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Star Children

Do adoptees have an edge in the celebrity department?

By Mark Stewart

On January 1, 2017, a new law went into effect that has proved to be a game-changer for thousands of New Jerseyans. Anyone adopted in the state can have their records unsealed and view their original birth certiﬁcates. For the vast majority of children born prior to the 1990s—when the idea of “open adoptions” began to gain momentum—the answer to the question Who am I? has been Who knows? Since the new law went into effect, several thousand adoptees have petitioned to receive their un-redacted birth records. Birth parents can request their identifying information be redacted, but thus far, only a few hundred have done so.

In many cases, the biological parents are as curious to see how their progeny turned out as their children are to learn more about their family origins. This really isn’t much of a surprise. Imagine having put a child up for adoption and wondering for years, or even decades, how that child made his or her way in the world. The hope for any biological parent is that the baby grew up happy, healthy and found success as an adult.

Okay, now take it a step further—think about what it might be like to discover that your biological offspring became a star. There are no hard statistics on how often this comes to pass. But you’d be surprised how many universally known and admired public ﬁgures were raised by adoptive parents.

Adoption comes in many shapes and sizes, of course. A considerable number of famous Americans, for instance, were adopted as children or teenagers by step-parents—including Bill Clinton and Truman Capote—while others were adopted by members of their own extended family. Clinton was originally William Jefferson Blythe III, while Capote was born Truman Parsons. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was adopted by her grandparents after it became clear her mother, Shanon, could not kick her drug and alcohol problems. Eric Clapton, the child of an unwed teen mom, grew up believing that his grandmother was his mother and his mother was his older sister—although it does not appear he was ever formally adopted. Eric Dickerson, a Hall of Fame football star, was born under similar circumstances and adopted by his great aunt. He, too, grew up believing his mother was his older sister. Jesse Jackson was fathered by a neighbor, Noah Robinson, but adopted by Charles Jackson, the man his mother married the following year. He grew up having father-son relationships with both men.

In all of the aforementioned examples most, if not all, of the puzzle pieces required to complete the adoption picture were on the table. But what of the adoptees whose biological parents willingly relinquished their rights at (or shortly after) birth? The list of celebrities who were given up as infants is equally impressive. The world of commerce and industry, for example, is peppered with examples of adoptees who became successful business leaders. In some cases, they took over family businesses and helped them expand and ﬂourish. Steve Jobs and Dave Thomas are perhaps the two most famous businessmen who were given up for adoption as infants.

Matt Buchanan

Jobs, the visionary industrial designer who co-founded Apple, was put up for adoption in San Francisco in 1955. His biological parents—the son of a wealthy Syrian family and the daughter of a Midwestern farm family—met as students at the University of Wisconsin. Jobs was conceived during a summer visit to Syria. Religious differences (he was Muslim, she Catholic) made marriage problematic. Initially, Jobs’s birth mother hoped to place him with a wealthy couple. However, at the last minute that couple decided they wanted a girl. Her baby boy was placed instead with Clara and Paul Jobs, a Bay Area working- class couple. She refused to sign the adoption papers until the Jobses agreed that he would go to college. Two years later, the family adopted a girl, Patricia. She and Steve grew up in Los Altos, a town with great schools and a high density of engineering families. Jobs tracked down his biological parents in his 30s, with the help of a letter from the doctor who had arranged the adoption, which was delivered after his death. Jobs ended up forging a relationship with his biological mother after his own mother passed away.

The Wendy’s Company

Thomas, the man behind the Wendy’s fast-food empire, is a Jersey boy. He was born in Atlantic City in 1932 to a single mother and adopted at six weeks. Sadly, his adoptive mother died when he was ﬁve years old. He moved frequently with his father and lived with his grandmother for a time. Thomas landed his ﬁrst restaurant job at the age of 12, in Nashville, Tennessee. At 15, he was working at a Ft. Wayne, Indiana restaurant when his father decided to move again. Thomas decided to stay put. He dropped out of school to work full-time. Thanks to his food-service background, Thomas was assigned to a base in Germany during the Korean War, where he was responsible for feeding 2,000-plus GIs a day. He returned to Indiana, where he began working with Harland Sanders, devising ways to make his Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises more proﬁtable—and suggested Col. Sanders do his own commercials. Thomas founded Wendy’s in 1969 and ended up doing his own commercials, too—more than 800 in all. In 1992, Thomas started the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, which is dedicated to placing children in the foster care system into adoptive homes. Thomas passed away in 2002. His daughter, Wendy, serves on the foundation’s board.

Two of history’s most accomplished ﬁlmmakers—Michael Bay and Carl Dreyer—were given up as infants, albeit it was 75 years apart. Dreyer was born in Copenhagen to a successful farmer and a young girl who worked for his family as a maid. Dreyer’s father, who happened to be married, forced her to send the baby to an orphanage. The boy was adopted at the age of two by Carl Dreyer, a typesetter, and his wife, Inge. He left home at 16 to pursue his education and went into the ﬁlm industry in his 20s. Dreyer moved to France, which was the epicenter of artistic ﬁlmmaking in the 1920s. In 1928, he made The Passion of Joan of Arc, a silent masterpiece that blended aspects of expressionism and realism, and broke ground in a number of artistic and technical areas. Four years later, Dreyer made the surrealistic classic Vampyr. The Joan of Arc picture has been hailed as the greatest European ﬁlm of the silent era. Dreyer continued to make movies until his death in 1968.

