Farewell and adieu to winter...for now

There was something primeval about it from the second we stepped out on the trail.

The snowpack was thick — 12 inches or more in some spots — and without snowshoes it was an exhausting task just to hike the mile into the forest where we intended to camp.

Just as we reached our spot it started snowing again, and it continued as we clipped together our tents and gathered the wet, green wood that would barely suffice for a fire. All night it fell, stacking up on the shoulders of the four figures who sipped whiskey and spoke gently about the struggling flames as the Catskills rose around us. The cloud-covered sky obscured the stars and blurred the horizon, reducing our entire world to a football field’s worth of white, barren moonscape that lay around us. By morning, another two inches had fallen.

People always look at me like I’m slightly crazy when I say I’m going backpacking in January. Maybe they’re right.

"You know it’s winter, right?" they ask.

Oh yes. Well aware.

But I love it. And now, in late March, I’m probably one of the very few in North Jersey who isn’t all that excited for spring. Sounds crazy, I know, especially considering that there was once a time in my life when I could hardly wait for that first warm breath of 60 degree air to flow up from the south.

There were even years that I’d convinced myself that I got some kind of seasonal depression from the long, silent nights, and that my future was destined to be in a more southerly latitude as a result.

That’s all changed as I’ve aged, of course. I still enjoy the spring, and certain things like the blooming of the forsythia or that first night game of the baseball season can’t be replicated. But there’s a lot about winter that I love now, perhaps nothing more than the peace of mind it gives me.

This world is a loud one (maybe too loud for me), and to walk in the middle of a humid August night is to walk amongst the cacophony of nature’s whispers. Birds and bugs sound their mating calls, and the woods are constantly moving with a kind of nervous energy that can be found when animals know they only have so much time. Nothing is quiet, nothing is still.

Walk in the winter, however, and the earth is more restrained. The trees are voiceless except for the wind threading through their branches, and that thick blanket of night sky is never as clear as it is when the temperature drops to 15 degrees. The clatter of deer hooves on concrete carries for a mile, every smell — from the rustic scent of burning wood to the harsh bite of cigarette smoke — is amplified, and the starlight from the constellations is never so sharp.

In other words, if summer is your friend who never shuts up, winter is the one that only speaks when it needs to. It hardens us, shows us every six months that nothing is eternal and warmth never lasts. They’re good, if not sobering, lessons to learn.

Right now, even though errant snowstorms keep finding their way into the foothills of the Appalachians, it’s clear that my season is ending. The nights are cold but the wind is warm, the ice on the lakes has melted, and it’s time to again bid my frigid friend a fond farewell.

It’ll be back, though. Sooner or later.

I’ll be ready.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/200368571_Farewell_and_adieu_to_winter___for_now_for_now.html?page=all

"Grains of Hope" packs 196,000 meals for the needy

Six hours, 800 volunteers, and 196,000 meals packed and ready for delivery to those who need them most, both in New Jersey and abroad.

It might seem like a lofty goal for a Sunday afternoon, but through the combined efforts of Pequannock’s civic organizations, citizens, and the community group named "Grains of Hope," it became a reality March 10 as hundreds of people streamed into the Pequannock Valley Middle School gymnasium to pack boxes with bags of rice, soy, and dehydrated vegetables for the best of causes.

The event was six months in the making, said 29-year-old event organizer and First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains pastor Chad De Jager. Over that time, Grains of Hope recruited 11 different civic organizations such as the Pequannock Valley Rotary, the Suburban Woman’s Club, and the Cedar Crest Protestant Community to lend a helping hand, and originally intended to raise about $25,000 and pack 100,000 meals. As word of the event spread, however, donations came in from across the country, and the number of volunteers swelled to 800.

By the end it had raised $47,500, which went towards the purchase of nearly 200,000 meals. Half of those will go to the small Haitian village of Karrefour, which sits near the epicenter of the devastating 2010 earthquake that left much of the country in ruins. De Jager, who visited the nation late last summer, said that although it may seem insignificant, the food has a great impact on the population.

The meals are calorically dense and high in nutritional content, and although the bags do not appear that big, if its contents are boiled for 20 minutes they will fill a 10 inch-by-12 inch casserole pan to the point of overflowing.

"It’s the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The average person lives on a dollar a day, and 80 percent of the people are in poverty," De Jager said. "This can make a life-sustaining difference in Haiti. The food does get there, and it’s received with joy among the people."

