Jersey places, Jersey faces

A review of new books on the Garden State

By: Carolyn Foote Edelmann
   Four solid books have arrived at my doorstep, all keyed to my major interests: The Pine Barrens, the Jersey Shore, The Bluffs of Bay Head, and that well-kept secret, New Jersey’s Coastal Heritage Trail. What remains almost impossible is deciding which book to read first, so I’m reading them all at once. And you will, too — if our three-coasted state holds either memory or promise in your heart and dreams.
   Plexus Publishing and Jersey Shore Publishing have produced these handsome volumes.
   Plexus is as fixated as I upon our Pine Barrens. These publishers have recently delighted readers with the irresistible "Ghost Towns and Other Quirky Places in the New Jersey Pine Barrens" by Barbara Solem-Stull and with the encyclopedic text and artistic photographs in "Natural Wonders of the Jersey Pines and Shore."
   Plexus now steps to the plate with nature photographer Bob Birdsall’s "People of the Pines." Mr. Birdsall emphasizes in plain words and resonant images both characters and traditions that set this region apart from all other places, including all other pine barrens.
   Call "People of the Pines" a companion volume to John McPhee’s "The Pine Barrens." Mr. McPhee’s 1968 evocation convinced voters and politicians to veto installation of a tristate airport above one of the largest fresh-water aquifers on the East Coast. Mr. McPhee’s success ultimately catalyzed the Pinelands Preservation Commission, the Pinelands Preservation Alliance and the Pines’ designation as an International Biosphere Reserve. Our legendary Princeton writer accomplished all this without either Bob Birdsall’s eye or lens. Come to think of it, Mr. McPhee probably didn’t have a computer either —which marvel has allowed Jean Sault Birdsall to turn out this second stirringly designed book of her husband’s art.
   Bob Birdsall’s contributing editor is Janet Jackson-Gould. As executive director of Medford’s Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge, Ms. Jackson-Gould saw to it that this nonprofit increasingly taught environmental protection through wildlife rehabilitation. Ms. Jackson-Gould is also regionally renowned for breeding and raising Clydesdale horses. Her excursions — reins in hand, or at the wheel en route to heron rescue — carried Ms. Jackson-Gould into many a sugar-sand byway. She and Bob Birdsall present nearly 40 residents of South Jersey, frankly proud to be known as "Pineys." Be aware, however, it is still not a good idea for outsiders to bandy this term about.
   Mr. Birdsall and Ms. Jackson-Gould flesh out their characters —all of whom could have, and some of whom actually have — stepped out of Mr. McPhee’s pages. Mr. Birdsall circled regularly through Marilyn Schmidt’s Buzby’s General Store in Chatsworth, which she purchased in 1999, and has since had named to the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. With Marilyn Schmidt as his link to Piney legends and lore, Mr. Birdsall’s approach to the Pinelands becomes the virtual opposite of Mr. McPhee’s. Where the latter warns against getting lost in the Pines, Mr. Birdsall encourages, "Come on along."
   Pithy Piney quotes introduce each cameo, such as "Don’t let technology get in the way of the dirt," and Foxhunter Snuffy Fisher barking, "Damn coyotes ruin everything." Ms. Schmidt reports a first in her Buzby proprietorship: "People buy one copy of ‘People of the Pines.’ Then they come back for two or three more, for friends and relatives. I have never seen this in my years here."
   Another Marilyn Schmidt friend is Brenda Conner, married to Joe Darlington. Fifth-generation cranberry/blueberry farmers, these two are fiercely proud Pineys. Feisty Brenda offers several last words: "The status symbol of a Piney is how far off the blacktop you live," and "If you destroy the Piney culture, you destroy the Pines."
   Bob and Jean Birdsall have gone a long way in "Seasons of the Pines" and "People of the Pines" toward preserving this unique culture and locale.
   The second Plexus book, "The New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail, A Top-to-Bottom Tour of More than 50 Scenic and Historic Sites," is studded with reasons to be proud of the Garden State.
   Patricia Robinson’s evocative photographs grace this enticing trail guide, New Jersey’s answer to Michelin. In practical prose, peppered with thorough and accurate maps, Ms. Robinson literally covers the waterfront. This unknown trail is 275 restorative miles long. It ranges from Perth Amboy to Fort Mott on the Delaware, having been created by an Act of Congress in 1988.
   Ms. Robinson’s chapters are pithy, readable and memorable. Mileage is specific. Hours are clear. Warnings (all too essential where deer ticks and greenheads rule) are repeated-to-relentless.
