Culture – Page 2 – Writing New Jersey Life

Category: Culture

“The New York Botanical Garden, Always in Bloom”

On January 23, 2018

In Architecture, Culture, Science, Travel

Haupt Conservatory with clear blue sky and frozen aquatic pool on a beautiful January day. The pool is home to water lilies in warmer weather.

Haupt Conservatory at the Holiday Train Show

The Brooklyn Bridge and a top tier train track

“Do anything, but let it produce joy.” Poet Walt Whitman, with links to both New Jersey and New York, advised as well as inspired with this thought from Leaves of Grass. The delighted faces of visitors year-round at the New York Botanical Garden convey the success of the dedication of the staff. The popular annual Holiday Train Show with New York City landmarks, created by Paul Busse of Applied Imagination, is a family tradition for many. The festive décor at both the NYBG and Haupt Conservatory entrances signals immediate welcome. Within the conservatory, host to the train show, visitors travel from wonder to wonder.

The NYBG, located near Fordham University in the Bronx, is magnificent. Though the 250-acres that comprise the garden are vast and impressive, the expanse creates a warm atmosphere through the beautiful landscape design. Features of the New York City Botanical Garden include: the Haupt Conservatory, 1902, a New York City Landmark, 50 gardens, including the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, a Japanese rock garden, an herb garden, a waterfall, an original 50-acre forest that contains Native American hunting trails, a herbarium, which houses plant specimens, a plant research laboratory, the Stone Mill, 1840, a city and National Historic Landmark, and the Beaux-Arts style LuEsther T. Mertz Library, 1901, the most extensive botanical research library in the United States where Thomas Edison once researched. First-time visitors may find that the garden looks familiar. Hester Bridge was in the opening credits of the 1970’s “Sesame Street” and scenes from “Gotham,” “Salt,” and “Awakenings” were filmed here, fun notes shared in an AM New York interview for NYBG’s 125th anniversary two years ago. With flowers and plants both local and from around the world, spending the day here gives one the feeling of having had a genuine getaway.

Trains run through a display of the Midtown display with the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the General Electric Building, Chrysler Building, and St. Bartholomew’s Church made from all natural materials like bark, twigs, acorns, stones, and leaves.

The canopy above the Midtown display

The New York Public Library

Yankee Stadium

Bethesda Fountain and Bow Bridge, Central Park

The Jewish Museum

Edith and Ernesto Fabbri House, now “The House of the Redeemer” of the Episcopal Church and the Lycee Francais de New York and ladybug train

Little Red Lighthouse, 1880, underneath the George Washington Bridge

An overview of the garden’s background includes vision and common purpose which continues through today: “research, education, and horticulture”. Founded in 1891, the NYBG is a National Historic Landmark with a mission to educate as a “living museum”. Nathaniel Lord Britton, a botanist at Columbia University and his wife Elizabeth, inspired by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, joined with the Torrey Botanical Club to raise funds to have a similar garden for Americans to enjoy. Through the New York governor and state legislature, the city acquired the land and Calvert Vaux, the co-architect of Central Park, selected the site and designed the first plan with his partner Samuel Parsons, Jr., Superintendent of Parks. The Haupt Conservatory, designed by Lord & Burnham, who created iconic conservatories throughout the US like the Orchid Range at Duke Farms, is similar to The Palm House at Kew Gardens which had impressed the Brittons. These dedicated botanists encouraged scientific research and publishing, which led to the renown of the NYBG as a research institution today. Initial board members and contributors included famous names from US history: J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie.

Front view of Haupt Conservatory

With a thought towards other shows, like the upcoming annual Orchid Show, March 3rd-April 22nd, and the major exhibit, “Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai’i,” May 19-October 28th, NYBG provides scheduled ticketing to avoid overcrowding. Though the train show was well-attended, viewing was enjoyable. Visitors were considerate about letting each other snap photos, livestream, and take in the incredible displays. The train show, the “All Aboard with Thomas and Friends” sing-along, and “Evergreen Express” formed the holiday triple crown for children’s fun. Currently, “Wintertime Wonders” at the Discovery Center offers children creative learning about plants and wildlife that includes the start of a field journal for young naturalists. “Wild Medicines in the Tropics” is on in the conservatory through February 25th and “Out of the Woods: Celebrating Trees in Public Gardens” by the American Society of Botanical Artists is on exhibit through April 22nd. Concerts, poetry readings, lectures, home gardening, a farmers’ market (June-November) and event weekends like Rose Garden Celebration occur year-round. Valentine’s Day this year features personal poems written by professional poets in tours highlighting the “romance” of the collection.

Victorian Palm Court

Fountain by French artist J. J. Dugal, 1898

NYBG’s adult education program “is the largest and most diverse continuing education program at any botanical garden in the world” with 9,400 plus classes and community outreach throughout New York City. For the more casual visitor, a wonderful guide on the NYBG website is “What’s Beautiful Now” capturing not-to-be-missed highlights of each season like the Conifer Arboretum and the Ornamental Conifers, though you may enjoy taking one of the daily tours. For those who wish to spend the day, there is the family-friendly Pine Tree Café and The New York Times-reviewed Hudson Garden Grill, both supporting the garden.

Beaux-Arts Mertz Library by Robert W. Gibson gleams in afternoon winter light. In front is the Fountain of Life by Charles E. Tefft.