The other half will be picked up by the Community Food Bank of New Jersey and distributed along the Jersey Shore, specifically to the Food Bank of Ocean and Monmouth County, to feed the hungry mouths still reeling from Hurricane Sandy’s destruction.

"For us, what we loved about this opportunity was that we could help out at the local and international level. There are needs everywhere you look, and we wanted to make a significant difference in both directions," he said.

The pastor is hoping to keep the ball rolling, and said he not only wants the event to be a regular occurrence in Pequannock, but to expand it into other local communities.

"The coolest thing is seeing the whole community, 15 or 20 organizations, all coming together and doing something significant instead of just doing it individually," he said.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

The Wanaque...milkshake party?

Look up the etymology of "curfew" and you will find that it originates with the 14th century French word "cuevrefeu," which means, quite literally, "cover fire." It was brought into being as a way to describe the practice of ringing a bell at a certain hour each night to remind citizens to bank the flames in their hearths so as to prevent the outbreak of fires.

I wonder what would have happened, however, if the bells had incited more blazes than they'd stopped? Anyone from the Borough of Wanaque, which is being sued because of its own "cuevrefeu," might not venture to answer.

You see, in 2005, the Wanaque Borough Council approved an ordinance that declared (with very few exceptions) that no one under the age of 18 is allowed out on the street between the hours of 10 p.m. – 5:30 a.m. According to the wording in the ordinance, council people felt that this would reduce the likelihood of youths becoming either involved in or victims of criminal acts — a cunning move, no doubt, to combat the allure of the mean streets of Wanaque.

Evidently this had not been challenged until last week when the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ) brought a suit against the borough after one its police officers stopped and ticketed a 17-year-old girl named Shaina Harris for violating the law.

According to the ACLU's website, the community college student had gone to buy a milkshake at the Burger King across the street (with her parent's permission), and was on her way back when she was stopped near the family mailbox by the cop. He asked her why she was out without adult supervision, she called her stepfather out of the house, and the affair ended with a $100 citation (with the possibility of up to 15 hours of community service as well.)

Wow, really America? Is that what this once-great, brawling backwoods country has been reduced to in the year 2013 — giving tickets to kids who buy milkshakes at too late an hour?

Don't misunderstand me; I know that minors don't always make the best decisions, and the legal precedent allows them to be held to slightly different standards than the rest of us. And even a freedom-demanding person like me can understand the rational for the occasional curfew, especially when there's the potential for immediate civil strife in the wake of rioting or natural disasters.

But to have the government dictate that one segment off the population be off the street at a certain time only because of their age? I must wonder what our Founding Fathers, those patriarchs that so many invoke at the outset of every argument, would say if they heard that one.

Make no mistake, this country was created because of the intense, violent reaction to two things: taxation without representation, and an overbearing and demanding government. 

Our American brethren have fought and died on foreign ground in defense of those ideals, and many were the same age as or a few months older than Harris when they did; at 17, my own grandfather was fighting in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

I am not sure how the Wanaque Council, which so ignorantly passed this measure eight years ago, did so while standing in the same room as an American flag, and I'm not sure what God-given right they thought they had to suppose that they could limit, in any way, the times that any American citizen, minor or not, could travel in the public space. They may have checked if it was legal — but did they think on whether it was just?

Simply put, it's up to parents to decide what time their kids can be out until, not some legislative body that has brushed with too broad a stroke.

If this is the course we're on, though, we should make it easier for police to discern who is under 18 and who is not. Maybe we could have the kids wear a patch over their heart, something with a backwards flag or a milkshake with a red "X" over it.

Maybe the municipality could give out fake tattoos to be pasted on the youth's forearms as a constant reminder that they are not quite free yet, no matter what the songs they sang in elementary school said. Yea, that one might work. Then, at 18, a government representative could come and remove it, and mark down the exact date that you were granted freedom.

One thing I can tell you — if I was about 17 right now, every night at 10:01 p.m., I'd be standing on the street, my feet just past the curb, with an American flag in my arms.

Every. Single. Night.

Hey, think of it this way kids: you'll only have to do it for year or so. Once you turn 18, you can trade your fist full of tickets for your selective service card, which you can be sure will arrive very promptly.

Congratulations. Welcome to America!

