A Site for Shore Eyes

I’m not as tough as I used to be, that is, if I ever actually fit that definition. I keep waiting for it to get warm enough to ride my bike, but I keep seeing others already riding bikes, despite temperatures in the forties.

As a kid I rode my bike throughout the winter, except in snowy weather. When I had a paper route, I also rode in the rain, pretty much a necessity.

I also rode my first vehicle, a Vespa 125, throughout the winters, and admit that it felt pretty icy out there at times, even more so than when on a bicycle. I bundled up, though.

Okay, so if I wasn’t actually “tough,” perhaps I was a bit crazy. At any rate, I seemed to be more resilient to the cold than I am now. Even then, I wasn’t as tough (or as crazy) as my friend, Cliff, who also putted around on a scooter. He showed up at my door one evening during a snowstorm and seemed disappointed that I had no interest in riding to Cape May to go skating. He was back a few hours later looking much like Dr. Zhivago, with snow in his mustache and eyebrows.

I’m not at all certain how warm it will have to get before I get off my stationary bike and out on the street. Back in the scooter years, I remember deciding that a temperature of 54 degrees F seemed warm enough to throw on a spring jacket and go for a ride in the country. That may be too chilly for me now, even on a bike.

During the bicycle years, the boardwalk was a favorite destination for us, no matter how windy and/or cold it happened to be. Okay, so maybe sometimes it was too windy, or too cold, but not very often. I remember winds strong enough to take us down the boards without doing much pedaling. We considered ourselves fortunate if the winds happened to be out of the north, meaning we’d have a tail wind heading home.

I owned a number of bikes at one time or another, but it gets a bit fuzzy as to what bike I owned at what time. I know that in ’57 or ’58 my uncle sent my name in to a safety slogan contest, and I won a dark green, three-speed Schwinn. He submitted entries for all of us, and I just happened to be the lucky one.

At some point in time, I cannibalized a bike that used to be my brother’s and painted it red and blue, because that’s what color paint I found in the basement. This bike was a Columbia, and used to have a tank, horn, headlight and, believe it or not, turn signals. By the time I put it back into service it had two wheels and possibly a fender or two.

My last bike came from a bike rental place after the season. My dad promised me a bike if I washed dishes at our rooming house. This was the same style as the bike I “won,” but had only one speed. The color was close to iridescent blue.

I rode that bike until I switched to the scooter, meaning I rode it to high school, despite that being “not cool” at the time. I just thought the other kids were stupid for walking instead of riding. One day I intended to ride home for lunch and the bike was missing. It reappeared toward the end of lunch period, and the rider was considerably bigger than I. Instead of saying anything, I simply bought a lock, and that solved the problem.

It’s funny that now it’s okay to ride a bike at any age, unless you happen to be Owl Gore. You know, that guy who rides around in pedal-powered limos after arriving at the airport in a glider. Oops! My research assistant tells me he actually uses a hot air balloon, and provides his own propellant.

I need someone to help me out on this. . . Owl Gore now says that the cold weather proves that global warming is real. This pretty much also explains why the Easter Bunny lays eggs, I suppose.

Global warming knocked out our power for four days and fried the motherboard on my computer. When our hot water ran out, we began to suspect that we had a shortage of carbon dioxide in the home, so we headed for a relative’s house in another city. I tried calling Owl Gore to come shovel out our driveway with a solar-powered snow shovel, but finally had to rely on the city to do the chore. Unfortunately, they used conventional, diesel-powered equipment.

We had no idea that the sun could cause ice to form on electric lines, but that’s apparently what happened.

In other news, global warming alarmists stated that, because the hurricanes never got the memo about increasing in numbers due to global warming, that, what this actually means is that we’ll have fewer hurricanes, but of greater intensity. So far, neither has happened in the past couple of years, but that only proves that whatever these whackos say about global warming and/or climate change is true, whether or not it actually happens. In fact, that something doesn’t happen means that it’s happening, even if the average individual is too stupid to realize it.

This all lends credence to the Clearwater Revival, if nothing else. Just how stupid does one have to be to believe in man-made global warming? That’s a rhetorical question and need not be answered.