Bjoern Kommerell

Michael Bay, who began interning with George Lucas as a high school student, was born in 1965 in Los Angeles. He was adopted by a Jewish family. His father was an accountant and his mother was a child psychiatrist. A cousin, Susan, was married to Leonard Nimoy. As a boy, Bay was drawn to his mother’s 8 mm camera. At age 8, he attached ﬁrecrackers to a toy train and staged an explosive accident. The ﬁre department was called to extinguish the ﬂames. Fast-forward to the 1990s, when he delivered lots of bang for the buck in Bad Boys (his directorial debut, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence), The Rock (with Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery) and Armageddon, in which the earth is nearly obliterated. Between 2007 and 2017, Bay made ﬁve Transformers features.

Two heralded writers were adopted shortly after birth, author

Robert Wilson

James Michener and playwright Edward Albee. Michener, whose books often focused on multi-generational family sagas, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1907. He never learned anything about his biological parents. He was adopted by a Quaker woman named Mabel Michener and grew up in Doylestown. He taught during the Depression and then took a job with MacMillan Publishing editing Social Studies textbooks. Called to active duty during World War II, Michener traveled the South Paciﬁc on a string of choice assignments as a naval historian because, legend had it, the Navy brass mistakenly assumed that he was the son of an admiral with a similar-sounding name. He drew on these experiences to write his ﬁrst book, Tales of the South Paciﬁc, in 1947. It provided the inspiration for the Broadway smash South Paciﬁc, which opened two years after the book was published. During Michener’s career, 14 other books became movies or television miniseries. In 1977, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Univ Houston

Albee was born in Virginia in 1928 and brought to New York two weeks later, where he was adopted by a Westchester couple. His father, Reed Albee, owned several theaters and his grandfather, Edward II, was a wealthy vaudeville magnate. His mother, Frances, was an active socialite. Albee and his mother had a complicated relationship, which he later drew upon for his 1991 Pulitzer-winning play, Three Tall Women. He never felt close to his father either. He felt his parents never really understood much about parenting. Albee had a New Jersey connection; he attended the Lawrenceville School as a teenager, but was expelled long before he graduated. After college, he moved to Greenwich Village and began to write plays. He broke through in 1962 with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Four years later, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor starred in the ﬁlm adaptation. Albee won a total of three Pulitzer prizes and was arguably the most important American playwright of his generation. He passed away in 2016.

Looking back at the grand achievements of these individuals, it is interesting to plot out what role adoption played in their intellectual and personal development. In the case of entertainers, it’s anyone’s guess. One thing is certain: a signiﬁcant number of commercially successful actors and musicians are adoptees. Some of their stories are inspiring, while others serve as reminders that the circumstances of adoption are not always neat and clean. A case in point is comic actor Tommy Davidson, who ﬁrst starred in the FOX series In Living Color. Born to a single mother in Mississippi in 1963, he was literally left for dead in the trash at 18 months. The woman who rescued him, and ultimately adopted him, was white, as was her husband. He grew up in the toney D.C. suburb of Silver Spring as the older brother to two siblings, Michael and Beryl. Funny, smart and energetic, Davidson was one of the hottest stand-ups in the business in the mid-1980s and is still making movies three decades later.

Luigi Novi Wikimedia Commons

Hip-Hop pioneer Darryl McDaniels—the DMC of Run-D.M.C.—was born in New York City in 1964, surrendered as an infant to a Catholic orphanage, and adopted by his foster care family, the McDaniels, who chose not to reveal to their son that they were not his birth parents. Despite reaching the apex of his profession, the emptiness McDaniels felt drove him to the brink of suicide. As he tells it, he was “saved” after listening to Sarah McLachlan’s song “Angel” on the radio. Four years later, he learned the truth about his origins (“the missing piece to my existence“) and embraced his adoption as the ﬁrst step to fulﬁlling his destiny. McDaniels was inspired to cut a remake of Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle” and asked McLachlan to participate. She not only agreed, she provided the band and the recording studio. When they ﬁnished, she said, “Darryl…I gotta tell you something. I was adopted, too.” McLachlan was born in 1968 in Nova Scotia and, like McDaniels, was adopted by her foster family as an infant. They have since joined forces on a number of initiatives in support of adoptee rights.

Three other high-proﬁle sirens claim similar backgrounds: Faith Hill, Deborah Harry and Kristin Chenoweth. It might be worth noting that, from a stylistic standpoint, you probably couldn’t pick a more diverse trio. Hill, who’s got a closet full of Grammys and Country Music Awards, was born in Mississippi the same year as McLachlan and adopted by the Perry family, who named her Audrey Faith. In 1996, she fell in love with touring partner Tim McGraw and they were married that same year. Interestingly, McGraw, who was raised by a single mom, discovered at age 11 that he was the son of Mets pitcher Tug McGraw. After denying the relationship for several years, their increasing resemblance made Tug ﬁnally acknowledge his paternity.

Chris Ptacek

Kristin Chenoweth, a darling of the Broadway stage, was born in 1968, too. She was adopted at ﬁve days old by an Oklahoma family and found her niche as an actress and singer by age 12. After earning a scholarship to the Philadelphia Academy of Vocal Arts in 1993, she agreed to help a friend move from New Jersey to New York. On a lark, she auditioned for Animal Crackers at the Papermill Playhouse and won a featured role. She gave up her scholarship and later moved to New York to pursue her musical theater career, landing her ﬁrst role on Broadway in 1997.