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

Pequannock finally ready to move forward on sewering Village Area

After several years of planning and a number of starts and stops, the $12 million Village Area sewer project appears to finally be ready to move forward — really, this time — Township Manager Dave Hollberg said Monday.

The work, which will bring sewers to about 320 homes and 55 businesses in the neighborhood just south of Jackson Avenue, will be paid for by $11,425,009 in bonds authorized by the Township Council in September 2010. Jackson Avenue, Evans Place, a section of the Newark-Pompton Turnpike, and Sunset Road from the Turnpike to the Boulevard will also be sewered.

Local officials had thought last spring that the project would be done by now, but Hollberg said that the town couldn’t move forward without completing prior assessments left over from the Pequannock and Munson Avenue sewer projects.

"We needed to get that done, but now that we’ve completed that, we can move ahead," he said.

One addendum to the project might be made, Hollberg said. He explained that the township’s engineering department is exploring the possibility of crossing Route 23 at two points, instead of just one as had been previously planned, in order to provide the eastern side of the highway with sewers that could spur commercial development.

Once it’s decided whether to amend the plans, the work will go to bid, and construction should start in the late spring/early summer. The manager said the sooner the project is begun, the better, as the lagging timeline has impacted capital projects like the county’s plan to repave the Newark-Pompton Turnpike and the town’s plan to pave the Village Area’s roads, which have fallen apart as a result of gas and water main work and repeated heavy flooding.

"It’s urgent," Hollberg said. "After the water blending facility is complete, it becomes the top-priority project for this year."

Once the sewers are installed, the bonds will be repaid through a combination of sewer utility monies and assessments against individual homeowners. When it winds up, approximately half the town will have sewers.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

My pup...

No trespassing...

Local wrestlers, coaches react to IOC giving wrestling the ax in 2020

NORTH JERSEY - It's well past 9 p.m. on a blustery Thursday night in February, but the little Cannonball Gym in Pompton Lakes is broiling with energy. The windows fog as the soggy air rises past 85 degrees, and the sounds of heavy breathing and sweaty bodies sliding on mats is heard as dozens of lean, hungry kids work under an oversized American flag hanging from the rafters.

In the world of combat sports, it's furnaces like this that serve as the heart of the sport and separate, through grueling practice, the participants from the hardened contenders who will be pumped into every vein of competition across the country. They are the "sine que non," that upon which everything else is built.

But unfortunately for those practicing at gyms like this the world over, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) governing body, citing cost concerns, stripped them of their Super Bowl when it decided to drop wrestling - the first sport to be included in the ancient games that wasn't a footrace - from its roster for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Cast by secret ballot, the February vote was taken after the governing body conducted a study of the 26 "core sports" from the London Games that looked at 39 factors such as TV ratings, worldwide audience, and ticket sales. Wrestling did not make the cut, and the world's oldest sport has now been lumped in with seven other "non-core" sports like squash, wakeboarding, and "roller sports" (like roller derby) to reapply for one open spot for 2020.

Ironically, the decision has done what the Games themselves were meant to do: draw together nations. Strange bedfellows have been made as traditional foes like Iran, the United States, and Russia have united to fight against what many say is an absolutely shocking decision.

The IOC leadership is slated to vote in September which sport to admit.

A fiery reaction

The IOC decision was an earthquake for the wrestling community, and "shock" and "confusion" were the first words on everyone's lips at Cannonball.

33-year-old West Milford resident Dave Maver stood just past the mats watching his 14-year-old son Damian go through the paces, and said his son's passion for the sport stems from his preference of relying on himself instead of a team. When he heard wrestling was getting the axe, Maver, a former wrestler himself, said he couldn't fathom it; wrestlers get little enough attention as is, he said.

Damian echoed his father's sentiments, and said that the news was devastating to young competitors.

"You don't get no money for (this), it's just guys that are willing to do it because they love the sport. It's guys who care," he said. "It's like you work so hard and you could think that you're on the top level but there's no Olympics...no one would even know you're good."

Don Bosco Prep senior Razohnn Gross, a nationally ranked state champion in the 195-pound weight class, agreed, and said that the dismissal was a "huge blow" because of the already-slim opportunities for those looking wrestle after college.

"Wrestling in the Olympics is really all you can do," he said. "Everybody wants to be an Olympic champ or an Olympic finalist...people are just really disappointed."