Helpful hints: When visiting a garden longer than 14 city blocks, bring good walking shoes or boots. A free tram regularly runs to create accessibility to the grounds. NYBG is directly accessible by public transportation and is only 20 minutes by train from Grand Central Station. Parking is cash only. The grounds are free to the public on Wednesdays and from 9-10 a.m. on Saturdays. New York City residents with proof of residency may receive a special rate for a grounds only pass as part of the IDNYC program. NYBG also participates in New York City Getaways program, Cool Culture, and Blue Star Museums (Memorial to Labor Day) as well as complimentary admission to American Horticultural Society and other garden and museum members. AAA, WNET Channel THIRTEEN members, Fordham University, and Yankee Stadium tour tickets also bring discounts. For more details on eligibility, events, and ways to support, visit: nybg.org. (Sources: nybg.org, tclf.org, amny.com, nyc.gov, nytimes.com, thirteen.com, smithsonian.com, tripadvisor.com, Wiki).

Mertz Library interior

Orchids, Mertz Library

“Cape May at Christmas”

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On December 23, 2017

In Culture, Family, History, Lifestyle, Travel

Carriage House at Emlen Physick Estate

Heading downashore in off hours usually guarantees that at rest stops, one will avoid that quintessentially New Jersey phenomena in the most densely crowded state, the buddy park. This is when the driver feels compelled to pull right up next to your car in an empty parking lot the size of an arena – and then bang his or her car door open directly into yours in such a familiar way that the lively, “Hey, buddy!” wave and grin as he blithely exits his car and dashes away leaves one wondering whether this is subconscious bonding or just plain obnoxiousness. Awhile back, West Orange’s Kyrie Irving either posted on Instagram or liked a hilarious photo of two cars on the NJ Turnpike trying to go through a toll booth at once. For the most part, getting along well in a relatively small space gives New Jerseyans an enviable flexibility of character.

Dazzling gazebo tree

Winter light view on the way, Cape May Light, Cape May Point State Park – with a spacious parking lot 😉

Cape May MAC welcome at Emlen Physick Estate

Counterpoint to the familiar assertiveness is the quiet kindness that you will find among those in the Garden State. The kindness may be a warm welcome such as the one visitors received on the Christmas Candle Light Tour in Cape May this December. The atmosphere in Cape May during the tour is like one big open house. The town-proud Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts sponsors a number of holiday tours as well as lamplighter tours with its anchor in the stately Emlen Physick Estate and Carriage House, adorned beautifully for the holidays and warmed by guides and carolers. The historic sites, inns, homes, and churches are so many that you will want to return to enjoy them all as did our grandparents over a lifetime from their honeymoon destination to summertime pleasure whenever they could make the then day-long journey from Newark. Our grandfather, born on Christmas Eve, would have claimed that the decorations were for him, a favorite joke come birthday time.

Historic inns of Cape May on the tour included The Harrison Inn (tall, middle) with a thank you for the long-time Instagram follow.

Our Lady Star of the Sea

Joy in the details, Congress Hall

A present-day parallel delight is the Winter Wonderland at historic Congress Hall, breathtaking in its charm. An endearing aspect of the hotel that distinguishes it from some fellow iconic ones is that visitors are also warmly welcomed. The lobby, shops, café, spa, and restaurants are available for everyone to enjoy year-round, underscored at the holidays with the carousel, holiday train, and Winter Wonderland village of vendors. The candy cane-lined hallway, elegantly simple, was a joyful welcome for every visitor and a cell phone photo-snapping sensation.

Rejoining the tour and wrapping up the evening on a recent visit, Cape May MAC trolleys and buses were available to complement the walk. One guide was so modest in her kindness that it was not clear at first. She had asked the driver to stop to see if any tour members were left behind at one of the homes, her errand requiring a walk of some distance in the cold. Her thoughtfulness was a good reminder to relinquish my New York Metro area dweller’s focus on “the schedule”. Returning to my car later, the only rival to the beauty of evening was above me. In that clear cold of winter was the panorama of the Shore night sky with stars like diamonds cast across black velvet. At this time of year, it is the star of hope and humility that shines the brightest. May it light all paths joyfully as we celebrate the Lord’s birth.

Thank you to all for a wonderful visit. For more information, please see Cape May MAC, Congress Hall, Our Lady Star of the Sea. Additional source: excerpt from The Moral Quandary of Heels © 2013 Kathleen Helen Levey.

Kindly check for more photos later as we dash away, dash away all to ready for Christmas! 🎄

A Cape May fairy tale

Winter Wonderland market at Congress Hall

“Remembrance Day”

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On November 11, 2017

In Culture, History, Travel, US History

Red poppies “Honor the Dead by Helping the Living”. On travels, met a veteran selling the poppy flowers to raise money for his fellow veterans. People passed by him, unfortunately, because they did not know what the flowers meant. With the observation of the 100th anniversary of World War I this year and Remembrance Day in Commonwealth Countries, sharing again the story of their origin in that war.

Red poppies grew on battlefields of World War I, striking amidst rows of white crosses for the many lost lives. Moved by grief, Canadian Colonel John McCrae, a surgeon with Canada’s First Brigade Artillery, wrote a poem “In Flanders Field,” which resounded around the world. Through the work of Anna E. Guerin, France, and Moina Michael, Georgia (US), the sale of artificial poppies helped orphans and others impoverished by the war. By 1920 the American Legion assisted and the “Flowers of Remembrance” were sold throughout the US, Canada, Britain France, Australia, and New Zealand. To expand the support, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) began to sell the “Buddy Poppy” nationally right before Memorial Day in 1922, and this became their memorial flower. Donations help support veterans and the families of those who have died in service.

