Photos taken mid- to late-morning Sunday by Martin Schmidt for the Riverside Signal.

All images are (C) Riverside Signal, LLC and may not be used without explicit permission.

From Pine Beach Borough Hall:

Due to the effects of Hurricane Irene the Borough will be conducting a special brush pick up through September 9th. Residents may place any brush debris at curbside for pick up but must follow the normal brush rules:

1. Brush must be cut no longer than 4 ft. in length and tied in bundles. Please place cut ends in same direction facing the street.

2. Branches must not be longer than 4 inches in diameter.

3. Any small debris or leaves must be placed in a trash container or be bagged. (Please do not bag large sticks)

Please be advised that all brush must be at your curb prior to September 9th. Any brush placed out after that date will not be collected and will result in a notice to remove it being issued. Any large brush (over 4” in diameter) cannot be accepted and residents must make provisions to have it removed.

As always, our Borough Recycling Yard will be open for residents to drop off brush. If you have the plans to do so it would be appreciated, as you would be assisting with our limited resources. The yard will also be open Saturday, September 3rd, from 8 am – 12 pm for residents to drop off brush items only.

Please do not place any items other than brush to the curb. Bulk items cannot be collected at this time and will not be accepted at the yard. If you need assistance or have any questions, please contact Borough Hall at 732-349-6425.

Photos taken mid-day Saturday by Martin Schmidt for the Riverside Signal.

All images are (C) Riverside Signal, LLC and may not be used without explicit permission.

PINE BEACH – Earlier today, Councilman Matthew Abatemarco stated that Pine Beach Borough officials would meet at 6 pm to discuss the impending Hurricane Irene storm that is approaching the Toms River area, with landfall expected mid-day Sunday. Further announcements as a result of that meeting will be posted here.

Last night and earlier today, Mayor Christopher Boyle released storm preparedness information and other requests of residents on the town’s unofficial Facebook page, located HERE.

Last night, he reported he participated in a conference call with Governor Chris Christie’s office, in which “the governor and officers from the [Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Transportation, New Jersey National Guard, New Jersey State Police, NJ Transit and the Port Authority] all outlined preparation efforts they have undertaken. It appears to me that the state will be as well-prepared as it can be. DEP Hotline # (chemical/sewage spills, etc. ) 877-927-6337. Residents should at minimum have flashlights, cash, food for 5 days, and a battery powered radio. Information on preparedness for residents is available HERE.

This afternoon, he posted a request that all residents “please take advantage of today’s fine weather to put away or secure any loose, light to mid-weight items in your yard. Avoid having these items become dangerous projectiles during heavy winds.”

What follows is a general archive of the Riverside Signal, January through December 2010, when it existed solely as an internet newssite. We are currently working on combining our archive with the contemporary printed material in a way that will benefit our readers, and expect results to begin appearing this Spring.

In the meantime, the Riverside Signal can be picked up at the locations listed on the home page, and subscriptions are available to ensure our readers don’t miss a single issue, whether they live in our coverage area or far beyond it.

Please feel free to send any and all questions to RiversideSignal@gmail.com

PINE BEACH – Reports have been coming in all morning that a Hyundai model car crashed into the side of Pine Beach Elementary, here, sometime last night, and was not discovered early this morning when a school employee came upon the scene.

Three are reported to have died in the crash, two males and a female, though names are not being released at this time. The car struck the eastern wall of the school, where the media center is located. Class was not in session and no students were present at the time. A 90-minute delay was imposed upon the school opening as a result.

Throughout much of the morning, news helicopters from major metropolitan news organizations were seen hovering above the scene even as Beachwood and Pine Beach fire companies, and the Beachwood First Aid Squad were on hand below. The car was later covered by a blue tarp and removed on a flatbed truck. School and borough officials have since been seen surveying the gaping hole left by the vehicle.

The Riverside Signal will update its readers as more information becomes known.

Last month, Rev. John R. “Jack” Bowering, pastor emeritus of the Pine Beach Chapel and longtime former resident and ardent supporter of the borough, passed away following a long battle with cancer.

This past summer, the Riverside Signal had the opportunity to sit down with “Rev. Jack” and record his memories of growing up in Pine Beach during the summers of the late 1930s through the 1950s.

This oral history interview, taken on August 19th, has been transcribed and formatted for print below for the benefit of his family, borough residents and our readers. Below is the second of these two parts.

