The following column on the history of Christ Church was first published on March 11, 2011. It tells all you wanted to know about our Mysterious Middletown Sightings Tour feature this week and more. Read on ... Middletown is a huge and diverse community with some of the most impressive parks and nature trails, waterfronts and farms, homes and churches in the state. But back in the 1700s it was a new frontier, sparsely populated and, according to an article in the 1935 issue of the Red Bank Register, dependent upon a legacy of piracy.  While scanning the Red Bank Register archives, I came …

The following column is being re-run in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day today: It was late August, 2011 when the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. was initially planned. But, because of Hurricane Irene it was postponed. I think canceling the dedication that day was unfortunate because Aug. 28 was the 48th anniversary of the Civil Rights March in Washington, an historic event that drew approximately 250,000 people to the mall to hear King’s inspired I Have a Dream speech. It is amazing to me how far we have come, and yet how far we still need to go. We …

The story of two Belford boys who built a dirigible balloon and boat was a front page headliner in the Red Bank Register 100 years ago, on Feb. 15, 1911. It is the sort of story about kids that you're not likely to hear these days, much less read on the front page of a newspaper. “The gas bag has a circumference of eighteen feet and is of light canvas," the story said. "The frame of the balloon is 11 feet long, two-and-a-half feet wide and 10 feet high." Gas bag? OK. According to the article, when the boys tried it out, the balloon floated up to the height of their father’s barn, and then …

To travel 100 years ago meant going 35 miles away to Jersey City. And if you were really adventurous, you might travel to New York City or invite a relative to visit you from Brooklyn. In those days, you traveled by horse and wagon. If you were rich enough, you traveled by car, or steamboat, which was not much faster than the horse power of a mule. A 1911 Model T Ford went between 35 and 45 mph and was quite a chore to even start, let alone drive, nevermind a horse and wagon. According to the driver’s manual for a Model T. Ford that I found online, they didn’t accelerate or brake quickly and …

Sometimes I am shocked by the words used in articles written many years ago. A headline like "Aliens With Guns Fined," would have such negative connotations today that it would border on litigious. My first thought when I saw that headline in the archives of the Red Bank Register was to wonder if it was about aliens from outer space, or perhaps from Mexico. But no, on Sept. 11, 1918 they were talking about Italians who were arrested for having shotguns in their possession. The subhead said: “It Is Against the Law for an Alien to Have a Gun Unless He Owns Real Estate Worth $2,000 — The Three …

It’s just a coincidence that my column this week is on prohibition and a new Ken Burns and Lynn Novick film called Prohibition, about the rise and full of the 18th Amendment, starts on Sunday. But, I’m writing about prohibition because quite a few articles were written about the issue in the Red Bank Register at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. I, for one, am fascinated by that era; the one that included prohibition, the war, the roaring twenties, early aviation, the passage of a woman’s right to vote, shorter hemlines and a general loosening of Victorian rigidity…

If you read the Red Bank Register archives you might think that times were simpler 100 years ago. And in some instances you would be right. The items in the news were simpler, but getting anywhere in Monmouth County was harder. There was so little information in the newspapers about what was happening globally, or even nationally, that what happened to your neighbor, no matter how trite, was fodder for a reporter.  Consider this article and imagine someone living in Middletown 100 years ago, when it had a small town ambiance, reading the paper and remarking to his spouse, "Did you know Henry …

While I was in England this summer, I visited Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s country home and painting studio in Kent. Coincidentally, my book group decided to read Citizens of London, by Lynne Olson, an historical account of the behind-the-scenes events that led up to America entering the second world war in order to help Britain hold the line against Hitler’s march across Europe. In addition, while researching for my column on hurricanes, I came across numerous stories about how WWII was affecting Americans and the soldiers who went so far from home to fight against Hitler’s advancing …

I have always been fascinated with the early years of aviation. I like to think that I would have been an early aviatric had I been born around the turn of the 20th century. I’m probably fooling myself since I don’t like heights, but what the heck, it’s my fantasy. Unfortunately when I think about flying and airplanes now, I think about how four of them were used as guided missiles to kill thousands of people, wipe out two iconic buildings and almost destroy the U.S. Pentagon on 9/11. And they were just the obvious losses. There are many other less tangible loses: increased security at …

Here we go again. Newscasters are warning residents of the east coast to batten down the hatches, close up your backyard umbrellas and board up the windows because we may be in for a rough ride. Huricane Irene is barreling our way, ready to wreak havoc ... or not. According to Wikipedia, due to New Jersey’s location, few hurricanes have hit the state directly, but many have passed near enough to cause some damage. According to an estimate by meteorologist George Prouflis, the chances for a direct hit by a hurricane on the Jersey shore each year is one in 200. Gov. Chris Christie declared a …

