First Signs of Christmas Shopping

Well before Thanksgiving, the holiday spending season begins to gear up – much too early for my taste.

However, this year a good argument can be made that if consumers do a good job of it nationwide, it will help to pull our economy out of its doldrums. And who can be against that?

One of the best ways to tell just when the fever takes hold is to keep your eyes open for merchants who set up their store fronts or kiosks to do business only seasonally. By that measure, the Christmas shopping season may have already started at the Bridgewater Commons Mall, because one such merchant is already setting up to offer his wares.

On the first level, at the Macy’s entrance, in front of the escalators being refurbished for the expected holiday crowds, the Day-by-Day Calendar Company installed its racks this week. The shelves were empty when the photo was taken, but you can expect them to be filled with a variety of wide-ranging subject matter calendars very soon.

If you keep your eyes open, you’ll also notice what could be a similar Christmas marketing strategy with Toys-R-Us & Learning Express, firms that weren’t at the mall during the summer months and which may be gone after December.

Go ahead and shop your heart out, but remember to set aside some serious thinking for the real meaning behind the season.

Photo by Dick Bergeron, 6-25-09

The Little Borough that Could – and Did

In a Courier News poll not long ago, a majority of respondents said that the relatives and friends of the victims of the Trade Towers attack should “move on” with their lives. I interpreted that to mean that it’s time to forget – 9/11 is over.

I’m glad that the residents of Raritan Borough didn’t take that advice about WWII and their native son and hero, John Basilone. Each year commemorative events in his honor only seem to grow. That’s as it should be, because to forget the cost of what others did to secure our freedom as Americans is a passive act of ignorance.

There is hardly a week that goes by where I don’t have a recollection for the sacrifices that my three brothers endured when they served this nation in the same war in which John Basilone fought and died.

Pride in the American military’s accomplishments is a cheap commodity these days, especially within Washington’s beltway, where politicians inside the Capitol Building and the White House treat our servicemen and servicewomen like pawns in their game of chess which they play in comfortable rooms, thousands of miles removed from the dirty battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan and the surrounding areas of the beleaguered state of Israel.

I’m not a war hawk, and I wish to see peace reign on this planet, but I do not minimize the nature of the threats posed by dangerous men like the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Venezuela, the last of which has entered into military provisioning agreements with Russia.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in this little corner of the world, Raritan Borough will pause to memorialize once again the example of a man who did what he felt he had to do for his nation.

Construction Continues on Chase Branch in Pluckemin

As the photo shows, construction is moving ahead in Pluckemin on a new branch bank for the investment and banking firm of JPMorgan Chase. I never thought that I’d find myself in the position of favoring one giant financial institution over another, but this is an exception: Just a few hundred feet away from where Chase is erecting its ill-advised building sits a Bank of America branch on Burnt Mills Road.

The BofA branch is sufficiently removed from the intersection in Pluckemin where U.S. Route 202-206 joins with Washington Valley Road and Burnt Mills Road. The BofA location does not disturb the traffic pattern at the intersection.

This cannot be said for the new Chase building which sits on a corner within spitting distance from the sidewalk where it will hamper traffic flows at that busy commuting intersection.

The reason that Chase is setting up on that spot is obvious: That’s where the money is – in them thar’ hills. There is nothing wrong with chasing after the wealth to be mined in the Somerset Hills, but the site chosen for the battle between BofA and Chase (the Peapack-Gladstone Bank is in the Hills Shopping Center just a block away) is incompatible with the personality of the village of Pluckemin.

It’s another bad decision by Bedminster officials who once acquiesced to having a major interchange which would have unloaded traffic from Interstate 78 onto Rt. 202-206. That interchange would have been right on Bridgewater’s border, next to the Bridgewater Manor and would have ruined the character of the village of Pluckemin, not to mention its negative impact on the northern section of Bridgewater.

The citizen pushback on that scheme was overwhelming; State of New Jersey officials and Bedminster had to back off. Too bad that there isn’t a similar rethinking of this unnecessary addition to the Bridgewater-Pluckemin landscape.

High-Priced New Jersey

On Friday, October 2, the Raritan Valley Community College will host a 5-hour program entitled Making New Jersey More Affordable. It is being sponsored by the Somerset County Business Partnership, the Courier News and its web site, together with Allstate and the Affinity Credit Union.