Deborah Harry, the iconic frontwoman for the new wave group Blondie, is a full-ﬂedged Jersey Girl. She was born in 1945 in Miami as Angela Tremble but given up for adoption at three months to Richard and Catherine Harry, who owned a gift shop in Hawthorne. Harry broke free of her suburban roots as soon as she could and worked as a go-go dancer and Playboy bunny before launching her musical career. She always knew she was adopted, but not until she was in her 40s did she try to track down her birth mother (who had no interest in forging a relationship with Harry).

Finally, we have the realm of sports. No one has pushed the adoption conversation to the forefront in recent years more than the oversized star of baseball’s Yankees, Aaron Judge. He was born in 1992 in Linden, California, a one-stoplight town where he was adopted the next day by two local schoolteachers, Patty and Wayne Judge. They watched in astonishment as he grew to his current dimensions: 6’7”, 280 lbs., setting school records in baseball, football, and basketball. After a “cup of coffee” with the Yankees in 2016, he began terrorizing enemy pitchers in 2017 and won the Rookie of the Year award in a landslide. For now, he isn’t saying much about his biological parents, who one would guess from his appearance were some version of “mixed race.” Given his superstar status, and that it was a small town adoption, it’s unlikely the details will remain secret for long—even if he wants them to be.

If Judge continues to hit homers and makes it to the Hall of Fame, he will not be the ﬁrst adoptee in Cooperstown. That honor belongs to Jim Palmer, a six-time All-Star who won 268 games for the Baltimore Orioles between 1965 and 1984. Palmer was born in New York City in 1945 and adopted as an infant by a garment industry executive, Moe Wiesen, and his wife Polly. The Wiesens lived in Westchester County until Jim was 10. His father died in 1955 and his mother moved Jim and his sister to California. There she met and married Max Palmer, an actor. Jim still went by Wiesen as he began to make a name for himself on the baseball diamond. At a Little League banquet where he was to receive three trophies, he asked the emcee to call him Jim Palmer. On Max Palmer’s 87th birthday, he told Jim that was the highlight of his life, and that he was proud to see his last name on each of the Cy Young Awards that Palmer won.

Two notable gold-medal Olympians were raised by adoptive parents, Dan O’Brien and Greg Louganis. O’Brien, the star of Nike’s “Dan and Dave” commercials in the early 1990s, won the decathlon in the 1996 Summer Games. His biological parents were Finnish and African-American. He was adopted by an Oregon couple and raised in Klamath Falls. Louganis, who won four gold (and one silver) diving medals between 1976 and 1988, was put up for adoption at eight months. His biological parents were Samoan and Swedish. He was raised in Southern California by Peter and Frances Louganis (Louganis is a Greek name) and had pushed his way into his older sister’s gymnastics and dance classes by the age of two. He began diving at the age of nine when his parents installed a backyard pool.

The world of pro football offers three intriguing adoption stories: Daunte Culpepper, Colin Kaepernick and Tim Green. Culpepper was voted an All-Pro NFL quarterback in 2000 and again in 2004, and his football roots run deep. His birth mother, Barbara Henderson, was the sister of Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, a star linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s. She was serving time for armed robbery in a Florida prison when she gave birth to a baby boy. One day later, he was adopted by Emma Culpepper, who worked in the jail and raised a total of 15 children. At 17, her son stood 6’4” and was named Florida’s top high-school football player. He went on to play 12 seasons in the NFL, and continues to use his fame to support the African American Adoption Agency. Kaepernick, whose refusal to stand for the National Anthem in 2016 triggered a social media ﬁrestorm, was the mixed-race child of a destitute teen mother in Milwaukee. Shortly after his birth, he was placed with Rick and Teresa Kaepernick, a couple who had lost two sons to heart defects. The family moved to California, where Colin blossomed into a top-rated baseball pitcher and straight-A student. He turned down diamond scholarships to pursue his dream of playing college football, eventually landing a full ride at the University of Nevada. After being drafted in 2011 by the San Francisco 49ers, Kaepernick led the team to the Super Bowl in 2012.

Tim Green, a defensive star for the Atlanta Falcons from 1986 to 1994, became an author of both ﬁction and non-ﬁction books after his playing days. In 1997, he published A Man and His Mother: An Adopted Son’s Search. In the book, Green talks about how he believed his “rejection” at birth drove him to become a high achiever, but also to have poor relationships with women. After learning that a girlfriend’s mother had given up a child for adoption at about the same time he was born (1963), he launched a seven-year quest to locate his birth mother so he could let her know that she had made the right choice—that he was successful and happy.

Which is everything a biological parent could possibly hope for, isn’t it?

Paramount Pictures

THAT’S MY BOY!

The original “Star Child” adoptee came to us from the Old Testament, with an assist from Cecil B. DeMille. According to the story in Exodus, a Hebrew woman named Jochebed placed her newborn son in a waterproofed basket and ﬂoated him downriver after Pharaoh had ordered the male children of Israel killed. The infant was plucked from the bullrushes by an Egyptian princess and raised as Moses, a member of Pharaoh’s royal family. Although Moses achieved greatness as a member of Egypt’s ruling class, it was after he embraced his birth mother that he took it to the next level.
Given that Moses is one of the Bible’s most iconic ﬁgures, it stands to reason that it would take an actor with some gravitas to play (and also voice) him on-screen. Over the years, the part has gone to Christian Bale, Christian Slater, Peter Strauss, Val Kilmer, James Whitmore, and Burt Lancaster. The most amusing Moses was Mel Brooks in History of the World Part I. The most famous was Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments.
Little known fact: Baby Moses (above) was played by Fraser Heston, Charlton’s son. Thirty-four years later, Fraser—who became a producer and director—cast his father as Long John Silver in the 1990 ﬁlm Treasure Island.

