Local Civil War soldiers fight it out at Gettysburg

The idea that any one of us might one day make a decision that will change the course of the history of the world might be a little disconcerting. It would be a heavy burden to bear, to be sure, especially when we don’t know when that day might come, or what decision will do the changing.

But the reality is that, over the course of three days in 1863, men from this area — regular folks like us who lived along the meandering Pompton and Pequannock rivers in the farmland that made up Passaic and Morris counties — actually did do things that have resonated across the ages and swayed the course of events over the centuries.

Those men were, by all accounts, just like us, the only difference being that they were born earlier. They saw the same snows fall on the same hills, watched the same rivers flood in the early spring, and walked the same main streets that we do today.

Now, they are buried in our towns, mute witnesses watching from beneath stone slabs as we wait at the Ringwood Avenue traffic light or amble out of a Pequannock town meeting, utterly absorbed in our everyday lives.

In their own lives, though, they were extraordinary. And at Gettysburg, the little Pennsylvania hamlet of then 2,500 situated just 10 miles from the Maryland border, they proved it in a fashion that ensured that word of their deeds would live far longer than their bodies.

In some ways, they were like the town of Gettysburg itself — famous for nothing in particular before 170,000 soldiers converged there and caused its name to become immediately synonymous with death and devastation on an unimaginable scale, and put it on par with places like Marathon, Hastings, and Waterloo in how it would affect the path of the human race.

It may sound like hyperbole, but it is assuredly not. The importance of what happened on the overgrown, rocky heights around Gettysburg over the course of those three balmy days 150 years ago cannot be overstated, and how those brave souls from Morris and Passaic counties fought can never be forgotten.


Longest spring on record

If, after the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, the Union cause had seemed bleak, by the late spring of 1863, it was in total shambles.

The northern Army of the Potomac had been taken over by a new general, the Massachusetts-born "Fighting Joe" Hooker, and he promptly whipped the soldiers back into shape before taking them into action at Chancellorsville that May, where he was promptly defeated in spectacular fashion.

As usual, the army had performed well, but the overwhelming incompetence of its commander, who was replaced soon after, led it to failure.

General George Meade replaced Hooker, and he followed the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia north as it invaded Pennsylvania in the hopes that one last, great victory, this time on northern soil, would either clear the path to Washington or bring about foreign intervention from England or France.

Using the mountains of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley as a screen, the Southerners, commanded by the legendary Robert E. Lee, were likely headed toward Harrisburg until a chance run-in between a brigade of Confederate infantry and some Union cavalry sparked the bloodiest battle in American history.



The first day’s fight

Legends abound about why exactly the rebels were marching down the Chambersburg Pike on the morning of July 1. Popular myth says that Confederate division commander Harry Heth had heard that there were shoes in Gettysburg, and moved to seize them for his troops, many of whom had made the long walk from Virginia barefoot. Others say he knew exactly what awaited him.

Regardless, when his lead brigades ran into the Union cavalry of General John Buford, a fight quickly ensued. Buford, a career soldier, recognized the value of the series of ridges around Gettysburg, and his men used their new breach-loading carbines to fight a frustrating delaying action that gave the Union infantry time to arrive.

Soon, thousands from each side had arrived, and units dove headlong into the battle as commanders from both armies sent couriers to other commanders telling them to get to the little crossroads with all possible speed. By the afternoon, Union soldiers had formed a wide semi-circle northwest of the town that held against repeated attacks until eventually, outflanked and outnumbered, they broke and ran.

It looked as if the Army of the Potomac had been defeated once again, but slowly, the panicking troops rallied on a hill with a cemetery on it just south of the town, and the Confederates, tired and disorganized, rested instead of pressing the attack.

More federal troops arrived that night, and by morning, the Confederates were facing a fortified position that extended east to neighboring Culp’s Hill.



‘They held their own’

By the morning of July 2, the Union line resembled a gigantic fish hook, with the barb at Culp’s Hill and the shank on Cemetery Ridge, which ran south away from Cemetery Hill before culminating in two rocky hills: Little Round Top and Big Round Top.

With federal troops now firmly entrenched on the high ground and the prospects of a frontal assault looking grim, Lee ordered General James Longstreet to take the 17,000 men of his I Corps and turn the Union left to attack Cemetery Ridge and the Round Tops.

Standing in his way was the Union III Corps, led by a New York Democrat named Dan Sickles. Sickles, who was made a general more because of his political affiliations than his expertise in the field, decided that the ground in front of Cemetery Ridge looked a bit higher, and thought that moving his men forward might give them a better position. What it really did, however, was create an isolated salient in the Union line; now, the shank sat a mile in front of the rest of the hook.