   The way to vet a new guidebook is to read places you know, then study places you’ve always meant to explore. Ms. Robinson renders Cheesequake State Park interesting, forlorn and forbidden as it seems, square in the middle of the Garden State Parkway. She scores high points for my own best known places, then describes exactly how to find the Manumuskin River Preserve. I frequently drive over this officially "Wild and Scenic" tributary of Cumberland County’s Maurice River. Until now, I never knew where to get out and hike.
   Too little is known of our state, of the Coastal Heritage Trail — in fact, of Jersey’s coastal heritage, itself. With Patricia Robinson teamed with Plexus Publishing, this sad reality could be reversed. This guidebook literally belongs in every Jerseyan’s glove compartment. Its pages lead to memorable answers to my favorite challenge, "When was the last time you did something for the first time?"
   "Long Beach Island Rhapsody" does not belong in —in fact will not fit in — anyone’s glove compartment. Jersey Shore Publications, out of idyllic Bay Head, has gathered paintings of Long Beach Island by 60 contemporary artists.
   "Contemporary" is misleading, in that many of these works of art are trips down memory lane. "Used to be" is immortalized in 300 vivid pages. Hues range from primary colors to mists, fogs and weathered shingles. Crisp signs celebrate Chowder Fests, Kayak Rentals and LIVE CRABS. Powerboats vie with sneakboxes, lighthouses with shacks. Carla Coutts-Miners’ mermaid on Page 88 is particularly winsome.
   This hefty book ought to come with a sign, "Warning, May Cause Abrupt Trips to the Shore." Text notes alert purchasers to paintings for which prints may be ordered. Five pages are studded with artist biographies.
   Everyone has his or her own Long Beach Island. If you can’t find your own in these pages, take up a paintbrush.
   Both Jersey Shore Publications presentations are frankly coffee table books — "The Bluffs: The Story of a Hotel at the Jersey Shore," perhaps, more tea-table than coffee.
   Francine LaVance Robertshaw begins her sentimental journey "in the summer of 1979, when I began working at The Bluffs." Her chronicle of Bay Head’s luxe establishment — opened in 1890, gone forever in 1996 — recreates a stunning leather-bound family album. Readers are transported to other eras through words, photographs, drawings, paintings, scanned images and actual removable keepsakes.
   Paging through this volume is like opening a steamer trunk in Grandmother’s attic. Effective reproductions include a tawny 1903 article about The Bluffs, describing Bay Head as "a charming suburb of Point Pleasant." Something thick tucked into Appendix A unfolds into an evocative map of the region, before developers stuck in all those hokey names: "Cartography by Harry Tower, 1936," the map reads. In its upper right-hand corner, Aeolus blows surf onto Bay Head sands. How long has it been since you’ve seen a classical god on a map?
   Official notices warn of "U.S. Army and Coast Guard WW II Regulations: ‘ALL SHADES TO BE FULLY DRAWN AT NIGHT WHEN ROOM LIGHTS ARE ON.’" A 1942 letter from manager A. E. Johnson, Jr., assures that "There is, and has been, no oil from wrecked ships on our beach. The military and civil defense regulations, now effective or anticipated, shouldn’t cause you much inconvenience."
   The Bluffs Bar was proudly termed "A Grand Old Saloon" in early advertisements. This would be the setting for my pivotal meeting with Werner Edelmann, who proposed marriage within a handful of days. Shy and formal, Werner opened our first conversation by mentioning Anna Moffo’s stunning debut that week in "La Boheme," which I, too, had attended in Manhattan’s Old Met.
   Sewn with golden cord, the keepsake pockets open to drawings describing "Parlors and Porches," "Hot and Cold Sea- and Fresh-water Baths." A replica of 1955’s rate schedule proffers "Daily Rooms — $7 to $8 with running water; $42 to $48 for the week." Floor plans look yellowed with age, one of which differentiates between "Rates and Bachelors." 1928’s Guest List was written by hand in ink browned with the years. Removable menu cards, typed each day, range from 1942 to 1952. Stewed prunes and shirred eggs appear on the first; the last announces availability of avocados and Roquefort cheese.
   The book’s finale is a series of vintage postcards of the now-vanished Bluffs — some drawn, some hand-colored photographs. Several have writing on the back: "Good weather over Fourth. Wrong tide."
   A farewell scene by artist Al Barker, from the 1990s, just before The Bluffs’ demise, shows a view "From the corner of the Bachelors’ Quarters — the discreet walkway to the beach." The walkway remains to this day on the Shore Road.
   Nothing remedies loss. And yet, The Bluffs’ illustrious past lives, even expands within these pages, beyond anything I realized in 1960, taking friends from Michigan high school days to this "small piece of heaven on the Jersey Shore."
Plexus Publishing: www.plexuspublishing.com. Write to [email protected]. Pat Palatucci handles sales and customer service, (609) 654-6500, ext. 144.



Jersey Shore Publications: www.jerseyshorevacation.com. Write to [email protected]. (888) 227-4673.