As you may have seen in ceremonies and exhibits in the news, the United Kingdom has revitalized this recognition. The VFW got a trademark for the “Buddy Poppy” to safeguard that proceeds do indeed go to the veterans who assemble them, veterans’ rehabilitation, related programs, and in part, the VFW National Home for Children. (Sources: VFW.org, VA.gov, Wiki) Photo from Frelinghuysen Arboretum, Morris Township, NJ.

“Highlights of the John Basilone Parade”

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On November 11, 2017

In Culture, History, Travel, US History

Raritan’s annual parade in Sergeant Basilone’s honor each September is a proud event with many veterans and Marines participating. The link below leads to video of the tossed-candy fun at this year’s parade along Somerset Street. The children, all delightful in this year’s crowd, are mostly off-frame, but they were even sweeter. Our mother, who attended for many years, exclaimed when hearing this, “It’s a first-rate parade if they’re giving out candy!” In the generous spirit of Sergeant John Basilone, his family, and the local communities, the borough invites everyone to attend.

D71CE420-581E-448B-AD13-8F0109C2A62D

and sports cars escorting veterans and honorees:

Donald Basilone, Sgt. Basilone’s youngest brother

Andy Martin, Silver Star, Vietnam

Herb Patullo, Grand Marshall

Though the parade itself is light-hearted, the banners along the route honoring the 23 other young men from Raritan who gave their lives in service in World War II are reminders of the parade’s purpose. These banners are present in towns and cities throughout New Jersey. Sergeant Basilone, born in Buffalo, New York, grew up here with these other servicemen.

Donald Basilone, youngest brother of John Basilone, poses below with US Marines and service members beneath the statue of his brother John, created by John’s boyhood friend Philip Orlando. Sergeant Basilone was the only enlisted US Marine to receive the Navy Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor. “The Greatest Generation,” of which John Basilone was a part, was also a modest one. Our family friend, a fellow Marine who was in the first wave at Iwo Jima when Sergeant Basilone was killed after rescuing others, attended the parade annually until he became too ill. Like Sergeant Basilone, he would be the first to say that each generation that serves deserves our gratitude. A proud father attending the event shared that Sergeant Basilone had inspired his son, who had reenlisted in the Marines and come from a distance to participate in the parade and reenactment.

The ceremony included remarks by Donald Basilone and this year’s guest speaker Lt. General Richard Mills. The Basilone Parade Committee members, all volunteers, honored Herb Patullo, a US Navy veteran and lifelong Bound Brook resident, as Grand Marshall this year. Mr. Patullo, a dedicated supporter of the parade, attended the original one for Sergeant Basilone on September 19, 1943. The parade continues each September on the Sunday closet to the original John Basilone Day. Next year’s parade is on September 23rd.

The wreath-laying ceremony at Sergeant Basilone’s statute followed with the Marines’ reenactment of the flag raising at Mount Suribachi after the Battle of Iwo Jima was won. On the birthday of the US Marines yesterday, November 10th, the museum hosted @52Museums on Instagram. The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, VA near Quantico, which also honors Sergeant Basilone, has the original flag raised at Mount Suribachi, captured in the photograph by Joe Rosenthal. Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley is an incredible book on the subject.

The Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh-Essex County marching in the John Basilone Parade, Raritan, New Jersey playing the “Marines’ Hymn,” part of the wonderful music in the parade.

St. Ann’s of Hampton

John Basilone Honor Platoon

Marine Corps League #1234, Manville/Somerville

Marine Corps bulldog mascot shielded from the heat

Along the Raritan riverbank, pictured below. The first annual Patriotic Art Show debuted nearby with tents and tables with concessions and music by Raritan musicians Tommy Grasso & the Spins. Artists interested in showing their work next year may contact: (908) 581-1917.

In updating information for posting, found articles about John Basilone’s impact as far away as San Diego, where the San Diego Tribune writes faithfully about him. Stationed at Camp Pendleton, John married his wife Lena Mae Riggi, a Marine sergeant in the Women’s Reserve, in Oceanside, California. The lovely “Piazza Basilone,” dedicated in 2003 with a bust of Sergeant Basilone, is at the heart of San Diego’s Little Italy. Both locals and tourists enjoy relaxing there daily.

Intermingled with the happy and the casual in the piazza are the grateful. One article noted that a man sitting on a bench had tears in his eyes and shared that John Basilone had saved his life. At the Battle of Guadalcanal alone, Sergeant Basilone’s bravery in holding the line was responsible for saving several thousand US servicemen, an incredible legacy of which New Jerseyans can be proud. If you have not attended the parade, think about going next year. The parade, which brings the warmth of John Basilone’s personality in his absence, has a wonderful atmosphere where everyone is welcome.

An added note that HBO is airing “The Pacific” this weekend with Clifton’s Jon Seda, a former parade grand marshal, as Sgt. Basilone.

Posted on Veterans Day with thanks to all veterans, active military, parade planners and participants who help the parade continue. For those who would like to support the parade with a donation, kindly mail a check to: John Basilone Memorial Parade Committee, c/o Borough of Raritan, 22 First Street, Raritan, NJ 08869. Thank you.