MORE LIKELY? LESS LIKELY?

What are the odds that an adopted child will ﬂourish and excel, compared to a child raised by biological parents? The answer depends on one’s deﬁnition of “success.” So much of what we achieve is linked to self-image. That can be complicated for adoptees. Baby Boomers, for example, grew up in an era where they had zero information on who had given them up, or why. On the one hand, these children grew up feeling good that they were “picked” by parents who desperately wanted them. On the other hand, there is a dark place every adoptee has gone when they wondered why they were “discarded.”

A survey done a decade ago generated some interesting statistics. Three out of four adopted children are read to (or sung to) every day. This is true for only half of biological children. Also, ninety percent of adoptees had positive feelings about the process—including an appreciation for the selﬂess act of their birth mothers.

WIN-WIN SCENARIO

Although some friends and family members may object to a young mother giving up a baby for adoption—or judge her harshly for the decision—statistics show that what is best for the baby usually has a positive outcome for the mother as well. Birth mothers are:

No more likely to suffer from depression as single moms raising small children.
Less likely to have a second out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
More likely to delay marriage, but also more likely to eventually marry.
Less likely to divorce.
More likely to ﬁnish school.
More likely to be employed 12 months after the baby is born.
Less likely to live in poverty or receive public assistance.

Who Are We Where We Came From

America is often characterized as a nation of immigrants. That makes New Jersey America on steroids.

By Mark Stewart

As much as any state in the nation over the past three-plus centuries, New Jersey has been deﬁned culturally, socially, politically and economically by its newcomers. Decade after decade, our stunning diversity has supplied vital muscle and spirit to the state’s industrial, intellectual and artistic progress. Granted, things haven’t always gone smoothly—it is something of an American tradition to dump on the people who arrived in the U.S. right after you—but by and large, New Jersey has done a sensational job of absorbing its newcomers and leveraging their strengths.

For all its faults and inefﬁciencies, the odd collection of 500-plus towns and cities that make up the Garden State has enabled every group of newcomers to gain an initial foothold and quickly begin to realize their potential. If anything, that is more true today than at any other time in our history—including the historic mass migration during the late-1800s and early-1900s.

Who are we? How did we get here? In order to know where we are going, it’s helpful to understand where we’ve been.

COLONIAL TIMES

New Jersey at the dawn of the Colonial Era was home to Dutch and Norwegian settlers. In 1638, Swedish and Finnish farmers began carving out space on both sides of the Delaware River, calling their settlement New Sweden. These were hardly gentleman farmers—many, in fact, had been banished from their homelands, with some presented with a choice between exile and the gallows. The Dutch focused their energies along the Hudson River, but their initial attempts at establishing settlements across the water from New Amsterdam (aka Manhattan), were thwarted by hostile natives. Not until 1660 did Dutch farmers gain a permanent foothold in New Jersey, on a rise between the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers in present-day Jersey City.

Upper Case Editorial

By then, the Dutch were no longer calling the shots. In 1644, a quartet of English warships sailed into New York harbor and wrested control from the Dutch. It was a bloodless takeover; the Dutch were traders not warriors and were content to continue plying their trade under a British ﬂag. As every New Jersey school kid learns (but you probably forgot), the crown transferred ownership to George Carteret and John Berkeley (above). They in turn sold off chunks of land and issued the Concessions of Agreement, which included an elected assembly, unfettered trade and freedom of religion (as long as the religion was Protestant).

Upper Case Editorial

The relative freedom afforded by the Concessions of Agreement produced the desired effect: Settlers began pouring into the provinces of East Jersey and West Jersey, as the colony was known. Interestingly, the vast majority of newcomers were not from across the Atlantic, but from New England and Long Island, where the rules regarding government and religion were more constrictive. In 1664, Long Islanders established Elizabethtown and in 1664 refugees from Connecticut founded Newark. In the west, William Penn and the Quakers, who were persecuted in England, settled in Burlington. In New Jersey’s interior, Dutch settlers from the Hudson Valley built vast farms, worked by indentured servants and African slaves. For nearly a century, visitors to New Jersey were more likely to hear Dutch spoken than English.

In 1702, East and West Jersey became New Jersey. The population at that time was around 15,000, with 10,000 people living in the eastern portion of the colony. By the time of the American Revolution, New Jersey’s population exploded, increasing more than tenfold. The boom was a combination of factors. People continued to migrate south from New England and New York. The colony’s fertile soil and plentiful resources triggered a spike in the birth rate. And transatlantic immigration had begun in full force. Scots-Irish (Protestants from Ireland whose recent ancestors had moved from Scotland) and Germans were the two biggest groups. Most of the German settlers continued on to Pennsylvania, where they maintained their culture as the “Pennsylvania Dutch” (Deutsch is actually the word—they aren’t Dutch at all).

EARLY STATEHOOD

At the conclusion of the 18th century, at the dawn of its statehood, roughly seven in 10 New Jerseyans traced their heritage back to the British Isles, with the rest split between Dutch and Germans. Those demographics would change over the next century, but not as rapidly as one might assume. Although America in the early 1800s was a magnet for immigration. New Jersey’s population growth between 1790 and 1840 actually lagged behind neighboring states. Indeed, thousands of newcomers bypassed New Jersey and struck out for more promising farmland along the expanding frontier; most of the prime farmland in New Jersey was already under cultivation. New York and Philadelphia also attracted immigrants who might have settled in New Jersey. In addition, countless New Jerseyans seeking entrepreneurial opportunities during this period moved from rural areas to these major cities.