~

When I was a kid, I used to walk down the waterfront, Riverside Drive, with General [Cyrus S.] Radford. He lived in the old, old building on the bend [it is unknown as to the exact building Rev. Bowering is referring to, though it is known that C.S. Radford’s co-founder of the academy, Admiral Samuel S. Robison, lived in the Buhler Mansion, which he may have been referring to as it dates to 1877 and is currently undergoing extensive renovations following years of neglect]. General Radford, he liked me. He was a brigadier general in the Marine Corps, wore a white uniform every day, had his medals, mustache waxed, and he walked, and he’d pick me up. He’d take me down to the academy, take me into his office. They had a big front room – it was a hotel originally – and one end was his and one end was Admiral Robison, he was the other man, [and] he was down in Florida starting up a new academy, so the general ran it [Admiral Farragut Academy “South” opened in an old resort hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1945 and operates to this day]. They had desks facing each other, and they had a ship’s wheel, big ship’s wheel behind their desk, and they had murals and paintings. Gorgeous stuff in that place. In his home, he had murals as big as that wall [motions to an entire wall in his living room], and he would take me down there, and the commandant, [Commander N.F.] Reinhard, was in charge of the firing range, so the general would take me down to him, and he taught me how to shoot. Then he’d give me ten, fifteen cents, then I’d go down to the canteen, and I’d have a Cherry Coke and whatever else I could get – hamburger, hot dog – and then he’d go back to work and I’d play there for a while, and then I’d go back home and help my dad.

[The academy officials] were called back into active duty [for World War II], and some of the graduates from Admiral Farragut died in the war, but the academy was a little unit in town to itself. My brother, he worked at the academy in the summertime [when the academy operated a boys’ summer camp] when they cleaned [on] the weekends, when the kids would go home and stuff. They would clean the rooms out or when a new group would come in, they would clean all of the dorms.

[Years later, when Rev. Jack became the regular pastor of the Pine Beach Chapel, he would see that academy close its doors forever]

When Admiral Farragut went under [in 1994], I had the last service in the chapel, and a lot of teachers that had been there came back, a lot of the students came back, and [Lorenzo] Lamas [a graduate of the academy’s Class of 1975 who went on to star in television and film roles], his son was there. It was the end of Admiral Farragut Academy up here.

In the summers, you had your yacht club crew, you had your Henley Avenue crew, and you had your New Jersey Avenue crew, and they did not mix. They stayed to their own people, and they never went on other peoples’ turf. I was in the New Jersey Avenue group, and down on the sand there, right east of the dock, there’s a white clay pit under the water, and we used to have clay fights – we’d dig up the clay and have fights and we’d jump off the dock and clean ourselves off. So we did that, and my dad had a rowboat, my uncle had a rowboat, and they’d go out and just drift and write sermons on the water; it was so calming and smooth. We swam down there, we fished down there, we crabbed down there, on New Jersey Avenue, but then when I got a little older I wanted to join the yacht club, but couldn’t afford the membership, so I used to paint the fences and all that around the yacht club, and paint the pilings, and then I’d get a junior membership for doing all that work, and then [at] the cabaret affairs, I used to sell setups. People would bring their own, B.Y.O.B., and then we would serve setups, and they’d buy them – ice, ginger ale, club soda, whatever – and then we cleaned up afterwards.

Then I sailed for Dolly Whitman, Amelia, her name was, and she had a Lightning [Class sailboat], and I forget who the coxswain was, but I crewed for her when New Jersey hosted the state races, and we came in first in her Lightning. Andy and Russell, they had snipes, and they – Andy wasn’t too much into the boating as Russell was, and Frankie – he was just the baby of the family, so I grew up with the Whitmans, the Sotermans, the Benedicts, and the Bradleys and Mickey Nicholson [spellings of these names could not be confirmed at press time]. His father was the commodore of the yacht club, and he worked in the kitchen there, sold drinks, and hamburgers and stuff, and they had a pool table there, they had a jukebox, they had a pinball machine, and piano. I used to play the piano a lot for the kids, so I hung out with that group down at the yacht club, but then sometimes we’d go down to Henley Avenue, because that’s where some of the people lived in that area, and Shirley Benedict says I used to hold little services on the dock, and we’d sing hymns and so forth.

~

Anyone interested in sharing their memories and stories of living within the five boroughs on the Toms River may submit them by mail to Riverside Signal, P.O. Box 93, Beachwood, N.J. 08722, or call 732-664-1043 to make an appointment for an interview for publication.