(Additional sources: John Basilone Parade (FB), Raritan-online.com, sandiegotribune.com, littleitalysd.com, Wiki)

“Edison” from “The Moral Quandary of Heels”

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On November 7, 2017

In Culture, Family, Lifestyle, Travel

…[Jay Reilly] dared to go bending round his accustomed comfort zone when he was a business exchange student at OP Jindal University. The stalwart wiffle ball player…found himself at the literature festival in the heart of the Pink City of Jaipur one weekend afternoon. Ducking into a matinee, he met “my Aishyrwara” from the Goa seaside and visual poetry became a permanent part of his life.

Keya and Rory grew up in the glow of possibilities under the gleaming “Eternal Light” atop the Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower, a beacon [commemorating] invention in the Menlo Park neighborhood of Edison, the site of Thomas Edison’s first research center where the light bulb was perfected for everyday use. Nearby they played soccer and went ice skating in the winter with Tata on the sloping green of Roosevelt Park and fished there at the lake in the spring with Pop Reilly. When Pop shared his increasingly incredible fishing tales, Tata joined the siblings in their refrain, “Oh, really, O’Reilly?”. Sometimes, the two grandfathers took them on outings together to argue politics and smoke cigars when no one was looking, a vice on which they wholeheartedly agreed.

In the secret, fun ways that siblings have while growing up, Keya and Rory formed their bond by stealing away quietly to shred the curves at Edison Skate Park. When school was out, the sister and brother loved summering at Island Beach State Park with its powdery dunes like mirroring Earthly clouds. They had acquired the penchant of Jersey Shore locals for collecting tee shirts from every fundraising walk, marathon, and shore event in which they participated. The both egalitarian and orderly duo characteristically enjoyed alphabetizing their growing collection, sharing their bounty and adventures via social media. Like Sundance Film Festival vendors who handed out swag to social media stars for instant free advertising, Shore promoters realized the value of the brother and sister’s nearly 300,000 followers. They began to shower the two with tees, but the siblings would vouch for only those events that they had experienced themselves, evidenced by enthusiastic selfies or more often photos of other participants. They [posted] about festival highlights culminating in an annual prose poem on September 30^th, the birthday of Union City and Princeton University boy, W.S. Merwin, former Poet Laureate and their spiritual twin in his love of poetry and ecology:

“Festivals” or #Downashore #Seeyoulateralligator

Swinging synergy, the Asbury Park & Red Bank jazz and country fests,
the Barnegat Bay Festival via Belmar’s Seafood Festival,
the Bradley Beach Lobster Fest and Brigantine Sand Castles,
car shows, classic and non, in Atlantic Highlands, Beach Haven, Cape May, Ocean City, Ocean Grove, Seaside Heights, Tuckerton, and Wildwood, all,
to follow summer…
Then taking in Fair Haven Day,
Keyport Jazz & Blues and Keansburg Gratitude,
the Lakewood Blue Claws annual tee shirt giveaway :),
Lavalette’s Christmas in July,
Long Branch’s 4th of July Oceanfest,
the Manasquan Classic Longboard Surfing Contest, and
Margate City’s Beachstock, celebrated.
The iconic Miss America and Miss New Jersey pageants,
North Wildwood blues and the NJ Devils Point Pleasant Beach Bash bands
and the harmony of Ocean’s Township’s Italian Festival
all synced with the rhythm of Ocean County Bluegrass and Sea Bright’s Dunesday.
Sea Isle City’s Irish Festival Weekend graced by the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh,
bringing smiles, while the Shadow of the City concert in Seaside Heights
rocks on to the Spring Lake South End Surf Contest and 5K,
and the Wildwood Crest Sand Sculpting Festival.
Finally, the fall ProPlayer Football Camp and Charity Game in Toms River,
All forming the seasonal bouquet.

The college-bound siblings, serious sentinels who appreciated both the power and the beauty of the sea, guarded their fellow ocean lovers faithfully as substitute lifeguards in their most-prized tees with red crosses while working their way down the coast that year in a commemoration of the season. Serene blue skies enlivened with aerial banners like “Come n’ play with DJ Ray Thursday Nite” met summer’s lingering twilight along the coast. The twins’ sometime inland ventures included seeing the Quixotic balloonists at their fancied New Jersey Cappadocia, the Festival of Balloons at Solberg Airport in Hunterdon County. The sunset “balloon glow” like a horizon of celestial fireflies was an inspiring scene in the tradition of aviator Thor Solberg’s first solo flight to Norway after he practiced blindfolded to prepare for traversing the heavens.

Off duty, Keya and Rory crossed wide beaches and swam until in their dreams at night they still felt the lulling sensation of the waves, their bedroom windows cast wide open for there was never enough of the ocean air for the two. Theirs was a true love of the sea.

The Moral Quandary of Heels
All Rights Reserved © 2013 Kathleen Helen Levey. “Edison” posted on “Writing New Jersey Life,” September 25, 2017

Space Shuttle Cake

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On November 6, 2017

In Baking, Culture, Family, Lifestyle

If this rainy start to the holiday weekend has changed your plans, have some fun making this Space Shuttle Cake together. The recipe is via Party Pieces, the party company of the family of Catherine, Princess of Wales.* A hit on Instagram @kathleenhelenlevey last summer, in the US pound cake can serve as a substitute for Madeira cake. You did not read it here, but if you only have an hour to prepare this vs. the several you had planned, rumor has it that defrosted pound cake held together by canned icing, decorated with Skittles, licorice, and some tinfoil improvisation will make children celebrating the Fourth of July just as happy :).

