62 posts categorized "Jersey"

In regard to the color of stars

Jersey_monarchJersey June Monarch / June 2013

“We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.”

~ astronomer Maria Mitchell (1818-1889; in 1847, using a telescope, she discovered a comet which became known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet")

From her diary:
“Feb. 19, 1853. I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment. Betelgeuse is strikingly red, while Rigel is yellow. There is something of the same pleasure in noticing the hues that there is in looking at a collection of precious stones, or at a flower-garden in autumn. Blue stars I do not yet see, and but little lilac except through the telescope.”

“Feb. 12, 1855…. I swept around for comets about an hour, and then I amused myself with noticing the varieties of color. I wonder that I have so long been insensible to this charm in the skies, the tints of the different stars are so delicate in their variety. … What a pity that some of our manufacturers shouldn't be able to steal the secret of dyestuffs from the stars, and astonish the feminine taste by new brilliancy in fashion.”

(Source: MARIA MITCHELL: LIFE, LETTERS, AND JOURNALS, Compiled By PHEBE MITCHELL KENDALL)


Go down from this mountain

Sky11The interaction of light and air and water / June 2013

... and so the soul warrior set off on the road again with a Jack Kerouac quote in his pocket and his loved ones in his heart ...

“Hold together, Jack, pass through everything, everything is one dream, one appearance, one flash, one sad eye, one crystal lucid mystery, one word — Hold still, man, regain your love of life and go down from this mountain and simply bebe—be the infinite fertilities of the one mind of infinity, make no comments, complaints, criticisms, appraisals, avowals, sayings, shooting stars of thought, just flow, flow, be you all, be you what it is, it is only what it always is — Hope is a word like a snow-drift — This is the Great Knowing, this is the Awakening, this is Voidness — So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry—”  (Jack Kerouac)


Two rabbits, oceanview

Rabbit4Rabbits oceanside / June 2013

A policeman in the big city stops a woman driving a white car with two huge green rabbits in the front seat. "What are you doing with those rabbits?" he exclaims, "You should take them to the zoo!" The following week, the same policeman sees the same woman with the rabbits in her car, all of them wearing sunglasses. The policeman pulls her over; "I thought you were going to take those rabbits to the zoo."

"I did" she says, "we had such a good time that now we are headed down the shore!"


Whale in the sky

Sky3Another whale breach at LBI / June 2013

This was the day of the whale that formed itself out of clouds and sea and danced across the horizon for us before disappearing from view.


About walking

Photo 1Walk with me / June 2013

“There are some good things to be said about walking. Not many, but some. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated. … To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me.”

~ Edward Abbey


Of the sea born

Wildwood_chairsWe are the Oceanids / Wildwood, NJ / July 2012

This was the day of bounding into the ocean in the early evening when the angled rays of the sun light the beach in a golden glow and and the never-ending rush of waves dance with us ... we are Amphitrite ... we are Halosydne ... we are Thetis ... we are, a sea born goddess ...


A bushel of cousins

Crab_feast_1Oh, those Wildwood nights; and the crabs were as sweet as the dip in that ocean... / Wildwood, NJ / July 2012

This was the July evening by the ocean with a bushel of crabs and a crab-feast worth of cousins.


4th of the 7th month

4thojulyHappy 4th of July / NJ

This was another of those days -- the 4th day -- of that month of July when they feasted on picnic foods and then gathered to play games on the lawn at twilight.

"If the celebration of our patriotic holidays loses that old-time spirit of sincerity, earnestness and high purpose, it will be a sorry day for America. We have learned to smile at the old-fashioned; but let us not fall below our forebears in earnestness and intelligence." (from Dover Dates, 1722-1922: A Bicentennial History of Dover, New Jersey, 1922)


Under the boardwalk

MyuncleswildwoodOh, to take a trip back to 1950s Wildwood / Wildwood, NJ / June 2008

I told my uncle that I'd been down to Wildwood for a few days.

Wildwood, my uncle said with a smile. I used to sleep on the beach there. Under the boardwalk. We would get off work at 6 on Saturday and get in my car and drive down the shore through Jersey on the "deer paths" -- the roads that went through the woods and were smooth and had little traffic. Those road were so nice that I got three speeding tickets and had to go to a class so my license wouldn't be suspended. Ask your aunt about Wildwood.

Aunt, tell us about Wildwood.

On Friday mornings I'd get on the El with my suitcase, work all day, and then get the bus from Philadelphia to Wildwood. We stayed in Mrs. Wagner's Rooming House. $2-3 dollars a night. Girls only. In a dormer room at the top of the house. Two double beds and four girls and a bathroom in the hallway. I wasn't old enough to drink so I altered the date on my baptismal certificate from a 7 to a 5. I didn't drive so I didn't have a license to use as ID. That baptismal certificate got me into all the bars. If we had a little more money we'd stay in a hotel next to the Bolero club. During the day you could hear the stars, like Tony Bennet, rehearsing for their nighttime shows -- the sound came through the walls.

Now that's a Wildwood that lives up to its name.


Be like the trees

BenchedAmico Island / Nov. 2011

This was the day of wanting to take time to sit and absorb the beauty of the world. To focus on the moment. To let all the demands take a back seat. To be like the trees and wade into the water and reflect.