Jason Silverstein, 34, stood in Cannonball's weight room after training another youth wrestler and waited for the class to end. He wrestled at the prestigious Blair Academy in Blairstown, and went on to make All-American at Purdue University as a 125-pounder. He lives in Oakland, and expounded upon the benefits of taking up the sport. He learned his hardest lessons on the mat, he said.

"What you learn in wrestling you use every day in your life: persistence, tough-mindedness, dedication, and a never-give-up attitude," he said.

It could never be dropped from the Olympics, he'd thought - it was a mainstay if there ever was one.

"I was shocked. When I think about the Olympics, I think of wrestling and running. It didn't make any sense to me. It's one of those sports that transcends countries and cultures - every country, every African tribe in the jungle, has some form of wrestling," he said. "It embodies the Olympic spirit."

Worries about the future

Beyond the initial shock, though, many area coaches are worried that the razing of the sport's championship could lead to shrinking youth programs in the future.

Len Smith has coached wrestling in Pequannock for 34 years, 26 of them as the head coach of the Pequannock Township High School (PTHS) team. He called the IOC's decision "rash," but believes it came down to money and TV ratings. In the end, he said, it's a "slap in the face" to a sport that already requires sacrifice not only from its participants, but from the parents who pay for camps and clubs and drive their kids around to practices and competitions.

"It's a pure sport, a great sport, but it still doesn't get any type of respect because it's not a television sport. Nobody gives (wrestling) any type of recognition, and sometimes that alone will turn kids off," he said. "And some parents will say, 'Why am I going to make that sacrifice if the world doesn't?"

Pompton Lakes Coach Scott Mahoney agreed, and said that although the immediate affect might not be felt immediately in a state like New Jersey, it could be a "disaster" long-term - no Olympics might mean fewer college programs, and fewer college programs might mean fewer high school programs.

Mahoney agreed that money is likely driving the IOC's decisions.

"I don't think at that level they're getting the same (advertising monies) from wrestling as they are from track or swimming," he said. "You put wrestling on TV and you're not getting the same endorsements; you don't hear about guys like Jordan Burroughs, but he's just as great as Michael Phelps."

However, Mahoney said, there's been a swift, strong backlash, and the support for it to be reinstated has gathered.

"There's a big outcry. Everybody supports everyone in wrestling, and there's been a big push," he said.

Down, but not out

Others in the sport are not as concerned. Wayne Oakley, 31, was a two-time PTHS district champ from 1996-2000 and now coaches the town's respected rec team. He was surprised at the public's vocal outrage, especially among those who he doesn't count as "wrestling people." But whether or not it's in the Olympics, he said, kids will come.

"The young kids doing it...for the most part, they aren't thinking Olympics. I don't think the younger kids understand what's going on, they're just out there because they have fun wrestling," he said. "Wrestling is always going to be around."

Austin Wall, Cannonball's 31-year-old owner/operator, happens to agree.

It would take too many column inches to list all of the Wanaque resident's accomplishments, but suffice it to say that he was nationally ranked and undefeated at 189 pounds in his 2000 senior year at Indian Hills and was inducted into the NJ Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2007.

He's perhaps the embodiment of what sport -every sport - should be: wrestling since the age of six, he spent the first portion of his life learning and competing, and will likely spend the rest of it teaching. His first reaction to the IOC decision was anger.

"There's not a lot for this sport, and (the Olympics) are traditionally the highest accolade. It's a really big part of what this is, and it's a really big part of what the Olympics are. So none of it really makes sense," he said.

Wall splits the blame between the internal politics of the IOC and wrestling's own leadership, which he said had become "too comfortable" with what it perceived was an untouchable spot on the world stage.

"They took it for granted," he said. "The biggest fault that people in general have is that they get too comfortable. You don't live with edge anymore. Now you got a problem, because you think you're entitled to something...and that's so uncharacteristic of people who are a part of this sport...because the only people who get successful in this sport are people who work."

The move might even have been a necessary evil, he said, and has forced a shakeup of sport's international governing body, the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles.

But regardless of whether the decision is reversed or not, American wrestling will continue, he said; between rec leagues and high school/college programs, there's simply too much infrastructure built up around it.

Overseas, however, the outlook might not be so rosy - with no college scholarship programs in the small Eastern European republics where wrestling thrives, the Olympics is the only incentive, and it lights a fire under every competitor.

