This is the big weekend, and yes, I’m excited about the Superbowl. I’m looking forward to watching our LOCAL team win…but I do wish that New Jersey could, for once, not be overshadowed by New York. After all, the New York Giants play at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands IN NEW JERSEY, not New York. When we were first married, my husband and I lived in an apartment not much more than walking distance from the Stadium and passed it every day on the way to work.
We’ll be watching the Giants beat the Patriots, we hope, and a part of us will wish that for once, we could hear the name of our State, New Jersey, mentioned as the winning team.
Hurricane Irene and the storms that have followed have been devastating for many of us in New Jersey, and for many in the States in the Northeast that surround us. It seems to be never-ending!
Our home is not in a flood zone, we are victims of poorly designed drainage when a new road was put in. We have been fighting battles against water coming into our home more times than I like to think this past Spring and Summer…most recently with Irene. Many years ago, water naturally passed by the property on each side and found it’s way to the lake if too much came from the woodlands across the street from us. When a new road was put in a year or so before we moved in, the “brilliant” design was to have water come across the road directly toward our driveway under the road, then make a right angle turn to go down the road a bit, then a pipe was put in to carry the water to the lake in back of our home. When there is a spring thaw then a LOT of rain, or a Hurricane, or just a lot of rain in general, this is not adequate, and the water finds it’s way down our driveway, down the steps to the walkway to our house, and would come in the front door if my husband, who now has heart troubles, and son, did not set up sandbags to divert it, and seal a board into the door frame to keep standing water out. That’s exactly how things are as I type this, because we are tired of setting it up over and over again. We’re leaving it this way until the Town does the “promised” fix, or until the many tropical depressions and storms racked up in the Atlantic pass.
In spite of all the difficulty we are facing, we know others who are experiencing much much more, they have lost their homes, or all of their possessions in the basement and on first floor. Some have homes that are no longer habitable. My sister had to be evacuated from her home, water filled the basement. As much as we are thankful that things aren’t worse, cleanup is tedious, tiresome, and frankly depressing. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been through so much more than we have.
I was in my early twenties when Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man” played loudly from the speakers of my car radio. Phoebe Snow was born in New York, but raised in Teaneck, NJ and died Tuesday, April 25, 2011, in Edison, New Jersey. We lived in Edison Township until I was about 14 and I worked and attended a small college in Teaneck in the early 1070′s, so the area is very familiar.
Her personal life touches mine as well…as she sacrificed her singing career to care for a disabled daughter. Watching my mother love and care for my disabled brother gives me a picture of what kind of person she may have been like. According to her Manager in an article I read on northjersey.com, the 31 years spent raising her brain-damaged daughter, Valerie, who apparently pre-deceased her, was her greatest accomplishment. Her daughter was born with hydrocephalus and needed constant care, which Phoebe provided for her rather than putting her into an institution. That says a lot about a person, doesn’t it? There are some things so much greater than fame.
Phoebe died at the age of 60 (wow, that’s how old I’ll be at my next birthday…we do tend to notice things like this as baby boomers, don’t we?) from complications of a hemorrhage to the brain she suffered late in 2010 – it was one of those health situations where one thing just seemed to lead to another from the information I’ve been reading.
One thing about losing a musician, actor, or other celebrity, is the fact that you can still listen to them or watch them after they are gone. So it is with Phoebe Snow, as seen in the following video. This later recording of “Poetry Man” by her in 2009 shows her wonderful personality and that almost 35 years later, she was still a very talented musician and will be missed:
It seems trivial to compare the flooding situation many have been experiencing here in New Jersey to what has been happening in Japan, but both show the devastating power of water. We have spent the last few weekends preparing for potential runoff problems (big ones) on our property after heavy snows all winter, snow-melt saturating our soils and then heavy rains washing what is left of the snow from the hills across the street from us…across the road…to the lake where it wants to go, not where the designers of the “fine” drainage system on our street wants it to go…at 2 right angles then down to the lake. We are long overdue taking this situation to our Town to be fixed, just asking isn’t enough. They did try a couple of minor fixes, none adequate, and there used to be years between incidents (we’ve been here for going on 27 years). The last flooding was just last Spring, so they are getting closer together, and we are getting older and less able to keep up. We had hoped to retire here, it’s a small, cozy home on a lake, but if this isn’t fixed, we’re not sure what we’ll do.
But then we look at the news and see what is happening in Japan, and our hearts break, it makes what we are experiencing look so small. Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Japan, and those not far from us in New Jersey who experienced much more than we did, thanks to some carefully placed sand bags by my son.