Meanwhile, the University of Tennessee has decided to bestow an honorary doctoral degree on Mr. Gore for his “visionary” leadership, probably because he envisions things that aren’t real. They gave Dolly Parton the same honorary degree, so that pretty much sums up the true value of such an award. An online poll taken by knoxnews.com indicates that 97 % of respondents think it’s a bad idea to give Owl Gore this honorary degree. It’s scary that 2% think it’s a good idea.

If the president wants universal health care (read: socialized medicine), he should recruit Owl Gore to write a book and make a movie about it. Apparently, a lot of people will believe anything he says, even with facts to the contrary.

In the latest shocking development, it came out that the same temperature reporting system has been in use for a hundred years. Volunteers send in temperature readings via snail mail. Apparently, many of them don’t follow guidelines with respect to time of day and location of thermometers. They also sometimes forget, or go on vacation and just fill in the forms with numbers they made up. Some thermometers were found to be situated on blacktop, for example, or near incinerators. One in Rome was near an airport runway and was affected by the heat of jet engines. The late senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, New York) once stated, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” This is one of those rare occasions when I agree with something stated by a liberal, at least when taken out of context.

I guess I never thought the global warming alarmists would ever say, “Aha, there’s snow on the ground in all 50 states, so global warming is real!”

Even if carbon dioxide were a greenhouse gas, it’s rather preposterous and presumptuous to think that the 25% or less created by humans could alter the Earth’s climate. Just how does one stop nature from generating the other 75%?

By now, pretty much everyone knows that a killer whale killed a trainer at Sea World in Orlando. The animal grabbed her and thrashed her around until she drowned.

I watched an interview with a former trainer who knew the deceased woman, and she said the trainer would not want anything bad to happen to the whale because of this. She said that the other trainer loved these animals and treated them as if they were her children, which she incidentally, didn’t have. Oh, by the way, this whale had already killed two other people.

That’s one of the problems with some people in modern society – they think animals are the same as humans and should be treated as such.

Most normal individuals wouldn’t spend much time blubbering about what to do – they would already be stocking up on lamp oil. This would not sit well with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which busies itself by ramming Japanese whaling ships with its vessel.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC), placed a moratorium on whaling in 1982, and Japan agreed to its terms in 1986. However, Japan still practices what it calls a “scientific whaling program,” with the purpose of assessing stocks, although this has nothing to do with investing.

So now you’re probably wondering, “What does any of this have to do with the 2010 Olympics”? and you would be right, the two are not vaguely related. Any events featuring whales would be more aptly suited to the summer Olympics.

But this article isn’t about the Olympics, it’s about a page or so longer than it should be.

The point is, we have to stop treating animals the same way we treat people. Unlike humans who kill, animals will sometimes kill again, if given a second chance, or maybe a third chance. Okay, so maybe they are a lot like people in some respects.

It’s my opinion that this creature does not deserve a fourth chance. It never should have been back on the streets after it killed for the second time, and that’s a sad commentary on our judicial system.

This reminds me (with even more tragic circumstances), of Roy Horn, of Siegfried and Roy fame, who said, on his way to the hospital after being bitten by one of his tigers, “Don’t shoot the cat!”

Maybe the duo can start construction on a very large aquarium at their home.

The state of New Jersey keeps trying to pass a bill that would require registration for salt water fishing. The reason for this is so residents of the state won’t have to pay a national fee for a license.

Sometimes I just yearn for the good ole days, when all a kid needed was a fishing pole and some bait. A mother and her son used to stay at our rooming house once a year, and, using just hand lines, caught their fair share of fish.

I did a lot of fishing during my fish cleaning days, meaning before I became a teen. We fished while waiting for the party boats to come in, and caught massive amounts of fish. Many were too small to keep, and we also caught more than our fair share of eels and oyster crackers, which we threw back.

A pint of surf clams back then cost thirty cents, and if we didn’t quite have enough money to buy them, we bought individual clams at the back door of a restaurant for a nickel apiece.

A lot of people fished back then, both from piers, the ends of streets, and from party boats, which were usually crammed to capacity. The only people making money from fishermen were party boats and bait and tackle shops. No one else had their hands out, saying, “Give us some, too!”