Ingredients:

-1 x 4 egg quantity Madeira cake
-1 x 450g quantity of Buttercream icing
-4 or 5 shop-bought mini sponge rolls
-Red and blue Smarties, silver balls and liquorice to decorate
-orange or yellow sugar paste
-6 ice cream cones

Method:

Cook the Madeira cake mixture in a greased 1.2 litre ovenproof bowl for 50-55 minutes. Turn out and let cool. Trim the crust from the cake and slice the top flat. This will create the base of the spaceship.

To assemble:

Using buttercream, stick together the sponge rolls. This will form the middle part of the ship. Place them on top of the base, then stick an upturned ice-cream cone on top of them to form the nose cone. Cover the whole cake with the remaining buttercream icing.
3. Place the cake on a round cake board and stick five ice-cream cones around the base to form the space shuttle “legs”. Decorate the spaceship using blue and red Smarties, silver balls and liquorice wheels for portholes.
4. Roll out the orange sugar paste and cut into little triangles. Stick these around the base of the rocket and up around the sides to create a flame effect.

Sources: PartyPieces.co.uk blog (“The Party Times”) by Pippa Middleton Matthews and Children’s Parties by Ryland and Small.

*The Middletons sold Party Pieces in 2023. We thank them for the fun and wish them the best of luck!

“Ray Seery, Comedy Writer”

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On November 6, 2017

In Comedy, Culture, Family, Lifestyle

Ray Seery at work in Randolph, New Jersey

“I believe that one of the things the world needs now is a good laugh.”

Jokes were to our uncle what fireworks are to Fourth of July, a way to celebrate life and spread joy. Long-term Morris County residents may recognize the name Ray Seery, a Randolph resident and “gag writer” interviewed in the 1970’s and 1980’s in The Randolph Reporter and New Jersey Monthly. Highlights for him also included interviews with The Star-Ledger and Parade magazine.

His Newark childhood in the 1930’s was an overall happy one, though in any retelling by his nieces and nephew, it may have begun like a set up to one of the jokes he would later write: “Our mother had two brothers. One was Sonny Boy, as his father’s love shone upon him. The other was Ray. He became a comedian.”

Smart and attention-seeking, he was a classic class cut-up and made the rounds of most of the Newark public schools in the 1940’s. Having finally landed at Seton Hall Prep, his patient parents were called in one day to speak about the jokester. Told to wait outside the archbishop’s office with his partner-in-crime, Ray and his friend spotted the clergyman’s shiny Studebaker, parked in front of the school. This proved too tempting for the boys to resist, a big mistake on steep South Orange Avenue when they did not know how to work a clutch. They promptly crashed the car at the bottom of the street. Miraculously, it was still intact.

On another school-aged adventure in the days when Hollywood stars appeared on Newark stages, Ray, 13, waited outside his first stage door for Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy who were performing in vaudeville, a family story he shared in an early interview with The Star-Ledger. He had opportunity to speak with the talented Mr. Laurel, who was kind and took the time to talk with Ray and encourage him with his interest in comedy. Stan Laurel corresponded personally with fans, and they wrote to each other until Mr. Laurel’s death in 1965.

Uncle Ray’s Navy hi-jinks were numerous, more material for the comedian-in-training and a story for another day, but it was in his return home to the US that he found direction for his talent – comedy. He funded initial work as a comedian with a day job as a bank teller. When he read in the papers that Bob Hope and Babe Ruth, two of his idols, would be playing golf at Forest Hill Field Club in Bloomfield, he could not resist a young man’s impulse to play hooky. Charming, Ray worked his way through the crowd, managed to meet both men and formed a lifelong professional connection with Mr. Hope. The next day, a front page photo of Bob Hope and Babe Ruth featured Uncle Ray behind the rope line. This delighted Ray, but not his boss, which led to Ray’s cabbie career in New York City, a great way for the young comedian to try his material out with test audiences on wheels.

For the ultimate appraisal of his material, Ray would take fares from Broadway, sometimes coming upon the stars themselves whether they were seeing other shows or appearing in them. Navigating the cab to the curb on a rainy night, before looking at his fare, Uncle Ray heard a man say, “The Waldorf Hotel.” Without turning around, avid movie fan Ray said, “Claude Rains.”

Pleased, Mr. Rains, the brilliant Warner Brothers character actor probably best known today for his role as French Captain Louis Renault in “Casablanca,” replied, “Thank you.”

Young Raymond from his New York City taxi’s driver’s license

On forays when he ventured outside the cab and into the theater, Ray sought out his look-a-like, as Orson Welles was in his younger days, when he was on Broadway. The two hit it off creatively and maintained a lifelong friendship, exchanging ideas and jokes whenever they saw each other at events or corresponded. Regardless of how the press described the young genius, who married his first wife in New Jersey, Orson was always warm and gracious.

Orson Welles, just 23, Howard Koch, and John Houseman of the Mercury Theater created panic on October 30, 1938 when they broadcast a dramatization of H. G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” with a news-like format much like the 1937 Hindenburg real-life newscast asserting that a Martian invasion had begun in Grovers Mill, New Jersey about 30 miles from Lakehurst. (Sources: The Asbury Park Press, SmithsonianMagazine.com) Upon hearing that his in-laws were among those who had fled their homes, our grandfather quipped, “That’s what they get for not listening to Charlie McCarthy.”