Even so, New Jersey’s population more than doubled between the Revolution and Civil War. A very high percentage of that increase was “natural” or “internal”—the result of established, growing families. This contributed to a curious dynamic: People in New Jersey began to think of themselves as “native” Americans instead of transplanted Europeans. Unfortunately, his would make life extremely difﬁcult for the next group of immigrants from across the Atlantic.

Economic and political shifts in Europe during the Industrial Revolution drove many people to the United States in the mid-1800s. Those coming from England and Germany tended to be skilled and, often, educated workers who found immediate employment in New Jersey’s growing cities. The outlook for Irish immigrants arriving in America was not as bright. They tended to be unskilled laborers or tenant farmers driven overseas by starvation after a potato blight wiped out their primary source of food in the 1840s. They arrived penniless and unwanted.

Library of Congress

New Irish immigrants often lived in urban squalor, with nearly two-thirds qualifying by modern terminology as “working poor.” Irish men found work only as day laborers. Women between adolescence and marriage fared better as domestic help, and were often the primary breadwinners for their families. This was especially true in New Jersey, where the Irish made up fully half of the state’s new immigrants in the mid-1800s. The impact of the Irish and other new New Jerseyans was profound. They fueled the rapid growth of the state’s industrial centers and swelled the population, particularly in Hudson, Essex and Passaic Counties.

The contributions of New Jersey’s 19th century immigrants went largely unrecognized at the time. America the Melting Pot may have been celebrated as a

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model to the world in the 20th century. In the 19th century, however, few saw the value of a diverse society. In New Jersey, those who viewed themselves as “native born” controlled politics and business, and they wielded this power mercilessly. They also looked down on the state’s new arrivals for the way they enjoyed the country’s promise of freedom of religion. American Protestants in the early 1800s were extremely conservative. In New Jersey, they frowned upon the newcomers’ Sunday activities. After a 60-hour workweek, Europeans were not inclined to devote their off-day to quiet, digniﬁed reﬂection. They wanted to have fun, picnic, play sports. They overran parks and public spaces, drawing the ire of Protestant groups.

The Irish suffered doubly for their Catholicism. Their loyalty to the United States was constantly questioned because of their fealty to the Pope. Also, a general distrust of Catholicism as being anti-democratic was pervasive in America at this time. The curriculum of New Jersey’s public schools in the pre-Civil War era tilted heavily toward Protestant teaching, to the point where some educators hoped to convert Catholic children. Not surprisingly, it was around this time when Catholic schools began popping up all over the state. Catholic families pulled their kids out of the public schools and also demanded that the state fund these parochial institutions with their tax dollars. Friction between Protestants and Catholics occasionally erupted into violence in New Jersey’s cities. In Newark, a procession of Irish Protestant societies marched into an Irish Catholic neighborhood and a full-ﬂedged riot ensued.

One thing that Irish immigrants brought from their homeland that served them well was their ability to organize against an oppressor. In Ireland, they deﬁed British rule. In American cities, as Irish populations swelled (and created huge voting blocks) their leaders found opportunities in controlling local politics and, by extension, exerting their inﬂuence on labor organizations and municipal jobs, including police forces. By the end of the 1800s, their children and children’s children would come to think of themselves as the native New Jerseyans, but in a different way. Although the Irish were no longer newcomers, they remained keenly aware of the distinct aspects of their culture, and proud of them. Each immigrant group that subsequently arrived in the Garden State followed their example, contributing to New Jersey’s diverse cultural tableau.

THE FLOODGATES OPEN

The ﬁnal decades of the 19th century saw an astonishing uptick in immigration. Greater stability in Western Europe stemmed the tide from England, Ireland and Germany. Now the “new” immigrants came from Eastern and Southern Europe—primarily Italy, Poland, Russia and Hungary. They were characterized as the dregs of Europe: unsophisticated, uneducated and incapable of contributing to a society where they didn’t even speak the language. The reality, of course, was far different. The so-called “great unwashed” and “huddled masses” actually tended to be young, healthy and ambitious. Many young men came to America alone, hoping to secure jobs that would enable them to bring their families over, or at least return home with money in their pockets. These immigrants ended up propelling the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. to new heights with their minds and bodies, contributing to a wide array of industries and making game-changing contributions to science and the arts.

Between 1880 and 1930, thanks largely to the inﬂow of European immigrants, New Jersey’s population nearly quadrupled, from just over one million to four million. Jersey City, Camden, Trenton and Newark became thriving urban centers during this time, while cities such as Paterson, Passaic and Elizabeth reached the height of their commercial power. The consumer culture that blossomed in America in the early 1900s was no more evident than in Newark, where retail space on Market and Broad Streets fetched higher rents than on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Tunnels, bridges and modern ports, built by recent immigrants—along with the children and grandchildren of immigrants—provided vital links to the rest of the country.