A good many Morris County troops were with Sickles that day, and many, like those in the 7th and 8th New Jersey, would be in the forefront of the action.

The 7th was a veteran unit that had fought in the war’s most vicious battles, and among them was the 23-year-old Lewis Kerr, who was very likely a resident of Pequannock and would be buried in the graveyard of the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains.

David Hann, a New Jersey reenactor who has been portraying a 7th New Jersey soldier for the past 27 years, said that unlike many other regiments, the 7th was made up of men from every corner of the state.

"Passaic County had a company, Morris County had a company…and you had firemen from Hoboken, watermen from Cape May, and German iron molders [in the same regiment]," Hann said.

The 7th’s mission was to support Battery B of the 1st New Jersey Light Artillery, which also had a strong Morris County contingent made up of 18-year-old Theodore F. Ackerman, 21-year-old Charles Monks, and James B. Onderdonk (age unknown), all of whom were from Pequannock and are now interred at the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains.

Butler was also represented, and working the cannons alongside their Pequannock brethren were 17-year-old Abram Brown, 24-year-old James Walker, and John Luther (age unknown). They now lie in the borough’s Manning Avenue graveyard.

The Jerseymen were in a precarious position, however, and none realized it faster than Meade himself. Just as he was about to order them back into line, however, Longstreet’s attack began, and it was Battery B’s guns, commanded by A. Judson Clark, who "announced to the assembled corps commanders that ‘the ball had opened,’" Samuel Toombs wrote in his 1888 book "New Jersey Troops in the Gettysburg Campaign."

Southerners had emerged from the woods Battery B’s front, but the heavy lead shells quickly made them decide against attacking.

"[Clark] opened fire, using shell and shrapnel, firing slowly with good effect… the fire of the battery drove [the rebels] back to the cover of the woods," wrote Sergeant Leander McChesney in his book "History of Battery B."

Clark wrote in his official report that after repelling the attack with canister shot — tin shells filled with hundreds of little lead balls that exploded like a shotgun shell — his guns engaged the rebel artillery in a duel that the New Jerseyans would convincingly win.

"[Clark] passed from gun to gun directing the fire of each, character of missile and time of fuse," wrote McChesney. "As soon as he was satisfied with the effect of battery fire, he gave the order ‘Fire at will,’ and from that moment our six Parrott guns poured a stream of shell and shrapnel into the enemy’s batteries."

Soon, however, other rebel batteries opened on them with what Clark called a "rapid and severe" fire, and Longstreet’s infantry came in hard behind it. Battery B, along with the 7th — which Toombs wrote was forced to helplessly endure the duel — would soon be engaged in one of the most violent maelstroms of war ever seen on this earth.

Clark’s Morris County cannons, which kept up a "very destructive" fire, opened wide gaps in the Confederate ranks moving toward the Peach Orchard, and dying and mutilated men fell by the score. Still, all along the line, the Southerners surged.

The nearby 8th New Jersey, which was the home unit of Pequannock’s George Decker and Henry Morgan as well as Butler’s Isaac Ogden, was ordered to cross a nearby (and soon to be infamous) wheat field and take up a position behind a stone wall, Toombs wrote.

Numbering just 198 men, they were struck head-on by General James Kershaw’s brigade of South Carolinians, which numbered somewhere around 1,300, and in a few minutes, a "sharp, severe, and bloody struggle" commenced, wrote Toombs.

"The 8th fought with the gallantry and bravery which proved them worthy followers of the heroic Kearny," he wrote. "Their ranks were rapidly thinned, and as they fell slowly back, their colors became entangled in a tree. The remnant of brave fellows rallied around them with cheers and re-formed to meet the advancing foe. At this point the 8th was subjected to a severe musketry fire and sustained heavy losses."

Their colonel fell wounded, and by the time the regiment was relieved, it had lost nearly a third of its strength.

South Carolina and New Jersey would prove to be mortal enemies that day, and Hann said that just as the 7th’s colonel, Louis Francine, was about to order the regiment backwards to avoid the cannonade, Battery B came under direct assault from Kershaw’s Carolinians.

Battery B limbered up quickly as its horse-drawn pieces tore through the 7th’s ranks, creating a mass of confusion. To counter this, Francine had all 331 men fire once at the incoming rebels, and then ordered a bayonet charge to distract them from the retreating cannons.