Serene Grovers Mill, now part of West Windsor

Monument for “War of the Worlds in Van Nest Park,” where historical markers, an Eagle Scout project, take visitors along a timeline of the broadcast. A nearby water tower was thought to be a Martian spaceship. Of an approximate 6 million listeners, it is estimated that in a jittery pre-WWII US, an estimated one million thought that there was an invasion.

As soon as he started working, Ray, the big brother, brought along his younger siblings to share his adventures from trips to Atlantic City’s Steel Pier to Coney Island to movie premieres. At a presidential debate shortly before the 1948 election, Uncle Ray brought our mother to snap photos while he greeted the candidates. As President Truman stepped off the elevator and our teen-aged mother tried to take a photo, Ray, a Democrat, called over, “Forget him, he’s going to lose!” The snaps of Governor Dewey were wonderful, though.

Comedy was difficult to break into, and kindhearted Ray soon saw that he was better suited to writing material than jousting with hecklers. Bob Hope bought some of his material, giving him his first paycheck as a comedy writer, which he had enlarged and framed. Once one comedian’s name was on the resume, doors opened with others: Phyllis Diller, Billy Rose, Rodney Dangerfield, and occasionally, people as varied as Daily News columnist Liz Smith and Bishop Fulton Sheen. For Bishop Sheen, Uncle Ray coined the phrase “Uncle Fultie” like “Uncle Miltie” for Milton Berle, both on television at the time, stories which he enjoyed sharing in interviews. Demand for jokes ran hot and cold, however, and aside from these noted professionals, paychecks from others sometimes got lost in the mail, so Ray was wise to have a full-time job.

Whenever Bob Hope came to the Garden State, Uncle Ray would meet him and have the backstage thrill of listening to the veteran comedian deliver his jokes to great laughter at places like the Garden State Arts Center. Even at White House events during two respectively different administrations, Ray and our aunt had the same pleasure. Committed to the USO and humanitarian causes, Bob Hope often hosted fundraising events in New Jersey and New York City. On one celebrated occasion, Uncle Ray and our mother met Grace Kelly. Princess Grace, who grew up in Philadelphia and spent summers in Ocean City, New Jersey, was as warm and beautiful in person as they had anticipated.

Steve Allen, comedian, author, musician, composer, and first host of “The Tonight Show,” encouraged Uncle Ray when he was starting out. Mr. Allen not only paid Uncle Ray for his material, but credited him publicly and treated him like a friend. Public taste in comedy changed over the years, but Steve Allen kept his material clever, clean, and not mean, which sounds like an Uncle Ray quip. This is one of the many reasons why they got along so well for decades. One of Uncle Ray’s favorite stories about Mr. Allen was how, after getting Mr. Allen to read his jokes by placing them under his car windshield, Ray enlisted the aid of a cousin to fly a banner over the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner on which Steve and his lovely wife Jayne Meadows, equally kind, were departing. Unbeknownst to Ray, Steve had wanted a low-key departure without press. The banner read: “Bon Voyage Steverino! Ray Seery”. The actual punchline was that Ray’s father (with the same name) and brother were fishing off Sandy Hook and, knowing Ray, nonchalantly took in the sight of the banner as Ray carried on a Jersey Shore summer tradition.

An all-round creative person, Uncle Ray was a talented cartoonist and artist. The Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Newark-born Jerry Lewis, Cary Grant, and Babe Ruth paintings throughout @kathleenhelen15 on Instagram are by him. He is the “uncle” of #uncleart, which when spoken, sounds much more aptly like, “Uncle Heart”.

Bob Hope and Princess Grace of Monaco

“Ray Seery, Comedy Writer”: Adapted from “The Music Box” from Proverbs All Rights Reserved © 2013 Kathleen Helen Levey and Instagram @kathleenhelen15 Published June 26, 2017 “Writing New Jersey Life” All Rights Reserved © 2017

“The Two Graces: Grace Hartigan and Grandma Moses”

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On November 6, 2017

In Art, Culture, Lifestyle, Travel

Grace Hartigan

“I cannot expect even my own art to provide all of the answers, only to hope that it keeps asking the right questions.”

An Abstract Expressionist who started life in Newark, Grace Hartigan (1922-2008) grew up in Millburn, New Jersey. Having little formal training as an artist beyond some lessons with Newark-based Abstract Expressionist Issac Lane Muse, she saw works of Henri Matisse in a book and felt inspired to paint. In the circle of Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, who started the US chapter of his life as a house painter in Hoboken, Grace might have resided comfortably in their sphere, but ultimately chose to make her own path.

Grace’s art was immediately successful, giving her the self-assurance to carry on in the primarily male, star-laden New York City art scene of the late 1940’s-1950’s. A New York Times article described her as “brash,” a quality she would have needed to prevail. Consistent in the Times of NY and LA on Grace’s life is that she did not look primarily to her inner life for inspiration like the other Abstract Expressionists in that era, but responded to, and was inspired by, the world around her. This world connection was reflected in her paintings in which she gradually added images, an influence of poet and friend Frank O’Hara who combined “high art” and “low art”. The LA Times reported that, endearingly, he wrote several poems for her.