The regulators fear overfishing, which is why they think it’s important to register and to pay a fee. The problem is that it’s not the average angler depleting fish populations, it’s the big commercial boats. People demand seafood, and they mostly want to get it from either the supermarket or in restaurants.

It’s way too confusing these days to bother with fishing, at least for me. Each year you need a new chart explaining the sizes of each type of fish, how many you’re allowed to keep, the dates of the open season, and how to measure the fish or shellfish (it’s not always the same for all fish). The chart also explains where you’re allowed to fish for some species, such as the striped bass.

For 2010, the winter flounder season ends on May 21, and the summer flounder season starts on May 23. The recreational fishing person is allowed two winter flounder at twelve inches, and six winter flounder at eighteen inches. You see, I wouldn’t know a winter flounder from a summer flounder even if one was wearing sunglasses and flip-flops and the other was sporting a ski mask. I assume that pretty much the same bait is used for each, but maybe the winter flounder prefer their clam dipped in a cup of hot cocoa. No, don’t write me and tell me that shiners are the best bait for flounder. I’ve caught a bunch of them that way back in the day, although my uncle preferred shedder crab. I don’t know what that has to do with anything, though.

I can’t even identify half the fish they’re catching these days, so it’s a good thing I gave up cleaning them over fifty years ago. The party boats used to bring in a lot of porgy and bass (no, it’s not an opera), as well as spots (Cape May goodies), and ling cod. Now, croakers seem to be all the rage. We were fishing a few years ago in Delaware Bay and kept catching those things. They’re something like miniature drumfish, I guess, because they make a similar noise.

I just might fish some this year, if I can untangle the regulations. Maybe I need to take a laptop with me so I can figure out which ones I can keep. That 30-cent pint of clams is now up around five dollars, and that would be about right, except it’s considerably less than a pint these days. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was a chance of catching something I could legally keep. Anyway, I don’t have to worry about fishing for awhile now, because the woodchuck has made his prediction and we’ll have six more weeks of winter.

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, 2010, and we all know the significance of that date. That’s when the wild boars come out of hibernation in the ground to check out the weather. Wait. . . my research assistant just informed me that they’re not really pigs and can be eaten by people of all meat-eating religions. I’m glad we got that cleared up!

Actually, only one groundhog of importance comes out of its hole, and that happens to be in Punxutawney, Pennsylvania, and it doesn’t really come out on its own, but is yanked out by someone dressed up in a suit, including, of all things, a top hat. I suppose that differs somehow from a bottom hat. Well, there are other notable groundhogs, including General Lee in Lilburn, Georgia.

The important thing to note is that if the groundhog in question sees its shadow when it comes out, it gets scared and goes back in its hole, thus predicting six more weeks of winter. If it doesn’t see its shadow it remains out of its hole and is likely to be eaten by a nearby predator. That somehow signifies an early spring. The predictions gathered from the various groundhogs of note have proven, through the years, to be about as accurate as the local five- or ten-day forecast from your favorite weather prognosticator.

The groundhog is also known as a woodchuck. This is because the old ditty, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, etc.” just wouldn’t sound right if you used “groundhog.” Try it: “How much wood would a groundhog chuck if a groundhog would chuck wood?” As you can see, it makes no sense at all, thus someone came up with an alternate name to fit in the ditty, or whatever the heck it is. It would be interesting to see how much wood a woodchuck would chuck if someone knew what chucking was, but there’s still no guarantee that the woodchuck would do it even if it knew what it was, or had that capability. Who knows? Who cares?

In more important business, Morey’s Piers is putting up a “mystery ride” on Mariner’s Landing this year. It’s hard to say why it’s such a big secret.

As kids we made frequent trips to the boards on our bikes during the winter. Nothing they erected during those times ever escaped our observations. I remember us watching the test run of The Wild Mouse, on Marine Pier, now named Mariner’s Landing. A worker wearing a hard hat took the first ride, and he waved, but not necessarily to us. I would check out the mystery ride on my bike, except I’m not sure what the woodchuck’s prediction will be. I may have to wait six more weeks, and maybe by then they’ll be finished replacing this year’s block of boardwalk.