Few understand that better than Wall, who experienced it firsthand during a 1998 trip to the Olympic Training Center in Belarus as a part of the "Wrestling Bridge to Peace" program.

"You don't understand what the Olympics means until you've experienced international competition, and what it means to other people," he said. "There's a very small percentage of people in America that wrestle with a sense of urgency that is necessary to win at the ultimate level - like your skin's on fire. You don't get that same bite (here.) But when I was there...everybody's got the bite. Everybody."

He related one story about a match with the third-ranked wrestler in the world who, just as the match started, punched him squarely in the face and gave up a penalty point just to assert his dominance.

"My coach told me, 'He's ranked third in the world. He wanted to make sure you knew who he was,'" said Wall. "Then he whooped me 13 - 1. That was my only point."

It's that kind of almost insane passion that would be lost worldwide.

"It would hurt a lot.... you're definitely walking on thin ice," he said.

But Wall has faith that his persistent brethren in the wrestling community will be able to change the IOC's mind. And if they can't....that's ok too. After all, he said, wrestlers have always been about the "love of the game" - nothing more.

"We're not getting any money. There is no glory here," he said, pointing to the mats. "Our glory lies in the character this builds, and the strength it builds, and the person it builds, and the families that it affects. I can teach my son humility, but not like wrestling can. I can teach him respect, but not like wrestling can. I can teach him dedication, but not like wrestling can."

If someone can enunciate that to the IOC, wrestling just might beat out roller derby for the 2020 games. But their work is certainly cut out for them.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/194736831_Local_wrestlers__coaches_react_to_IOC_giving_wrestling_the_axe_in_2020.html

NASA cuts: a danger for everyone

I was still awake at 2 in the morning when the first reports of the Russian meteor began filtering in via Twitter, and by morning, full videos of the thing passing through the atmosphere, shattering windows and creating general panic as it went, were all over the Web.

One, which shows a blip streaking across the sky before flashing brighter than a half-dozen suns, is particularly captivating and looks like a scene out of a movie – just not the movie that I ever, ever wanted to see in real life. Had that happened in New Jersey I would have been hiding behind the couch, chain-smoking cigarettes and ranting about how the world was ending.

Thankfully, it was in Russia, and because the 10,000-ton meteor wasn't all that large (in cosmic terms), the video remains a fascinating bit of science instead of an impromptu documentary on how the world ended.

But even knowing how bad it could have been, the event has had one huge benefit: in one fell swoop, that chunk of rock reinforced the faltering notion that space science is, well, kind of important, and it illustrated that in a way that hundreds of broke, frustrated columnists like me couldn't do in a century.

Make no mistake: nothing was stopping that meteor from being three miles wide, and it is a total roll of the dice as to how close these things come to Earth. If it had been that big we likely would have detected it, of course, but that doesn't mean that we could do anything to stop it aside from launching some "Hail Mary" nukes and praying — a pretty poor game plan for saving humanity and ensuring the survival of the human race.

Sound like a movie script? Of course it does. But it’s wholly possible, and it has happened, over and over and over again. One need only look up at the massive craters on our own moon to realize that the biography of the Earth is rife with apocalyptic, world-ending impacts.

But we, in what seems like a permanent mission to swallow the barrel of our own shotgun, refuse to adequately fund our one line of defense against all this (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and in this "GOVERNMENT IS SOOO EVIL!" era, you can pretty much type "NASA budget cuts" into Google on any given day and find something new that’s on the chopping block.

Every year the pool of money devoted to scientific exploration shrinks — down to $17.7 billion from $18.4 billion two years ago — and programs are cut and ideas abandoned because politicians (including President Obama) refuse to devote money to it. That is not how it should be.

I will never understand the zeal with which we’ve abandoned our space program, and the lack of progress we’ve made since the leaps and bounds of the mid-20th century is especially frustrating. But hopefully, the Russian meteor will renew both interest in and concern about our space program and let us move forward again on the grand plans we’ve walked away from.

After all, as the famous Bill Nye succinctly said in a CNN interview last summer: "If the Earth gets hit by an asteroid, it’s game over. It’s control-alt-delete for civilization."

Being as we are the only species to walk the Earth that has both the technology and the ability to avoid this fate, I suggest we take this responsibility more seriously.