Ironically, by including these images, she became known as the founder of “Pop Art,” a title which she disdained. Nevertheless, as an independent spirit, she appreciated, “I’d much rather be a pioneer of a movement that I hate than the second generation than the second generation of a movement that I love,” noted in The Washington Post. The one “most celebrated of American woman painters,” Life, 1957, her work fell into disfavor by the 1960’s with fellow Abstract Expressionists and art critics and sales of her paintings fell off.

Grace was resilient and, having become more appreciative of art history in the 1950’s, another factor separating her from her Abstract Expressionist peers, became part of the faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. She taught and ultimately became director of the Hoffberger School of Painting, created to showcase her talent, and she in turn, worked to raise its cachet as an art school. Of her life as an artist, she reflected in a “World Artist” interview via NY Times, “Now as before it is the vulgar and the vital and the possibility of its transformation into the beautiful which continues to challenge and fascinate me…Or perhaps the subject of my art is life the definition of humor – emotional pain remembered in tranquility.”

In the 1980’s, Grace had the resolve to paint again, expanding her talents to include different mediums that she came to appreciate through art history, printmaking, watercolor, and pointillism. She had the foresight and generosity to set aside paintings created during her tenure at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The donated paintings, worth more than $1 million dollars, were to benefit her students when she was no longer able to teach them as described in a MICA article worth visiting via mica.edu.

Many bold quotes are ascribed to this artist who experienced life to the fullest, perhaps most famously, “I didn’t choose painting….It chose me. I didn’t have any talent. I just had genius.” Beyond the sound bites, perhaps the epitaph of her friend Frank O’Hara best reveals Grace, “Grace/to be born and live as variously as possible.”

Her works are online at Artsy.com and there is a great overview of her development as an artist with highlighted works on theartstory.org, which credits her as an influence on Neo-Expressionist artists like Julian Schnabel and David Salle.

The paintings of Grace’s peer Helen Frankenthaler are having a new appreciation this summer as an exhibit at The Clark in Massachusetts and in a Grandma Moses exhibit at the Bennington Museum in Vermont. Periodically, Grace’s work appears in galleries in New York City and on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

A few weeks ago, Artsy.com noted that Grace was a New Jerseyan as well as a New Yorker, which led to more reading about her life.

Wildflowers, Bennington Museum

Grandma Moses, Anna Mary Robertson Moses

“Life is what we make it, always has been and always will be.”

Like Grace Hartigan, folk artist Grandma Moses, her artistic contemporary for a time, was a fellow Modernist who found inspiration in life. Born as Anna Mary Robertson (1860-1961), she grew up on a farm in Greenwich in Upstate New York, but attended classes in a one-room schoolhouse in nearby Bennington, Vermont. From a large family, economics required that she spend her teen years with another family as a live-in housekeeper, a “hired girl” as noted by Time. Ultimately, in an extraordinary life path, that schoolhouse became the Bennington Museum which houses the largest collection of her paintings today.

Throughout her life, Anna revealed artistic talent, but her days revolved around taking care of her family and their farm. She and her husband were first tenant farmers in Virginia, worked hard, and then became farm owners in Eagles Nest, New York, not far from where Anna spent her childhood. After her husband died, Anna took up embroidery until her arthritis made it difficult. Her sister suggested painting, which Anna took up at the age of 76, sometimes switching hands, and it was one of these paintings spotted in a drugstore window by art collector Louis J. Caldor that led her to notoriety. Considered a “folk artist,” a fluid term a self-taught artist who carries on a tradition (JSTOR.org from University of Chicago archive), Anna became known publicly by her family address, “Grandma Moses”.

Both the American public and the media were taken with Grandma Moses, embraced like a national grandmother, and she was an incredibly popular figure in the 1940’s and ’50’s. Favorite winter scenes that she painted were everywhere across the US, most notably on Christmas cards with sales of an estimated 48 million. Her illustrated version of Clement Moore’s The Night Before Christmas is still in print, a perennial favorite, its paintings created, inspiringly, at the age of 100. Those paintings are on exhibit at the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont, which is home to the largest collection of her paintings.

Grandma Moses’s charming winter scenes look like happiness defined and are even more delightful viewed in their original form. As the Bennington Museum curators note, Grandma Moses added sugar to the white paint to create snow that sparkled, which initially unmoored art critics. Nonplussed, she carried on with a brilliant result. Her joyful nature is clear in her observations, “Christmas is not just one day” as well as her art, which she described as “daydreams” both in a Time revisiting of her work.

Seeing her art with “fresh eyes” is how the dedicated museum staff will be presenting Grandma Moses’ work as part of “American Modern” from July 1st through November 5th. The exhibit will place her work alongside that of other Modernists, also peers of Grace Hartigan: Helen Frankenthaler, Andy Warhol, Fernand Leger, Joseph Cornell, Helen Frankenthaler, and folk artists Edward Hicks and Joseph Pickett to appreciate Anna’s talent anew.

The museum, founded by the Bennington Historical Society, 1852, has an array of exhibits to appeal to everyone. For history buffs, there are vibrant exhibits like the “Battle of Bennington” (the monument is nearby), “Grandma Moses Schoolhouse,” and “Gilded Age Vermont” to renowned Bennington stoneware to fashion & style to photography. The museum cooperates with nearby Bennington College, and you will also find beautiful works from artists both in the college and local community.

Allow time for the upstairs Church Gallery of Bennington and Vermont history, which was indeed a church and looks like a marvelous attic filled with furniture, inventions, paintings, sculpture, awards, remembrances, and more. These may not be the “marquee” pieces in the extensive museum collection like paintings by William Morris Hunt, born in Brattleboro, but they comprise a treasure trove as the town unfolds in such a moving, wonderful way.