Soon, the "devoted little band swept across the field with shouts of confidence," Toombs wrote, but quickly, the "hopelessness of the 7th’s effort was apparent, and all knew that any further advance meant certain annihilation for the brave Jerseymen."

"[A charge] was attempted, but the enemy’s fire was so severe that we were compelled to fall back," the 7th’s Major Frederick Cooper later wrote.

Francine went down, mortally wounded, as did Lieutenant-Colonel Price, who rallied the regiment until he himself fell. Cooper took over, and withdrew under heavy attack. The regiment lost nearly 40 percent of its number, but Kerr would survive.

Battery B, which now has a large monument on the field, fired 1,300 rounds at Gettysburg — so many, Hann said, that the barrels of their cannons had to be scrapped after the battle.

And the 7th, Hann said with no small degree of pride, had proved its mettle.

"They really stood tall against Kershaw, and you’re talking about a regiment against a brigade," he said. "The 7th New Jersey held their own."



The 13th at Culp’s Hill

Meanwhile, the men of the 13th New Jersey held a position on the extreme right flank of the Union line — at the barb, as opposed to the shank — and in that regiment were two soldiers from Pompton Lakes: the 27-year-old Capt. David Austen Ryerson and his 25-year-old brother, Peter.

It is written in the "Biographical and Genealogical History of the City of Newark and Essex County" that the brothers were of Huguenot descent, their ancestors having arrived from Holland in the earliest part of the 18th century and settling in the Pompton Valley shortly thereafter.

They’d signed up for the 13th in the summer of 1862, and at least one source attributes the decision to grief over the death of their 63-year-old father, who’d been killed leading a regiment of New Jerseyans at the 1862 Battle of Williamsburg.

The 13th had survived a lead baptism at Antietam, and by Gettysburg was considered a strong, reliable group of about 360 veterans. During the day on July 2, it had been shuffled around to provide support to whomever was being attacked, but found itself back on Culp’s Hill in the early hours of July 3 just as the Union troops were attacking to recoup ground lost the previous night.

"The Union artillery opened along the whole line, and from this time until ten o'clock a fierce, stubborn, and desperate battle was waged. On the success of the Twelfth Corps now depended the safety of the army," Toombs wrote, somewhat dramatically. "The continued roll of musketry, the deafening roar of the artillery were listened to by the waiting army with apprehension. The long lines of wounded men being carried to the rear gave evidence of the severity of the struggle."

As the fight raged, the 13th stayed mostly in support until David Ryerson’s company became embroiled in a southern counterattack.

The Confederates, consisting of mostly men from Stonewall Jackson’s legendary legions, "fought madly," said Toombs, "heroically and with a bravery which only Jackson’s men could show, but they were at a disadvantage — the Union line, sheltered by the rocks and immense boulders up to the face of which the rebels charged again and again, enabled them to inflict serious injury upon their assailants, and heavy as the Union loss [were] that of the enemy was [terrible]."

Ryerson’s company helped repulse the attack and send the rebels streaming back in disorder.

"At the first fire [the Confederates] were completely checked, and at the second they broke in confusion and fled, leaving their dead and wounded on the field," wrote one veteran.

Sometime during the fight, however, David Ryerson was shot. How serious it was, or where he was hit, is unknown, but it was serious enough that he was listed as a casualty. However, he would not follow his father’s footsteps to the other side just yet — he would live, to fight again another day.

And the Union position — all of it — was safe.



Their legacy

As the smoke cleared on the evening of July 3, it was not yet clear that the battle was over. However, heavy rains moved into the area on July 4, and Lee began the process of staging a slow, painful retreat back to Virginia. After a combined 51,000 American casualties, the great fight was over.

There would be more battles, of course — the war would last for two more grueling years — and hundreds of thousands more would die, but the southern army would never again be that strong, and the northerners would never again come so close to total defeat.

The great invasion was turned back, and the men of Morris and Passaic counties had stood firm in defense of their homes, which for once, had not seemed so distant.

Many would serve out the remainder of the war, and some would not survive it. But all who fought on the fields of Gettysburg would be able to say, without exaggeration, that they’d helped breathe new life into a nation that, at least for a few days, was in its death throes.

They were, and still are, heroes deserving of the highest honors.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/216388111_Local_Civil_War_soldiers_fight_it_out_at_Gettysburg.html

Civil War, New Jersey, Gettysburg, History

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

Loner by the water

US Army Corps presents new flood study plan to Pequannock public

By Steve Janoski

One year. Just one.