The experience of New Jersey’s ﬁrst Italian immigrants differed somewhat from that of the Irish. It’s worth noting because today the number of New Jerseyans who claim Italian or Irish heritage is roughly equal. (The exact ﬁgures depend on who’s doing the counting, and what criteria they employ, but from a purely empirical standpoint it seems about right.) Thousands of Italian immigrants found employment in New Jersey’s agricultural sector. In South Jersey, near the Pinelands, where the land can be extremely uncooperative, Italian farmers—renowned for their ability to coax produce from sketchy soil—were actively recruited from remote villages. Agents sent to Southern Italy and Sicily by New Jersey land investors posted bills that promised free passage and 20 acres of land for strong men willing to farm their plots. Grapes grew particularly well in the area, which was eventually renamed Vineland.

Most Italian immigrants to New Jersey settled in its urban areas, arriving in especially large numbers in the ﬁrst two decades of the 20th century. In many cases, they “replaced” the Irish as the go-to day laborers, particularly in railroad and housing construction. Italian women, as a rule, did not work outside the home as domestics. They were more likely to contribute ﬁnancially by doing piecework out of their homes. Few Italians spoke English when they arrived. They dealt with this disadvantage by establishing self-sufﬁcient neighborhoods in cities like Newark, where Italian was the common tongue in the First Ward for decades. Within these neighborhoods were clusters of Italian families from speciﬁc villages, with their own patron saints and annual festivals.

Immigrants from Eastern Europe often gravitated to the cities of Passaic and Paterson. At the turn of the 20th century they were home to dozens of enormous textile operations. Laborers from Russia, Poland and Hungary found steady employment in these businesses. They were paid poorly by mill owners and lived in crowded, dirty conditions. In 1920, Passaic might have been the nation’s most “foreign” city—85 percent of its population was either born outside the U.S. or were children of immigrants. In the crowded First Ward, only 1 in 100 residents could claim to be a “native” New Jerseyan.

A SENSE OF IDENTITY

Today. we often use terms like Italian-American, Irish-American and German-American out of cultural recognition or sensitivity. A century ago, these terms would actually have been more appropriate. Immigrants arriving in New Jersey did not come to “be Americans.” They came to be Italians in America or Irish in America or German in America. A national identity (in the modern sense) would not be truly galvanized until World War II. Indeed, when World War I began in 1914, New Jersey’s multi-ethnic makeup created some tricky issues. Irish-Americans, for instance, were critical of the U.S. government’s support of England. German-Americans and immigrants from Austria-Hungary tended to root for their countries of origin in the early days of the war. They were not anti-American per se, but their loyalties were certainly divided—particularly in 1914, when it was assumed that the ﬁghting would end soon.

Not surprisingly, once the U.S. was drawn into the war against Germany in 1917, German-Americans in New Jersey found themselves the target of hatred and suspicion. Hundreds were rounded up, often on the slimmest of pretenses, suspected of being saboteurs or enemy agents.

Starting in the 1920s, the federal government put the clamps on mass immigration. What had been a ﬂood became little more than a trickle. Restrictions and quotas during this time tended to favor Northern Europeans. With the exception of refugees following World War II, it was unusual to come across a “recent immigrant” in New Jersey. As a result, what had been distinct cultures slowly became Americanized, with traditions (and family names) handed down to children and grandchildren. By the 1960s, the only people with deep “accents” were probably 50 yeas old or older.

Library of Congress

THE IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT OF 1965

In the last 50 years, the majority of new New Jerseyans have come from Spanish-speaking countries and from Asia. In 1965, Congress passed sweeping immigration reforms that struck down the restrictive quota system that had been in place since the 1920s. The new rules gave preference to people who already had family members residing in the U.S., and to skilled laborers. In the ensuing decades, political upheaval in Latin America and a lack of economic opportunities in Asia sparked an explosion of “kin-based migration chains” from these regions of the world. At the same time, Europe had completed its recovery from World War II, so there was little incentive for Europeans to seek American citizenship. These two demographic trends combined to change the face of America—and particularly New Jersey.

Because of its long history of cultural diversity, its economic opportunities and its proximity to major cities, New Jersey proved to be a particularly popular landing spot for immigrants from Asia and Latin America. The state’s current population of roughly 9 million represents 2.8% of the U.S. population, yet upwards of 6% of the country’s new immigrants settle here. That percentage may be even higher when undocumented individuals are taken into account.

New Jersey’s Asian population grew steadily in the 1970s and 1980s to more than 250,000. From 1990 to 2000 it jumped dramatically, by nearly 100 percent. The largest groups were made up of immigrants from India, followed by China and the Philippines. Today, there are signiﬁcant Indian populations in the towns of Edison and Iselin, as well as in Jersey City, which has the largest Indian population in the state, estimated at over 25,000. At 10.9% of the city’s total population, it is the most ethnically Indian of any major city in the country. “Little India” along Newark Avenue is home to Hindu temples, Indian restaurants and grocery stores, and the site of numerous celebrations, including the Navratri festival each autumn.

New Jersey’s Korean population is centered around Palisades Park in Bergen County, including the neighboring towns of Fort Lee, Leonia and Tenaﬂy. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ﬁrst wave of immigrants included a high percentage of famously hardworking but unskilled laborers. Over the last quarter-century, the socioeconomic and educational proﬁle of Korean immigrants to New Jersey has risen dramatically.

There are some really interesting demographics out there on other Asian-American groups in New Jersey, particularly those claiming Chinese and Filipino heritage. However, taking a deep dive into those numbers can be tricky. The last U.S. census was in 2010, so the most accurate statistics on who New Jerseyans are and where they live are a mish-mash of seven-year-old census records and data collected by various studies—some by academics and others by state agencies like the New Jersey Department of Labor. Which is to say they are inherently inaccurate. It will be fascinating to see how rapidly the state’s demographics have shifted when the 2020 census results come out. Much of the data collection will be done via the Internet, which adds an additional wrinkle to the process. What can be said with some certainty at this point about

Photo by LuigiNovi Nightscream

New Jersey’s Asian population is that—

as a percentage of the overall population—it ranks third in the nation behind Hawaii and California.

