New Jersey Baby Boomer

My daughter has a terrible fear of spiders, so I don’t think she would be very impressed by New Jersey native Rocky Fiore, a man who has found a way to collect beautiful spider webs and turn them into works of art, but I was. I was intrigued when I came across a headline in the news during the late summer about this, and decided to do a little exploring.

Rocky’s website, Whirled Wide Webs provides more information about what he is doing, as does the video below.  For him, it is a form or art, and a source of income. He shares at his site that he gathered over 2000 specimens IN A YEAR that became works of art.  Though others have tried to imitate his spider web art, it’s not an easy thing to do what he has mastered and made his trade.

It wasn’t until today while reading the latest news about Astronaut Mark Kelly and his wife, Gabrielle Giffords, that I discovered that Mark Kelly is originally from West Orange, New Jersey.  Most of you reading this are aware of the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in early January in Tucson. She has recovered remarkably well from a bullet to the head, while others shot the same day were not so fortunate.

Mark Kelly, her devoted husband, commanded the final Endeavour shuttle flight, and is now retiring from NASA and the US Navy to be with his wife…effective in October.  They will be writing a book together about their combined experiences, according to one news article that I read.

Video of final launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour, commanded by Astronaut Mark Kelly, husband to Gabrielle Giffords.

As a resident of New Jersey, when I think of Camden, NJ, my thoughts are usually marred with memories of reports about high crime rates and corruption…but there is much in history in Camden, New Jersey, including the Walt Whitman house.

He was born in Long Island, and raised by Quaker parents.  His work experience seems very random…from government clerk, to editor and journalist, to being a nurse during the Civil War during which time he wrote “Beat, Beat, Drums”.  He held other positions, but his greatest desire in life was to be a poet. His best known work was a controversial one for it’s time due to sexual content, Leaves of Grass. He wrote other works that probably would not have been in line with his Quaker upbringing…but some shared his concern for the conditions during the times in which he lived, politically and otherwise.

Walt Whitman didn’t make his home in New Jersey until toward the end of his life…after he suffered a stroke. The Walt Whitman House can be found on Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey.  The Camden County Library holds events in honor of the poet, Walt Whitman.

Image: Circa 1860, in public domain.

Opinions vary on our relatively newly elected Governor, Chris Christie. He is making headlines and media appearances not just here in New Jersey, but on other news stations as well because of the open and bold stands that he is taking.

What he is doing in our State is so very different from what the President is doing in our Nation…he is making everyone share the challenge of cutting back, something I wish was happening in our Nation.

I guess in my simplistic way I see this as a kind of experiment….what will be the outcome of what our Governor is doing in our State as opposed to what our President and his administration is doing to our Nation.

I don’t know if the experiment will work, because of concern about how what is being done on the National level will affect what happens to each State.

Time will tell, but I’m pleased for the most part with what Governor Christie is doing, even if sometimes it hurts.

I rarely share political opinions on here, but I’m just sayin….

ACORN has made news in a big way with the pimp and prostitute videos in the past few weeks thanks to Glenn Beck and FoxNews Channel, not to mention the courage of James O’Keefe acting as a pimp (a New Jersey native…grew up in the town next to where my mother lives now) and Hannah Giles playing the role of a prostitute looking for help to open up a brothel, complete with girls brought in through the sex trade.

Forgive me, this isn’t my typical nice post, I’m a little steamed at this. I know just mentioning Glenn Beck’s name and FoxNews in one sentence probably has raised the blood pressure of a few of you, but many are watching according to the ratings…..and talk about raised blood pressure, if you haven’t seen the videos, I hope your’s will be too after viewing them…and not because of pretty Hannah who Glenn Beck suggested be careful and “cover up”.  Don’t be fooled by Acorn’s claims that these are just a few problem people, there are at least 5 videos that I’ve seen in various locations throughout the country, all similar, some more shocking than others.

After watching the videos in stunned disbelief, I wondered how many ACORN community organizations were here in New Jersey.  I did a search, and as you would be inclined to expect, most are located in our cities, Jersey City, Newark, Paterson, and Trenton.  I’m not going to include links to these organizations until I know that they are worthy…in fact I removed a most of a post I had done a few months ago because of their ties to the organization. 

I’m going to be interested in seeing how the investigation they are starting is going to change things, if at all, and watching the shuffle in Washington DC as they try to distance themselves from the organization that President Obama claimed would play a role in his being elected to the Presidency. 