That's the deadline set by US Army Corp of Engineers (ACE) New York District Commander Colonel John Boule last Wednesday evening for completing the first phase of a $15 million study of the Passaic River Basin that officials believe might finally end with a solution to mitigate flooding.
Colonel John R. Boule, the New York District commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, and Eugene Brickman, Corps of Engineers deputy chief, speak to the large crowd that gathered at PTHS to hear the ACE's plan on river flooding.

But this won't be the same old review, Boule told a collection of area mayors and media members just before an ACE-hosted public outreach program was set to begin at Pequannock Township High School.

This one, he said, is going to take all of the information already accrued about the 983-square-mile basin by well over a dozen studies in the past century (especially the research done in 1987) and build off it.

And, he said, it's going to be done quick.

"If you look at how long it took us to get a recommended solution in the 1980s, we want to do it much faster," said Boule. Finishing work like this inside a year, he said, is "light speed" for the ACE.

Officials see six possible plans on the table as options to alleviate the flooding that has cost more than $3.5 billion in 22 years.

In one calendar year, the ACE wants it narrowed down to one or two realistic options.

Two of the plans involve different configurations of levees and floodwalls along the Passaic and its tributaries, coupled with either bridge and dam modifications or channel modification. Depending on which was selected, this would cost between $840 million and $961 million.

Another plan is a "non-structural alternative" that more or less relies on buyouts and home elevations to move residents out of harm's way. Moving those residents out of the floodway itself would cost an estimated $294 million. Moving them out of the 100-year floodplain would cost $7.3 billion.

Another plan is to improve both Beatties Dam in Little Falls and the Two Bridges area along the PassaicRiver (no cost estimate was offered), while a fifth would be to take no action and let things continue as they will.

The final option would be to bring back the much maligned idea of building a $2.7 billion, 21-mile flood tunnel that would funnel water from the flood basin down to Newark Bay. This plan is unlikely to be resurrected and is only included, Boule said, because it was the 1987 plan's approved solution.

"The Christie Administration has made it crystal clear that that is not an option," Boule said of the tunnel.

No stopping water

The colonel admitted that there has been a move away from what he called "monstrous structural projects," and he attributed that to a combination of the environmental movement and a new view on flooding — it's no longer about controlling the water.

"You can't do that. You've got to change your mindset," he said. "It's about reducing the residual risk to the public to the lowest level that's affordable."

David Rosenblatt, the Department of Environmental Protection's director of construction, agreed and noted that economics has also had a heavy impact on the shift toward policies that rely more on buyouts and elevations than on brick-and-mortar projects.

"There's not enough money out there to do a lot of the structural work that would normally be designed," he said. "(That) would require appropriations from Congress over a large number of years, and those appropriations are rather uncertain… at the federal and state levels."

Once the first phase is complete and the choices whittled down, Boule said, the ACE would take a more detailed, intensive look at the remaining options. The state would have to agree to a final plan before the ACE could have it brought to Washington for congressional approval.

Boule said he understood the frustration on the part of both local officials and residents about the issue and said that the public outreach meetings were meant to offer citizens a chance to voice their concerns and ideas. Shortly afterward, Boule found a packed PTHS auditorium brimming with those looking to share ideas.

The crowd, which likely numbered around 100, appeared willing to listen to the ACE plan, but clearly remained skeptical that any work would ever be done.

Some, like Pequannock resident Al Fabrizio, immediately looked past the ACE's outlined options and asked why other, more immediate fixes such as reservoir management, weren't being investigated.

"If you control the reservoirs, and I don't know why no one has brought this up, we can live with at least one eye closed at night. It's that simple," he said.

Rosenblatt would later comment that the DEP had discussed the regulation of reservoirs "extensively," but the department was not ready to go public with a decision.

"It's not really a workable solution as we see it right now," he said, declining to go into further detail.

Others, like Pequannock resident Nate Glinbizzi, said that the ACE should stick to its deadline as tightly as possible.

"We've had Army Corps of Engineers people retire studying the flood plain. I really want action," he said. "We are waiting. I may not be around in two or three years, but I hope I will be, and I'd like to see this done."

Hans Prell, a Little Falls resident and president of that town's Flood Board, said that he'd spent 60 years in the river basin and had heard "lots of talk" from governors and ACE officials alike but had yet to see any flood prevention work.

He dismissed the idea of a timeline and said that he thought it would be at least 10 years before any kind of groundbreaking occurred.

"I don't care what you say. We're going to have to wait 10 years, and that's government. I know it is, and I see it all the time," he said. "I'll see something happen when I'm 73 years old on that Beatties Dam when I've been fighting for it for God knows how many years."

A number of other residents spoke as well, some just to share their experiences while others, like Lincoln Park Councilman Gary Gemian, decried the lack of government action.

Boule admitted that he could not guarantee that anything would be built as a result of the 2012 study, but said that if there was enough political will and consensus, something could happen in the Passaic River Basin similar to what is occurring in Bound Brook, where $400 million worth of flood-protection measures are under construction.

"There's solutions going on down on the ground. Can they happen here in the Passaic River Basin? Yes they can," said Boule. "If we push the elected officials…to make it happen, it can happen, and you have to believe that. If you don't believe it, then nothing, obviously, is going to happen."

"Since 1903, nothing has gotten done," someone in the crowd yelled after Boule's statement concluded. "That's why we don't believe you."

"I hear you," Boule replied. "I hear you."

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/162547556_Army_Corps_wants_one_more_year_for_flood_relief_studies.html?page=all

Barber shops are still making the cut

BY STEVE JANOSKI

STAFF WRITER

NORTH JERSEY — To some, the very idea of a "corner barbershop" might seem like an anachronistic throwback to the 1950s, a reminder of a bygone golden age that was once here but has now vanished into mythical Americana alongside the shoemaker or the local hardware store.

At one time, though, they were renowned as a prominent staple of every town, a place where a man could let his guard down and converse with other men about work or politics, complain about his woman or his car, and, quite simply, be a man. All the while, of course, catching a haircut or a fresh shave with a straight razor.

Often, in the eyes of the regulars, they became more than just a place to get a haircut.

Over the years, however, barbershops have disappeared from the public eye. They’ve been replaced, it seems, by crude chains of cheap unisex haircutting establishments that draw in wandering souls who don’t know where else to go but always walk out a weed-whacked mess.

Quietly, however, real barbershops have not only persevered, but taken off, and many barbers are finding that men are itching for a place to go where they can once again sit back, have some good conversation, share some inappropriate jokes, and take a break from the daily grind.

Sho’Tyme Barber Shop

Just over the bridge leading onto Main Street in Butler sits the brightly painted plate glass façade of the Sho’Tyme Barber Shop, which is proving every day that there is indeed a warm middle-ground for both old-school men looking for a traditional cut and new-school kids looking for the flashiest buzzer work.

One step through the door and Sho’Tyme’s colors daze the eyes — mustard tile floors contrast sharply with blue and white walls, while black and white chairs for waiting customers are lined up in alternating chessboard fashion.

The shop’s owner, 32-year-old Lenny Then, is lean with long black hair and a thin goatee. He says that he created Sho’Tyme for that very purpose, and every day when he opens the door and the line starts forming, he looks over and knows he’s on the right track.

"I’ll have somebody in the chair that’s got gray hair, he’s retired, and then right after him I’ll have a kid that just came from high school," he says. "It’s kind neat just having all types of age groups…. Here, everyone just meets at one door."

Then, who lives in Butler, has owned the shop for eight years, and although his youth is evident, so is his knowledge of not only the barber business, but also whom he’s looking to attract.

"We’re young, but I don’t run it like we’re in the ’hood, cause we’re not in the ’hood," he says. "I like the kids, and the middle age, and the older guys to feel comfortable."

"You see my signs on the walls?" he asks, pointing to several old-school signs painted into the décor. "Those are for the old guys, let ’em know, ‘We didn’t forget about you.’"

Then has been on this track for a long time. As a child, his aunts owned salons, and he first picked up the clippers on his own in the sixth grade, using an upside-down spackle bucket as his first barber’s chair and his younger brother as his first client.

"He was my guinea pig," Then says with a laugh.

Around 12, he realized he had an eye for the trade, and in college, he used it to make money on the side before finally deciding to go to cosmetology school — an ironic state requirement for barbers that Then says is contributing directly to the lack of barbershops.

"All these barbers in the city — and I can show you thousands — none of them have licenses, because no one is going to go to cosmetology school like I did to learn women’s hair, just to do men’s hair," he says.

After graduating, Then worked for other barbers to learn the trade first-hand before opening his own place. He takes pride in his skill with both buzzers and scissors. Nowadays, he says, proficiency with both tools is a rarity.

"It’s a lost craft," he says.

But maybe the most important piece of what he does has nothing to do with his hands.

"Conversation is 100 percent, most important," he says. "This is where a man comes and unwinds, he speaks his mind. He tells you how his day went, he tells you something new that he learned."

At Sho’Tyme, however, there is an "anything goes" philosophy. Then warns that "once you step into a barbershop, all the gloves are off."

"It’s like the movie ‘Barbershop,’" he said, alluding to the 2002 film about a shop on the South Side of Chicago. "If you can’t be straight-up real in a barbershop, where else can you be real?"

When a woman comes in, Then laughs to himself as he watches the men’s attitudes slip back into the conservative realm.

"Everyone zips that mouth and gives that look like, ‘Guys, we gotta’ fall back right now,’" he says. "It’s the funniest thing."

Some girls, especially the ones who grew up with brothers, will announce that it’s all right, they understand about the conversation and where it goes. Soon, things will relax again.

Sometimes, he ends up playing the role of de facto psychologist for guys who might not speak about their troubles anywhere else. Steering them in the right direction when they ask for his advice is one thing they don’t teach you in school, he says.

"You gotta’ really sit there and analyze them and really put your heart and soul into that man’s life, and if you steer them the right way, they’re gonna’ be grateful not just because of the haircut," he says.

"I care about each and every person that comes in here."

Tom's Barber Shop

Norman Greenbaum’s "Spirit in the Sky" plays in the background as a man sits in the leather seat of Tom’s Barber Shop in Pompton Lakes on a Friday morning.

Photos of New York Yankee legends mingle on the walls with Marine Corps memorabilia, old newspaper articles, and a cork-board laced with pictures of clients and their children.

"Nobody does a flat-top like Tom," the man says as he gets up, a smile on his face.

The man pays in a cash before owner Tom Fiorilla, a large 67-year-old man with black hair and an infectious grin, turns and starts giving the history of every piece that hangs from the walls.

One picture is particularly special and has a prominent place in the middle of the shop: a black-and-white photo from 1937 showing his father in the Fiorilla family’s original shop in Hawthorne.

It was from his father that Fiorilla learned the trade — a prospect that he had no say in because his father knew that in good times or bad, people still need their hair cut.

"(My father) said, ‘I survived the Depression making good money, and you’ll never starve, no matter how bad the economy is, you’ll always make a living,’" says Fiorilla. "And he was right, especially the past three or four years. He was very right."

Fiorilla got his barber’s license in 1961. Like Then, he shakes his head at the idea that barbers must attend cosmetology school. In the past, barber school or a simple apprenticeship was enough.

"The best place to learn barbering is in a barber shop, not in a classroom, not working on mannequins, but actually being in a barber shop," he says. "That’s how I learned."

Fiorilla has taken many of his father’s lessons to heart over the years and maintains many of the same policies: work the hours that people can come in (including mornings and evenings), always go to work no matter the weather, and never, ever treat your customers like a number.

Take an interest in their lives and treat them well, he says, and they’ll remember it.

"Interest is the key word," he says. "They’re not just a customer. Take an interest in the individual, in their families and their life. If you treat customers just like a number, forget about it."

That attitude has paid off. He’s had three shops in 50 years: one in Hawthorne, one in Wanaque, and now, his place in Pompton Lakes, and his customers have loyally followed him each time.

That’s why Fiorilla does things like go to nursing homes or people’s houses if they’re down on their luck or can’t make it in. Sometimes, he travels to funeral parlors to give long-time customers their final cut.

He gets invited to his clients’ weddings, their bat mitzvahs, their gatherings, and he’s cut four generations of hair for some families.

They consider him their extended family, and that, to Fiorilla, is everything.

"I love what I do. I love seeing people and old friends and families and listening to their stories," he says. "This is more than barbering."

Jimmy the Barber

His real name is Jimmy Thurstans, but in West Milford, you’ll find him by just looking for the man called "Jimmy the Barber."

He’s been at the same spot on Marshall Hill Road for 21 years and in business since 1966. Like the others, barbering appears to just be in his blood.

Thurstans, 63, says that his English grandparents had owned a wig-making and hairdressing shop in the Old Country before coming to America.

He decided to follow that road himself at the age of 17 after an ill-fated "rock and roll road trip" where he and a friend decided to seek their fame and fortune out on the road.

Unfortunately, they only got as far as about Washington, D.C., before they were arrested as "fugitives" who ran away from home.

"That turned in to a whole ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ discussion," he says. "So I said, ‘I’ll go to barber school.’"

Years later, it turned out to be a pretty good choice. His place caters to everyone, from senior citizens to "young dudes" and average guys from across the economic spectrum.

The difference between his place and the more generic unisex salons is the "no frills" that leaves out the selling of products in favor of a haircut, a shave, and a loyal customer base. Thurstans says that 95 percent of his customers are regulars.

Lately he’s seen a resurgence in the number of barber shops, which he attributes to women cutting back on their own services because of the downed economy.

Haircutters are trying to capture the men’s crowd, he says, who spend less but are more regular in their habits.

No matter what they do or who opens around him, though, his place keeps rolling and has turned into a something of a landmark in the town.

"I always hear people say that I should be the mayor because I know everybody," he says with a laugh. "That’s where you get an average haircutter who can be more successful that a very good haircutter. It’s based on personality."

Not that Thurstans is an average haircutter, of course. His 45 years of experience speak for themselves.

In his place, he strives to keep a light atmosphere that’s filled with jokes and fun, and no appointments are needed, ever. In fact, Thurstans laughs at the very idea of them.

"Nobody does appointments…. It doesn’t work here. An appointment is calling to say, ‘I’ll be there in 15 minutes,’" he says.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/134442098_Barber_shops_are_still_making_the_cut.html?c=y&page=1

Cardinals' defense makes sure that they can be seen, heard and mostimportantly felt

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI

If you're standing on the field, you can hear it. Sometimes the sound travels to the stands, but you certainly can't catch it from the press box. If you're on that field, though, if you're on those sidelines… you'll hear it.

It can take on a few different incarnations. Now, it sounds like shotgun shell going off; later on, it's a dull thud, as if one were hitting a tree with a Louisville slugger. Other times, it sounds like just what it is: a body being violently cast to the ground, over, and over, and over.

This has become the soundtrack for the brutal unit known as the Pompton Lakes Cardinals defense, which, with its savage hitting and propensity to generate turnover after turnover, has left opposing coaches and quarterbacks shaking their heads as they walk off the field.

Most defenses gel as the season goes on; this one has turned into poured concrete.

Their ultimate test, however, lay on the windblown turf of Metlife Stadium on Friday night where they faced off against the Glen Rock Panthers for the North 1, Group 1 championship.

As might be expected, they didn't disappoint, and as the clock ticked off its final minute and the Cardinals offense went into its victory formation, every defensive player could look on the scoreboard with the satisfaction that they'd earned by pitching a 20-0 shutout under the brightest of North Jersey's lights.

Simply put, the Cardinals were everywhere. When a Glen Rock pass was completed, linebackers and safeties flew to the ball carrier, often dishing punishing hits that made every completion a Pyrrhic victory.

When a handoff was taken, Glen Rock running backs would watch their blocking scheme crumble in front of them, crushed under the relentless assault from a line that would not give an inch.

In the end, Glen Rock would muster just 184 yards of total offense against the quagmire of a defense, which has been undeniably led by the same two players all year: defensive end Jack Baumgaertel and defensive tackle Andrew Grosser.

Together, they've managed to bring a fire into the Pompton Lakes squad that has not been seen in some time, a fire that's been forged, Baumgaertel said, by suffering through last year's losing season.

They had taken another hit earlier this year, when August's Hurricane Irene brought drenching rains that flooded hundreds of homes and sunk the team's home field under seven feet of water.

The team remembered that, he said, every time they stepped onto the field, every time they got tired, and every time they got frustrated.

"We're not just doing it for ourselves, we're doing it for the whole town… and that's what was in our hearts and minds: our town, and Pompton pride," he said.

They displayed that pride in historic fashion.

Early on in the first half, they bent but didn't break as Glen Rock sustained a drive here and there before eventually falling apart, while the Cardinals offense would supply two touchdowns and a 14-0 lead by halftime.

As the second half opened, however, the defense truly came out.

Glen Rock's first drive would be ended by a Nieko Torres interception, and its second would end in the hands of cornerback Larry Gelok.

The third would be put to sleep by Pompton's biggest hitter: Grosser, the 6 foot 2 inch, 275 lb. behemoth, who would sack Miller on a second and 12 from the Glen Rock 35 yard line.

The 11 yard loss effectively killed the drive, and Glen Rock punted soon after.

After another Pompton Lakes touchdown on the following drive, Glen Rock would mount what was possibly their best shot at scoring in the game, taking a 13 play drive from their own 21 to the Cardinal 31 yard line.

This too would end badly, however, when a Mike O'Neill pass sailed into the middle of the endzone and into the waiting hands of free safety Daniel Foote, who quickly downed the ball.

Foote would repeat that trick on the next drive, intercepting another pass and making a return that, if not for a holding call on Pompton, would have resulted in his running the length of the field for a score.

Baumgaertel attributed this lights-out play to a coaching staff that did their due diligence in drilling the players on the various misdirection plays and reverses that they knew they'd see coming at them.

"We knew that they were going to do a lot of trick plays, and we knew they were going to run to the outside, but the coaches taught us well and we prepared for it," he said.

Coach Scott Mahoney echoed this, and said that Glen Rock "tried just about everything we saw on film," but his defense was able to adapt and keep up.

It was something of a chess match for Mahoney. Glen Rock likes to run sweeps and traps, he said, and therefore, those had to be cut off. If they were, he anticipated that they would try to start throwing the ball.

With enough pressure, however, and the addition of another defensive back, Pompton could make them throw on the run, which could force them to commit turnovers.

That turnover margin, which ended up being four to one in Pompton's favor, leads directly to the winner's circle, he said.

"We were plus 22 for the year — we had 34 takeaways and 12 giveaways — and when you do that, you're gonna' win, bottom line," Mahoney said.

The philosophy worked, and the Pompton fans that packed the stands by the hundreds could see that checkmate was called by the end of the third quarter.

As for the hitting? Mahoney said that came from practice.

"The kids wanted to hit, they wanted to be physical, and every practice was physical," he said. "We hit right down to Wednesday, we were tackling and poppin' people."

That environment fosters aggressiveness, and Mahoney said that as one big hit begets another, the attitude became contagious.

"One guy sees a big hit, and everyone gets excited, and then they want to make the big hit…that's how you win here," he said.

Apparently, that's how you win at the Meadowlands as well.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com



http://www.northjersey.com/sports/135009328_Defense_makes_sure_that_they_can_be_seen__heard_and_most_importantly_felt.html?c=y&page=1

Irene's winds meet Hemingway's wisdom

BY STEVE JANOSKI

'Il faut (d’abord) durer.’

Supposedly it was Ernest Hemingway’s favorite saying, and, roughly translated from French, it means "One must (first) endure."

I would be lying if I said this wasn’t a phrase I had liberated for my own use after reading it some years ago, because if my limited experiences have taught me nothing else, it’s that often there comes a time when one must simply put their head down and move forward — as Churchill said, "If you’re going through hell, keep going."

As I write this on Friday afternoon, Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the North Carolina coast, and over the past week, the warnings for this area have vacillated from somewhere between "There’s going to be a lot of rain" to "Repent, for the end is nigh."

It’s yet unknown how hideous the storm will be when it strikes New Jersey, and its strength and the magnitude of the damage it causes may make these words seem entirely foolish by Wednesday, or at least defang them if the city streets remain dry due to a tragedy narrowly averted.

But one lesson that we can take from this storm, or even the threat of this storm, is the same one that we must carry away from all natural disasters: nothing, absolutely nothing, is guaranteed, and things in life can and will change in monumental ways without hesitation.

We all hear, of course, that there is a "reason" for every misfortune, but I’ve never thought that to be true.

I am no fatalist and a particularly weak believer in God, and I cast about between being some sort of bastardized deist to an agnostic depending what time of day you ask, so the idea that there is a "reason for everything" seems a naïve, foolish way to justify the curveballs (and sometimes the artillery shells) that life hurls at us.

Whether an event happened for a reason is simply irrelevant, and putting it in cosmic terms, such as suggesting that a space god deemed it necessary that this thing happen for such and such a purpose, is a waste of time.

What is no waste of time — what is completely necessary, in fact — is to simply determine to continue.

It goes without saying that this weekend will be hard on somebody, regardless if that somebody is in North Carolina, Maryland, or New Jersey, and that even if we don’t have to bear Irene’s hammering might, we will inevitably have to do so again when some disaster, be it public or private, befalls us.

If it does happen to be this weekend, though, it will be a frigid reminder that no matter how comfortable we get, how safe and secure in our happy little lives are, we are but a few powerless days away from being thrown into an unimaginable upheaval that would have been totally foreign to us but a week before.

Hopefully, we will take away lessons from this, because aside from proving the strength of our spines, learning is the only thing that these calamities are useful for.

Maybe we will learn to not build in flood basins and go toe-to-toe with nature, and dismiss the silly ideas of building 10-foot wide flood tunnels to Nutley as exactly what they are: silly ideas.

Maybe we will learn to live with and around the land a little bit better, because we know that when Nature rises up in her full fervor we can be swept from the table like so many plastic pawns.

This is my own conjecture, of course, and it’s more than likely that things will never change because of property tax rolls and political battles.

But for the regular people, the ones in Pequannock and Pompton Lakes and Lincoln Park, who will go through this storm and be worse off for it, there is nothing left to do but keep going.

Endure, once again.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859443_Some_thoughts__Irene_s_winds_meet_Hemingway_s_wisdom.html