They’re also proposing a new roller coaster to run on two piers, with a suspension bridge between the piers. A preliminary model was unveiled a year ago, when they held the Golden Nugget farewell thing. It will be a couple of years before they even start building this coaster. They say the estimated cost is $10 million. I guess they’ll have a hard time getting their tax assessments reduced, as they did in the past, now that we know the real value of just one coaster. Well, maybe it qualifies as two coasters. . .

Personally, I preferred the old days, when tickets were a nickel apiece and a book of 24 tickets for each pier cost a dollar. Now they pretty much expect you to buy into the theme park “ride all day” scenario. If you want to go on only one ride, it’s almost cost prohibitive.

The Morey family has bought all the piers and eliminated the competition, so they can do pretty much whatever they want. This is supposed to be better, sort of like a big funnel connected to all the piers and channeling all the money into one big bin, at least figuratively speaking. Now they’re also adding fancy bars and restaurants to some of the piers.

In the past, one person or family never controlled everything, but some had more influence than others. William C. Hunt owned Hunt’s Pier, the Starlight Ballroom, The Wildwood Leader (a weekly newspaper), and all the movie theaters on the island. His sons, Bud and Guy eventually took over the operations, and eventually everything was sold to others.

Gil Ramagosa owned the Casino Arcade, Sportland Pier, Sportland Pool, the boardwalk tram cars, and Five Mile Beach Electric Railway, meaning the city bus system, which was not electric once the trolleys were removed. The buses were reliable in that they ran every day, mostly along Pacific Avenue, but walking was often faster. The tram cars ran along the boardwalk, conveniently between Sportland Pier and the Arcade. The only pier shut out from the service was Fun Pier, at the south end of the boardwalk.

Ramagosa’s company also manufactured amusement rides, but the track record on safety wasn’t that great. Several fatalities occurred on a few of his rides, including the Up ‘n’ Atom (later renamed the Flying Fish), the Meteor monorail roller coaster, and the Mars dark ride. The latter was tragic in that three children died in a fire when they were unable to get out of the building after the ride stopped. The only good thing that came out of this was that a new law required all doors in dark rides to open from both directions.

One owner for all piers can be a good thing, however, and it seems that the Moreys care about both safety and appearance for the piers. All that’s left to do now is to wait for the groundhog to unravel the secrets of the mystery ride.

What is it with these traffic lights on the island (especially in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest) that have no apparent usefulness during the winter months?

The environmentalists scream about the amount of gasoline Americans use, and we on the island spend so much of our precious time sitting at traffic lights, with our engines burning gas and spewing out exhaust!

It wouldn’t be so bad if there were a chance an actual vehicle might come through the light in the opposite direction, but the odds of that happening are just slightly better than hitting the lottery.

The timing sequence of the lights are little more than someone’s bad joke. None of this could have occurred by happenstance. After stopping at one red light, the one at the next intersection will turn red before you can negotiate your vehicle over the rugged terrain! Back in the 60’s the lights on New Jersey Avenue were sequentially timed for a certain speed, but only in one direction. Many of those signals were removed, and now the timing is spotty at best.

That however, brings us to another winter island phenomenon: the magically appearing ghost car. Pretty much whenever you pull up to a stop sign during the winter, a car will be coming, usually a half block away, but no other vehicles will be in sight in either direction! The roads here are very straight and flat, so it’s easy to see for at least a mile in each direction. Go to the next stop sign, and another ghost car will appear. I sometimes wonder if some people have the job of sitting in their cars near intersections and waiting for a vehicle to appear at the cross road. . . Yes, I might be a bit paranoid, except that the ghost cars never appear at intersections that have traffic signals.

I think the last Christmas snowflake may have finally melted. A few days ago some were still shining brightly, sort of like the mayor and commissioner who were governing when the decorations were put up.

It will be interesting to see what the new regime does about the streets. Will the sponsors of the Baja 500 start a five-mile version on the island? Will someone in the road department finally figure out that when an opening in a street is patched, it should be made level with the rest of the street? The latter seems highly unlikely.

