Mountain Man and City Girl

The Greater Wildwood Chamber of Commerce is presenting a fabulous weekend of fun at the shore.  Starting with Friday, April 25th, Jerry Blavat will be hosting a ’60s Record Hop.  What a great way to start the weekend.  Grab your honey and dance the night away!

Then on Saturday afternoon there is a Street Fair with free live entertainment featuring “TRU” and The Mahoney Brothers, contests galore, all kinds of street  vendors, the Classic Car Show, a Doo Wop Back to the ’50s Tour and so much more.  How can you resist?

Saturday night is the Sensational ’60s Concert featuring The Temptation Review, The Miracles, The Family Stone Xperience, and “Tru”.  I’ve been to the show every year, and it keeps getting better and better!

The festivites wrap up on Sunday with free entertainment in North Wildwood.  For more information, visit www.GWCOC.com or call 609-729-4000.

You won’t want to miss out on this great fun-filled weekend.

I have to snicker when I hear a youngster say that their goal in life is to be ‘rich and famous’.  I usually tell them, “Rich, okay.  But you don’t want to be famous.”  The reason, of course, is paparazzi.  Of all the legal occupations in the world, being ‘photographer of celebrities’ has to be one of the lowest levels on the integrity scale.

Paparazzi, as you no doubt are aware, will do anything to take the picture or video of a famous person.  Then they sell it to some junk magazine or mindless website or television Hollywood gossip show.  But the fact that they profit from such a shallow pursuit isn’t what makes them so despicable, though they are.  It’s the lengths they’ll go to capturing the photo.

Imagine the life of a paparazzi.  Sitting in your car day and night, staking out a celebrity’s home.  Or standing on the sidewalk for hours at a time outside a restaurant that attracts movie stars or music idols.  Your whole life is dedicated to taking some schmo’s picture.  That’s no way to make a difference in the world!

If I was suddenly famous, I would definitely not want this surreal attention.  You step out your door, a half dozen guys are battling to get your picture before you make it to the car.  Go to the grocery store and they’re following you up and down every aisle.  Take a Caribbean vacation, helicopters are hovering overhead or boatloads of photographers are swarming.  Big brother is watching.

All of this clandestine photography is only made possible due to unquenchable thirst of bored and boring people who live vicariously through others.  If Jane Public didn’t watch those trashy TV shows, buy those tasteless magazines, and support those hollow websites, the paparazzi would have no market for their product and they would just go away.

I don’t care about the everyday life of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, those Olsen twins.  Not interested in Brad Pitt, Jack Nicholson or Macauley Culkin.  I don’t care who’s married to whom, who’s sleeping with whom, who’s been arrested or in drug rehab or slit their wrists.  I don’t care what dress they’re wearing, what style their hair is, or what restaurant they were spotted in.

Don’t get me wrong.  I respect a good actor because they’re a good actor.  I like their work, but I could care less about their personal life.  Same for singers, musicians, comedians, or pro athletes.  I shared a moment with you via your craft, but I don’t need to peek inside your personal life.  You’re just a person doing your job, just like me.  Is that weird?

For a photojournalist to chase these people in their cars, rumble through their trash cans, contact high school sweethearts, and turn their life inside out is inexcusable.  Show them some respect.  Let them live peaceably.  Give ‘em a dadgum break!

With all the injustice and suffering in our world, and all the problems that need to be solved to save our planet, doesn’t chasing someone around to take their photograph seem unimportant in the grand scope of things?  Isn’t one’s dignity and privacy cherished anymore?  Is nothing out of bounds?

- Mountain Man

I understand that television and cable stations derive their income from advertisers.  Otherwise, we’d have to pay for every single program we watch.  The only cost we bear is the monthly fee to the cable company or satellite provider that gives us the television signal.

That said, there is one form of television commercial that I absolutely detest - the medical ones.  You know, the ones that start by identifying some obscure condition with initials like ED, ADA, BO, PU, whatever.  Dad gummit, give me a break!  I’m not a medical junkie who runs to the doctor all the time.  I don’t know what those initials mean, and I don’t care.

Anyway, they continue the sales pitch by showing some upper-middle class schmoes with one spouse or the other hindered by this condition … say, XYZ.  They are so well dressed, live in such a nice house, and have a perfect life in every way except for the XYZ.  The obvious concern and distress shows on their faces.

Then the commercial says, “But you don’t have to suffer anymore.”  A discourse follows on the wonders of the drug they’re peddling.  The underlying message, if the advertisement is successful, is that you’re going to pester your doctor to prescribe this drug.  Some now even boldly suggest, “Ask you doctor about …”.