I'm thinking that every major highway across the world should be called Fast Food Alley. On the Middletown Route 35 corridor alone, there are, to name only a few fast food favorites, a McDonald's, a Burger King, a Wendy’s and a Subway. And now we can add Sonic — a drive-in fast food chain that will sit in front of the Staples and Bed, Bath and Beyond stores where the highway intersects Harmony Road — to that list. In addition to the location in Middletown, another one will be opening off Route 35 in Tinton Falls and there is already one on Route 9 in Howell. The difference between this and …

On July 11, 2011, Time magazine ran a feature article on how being a farmer may be the best job in the 21st century because food and crop prices are up and will remain high well into the future. The article quoted from a book written by Jim Rogers, an investment whiz who predicts that "farming incomes will rise dramatically in the next few decades, farther than those in other industries — even Wall Street." According to the Time article, there is a huge worldwide food problem and the only way to solve it is to encourage more people to become farmers.  Farmers are becoming wealthy again, …

The following is the second part of a look back at the relationship between the Middletown Board of Education of 100 years ago and its administration, students and parents to the situation now.  Does this type of Middletown administrator sound familiar? Last week, I wrote about a Middletown Board of Education meeting in 1911 to discuss the building of the first high school in the district and about how residents and the Board of Education members cooperated in the planning. That cooperation continued even after the high school was completed. One man, Melvin A. Rice, was instrumental in making…

Considering all of the controversy last week over the demotion of Middletown High School South’s popular principal, Dr. Anthony Shallop, it was interesting to note that 100 years ago, on July 12, 1911, the Middletown Board of Education held its first discussion about building a high school in town and it was a cooperative, calm one, between parents, pupils and the board, by all accounts in the Red Bank Register archives. It was, at least, an indication that they worked much better together then than today. Not only did they agree to build a high school, residents also stepped forward to …

I’m hooked again on Sandy Hook. Now that summer is officially here, I want to throw my arms up and sing a sea shanty, but my family and friends would probably run for the hills and I’d be alone on the beach. But since you can’t hear me singing, you can imagine a beautiful, dramatic contralto voice that carries a tune splendidly and teases the words in such a way that you want to sing yourself. Here are the words of a sea shanty appropriately called "A Hundred Years Ago" that I found on the www. contemplator.com/sea Web site. Like most sea shanties, it is a call and response song, so the …

There must be something wrong with me because I don’t care what Kate, the new Duchess of Cambridge, is wearing while visiting Canada and the United States. I even care less that the cute couple are here in North America and that, for her, it’s the first time. But it’s not the first time we have been visited by royalty since we kicked the British out and established our independence from Great Britain. On June 15, 1939, the front page headline announced a visit by the English king and his queen. "To paraphrase Julius Ceasar, 'They came, they saw, they conquered,'" the headline said. The word '…

You might call this column "Now and Then ... and Now Again." And the reason for that is that I found an article in the June 27, 1935 issue of the Red Bank Register, but it reflects back to 50 years before that, so it is 76 plus 50 years old. OK. In other words, the column takes a retrospective look 126 years back, to 1885. I don’t know about you, but I’m in awe of information, from the reporter's pen, so to speak, that is so old. According to the column, the following news was "Culled From the News and Editorial Columns and Presented for the Entertainment of Today's Readers," because as the …

This weekend is the three-day celebration of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. John Adams once said it should be celebrated with bonfires and illuminations, as well as parties and games. And so it has for many years ... "On July 9, 1924 big crowds visited the Bay Shore to celebrate the Fourth," according to the archives of the Red Bank Register. "Port Monmouth has never held such a large holiday crowd as gathered there on the Fourth. At night the last train which went to New York had 300 passengers who had spent the day at Port Monmouth. Port Monmouth seems destined to …

"Summertime ~ and the livin’ is easy, fish are jumping and the cotton is high ..."  I love that Gershwin song. It is so evocative of summer ...  even though I don’t fish and I’ve never seen cotton growing in Middletown. Regardless, just the sultry heat of the song reminds me that summer is really here and I can spread my wings. So the summer solstice on Tuesday was a notable day for me. Besides being the longest day and the shortest night of the year, it was the beginning of summer vacation for most children and a sort of marker. The beginning of summer was reported on in the June, 1935 issue…

In honor of Father’s Day, I thought a column about cars, the second true love of many men, was appropriate. Of the men in my life, most of them, if not all, love their cars. “It’s a guy thing,” my sons have said to me when I question their need for another car, or truck. But it was my father whose love of cars revved up his ambition. An entrepreneurial type, he could never settle down in one job and over the years started and drove into the ground a number of businesses, but the one constant was automobiles. He always seemed to have a new one, the latest model. I remember his excitement when …