Besides the deplorable condition of the streets and roads on the island, and the unnecessary traffic signals, I also commend the designers of the traffic lanes. I’m particularly fond of how lanes suddenly run out, sort of Surekill Expressway style. Park Boulevard at 26th Avenue is a great example. Suddenly a driver finds that two lanes suddenly became one! The same thing occurs at New Jersey and 26th , but without the left turning lane. On New Jersey, nothing warns the driver about the change – he or she just has to figure it out.

For some reason, several of the main drag streets in North Wildwood never aligned with those in Wildwood, for the most part. The aforementioned Park Boulevard in Wildwood misaligns with Delaware Avenue in North Wildwood. Central, 26th, and Pacific Avenues form a shining example of disaster planning. If you can figure out who has the right-of-way after stopping, please let me know. And what’s that four-way stop on Pacific all about? Is that for the parade of traffic coming from the water park on Schellenger Avenue? Or maybe from the steady stream of diners fleeing Schellenger’s Landing?
Neither attraction is even open during the winter months.

Another misalignment occurs at Ocean Avenue in Wildwood where it doesn’t meet Surf Avenue in North Wildwood. Last year the powers that be exacerbated the situation with the new design for Surf. Ocean Avenue in North Wildwood bears no resemblance (or alignment) with Ocean Avenue in Wildwood. Go figure.

I suppose we’re all waiting with bated breath for the LED lights that will crisscross Pacific Avenue after the next phase of bright ideas. If the ones strung up haphazardly during the holidays were intended as a sampling, thanks, but no thanks. . .

Google Earth Street View now covers a lot of territory, including the Wildwoods and other places in South Jersey. Check it out – you just might see yourself, or at least your humble abode.

Being civic minded, I took my vehicle to a local repair shop. My first clue should have been that “Anglesea Auto Repair” is not in Anglesea, by about fourteen blocks. On the other hand, I also happened to know the owner, the brother of my late sister’s best friend. All I wanted was a new alternator, but he phoned me later and told me the vehicle needed all new belts.

After subtracting the AAA discount and adding the acquaintance penalties, the bill came to somewhat more than I expected, but it also seemed to be a bit higher than my math results showed. I surmised that my figures were probably in error, being that I’m a retired structural engineer, and know little about math, but nonetheless, I called the owner back, just to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake.

Actually, the problem was that he forgot to mention the “Tourism and Development” tax, which piggybacks the normal sales tax. He said this would be $24.65. This is to ensure that the municipality has adequate funds for the convention center, which hardly benefits year-round residents. I read the details of the technical bulletin, which indicated that auto repair shops are not considered a type of business subject to this particular tax. It also stated that the tax is two percent.

There is, however, a stipulation that a municipality can impose the tax on certain businesses not subject to the tax. In other words, if a type of business is exempt, it can be taxed anyway, meaning that it’s not exempt, even though it is. Right. . .

In order to clarify the intent of the law, and to ascertain why I should not take my vehicle out of town to be repaired, thus avoiding the additional tax, I called the North Wildwood city clerk, who said I should call the clerk’s office in Wildwood, which suggested calling the Wildwood Convention Center. The gentleman there stated that auto repair businesses pay a flat rate of $300.00 per year, which should not be passed on to the consumer.

When I picked up my vehicle, the owner of the shop said the tourism fee was listed as “shop supplies.” I told him I wanted it to show what he said it was, so he wrote, “Greater Wildwood Torism[sic] Devel Act.” He also charged me $6.80 for “hazardous materials,” and I asked him what that meant, being that he gave me the old belts to take with me. He said it was for disposal of rags and stuff, or something to that effect. Not that I suspected at this point that he wasn’t being entirely truthful, but I harbored some suspicions that it doesn’t cost him $6.80 to throw away a rag. Nonetheless, he said that the tourism tax was three percent, not two. Here we get into more fuzzy math. If $24.65 is three percent of the bill, then the total bill should have been $821.67, but again, what do I know? The total bill before discounts was supposedly $614.01, and was $555.75 after applying the discount, but before adding the sales tax. With 7 percent sales tax, the total is $594.65. No matter what percentage I use, I am unable to come up with a figure of $24.65, whether I use two, three, or four percent.