Now the kicker.  “In some cases, XYZ made lead to swollen eyeballs, your ears falling off, irregular heartbeat, itchy ankles, nausea, and/or bloody knuckles.  In rare cases, side effects of elephantiasis and/or loss of toenails may occur.”  Yikes!  You’d have to be crazy to try this stuff.  Can you say “guinea pig”?

They finish by showing the couple now enjoying a game of tennis or candlelight dinner and wine in a fine restaurant.  Their life is perfect again.  The camera fades to a picture of the glossy package that the pills for XYZ’s cure come in.  The drug  looks so wholesome, so apple pie and motherhood grand.

These drug commercials must be why man invented the TV remote control.  CLICK.

- Mountain Man

Now that I’m in my late 50s, I find myself more often reflecting on life.  I sometimes flash to parallels between my actions in early life and how that influenced my later life.

I grew up in Wyckoff, a suburban town in Bergen County, the northernmost county in New Jersey that’s nestled next to and just west of New York City.  It’s there that I attended public school from kindergarten through the 10th grade, my “formative years”, so to speak.

I was in the advanced class from the first grade on.  We were the ones that were pushed, that the most was expected of.  We were to be the future businessmen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc, the educators felt.

In the 5th and 6th grades, our entire class subscribed to the New York Times, which was handed out as we entered our class in the morning.  In those days, except for lunch and gym, we never left that one classroom and we had one teacher.  Our first subject of the day was always “Current Events”.  In it, students would raise their hand, then begin a discussion based on an article in that day’s NY Times.

I loved Current Events.  I was the first to raise my hand, covering subjects from the space race to President Kennedy to the United Nations to famines in Africa.  Little did I realize that my voracious appetite for reading the newspaper would 30 years later lead to me becoming a newspaper sportswriter, then sports editor, and even publisher.

I also was crazy about Geography.  I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the states, then all the countries of the world.  Give me a blank map and I could fill in just about every state and country and most of their capitols.  Later in life, this curiosity would lead me to live as an adult in Florida, California, Oregon, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.

The other subject that I excelled in was Mathematics.  I’m almost embarrassed to say that I put little effort into it because it came so easy.  I was a wiz, but I can’t take credit due to hard work.  I guess my brain was just set up for math.  I ended up majoring in math in college, and my abilities in math have been a major factor in my life.

Needless to say, I usually got “A’s” in the three subjects I mentioned.  The credit goes to my curiosity.  I wanted to know more and more.  “How?” and “Why?” drove my brain to dissect subjects, dig further, learn more.  Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it pushed me to excel.

- Mountain Man

Remember as a kid when an adult would tell you to enjoy life now because plenty of responsibility would be on your shoulders in the future? 

In those days, few of us youngsters could fathom the upcoming burden of a job, mortgages, taxes, maintaining a vehicle, marriage, relationships, health care, or raising kids.  Jeez, I thought the adults were talking about high school or maybe college being tough, not life itself.

Now as baby boomers in our 50s and 60s, we look back to those innocent days of the 1950’s almost with envy.  Back then, life almost was like Leave it to Beaver or Ozzie & Harriet.  We had one black and white television, five channels, one car, and Mom was always home to greet you with cookies and milk when returning from school.  The call to the dinner table was a chorus of “Dad’s home” from us kids.

At times, I’m sure we all long for those carefree days.  Catching lightning bugs, playing tag or hide and seek, walking barefoot through a meadow, climbing a tree, playing kick ball or dodgeball, laying in the grass looking at the clouds or night time stars.

As you progressed to being a teenager, new priorities emerged.  Your first date, your first kiss.  Your worries about hair, clothes, even pimples.  At the time, it was so important.  Tomorrow was always the biggest day of your life.

Now we look back and smile.  “That was nothing”, we think.  But, as full grown adults we still do get caught in the same frame of mind where we “sweat the little things”.

Maybe we should take a clue from the birds.  They take care of getting food, shelter, and security.  And they cheerily sing all day long as they accomplish those tasks.

- Mountain Man

Welcome to our Mountain Man and City Girl blog.  We hope you enjoy our various posts and feel compelled to post comments.  Some of our posts are about the real estate industry, some about life in general.  Some are thought provoking, while others are lighthearted, feel good tidbits.

Some of the many pictures you see were taken by us.  Most are from clip art programs that we purchased or available free on the internet.  All the pictures are used to enhance our stories.  We trust you’ll enjoy our blogsite.

To see the business side of us, visit our websites at http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com  or http://totempolesandwaterfalls.com

- Mountain Man