Just in case you watch the wrong news stations, thought maybe I’d include a video or two for you so you can see what’s been going on, and lets hope that exposing this will lead to a better ACORN, and if it can’t get better, no ACORN at all.  Where did they get these people?  Don’t they have a screening process when they hire?  Here’s just a couple parts of one video session in Brooklyn, New York:

And here’s the one from the other side of the Country, in San Bernadino, oh there’s more, but this is enough for now…I’m really sorry to clutter up this blog with such negative stuff, but it’s important, and since the film maker is from New Jersey, belongs:

(acorn image from acorn.org)

Over a year ago I did a post about Les Paul and a friend of ours in NJ who often shared stories of the days when he worked alongside Les Paul.  Les Paul got his start here in the Garden State, and passed away today in a NY hospital not so very far away, White Plains Hospital, surrounded by family and friends.

Always sorry to hear about the loss of someone great, and what a long and full life he lived.  It’s my understanding that he passed from complications due to Pneumonia.  

Our best wishes to the family. 

Here is a link to the post in case you’d like to visit – NJ Celebrities: Les Paul and Mary Ford

8/15 – Thought I’d edit in a video for you, enjoy!

As a young girl, living in the Nixon – Edison area of New Jersey off Route 1 until I was 14, I remember passing the Edison Memorial when we were on our way to visit my Aunt, and on many other occasions.  This was a teaching moment for my Dad, an Electrical Engineer, an opportunity to tell me about the great man, Thomas Edison, that invented the light bulb and many other things that we still depend on today.

Today commemorates the introduction of the first Stock Market Ticker in New York City in 1867. When you look at pictures of the activity and technology involved with the Stock Market today…literally tracking and investing from our laptop if you use a laptop computer… it’s hard to imagine a day when the latest upswings or downturns had to travel by mail or messager.

While Edison didn’t invent the ticker, that credit goes to an Edward Calahan, Edison is noted for improving on the ticker, and patenting his model. Edison made enough money through the use and sale of this invention to be able to construct his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ, very close to where I grew up, and it was there that many of the inventions he was noted for were developed, including the light bulb.

Mechanical tickers of one sort or another were used into the 1960′s, and in our baby boomer lifetimes, were replaced by what we have become accustomed to seeing today.

The Edison ticker image above is taken from SparkMuseum website, an interesting site.

Today New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen sang at another Obama event, and while I’m not promoting Obama, not one bit, it gives me an excuse to talk about another NJ celebrity who has been around for as long as I’ve been listening to rock ‘n roll.

Bruce Springsteen was born in Freehold, NJ, south of where I am in NJ, in fact, almost everywhere in NJ is south of us, since we’re at the top of the State. I found a great website that provides some trivia about him, and will give you a taste, but out of fairness to copyright guidelines and all that fun stuff, the link to the full page follows.

Here’s some Springsteen trivia:

* Children, with Scialfa, Evan James, Jessica Rae and Sam Ryan.
* Says his favorite film as a kid was _Searchers, The (1956)_
* One of Springsteen’s most famous songs, “Thunder Road”, took inspiration from the Robert Mitchum movie of the same name.
* Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, where Bono of U2 gave the induction speech. When U2 was inducted in 2005, Springsteen gave their induction speech, returning the favor.
* Awarded the Polar Music Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music Award, in 1997.
* Bruce Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek magazine simultaneously. At that time this had only happened to world leaders. [27 October 1975]
* Brother of Pamela Springsteen
* Considered becoming a baseball player prior to devoting himself to music.
* Many of his earlier songs make reference to the New Jersey shore, where he spent his youth.
* Paul Schrader asked Springsteen to write a title song for a movie he had written called “Born in the USA”. After Springsteen wrote it, he liked the song so much, he used for his multi-platinum album of the same name instead. As a replacement, Springsteen wrote another song and that song title became the film’s new title, Light of Day (1987). That is why Springsteen thanks Schrader in the liner notes of the album.
* Father, Douglas “Dutch” Springsteen, died in 1998.
* Has two sisters, Virginia and Pamela.
* Mother’s name is Adele.
* Frequently works with director John Sayles, a fellow Jerseyite who shares a similar social conscience.

Okay, that’s enough…there’s more and a bio at this link, but promise you’ll come back after you visit.

And what better way to close a post on a Jersey blog than with Bruce singing “Jersey Girl”: