Hey guys – Use this category for your comments on this story. Just click below on “comments” and have at it.
Thom
July 2, 2007
March 2, 2007
Use this category for your letters to the editor.
Hey guys. I’ve created this category for you to discuss anything and everything that YOU want to talk about concerning the Wildwoods. Normally, we will post editorials or discussions on various issues of the moment, like the JCOW fiasco, or whether the demo boom is over, or what will the Wildwoods be like once the new “Wildwood-25′s get built, and you would comment on the subject.
But this category will be the place for you to bring up any special topic that is close to YOUR heart. Whether you just want to get something off your chest, or want to ask a question about something that is bothering you. Or maybe you might want to know something about the Wildwoods that only someone who lives here all the time can answer, like where was the original boardwalk and when did it get moved to its current location. Or how about just how many elected politicians are there on this one small island, each trying to maintain his or her own little pice of the kingdom?
Whatever you want to discuss. If we don’t know the answer right away, either we’ll try and get it for you, or one of our other readers can answer it for you. As Joan Rivers might say, “Can we talk?”
This is the place.
Thom Fontannaz (The Wildwoods)
February 26, 2007
Mother Nature has gone totally nuts! Should we care?
The Wildwoods has always been an easy kind of place to figure out. If you don’t live here all year long, you save up your money and struggle through the ice and snow of winter seemingly forever until schools are out and you can finally head to the shore for that desperately needed vacation.
Ah, the shore. Warm gentle breezes laced with the arid scent of salt. Walking – or trudging, actually – over the course white sand and down to the sea until you can finally dip your sore, tired, feet in the cool waves.
And if you’re the owner of a Wildwoods business, you spend the entire spring painting and chipping, gathering your stock until school is out and the crowds come flocking back – after Memorial Day.
Lately, however, it seems like the world has turned completely upside down. Most of the time, there isn’t any ice or snow any longer. The big crowds wait until the high schools get out in June to come down. But, hey, it’s already warm down here (up until recently, that is).
The anticipation and thrill of shivering through the long winter until you can jump into the family car and finally get out of town is gone. Unless you live in Los Angeles or Miami. Because until recently, our winter season had swapped places with those other distant cities.
Through January, it felt like early June. Respectable sized crowds were roaming the beach and boardwalk, and some businesses were beginning to pop their hatches like groundhogs coming out to check out the sun. Yet, it was only January.
As Chill Wills’ character asked in Blazing Saddles, “What in the wide, wide, world of sports is a goin’ on here?”
Former Vice President Al Gore has been winning an Academy Award, and tirelessly trekking around the world for some time now, trying like Chicken Little to convince us that we humans are in great danger – we are reaching the “point of no return – and if we don’t change our environmently destructive ways, life itself is going to be a lot different for us. Winter will turn to summer; the ice caps will melt and polar bears will drown; the ocean will rise; and the Wildwoods will become prime ocean property – IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN!
Maybe he’s right. Wake up people!
– Thom F. (The Wildwoods).
Get ready! Your vacation at the shore is about to change.
TheWildwoods is going year-round and a lot of your time may be spent indoors.
In the beginning, back when the Wildwoods was really wild, Lenni Lenape Indians of the Delaware Nation walked all the way from the Delaware Valley to the Wildwoods by way of King Nummy Trail (NJ Route 47). Those good folks knew something modern tourists have come to learn: a summer at the shore will help you avoid the heat back home and fill your belly with some great seafood.
Then, about a couple of hundred years ago, some enterprising mainland farmers figured out that if they ferried their cattle to the Wildwoods to graze for the summer, by September, they would have some really fat – and happy – critters to take back home in the winter. Later, Victorian tourists learned the joy of dipping their toes in the cool surf, and the Wildwoods as we know it today was born.
Back then, most visitors could afford a week or two in the Wildwoods. But eventually, their vacations, like their Victorian hemlines, grew shorter and shorter until now, when a good time at the shore might consist of one or two trips a season of a few days each.
Throughout all of our history, however, one thing has remained the same: the season lasted from about Easter to early September, until the local economy tanked and the island began to die in the early 70′s and 80′s. Because of this, the movers and shakers got together and decided that for the Wildwoods to survive, the season needed to become longer.
So they created some fantastic fall events to entice everyone to stay a little longer. First came the state firemen’s convention. Then the N.J. Hot Rod Association roared onto the island in their flashy cars and evil-looking monster trucks. Then some enterprising Irishmen said, “Let’s have a really big party at the end of the summer.” And suddenly, the season wasn’t ending until about October 1st.
Even so, there were still some people who said that if the Wildwoods was to survive, it must stay open all year long, especially once the hotel rooms from the 50′s and 60′s started dissappearing like green head flies on a strong easterly breeze.
Now, with the announcement that NW has named a potential developer for Seaport Village Pier, things in the Wildwoods are about to change again. I absolutely guarantee it.
The proposed waterpark will not only be upscale like this island has never seen before, it will also be tied in to a 405-room year-round hotel across the boards that will be meant to support the convention center. When you couple this facility with the current waterpark at Montego Bay Resort, and then you consider all the “Wildwood-25′s with their indoor everything. (One, for example: the “WB Resort” at Burk and Ocean Avenues, is supposed to have an indoor beach with actual sand and real waves for goodness sake). Then you figure all the indoor fine dining and amenities, as well as the fancy nightclubs and health spas… Absolutely no one will ever have to leave their hotels anymore.
You won’t be coming to the Wildwoods for the “fun and sun” any longer. Now you’ll be coming here to check out your favorite year-round indoor summer wonderland, complete with wall-to-wall valets and concierges.
But then again, I guess if you really think about it; now you won’t have to make that back-breaking trek across the beach any longer.
Hmmm, I wonder if the Moreys can enclose the Sea Serpent and the Great White Shark, too. — Thom F – The Wildwoods.
What do you think?
February 10, 2007
Hello world!
Welcome to day one, post one, of the brand new Backyard Fence, my interactive discussion forum for the Wildwoods Reporter.
The Backyard Fence will be the place to go to get a first hand perspective on what’s happening in the Wildwoods, comment on our current editorials, or just plain speak your mind about the current issues swirling around Five Mile Beach without fear of being put down for your opinions.
When I started the Wildwoods Reporter, I wanted to include a traditional Letters to the Editor page, which is what the Backyard Fence was, and still is, supposed to be. But what I found out, however, was that an online letters section should be slightly different than letters to the editor in a regular print newspaper.
In print, readers respond to the paper’s editorials, or communicate what’s on their minds, by writing letters which may or may not get printed in the next issue depending on space or content. If their letters are appropriate, or not too long, they will probably appear in the next issue. The problem with print letters to the editor is that no one can comment on your letter – or hold a real-time discussion on the topic with other readers or the author of the letter – without writing a separate letter, and then waiting till the next issue to hear a response. That is, if your response even appears in the next issue. It could be printed weeks in the future.
What I really wanted with my letters to the editor section was the interactive aspect of any discussion of issues about the Wildwoods. I wanted to post an editorial and be able to see fairly quickly what people thought about the subject. And then let other readers react to each other in fairly quick order. After all, isn’t this what a sharing of opinion is supposed to be like? You shouldn’t have to struggle writing your letter, wait to get it printed, and then hope someone else will discuss the issue with you.
Like the proverbial backyard fence where neighbors would go to gossip, dish the dirt, or hear the news of the day, my Backyard Fence will serve the same basic purpose. With the sharing of opinions, we advance the cause of democracy in the world.
One thing to remember, however: Although you are free to speak your minds as you see fit, try to keep it clean and as friendly as possible. Polilticians are used to being called no-good bums, but try to limit yourself to a discussion of the politician’s actions or opinions without getting personal and resorting to name calling. I will probably excercise my editor’s right to edit.
And when discussing private people who aren’t politicians or public individuals, don’t get personal at all. Keep it polite and adult.
Also, one other pet peave of mine: Unlike a certain local forum we all know about, I prefer to ask you not to deal in backstabbing, rumors, or hurtful inuendos. If you want to discuss a rumor or something you’re not quite sure of, please try to support your position with as many facts as you can. Someone out there will probably clear things up for you.
And if your opinion is valid, be proud and honorable enough of it to sign your name and the city you come from. Those who don’t take pride in their opinions don’t deserve to have them heard. Right?
Well, that’s it, friends. Shake hands! Return to the comfort of your warm room! And come out fighting.
Thom Fontannaz, editor. (The Wildwoods)
P.S. At the lower right hand corner of your screen, you should see a blogroll. This is where you will find direct links to the WildwoodsReporter.com and some of our good friends. If you get some spare time now and then, drop in and check them out – Thom