I have since learned that a state tax official is interested in knowing more about the fee that the shop owner is charging, and is wondering whether or not he’s actually making money from a tax he doesn’t have to pay. At any rate, she assured me that she will get a refund for me, if he is indeed charging for the tourism tax.

At this point, it’s still undecided as to who is the more stupid person, he or I? I’m going to go with him for now, while I await the final outcome. In the meantime, if you happen to live in the area and need your vehicle repaired, get in touch with me, and I’ll be happy to put in a good word for you with the shop owner. On the other hand, perhaps if he doesn’t know you, you might get a better deal. . . Or, you could just opt for a reputable repair shop.

Here we go again. Not content with starting an entire millennium a year early, the newspapers, sportscasters, and some other public figures have started touting the beginning of a “new decade.” One of the announcers of the first bowl game of the year said it was the first football game of the new decade. A newspaper in Florida just announced that identical twins were born in different decades.

What is it with people who keep compounding errors until almost everyone believes that the wrong thing is right? The year thing started when Bill Clinton insisted on being the “New Millennium President,” even though his reign in the twenty-first century lasted only a bit more than nineteen days.

Years work just like any other set of objects that can be divided into decades. Rosary beads are an excellent example. A set consists of five decades, separated by a single bead between each decade. Ignoring the separator beads, the first decade begins with the first bead and ends with the tenth. The second decade begins with the eleventh bead. That’s right, count them if you’re not sure. Ergo, the second decade of the second millennium (which started on January 1, 2001, after 2000 years were completed) begins on January 1, 2011. This isn’t something that’s debatable, because facts aren’t fodder for argument.

People often confuse facts with theories. It’s okay to be skeptical of theories, unless those theories are proven. Then they become facts. I’ve known individuals who look at me funny when I tell them that gold is considerably heavier than lead, and that platinum is heavier than gold. This isn’t a theory I worked out, and it’s not an opinion, but a fact. One person looked up the atomic weight of each and declared me wrong, although the atomic weight has nothing to do with the density, or actual mass of the material.

Man-made global warming, or climate change, is a theory; and even though it can’t be proven, supporters don ski masks and shout that it’s true to the shivering masses gathered on the frozen town squares. Right now, with the wind chill at fifteen degrees, I’d be more inclined to believe the ice age sycophants from the 1970s. Sadly, we’re going to pay a heavy financial price based solely on opinions concerning climate change.

Evolution is another theory, but supporters have succeeded in having it taught as an exclusive truth in schools in many states. No one has successfully explained why cave men evolved as humans, while the many species of monkeys remained as the apes they have always been.

Nor has anyone shown how a cross in the Mojave Desert, or The Ten Commandments in a courthouse, or a Nativity scene on a city-owned property means that congress has passed a law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free practice thereof. Show me the law and I’ll shut up. Someday maybe we’ll get all this right, but right now, many of us are nothing more than voices in the wilderness.

According to an article in the local paper, some guy is concerned that certain migratory birds are arriving in the area sooner than expected. He attributes this to man-made global warming, or climate change, depending on circumstances. This dude has way too much time on his hands.

Birds don’t make reservations for their accommodations, so they pretty much show up whenever they please. Most of the shore birds I’ve observed in this area are pretty laid back. Laughing gulls, for example, seem to prefer snatching French fries or pizza crusts from unsuspecting people strolling the boardwalk, rather than actually catching a fish. Maybe that’s why they leave along with the tourists. Maybe this guy is used to birds with OCD, such as the swallows that return to Capistrano with punctuality, at least for the movie.

The GLOWARMS, or Global Warming Alarmists, will point to anything in attempting to justify their nonexistent claims. Just the other day, I saw one pointing to a fire extinguisher, and shouting that it was responsible for releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I engaged in my own pointing by pointing out that the whole idea of the device is to release carbon dioxide in order to put out a fire, which would release even more CO2 if it were allowed to continue burning. Not to mention the fact (not theory) that carbon dioxide is NOT a harmful greenhouse gas, so I won’t.