Americans of Asian descent number roughly 20 million, making up around 6% of the U.S. population. In New Jersey, the percentage is around 10%.

LATINO NEW JERSEY

Historically, the state’s Latino Hispanic communities tend to form in its urban centers. They make up the majority of residents in seven cities of 25,000 or more: Fairview, Paterson, Elizabeth, North Bergen, Dover, Passaic, Perth Amboy, West New York and Union City. In Perth Amboy, West New York and Union City, more than three in four residents is Latino. Although one tends to think of Spanish-speaking communities as heavily immigrant, the fact is that roughly three in ﬁve Latinos living in the state were born in the United States.

Starting in the 1950s, New Jersey’s Cuban population—many from Fomento and Villa Clara in central Cuba—coalesced around Union City. The Cuban population spread north and south in the ensuing decades and, today, some call this stretch of waterfront “Havana on the Hudson.” Another New Jersey city that became a landing place for immigrants from a speciﬁc country is Paterson, which has seen its Peruvian population grow dramatically. The city’s downtown area has been called “Little Lima” or “Little Peru.” Old-timers recall that this neighborhood had once been nicknamed “Dublin” for its heavy Irish population and the line of mills along the Passaic River—and then “Little Italy,” after another wave of European immigrants arrived. Paterson’s Main Street still boasts a Little Italy section, as well as distinct Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Mexican neighborhoods.

New Jersey’s Mexican population has experienced stunning growth. In little more than a generation (since 1990) it has increased more than 800 percent, from around 30,000 to more than a quarter-million. Overall, the Hispanic population in New Jersey grew by two-and-half times during the same period. Mexicans now represent the second-largest Hispanic population in the state, behind Puerto Ricans and just ahead of Dominicans, who make up the largest group from a Caribbean nation. That being said, New Jersey is home to more than 450,000 people who trace their heritage to Puerto Rico. Only New York and Florida have larger Puerto Rican populations. For most of the 20th century, Puerto Rican communities were concentrated in the urban centers of Hudson and Essex Counties, including Newark, Elizabeth and Jersey City. Large Puerto Communities are now located in Paterson, Camden, Trenton, Vineland and Perth Amboy. Puerto Rican migration to the U.S. began in the 1920s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that New Jersey became a popular destination.

Which part of the world will send New Jersey its next “wave” of newcomers? With the world’s climate changing, food stress may serve as the trigger. History teaches us that people are often willing to live in fear of war or violence, but nothing moves populations like the fear of starvation. That makes parts of Africa and the Middle East prime candidates. Alas, once thing is certain: Whoever has the fortitude, ambition and luck to make it to America, they can count on ﬁnding a Welcome mat in the Garden State.

JEWS IN NEW JERSEY

Like most newcomers to the state, Jewish immigrants created insulated communities within New Jersey’s cities, speciﬁcally Newark, Paterson and Camden. The Weequahic section of Newark—a city that at one time claimed more than 75,000 Jewish residents—was perhaps the state’s most famous. The initial wave of Jewish immigrants were German Jews during the mid-1800s. They were extremely inﬂuential in the state’s economic growth. At the turn of the century, Jewish immigrants were more likely to come from Russia, Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, where they were victims of persecution. In the years after World War II, Jewish families that could afford to move to the Garden State’s rapidly expanding suburbs did so.Today, New Jersey’s Jewish populations are predominantly located in suburbs, as opposed to urban centers or “exurbs.” Today there are approximately 550,000 Jews living in New Jersey. The Ocean County town of Lakewood is home to one of the nation’s largest Orthodox communities, which makes up more than half of Lakewood’s population. Beth Medrash Govoha, one of the world’s most heralded rabbinical colleges, is located in the town.

THE BLACK EXPERIENCE

African-Americans were among the earliest settlers in New Jersey, although often they had no say in the matter. They were imported as slave labor from Africa or the West Indies by the Dutch and the English. Perth Amboy and Camden were major ports of entry for the trade. While New Jersey had a signiﬁcant population of “free blacks” in the 1700s, at the time of the American Revolution there were more than 10,000 slaves in the state. The vast majority labored on farms or in ports, which were New Jersey’s two major industries. That explains why it took the state legislature until 1804 to outlaw slavery—and then only gradually. For decades after, many children born to New Jersey slaves were classiﬁed as “apprentices” to the owners of their parents into their 20s and beyond. Not until the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865 were the ﬁnal 16 African-Americans still serving “apprenticeships” legally free.

New Jersey’s African-American population did not undergo signiﬁcant growth until World War I, when demand for industrial laborers in the urbanized North and Midwest triggered the “Great Migration” of more than 1.5 million blacks from the rural South between 1916 and 1930. A second wave estimated at nearly 5 million left the South for the North, West and Midwest in the quarter-century after World War II.

Today, African-Americans make up the majority of residents in six cities of 25,000 or more: Newark, Camden, East Orange, Irvington, Willingboro and Orange. There are also large numbers of African-American families in Jersey City, Trenton, Paterson, Plainﬁeld, Passaic and Lakewood. About 1.2 million people in New Jersey identify themselves as “black” or African-American.