I strongly support this gathering of powerful and influential people who will lend their voices to the debate. All gubernatorial candidates have been invited. I hope all are present and give specifics as to how they propose to pull New Jersey out of its downward financial vortex.

Although I can be highly skeptical at times, I generally have a cautiously optimistic outlook for the future. But for the love of me, I cannot figure out how this state will pull itself out of its financial morass unless it addresses the structural weaknesses which are strangling it.

Public service unionized salaries and benefits are out of control, with not a soul willing to give up a millimeter of ground. Year-after-year negotiated union salaries and benefits continue to rise at a rate above inflation during a time of deflation and national economic distress.

Dishonesty, fraud and corruption in government are rampant, and only the surface seems to have been scratched.

Remember the hollow promise of 1976 when the income tax was passed? It was intended to provide real estate tax relief for all homeowners, but decades of those revenues – billions – have been doled out with no conditions attached, or they have been spent for the preferential treatment of the few. The state never sets aside revenue collected for a specific purpose; instead, the money effectively goes into the general fund and you can kiss it goodbye.

Heck, we don’t even measure up to a state like New Hampshire which has no income tax and no sales tax, yet whose students produced an average 2009 SAT score of 1556, compared to New Jersey’s 1505 – lower New Jersey results for a lot more money, lower, even, than the national average of 1509.

The challenges facing New Jersey’s economic future are enormous, and they won’t be met simply by taxing the super-rich and cutting back on income tax rebates.

Healthcare and the U.S. Postal Service

The postal service in this country has a problem: According to an article in Parade, volume will drop 14% this year. Rates are on the increase, costs are being cut, and post offices will be closed. There may even be fewer mail deliveries.

The solution: Open it up to competition by letting private industry come in to improve service and to stabilize prices. That is what Professor Michael Crew of Rutgers is quoted as proposing in Parade. Now hold on a minute. This makes sense, but how to resolve the contradiction?

In his healthcare initiatives, President Obama proposes just the opposite: According to him, it’s government that should come into the market and provide competition to insurance companies in the healthcare industry.

So let’s get this straight: The government-run U.S. Postal Service needs competition from private industry to keep it on its toes. On the other hand, according to our president, the private U.S. healthcare industry does not compete well and, therefore, needs competition from the federal government to keep it on its toes!

How, exactly, can the federal government which acknowledges its own inefficiency and a high cost structure in one market claim to have better competitive skills in another market?

Anecdote: Years ago, in Rochester, New York, entrepreneurs had put together a local business that operated only in the downtown area. It picked up and delivered first-class mail from one local business to another. No stamps. This short-lived business was doing remarkably well until the Feds caught up to it. The entrepreneurs were hauled into court and were put out of business by the long reach of U.S. Postal Service attorneys.

Eight Years Already?

Friday dawned damp, dingy and cold – a holdover from the previous day that had brought even more rain and higher winds to Bridgewater. It was one of those days that I would have liked to have stayed cozily inside: But there were two things that I wanted to do: some laps at the JCC pool on Talamini Road and, after that, a noontime stop in front of the old Bridgewater Township Administration building for the 9/11 remembrance ceremony.

I wouldn’t have time to go back home and dress up after the swim, so I just showed up in jeans and a rain slicker for the ceremony, leaving my camera behind (too rainy and wet). A shuttle bus was waiting to move participants from the parking lot in front of the courthouse building, but I parked the car nearby, popped open a big black storm-ready umbrella, and walked along the edge of Commons Way towards two tents set up as a shelter on the lawn facing Garretson Road.

It was pouring, but the tents did their job well keeping dignitaries, workers and citizens dry. The ceremony was brief but more than adequate. Police and firefighters from Bridgewater were present. Bridgewater Mayor Patricia Flannery spoke a few words in honor of the victims of 9/11, as well as in remembrance of other local Americans who have since lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two Bridgewater police officers reverently carried a folded American flag out from under the tent and raised it on the Township flagpole under a heavy, wet sky. Firefighter Howard Norgalis had already read the firemen’s pledge; Pastor Todd Buurstra of the North Branch Reformed Church had previously given the opening invocation.

The wind blew persistently as the ceremony continued under dark, angry skies but, as if providentially, the sky brightened momentarily and the rain let up slightly – perhaps a sign of hope for the future – as Mayor Flannery stepped out from under the tent’s roof and was assisted in placing a wreath upon the 9/11 memorial stone and plaque resting on the lawn.