A few weeks ago, some supposed scientists said they spent the summer measuring Arctic sea ice, and that in 10 or 20 (or maybe a few million) years, the Arctic Ocean will be an ocean, or words to that effect. It has happened before, during the time of the Vikings, and they’re still around, living in Minnesota.

Now the UN and the EPA are attempting to get us to believe in man-mad climate change, while ignoring the fact that thousands of emails prove that the numbers have been fudged. They claim that this will be the warmest decade ever, even though temperatures have steadily dropped for the past two decades.

Anyway, these experts claim that the melting sea ice will raise water levels, and New York City will become a modern-day Atlantis. Not so. Sea ice is already floating, and its melting will not raise water levels at all. Land-based ice could raise sea levels, if the ice thawed, at least theoretically, but there’s a lot of water in the connected oceans. The real threat is not from melting ice, but from building cities below sea level, protected by inadequate dikes and levees. Yes, as in New Orleans.

These people tell us we’re going to have too much water, and in the same breath, tell us water is disappearing. Neither is true – we have the same amount of water we’ve always had – it just shows up in different places at different times.

They’ve expanded their search for water to the moon, and claim they’ve found it. A news report stated that Perrier and Evian are now engaged in a rocket-building race. Can the Arabs be far behind? Actually, the water is presently in the form of ice, but it will soon melt due to man-made lunar warming. Or is it climate change? I’m not sure.

Speaking of not being sure, why is it that it took about six years to figure out how to put people on the moon, using now antiquated equipment, but the second time around will take more than twelve years?

Most of the laughing gulls don’t hang around for the shoulder seasons, citing a severe decrease in the boardwalk food supply, but a few diehards hang around for awhile. Most of the ospreys abandoned their nests, leaving the evergreen decorations behind. Perhaps they’ll visit for Christmas. Egrets are still in abundance.

Wildwood couldn’t seem to figure out its budget, apparently thinking the local purpose tax increase was more than it should have been. The state intervened and said that was the correct amount to cover all the silly spending. The mayor said that the state should pay the increase. He apparently doesn’t understand that the city, not the state, owes the money. He said he’s waiting for high rises to eventually save the day. Some of us believe that high rises will not only not save the day, but will destroy the character of the island, or at least what’s left of it. How long before a new bank of motels replaces the near-empty condos facing foreclosures?

A citizen suggested that the city could raise revenue by putting a toll booth on the George Redding bridge, or charging beach fees, or charging to go on the boardwalk. This sort of goes against all the advertising about Wildwood being free, but let’s take a closer look.

The toll bridge is such a great idea, it’s unclear why no ever thought of it before! Just what the island needs – a sure fire way to clog 147 into North Wildwood! The only people taking the existing toll bridges on Ocean Drive off the island are first-timers unaware that there’s no toll coming the other way. Traffic backs up on 47 whenever some little boat with a big antenna asks for the bridge to be raised. Imagine coupling that with a toll booth. No, don’t. . .

It’s also a sure shot that people would delight in paying to go on the boardwalk and then pay jacked-up food prices, as well as the high prices on the amusement piers. There would be few people left to watch the tram cars.

What about the beach fees? Well, I suppose the Crest and North Wildwood beaches have enough space to handle everyone except the two or three idiots stupid enough to buy a Wildwood beach tag. We need to bring in more forward-thinking residents such as this lady.

Wildwood plans to replace another block or two of boardwalk, and we can probably expect months of dickering over what material to use. Ipe is the preferred wood, because of its durability, but some environmental groups insist that it must be certified. Something about preservation, or regeneration, I suppose. I understand their concerns about the rain forests, but whether certified or uncertified, the trees have already been cut down. If the wood isn’t used somewhere, how does not using it help? I suppose we’re facing another partial winter of detouring off the boards on our bikes, but the boardwalk repairs are long overdue.

This year’s big festivals are over, at least in North Wildwood. The Italian Festival is next week, but in Wildwood. Pretty soon we’ll be able to start celebrating the off season. Nobody comes to the shore for Thanksgiving except residents and relatives.