Wildwood 4.12.2006

Spring arrived last weekend, jauntily bounc-ing across the island on the back of a motorcycle.
You could hear it roar-ing over the bridge, in all its unmufflered glory, even drowning out all those hammers banging away at assorted building projects currently redoing the Wildwoods.
T.S. Elliott, in poetically discussing the season, described April as the “cruelest” month.
Was Elliott one of those year round residents of the island who prefers the quiet off-season?
Some locals moan and groan as the weather warms up and the traffic picks up. For my part, I head into the great out-doors, which is a 10 by 30 rectangle out behind my house.
It being the first week-end of spring and the planting season, I figured on getting in some work in our garden.
I would have preferred going fishing but the mys-terious appearance of gar-dening tools and the disap-pearance of my surf rod informed me that higher powers in the household had other plans.
Our garden is a vast ex-panse that is almost large enough to qualify as a parking spot for a Hum-mer.
As part of my own per-sonal rite of spring, I de-cided that this would be the year that I was going to get a luxurious grass lawn growing.
I’ve never had much success in the garden but I think I finally learned how to guarantee a healthy green lawn.
This weekend, I put down a covering of stones over the place where I want the grass to grow. There’s another patch where I don’t want any-thing to grow, so I meticu-lously raked and hoed, limed and seeded that sec-tion.
If I really did the job right, all the grass I planted there will migrate and end up growing among the stones.
Who says you can’t fool Mother Nature?
The worst annual rite of spring is this business with changing the clock.
I actually wanted to write about this last week but I became so preoccu-pied with resetting the sundials at my house, that I lost track of the time.
Fall back, spring ahead. Who comes up with this stuff?
Blame the clock tinker-ing on Ben Franklin.
During one of those rare moments when he wasn’t chasing skirts around Paris, Franklin found him-self with some time on his hands so he wrote a pam-phlet entitled, “An Eco-nomical Project for Dimin-ishing the Cost of Light.”
While Franklin’s ideas caught on in England, it actually required an act of Congress, The Uniform Time Act of 1966, to get Americans on the same page regarding this par-ticular manipulation of time.
A lot of people who for-got to adjust their clocks looked pretty sheepish on Monday morning when they appeared at work an hour late. I know I sure did.
But none of our fooling around with the clock fooled those ospreys on North Wildwood Boule-vard.
Another sure sign of the arrival of spring, the os-preys are back from their winter quarters in the trop-ics, right on schedule.
A pair has established themselves on the stand that was put up when the squatters’ shacks along the road were knocked down.
This particular stand re-placed an old outhouse that sat out on the marsh. The birds used to nest on the roof.
When last we checked in on the new arrivals, the male was wearing that “what next?” look, even as the female was measuring her new domicile for wall to wall carpeting and a home entertainment center.
 And all that guy wanted to do was go fishing.
Maybe that’s what T.S. Elliott was writing about.
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There are still 50 veter-ans from New Jersey among those missing in action in Vietnam.
There will be a candle-light service to remember them on Saturday, April 29 at 2 p.m. at the Knights of Columbus Hall, first and New York avenues, North Wildwood.
The service will include a color guard ceremony and 50 plaques will be displayed, each bearing the name of the missing vet-eran and where in Vietnam he disappeared.
The service will also in-clude tables for each branch of the armed forces with members missing in action and a reading of a list of names of MIA’s.
The service is sponsored by the VFW and the VFW Ladies Auxiliary.
The public is encour-aged to attend.
Call Tony Halas at 868-3786 or Bob Farrell at 463-1221 for more information.
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Happy Easter! No need to put all your eggs in one basket as the Wildwoods will have two Easter eggs hunts this year.
Wildwood Jaycees are holding an Easter egg hunt on Saturday at noon on the beach at Lincoln Avenue.
The hunt is open to kids up to 12 years old and is free.
For information, call the Jaycees at 729-5501.
The Elks are also host-ing their annual Easter egg hunt for children age 11 and younger on Saturday. That event takes place on the 17th Avenue beach in North Wildwood. It is also a free event.
Call 729-2170 for more details.
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Wildwood AARP 5235 meets tomorrow at 11 a.m. at Crest Pier, 5800 Atlantic Ave.
Guest speaker is Stephanie Fowler from Cape Assist, speaking about the Greater Wild-woods Municipal Alliance.
Call 729-3420 for more information.
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Those of us who lived through the 60s probably don’t remember much and prefer it that way.
But the folks who brought you the Wild-woods Fabulous 50s are offering a salute weekend to the music of the 60s starting April 28 at the Wildwood Convention Center, Burk Avenue and the boardwalk.
Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees and Herman’s Hermits headline the bill that will also include the likes of 1910 Fruitgum Company, Rip Chords, Crystals, and the Grass-roots.
Watch our Web site for a Podcast interview with Dolenz and Peter Tork coming soon.
And what would a nos-talgia event like this be like without the Geator, Jerry Blavat on hand to talk us through it.
Call 888-729-0033 for ticket information or check out the website at www.fabfifties.com
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Story hour for preschool age kids continues tomor-row at 1:30 p.m. at the Wildwood Crest branch of the county library, 6301 Ocean Ave.
Call 522-0564 for more information.
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Holly Beach Fire Com-pany and the Wildwood Civic Club offer a break-fast extravaganza and bake sale on, April 23 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at the fire-house, Montgomery and Washington avenues, Wildwood.
Donation is $7, which benefits both organiza-tions.
Call 729-2771 for tick-ets and information.
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Wildwood City Com-mission meets tonight at 7 p.m. on the second floor of City Hall, 4400 New Jer-sey Ave. Wildwood plan-ners meet April 17 at 7 p.m. at the same location.
North Wildwood City Council meets Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. on the second floor of City Hall, 901 Atlantic Ave.
North Wildwood Plan-ning Board is scheduled to meet tonight at 7 p.m. at the same location.
Wildwood Crest Zoners are scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall, 6101 Pacific Ave.
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The third annual SJWA Youth Wrestling Tourna-ment returns to the con-vention center on Friday at 6 p.m. and on Saturday, from 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.