Although 9/11 was eight years ago, its memory is still vivid in the minds of Americans, especially in this area, even more so with those loved ones who have been directly affected. As if to underscore the tragedy of that villainous day, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to produce far too many fresh memories of brave American men and women who continue to give up their youthful lives in the aftermath of that tragic day eight years ago.

McConnell Retires to the Bay State

Monday’s Courier News article by Martin C. Bricketto about Rose McConnell held one item that especially caught my eye: where she chose to retire. After serving many years in public office in Somerset County NJ, McConnell moved to Groton, Massachusetts to be near her family.

Coincidentally, Groton is less than half an hour from our old stomping grounds in Lowell. Priscille and I remember it fondly as one of those quaint, quintessential New England communities.

Indeed, on our way back from vacationing in New Hampshire this summer, we stopped in Massachusetts to visit with two of Priscille’s nieces and their families, one of whom relocated from Lowell to Groton with her husband and children. With a population of about 11,000 in an area of 33 square miles, it’s one of those small big New England towns ideal for raising a family.

The entire area – geographically, politically, and socially – is very different from what former Somerset County Freeholder, Rose McConnell, has been accustomed to in this part of New Jersey.

One example: Groton operates under an open town meeting form of government – once each year the budget plan is presented to voters at a town hall meeting. The community asks questions, debates, considers the proposals, and makes recommendations; then the entire year’s budget is voted upon – no absentee voting! To prepare for the meeting, voters are presented in advance with a printed budget proposal.

I could go on, but I won’t keep you with any more details. Thanks for reading and may the wind be at your back. Rose McConnell: If you see this, enjoy the change of venue – it’s been a long, good run.

Precious Blood

Sometimes you come to a point in a situation where a previously held position needs some serious rethinking. Iraq and Afghanistan now fall in that category for me. All three of my older brothers were actively engaged in World War II. In 1945, my oldest brother, whom I lost last year, was in the Philippines preparing for what was to be the imminent, massive invasion of the Japanese islands.

Then, unexpectedly, the most destructive secret weapon ever developed unleashed its overwhelming fury on Hiroshima and Nagasaki –and within days it was all over. Harvey, Roger and Roland would come home with their minds and bodies intact. Ours was one of those lucky American families. And my life would be forever enriched from the experience and brotherhood of these three street-wise kids who somehow made it through.

After Pearl Harbor, the objective was clear: Mobilize. Get the troops to Europe and to the Pacific – fast. Do whatever it takes. Gear up the entire economy for victory. Finish it. Don’t let a vanquished enemy dictate post-war terms. Above all, finish it.

It’s fundamentally different now – many of our leaders seem to have lost sight of true north, and Congress has gradually shifted its war-declaration responsibilities to the White House, hiding behind lukewarm war authorizations which have resulted in finger-wagging every which way, especially when an administration changes hands. Most wretchedly of all, our leaders don’t know when to fight and when to stay home.

But this one thing is clear: If Iraq and Afghanistan were George’s wars then, they are Barack’s wars now. So what will he do to end those with victory and honor? Truman never complained that he “inherited” WWII from FDR. He came in as a relief pitcher and ended the game decisively. The ball is now in the hands of Barack Obama. Thousands of American families with blood in the game are waiting.

Just What Pluckemin Needs, another Branch of a National Bank

For years, at the intersection of Route 202-206, where it meets Washington Valley Road leading east and Burnt Mills Road leading west, the southwest corner was conspicuously empty, having been occupied by a succession of gas stations.

Across from that location occupying the other three corners of the intersection are an Exxon Station; a shopping center with an A&P as the anchor store; a liquor store, a sandwich shop and other small businesses.

Unless memory fails me, a local Bedminster newspaper once reported that Bedminster officials had considered setting this site aside, removing it from consideration for business development, perhaps as a green zone or a small park. That was and is a perfect use for an already overly congested corner.

No matter: the large investment conglomerate and banking house of JPMorgan Chase seems to have prevailed upon Bedminster that it would be a better idea to add to the vehicular clutter at this intersection.

Consider this: A perfectly adequate Bank of America office sits within an athlete’s stone’s throw from the new Chase branch under construction. Just a block north in the Hills Shopping Center, there is another perfectly fine Peapack-Gladstone branch.

But I suppose that Bedminster officials have felt the need for another giant financial institution to set up shop near the Bridgewater Township border at what is one of the worst possible locations in Pluckemin and Somerset County – more intrusive construction where we don’t need it.