in tissue in a long narrow box with a little card on the top, “I will love you forever, Love Bill.”
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•January 31, 2024
Bodybuilding for Life, Health and Well-Being
I thoroughly enjoyed The SandPaper article about professional bodybuilder Michelle Johnson in December. It inspired me to share some encouragement for everyone interested in physical fitness…
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•January 24, 2024
Weird Wonders Never Cease at One Retailer
Even though I read the newspaper every morning before I go to work, there are many stories that I miss completely. I guess I could blame it on the fact that I am usually called away from my reading…
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•January 21, 2024
Twenty-Six Years of Service on the High Seas
On Oct. 20, Ralph Howland of Barnegat, a retired Coast Guard chief warrant officer who spent 26 years serving in some of the most brutal ocean conditions imaginable, shared his sea stories at a…
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•January 11, 2024
Beachy Must Reads: Plumbing the Depths of Seaside Passion
I’m continuously amazed by how many coastal dwellers have such scant genuine understanding about the place in which they live or visit. Particularly for those privileged enough to live on an actual…
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•December 20, 2023
Happy Days at Barnegat Light’s One-Room Schoolhouse
It’s 1938. You’re a 5-year old girl and in first grade in a one-room school with grades one through five in five neat rows divided only by the size of their desks. You have been called by the teacher…
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•December 14, 2023
Caribbean Cruise Ship Offers Christmas of a Different Kind
Dec. 11, 2022: Guadeloupe. French. Known for its cuisine. Marsia. American. Known for her extreme sweating. The kids and I, minus the sleeping husband, decide to disembark and explore. I stop at an…
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•November 21, 2023
Thanksgiving Lessons 11 Years After Sandy
This is the 11th anniversary of the devastating storm of 2012 with the ironically sweet name of Sandy. It impacted my family’s Thanksgiving celebration as it did to so many other families on Long…
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•November 15, 2023
Thanksgiving Comes Early for Indigenous People
It goes almost without saying – but I’ll say it anyway – that all the land in New Jersey once belonged to the Indigenous people who lived here for millennia before European colonization. After 400…
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•November 14, 2023
Another Take on the Big One That Got Away
Over the years, our next door neighbor, Capt. Joe, owned several boats, culminating with a stout 38-foot Henriques sportfish built in Bayville. I was kind of a natural at boat handling while Joe’s…
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•November 5, 2023
On Island Time – No Clock Needed
Much of my life has been dictated by time. I have been a servant to alarm clocks since kid-dom. “Get up!” “Hurry up or you’ll miss the school bus.” “You’re here from 8 til 3 so make the most of it.”…
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•October 31, 2023
Boo Who? Boomers Have Co-opted Halloween
No one should ever start a column with either of these two expressions: “When I was your age” and “Back in the day.” So even though I’m taking you into the past, I will begin by saying that once upon…
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•October 24, 2023
Fig Follies – The Most Wonderful Time of Year
There are many highly-anticipated times of the year – the Christmas holiday, summer vacation and pumpkin spice season, to name a few – but a time of year that my family really looks forward to is…
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•October 11, 2023
Exit 63: The Trip to LBI Is Well Worth the Wait
When you’re driving down the Garden State Parkway, you will see the big, green sign that states “20 Miles to LBI,” and then comes the exit, the one that you’ve been waiting for all year – Exit 63.…
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•October 4, 2023
Presidential Age: Not a Deal Breaker
Ronald Reagan was around 74 years of age in 1985 when he began his second term in office as U.S. president. No one would deny that by that time he’d “lost a step or two,” both physically and…
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•September 27, 2023
September’s Here and Gone With Chaos, Change and Angst
It happened right before Labor Day. Thub (the + hub) and I were doing our monthly Costco run, hoping to score some end-of-season beach gear. No sooner had we passed a yummy display of Metamucil than…
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•September 20, 2023
Hope and Kindness Found in a Curious Place
When my niece was here with her kids on LBI visiting me, we had a wonderful experience at Fantasy Island, which makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, there is a little more kindness in the air. So…
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•September 14, 2023
Back to Reality After Another ‘Swell’ Vacation
Sigh. I already feel like I’m light years away from LBI and our annual family vacation in early August. After morning bike rides, the delightful ocean provided eight consecutive days of summer swell.…
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September 7, 2023
The Games of Summer, 2023
Not yet blessed with grandchildren to inform me, I was not clued in on the various beachy games people were playing this summer. The ladder thing with colorful balls on either end of what could have…
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•August 30, 2023
Back to School Tips From an Insider
I am not going to bore you with the typical “back to school advice,” such as try to establish routines from the beginning, allow for plenty of sleep, and provide a healthy diet. You’re smart people…
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•August 16, 2023
On Fishing, Family and the Puritan Work Ethic
Editor’s Note: The following essay was originally published in The Beachcomber in 1993, and its reflections seem even more pertinent today.
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•August 13, 2023
Recalling My Wild and Free Summer of ’65 on the Island
I turned 15 in 1965 and a completely different side of me emerged. Dr. Jekyll got a run for his money from Mr. Hyde. You just never know …
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•August 3, 2023
The Evolution of a Shoobie on Long Beach Island
Every New Jersey beach town is a different flavor. My first flavor was the flamingo-pink of my grandmother’s duplex in Ocean City. This was in the late ’50s, when her neighborhood on 53rd Street was…