Here is a short video clip we took of a river in Butler, NJ, not to far from us, video taken March 12th:
Smartphones are getting a little too smart it seems, and it’s making me concerned for the welfare of my friends and family that have them. My husband made me aware of a report on the news that shows how, by taking pictures with a smartphone that also has gps abilities, then posting that photo online, whether it be by facebook or another means, you are pinpointing where you are when you take the picture. If that picture was taken at your home, of you, your children, you pet, whatever, with such a phone, then put up on Facebook, anyone “out there”, whether friend or foe, should be able to find your home. There is also a new feature on Facebook that was mentioned that helps you find friends in close proximity to where you live. I am sure that with the internet, and how we freely share our addresses, etc., it probably is not hard to trace many people, but this story has it’s own unique set of concerns attached to it. Here is the video of the news report for you, be aware and use care.
Do you read local news online, or on the web? I do both…still enjoy leafing through our local papers that come to the door for the latest very local news, but for news about what is happening all over New Jersey, I prefer the internet…a paper with all of that would be enormous and much heavier than my laptop:-)
I decided to put something together to pull together the New Jersey news in one place where I can check in on the news by New Jersey region. It’s broken down by region, then by counties within the region with feed providing the top headlines for each. It’s a quick place to check in each morning.
The media is reporting that the first Baby Boomers in New Jersey, and all over the United States, have started collecting Social Security. I’m a “Baby Boomer”, but still have 3-6 years until I can collect…though if those years go as fast as the previous years have, I’ll be there in no time. Because I didn’t work outside the home for as many years as some…was a stay at home Mom as many years as possible, I don’t think my contribution to our household will be very significant, but it will be better than nothing.
Many predict that the baby boomers are going to eat up all the social security available, there’s quite a bit of talk and quite a few sites on the web projecting this. Time will tell how all of that goes. I’ve heard gloom and doom predictions before and they don’t always turn out as bad as predicted, but we are living in challenging times now, so it’s hard to say.
This gloomy article from foxnews.com states that 10,000 Baby Boomers will be retiring each day…and will start collecting Social Security, not to mention Medicare for some and Medicaid for others, things that we’ve just taken for granted that we will have available to us, just as they were available to our parents. There are also interesting facts at the Social Security Reform Center website.
Fear does come along and rears it’s ugly head as I try to sort it all out in my thinking, and it’s good to think and plan as much as we can, but there’s a lot of things we can’t plan for…it’s those things that can bring fear. It’s at those times that I love remembering and singing this old hymn of the faith, my faith:
I don’t know about tomorrow;
I just live from day to day.
I don’t borrow from its sunshine
For its skies may turn to grey.
I don’t worry o’er the future,
For I know what Jesus said.
And today I’ll walk beside Him,
For He knows what is ahead.
Many things about tomorrow
I don’t seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand
This past weekend we had incredible amounts of rain only two weeks after a blizzard that dumped over 2 feet of snow in many places local to us here in our part of Northern New Jersey. We are up in elevation a bit, and had more than some, and those even higher had even more.
But back to the flooding…our flooding. We were having a fairly quiet Saturday at home, but I was nervous, because there was a LOT of snow on the mountain across the street from us, and a LOT of rain falling. My husband set up something to divert water down the side of our house should the torrent come toward us that I told him about…he hasn’t been home for the two other times we’ve had this experience. As evening came, I noticed the first signs that we may be in trouble, water was no longer being held back in the low spot in the woods, but was beginning to stream across the property across the street, we ate dinner, and suddenly my husband said “water is coming in under the door”, out he dashed with my son and they spent the next approximately 6 hours keeping drains cleared and diverting water. I have other pictures for this post, but did show some night shots of water up against our house at http://weedsandseedswap.com. Amazingly, we were able to keep it at bay, but not without a lot of stress and exhaustion, and with the help of the town DPW that was overwhelmed with problems throughout the Township. Things have cleaned up nicely, I was able to throw bedding and towels up against the inside of the door to hold water out, and as of today, all is clean and dry inside, I have no concern about mold because I’ve worked hard to do the things to prevent it…a friend did a nice post about this that you may find helpful at this link.
Sunday after we had done all the cleaning we could, we went “flood hunting”, I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked to, but these ones were just down the hill from us in Bloomingdale, you see the river raging past houses, some houses were partly immersed as we passed, others just up to the edge of the home…even as I stood taking the pictures, the water that you see overlapping onto the parking lot spread more and more, we left quickly, not wanting to wait and see how much area it finally covered. Only a couple of blocks away roads were completely closed due to flooding.
Here are the pictures, and my hope that all of you that have received far more damage than we have will receive the help you need.
If you use these pictures for any reason, kindly give credit to newjerseybabyboomer.com, it would be appreciated!