We had a whirlwind visit, having just missed museum hours (open daily 10-5, June through October) on a first try, and look forward to returning. The grounds are beautiful and include trails. The cemetery behind the former schoolhouse leads to the modest grave of Robert Frost, more to come on the poet in another, “Symmetry,” a series of blogs that will feature New Jersey cultural and historical connections outside the state. For more information on the Bennington Museum, visit: benningtonmuseum.org.

North American Reciprocal Museum memberships (NARM) with entrée to 924 museums and cultural centers around the world can be purchased in the museum shop or at participating New Jersey museums:

Battleship New Jersey Museum & Memorial
Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton
Macculloch Hall, Morristown
The Monmouth Art Museum, Lincroft
Monmouth County Historical Association, Freehold
Montclair Art Museum, Montclair
Morris Museum, Morristown
The Newark Museum, Newark
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton
The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farm, Morris Plains
Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit
Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, Millville

For more information on NARM, visit: https://narmassociation.org/

Bennington Museum

“Fashion: Joyce Kilmer”

By Kathleen Helen Levey

On November 6, 2017

In Culture, History, Lifestyle, Travel, US History

Campgaw Mountain, Mahwah, New Jersey

A New Brunswick native and world-renowned poet, Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918, was married to fellow writer and Rutgers University graduate, Aline Murray, and lived happily and sociably with their five children in leafy Mahwah, the “meeting place” in Algonquin. They knew heartache with the grievous illness of one child, which led to their conversion to Roman Catholicism. A family man, he was exempt from duty in World War I, but enlisted, serving in military intelligence. Loyal, he turned down a commission to stay with his regiment, bravely volunteering to scout ahead on behalf of his men in No Man’s Land where he died from a sniper’s bullet at 31.

…critics sometimes dismiss Joyce Kilmer’s work as being too simple or sentimental, but he was a gifted intellectual, a Columbia University graduate who wrote in structured verse at the end of the Romantic Era. He died before modern poetry had found its voice — and he chose joy, which is not always fashionable. A one-time Latin teacher at Morristown High School and a contributor to The New York Times, both his intelligence and work ethic made him highly employable until his poetry became a success. His poems, many replete with New Jersey references, reflected a love of nature and God. Inspired by looking in his own backyard, the lyric poem “Trees” from Trees and Other Poems (1914) became to American life what the birthday song was to the world, a legacy of celebration:

“Trees”

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who ultimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

The poem was so popular that it was set to music, first by his mother Annie, a composer, and more popularly, in 1922 by another composer and pianist Oscar Rosbach. Princeton native and distinguished Rutgers University graduate, Paul Robeson, using his wonderful phrasing, recorded a popular version in 1938-9.

As we observe the 100th anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War I, we remember the sacrifices of those who served like Joyce Kilmer and their families. Some were fortunate like our grandfather, a Newark native who was stationed stateside, others returned from overseas irretrievably changed emotionally and physically from trench warfare. The WWI postcard is from our great-uncle who like Joyce Kilmer was stationed on the Western Front. Our uncle, a beloved brother and son, wrote to his family with great affection on these lifeline postcards. He suffered from “gas and shell shock” meaning that he inhaled the poisonous gas thrown by enemy forces into the trenches and also suffered the “shock,” what we call PTSD “post traumatic stress disorder” today. Unlike Joyce Kilmer, our uncle came back home. He was still a gentle, kind man, but returned to a redefined life, fortunate in that he had family who loved him.

Incredibly, Joyce Kilmer still wrote poetry on the battlefront. Though most was in draft form, ‘A Blue Valentine,” dedicated to his wife Aline, blends faith and romance with the speaker addressing “Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus”:

…It seems appropriate for me to state
According to a venerable and agreeable custom,
That I love a beautiful lady.
Her eyes, Monsignore,
Are so blue that they put lovely little blue reflections
On everything she looks at…
It is like the light coming through blue stained glass,
Yet not quite like it,
For the blueness is not transparent,
Only translucent.
Her soul’s light shines through,
But her soul cannot be seen.

Joyce Kilmer’s legacy was not only his family and his works, but namesake New Jersey schools, the Joyce Kilmer House and a park, both in his New Brunswick hometown, a Bronx park at the Grand Concourse, and a memorial forest in North Carolina. Worldwide celebrations for Arbor Day, the last Friday in April in the United States, often include the reading or singing of his poem.

As for the critics of Joyce Kilmer’s work, one might say never out of step, just sometimes out of fashion.

Our uncle’s postcard from Vals-Les-Bains, France, a spa town before World War I

Quotes from the works of Joyce Kilmer. Published in ‘Writing New Jersey Life” blog at kathleenhelenlevey.com, June 21, 2017 Adapted text from “The Moral Quandary of Heels” All Rights Reserved © 2013 Kathleen Helen Levey

Writing New Jersey Life

People and places of New Jersey…with some travels.

Category: Culture

“The New York Botanical Garden, Always in Bloom”

“Cape May at Christmas”

“Remembrance Day”

“Highlights of the John Basilone Parade”

“Edison” from “The Moral Quandary of Heels”

Space Shuttle Cake

“Ray Seery, Comedy Writer”

“The Two Graces: Grace Hartigan and Grandma Moses”

“Fashion: Joyce Kilmer”

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