Too Little Too Late

Is it time for a retirement reboot?

By Christine Gibbs

The dictionary is very precise in deﬁning retirement: Withdrawal from one’s position or occupation or from active working. For a growing number of people in New Jersey and around the country, that deﬁnition barely hints at the reality of retirement. A generation ago, half of all Americans said they expected to retire comfortably by age 65. By contrast, according to a recent survey, about 25% of Americans now anticipate that retirement won’t begin until age 70 or later. According to AARP, 40% of Baby Boomers nearing retirement expect to “work until they drop.” So much for Webster’s.

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The math is far from encouraging. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 13% of the current U.S. population is over 65, with projections escalating to 18% in 2030 and doubling in 2050 to almost 90 million. This puts stress not only on retirees, but also on their entitlements. Given that the average length of retirement is 18 years, right now four out of ﬁve Americans aged 30 to 54 say they are convinced they will not have sufﬁcient funds to comfortably retire, and expect little help from diminished Social Security beneﬁts when the time comes. They may be right. The Boston College Center for Retirement Research estimates that, as a nation, we are a mind-boggling $6.6 trillion short of what Americans will need to retire comfortably.

If you’ve fully funded your retirement and feel conﬁdent that you can maintain a high standard of living and achieve all of your post-career dreams, you can stop reading here. If not, let’s do a reality check.

WHAT RETIREMENT LOOKS LIKE

The ﬁrst meaningful step toward retirement is visualizing what life will look like for you. It won’t be the same as it is today, especially if you are behind in building your nest egg. You will almost certainly downsize in terms of your living situation. If you own a home, try to put a conservative number on what kind of cash a sale will generate when you move to something smaller or less expensive. And then think about what it will cost to live in your next home—taxes, utility bills, maintenance. Maybe you’ll be renting. Or sharing a home with your children.

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How do you envision your lifestyle? Will you be taking around-the-world cruises or more modest travel adventures? Will you be joining country clubs or giving up your existing memberships? Will you be a buyer or a seller when it comes to the ﬁner things in life, such as art, antiques or collectibles? Will you be eating out a lot or eating in?

Remember, everything comes with a price tag including, unfortunately, your health. Health issues increase with age, which often involve unexpected escalating medical obligations. Psychological and emotional distress often increases as we grow older. In fact for many, chronic anxiety and depression begin pre-retirement as we face the realities of aging. Although Medicare and private insurance plans can cover most of these costs, any decline in health—even a temporary one—is likely to erode your ﬁnances. Plan realistically for this eventuality. You don’t want to be 80 and snapping pills in half so you can afford to keep the lights on.

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TIME AND MONEY

So where to start? A good place to begin your retirement reboot is by determining how much you will really need to save in order to make your late-in-life fantasy come true. Any good game plan must start with an honest personal assessment. The two critical factors to consider are when and how do you hope to retire. There are a plethora of online calculators that let you plug in ﬁnancial and other data to calculate how much cash to stash to achieve deﬁned goals. There are an equally vast number of retirement experts and advisers out there offering professional assistance.

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Financial planners like to recommend saving 10 to 15 percent of your annual income starting as early as your 20s. A recent USA Today article suggests saving $300 per month starting at age 25 and investing aggressively (not to mention successfully) will accumulate more than $932,000 by age 65. Delaying saving by a decade would reduce the total nest egg to $408,000, while increasing the monthly savings by $100 would increase it to about $1.2 million. Which makes me wonder: Do any 25-year-olds read USA Today? Are you 25? The answer to both questions is probably not.

If you are in your 40’s or 50’s and have yet to pull your head out of the sand when it comes to saving for retirement, fear not. All is not lost. In fact, there is a consensus among the “big boys” in the ﬁnancial arena on how to get back on track even when the retirement clock is ticking. A good place to start is to estimate how much cash you will need in your retirement kitty based on your projected monthly expenses.

DID YOU KNOW?

The ancient Greeks would stockpile valuable olive oil as a way to survive during difﬁcult times, including old age.
Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Paine proposed a controversial public pension system in a pamphlet published in 1795.

Monthly Income Need Savings Needed for 20 Years Savings Needed for 30 Years

$1,000 $166,696 $212,150

$2,000 $333,392 $424,300

$3,000 $500,087 $636,450

$4,000 $666,783 $848,601

$5,000 $833,479 $1,060,751

$6,000 $1,000,175 $1,272,901

$7,000 $1,166,871 $1,485,051

$8,000 $1,333,567 $1,697,201

$9,000 $1,500,262 $1,909,351

$10,000 $1,666,958 $2,121,501

The above sums assume your portfolio will earn a 6 percent annualized return during the course of your retirement and endure 2 percent annual inflation erosion.

Obviously, the ﬁrst step is to start growing your savings faster than you’re growing gray hairs. Clark Howard, a successful consumer expert, in one of his books entitled Living Large for the Long Haul, extends his own personal lifeline to those who have passed the 40-year mark with no savings for retirement.

Crunch Retirement Numbers Realistically

Income (salary, portfolio, social security, pension)?
Unsettled debt?
Expenses?

Get Aggressive

Stop stalling and start saving—as much as you can, as soon as you can!
Play catch-up: If you are 50 or older, the IRS lets you make extra contributions to supplement your retirement savings accounts.

Rethink Your Retirement Timetable

Keep working beyond the standard retirement age.
Supplement with part-time work.

Scale back

Get real about expenses and luxuries.

DID YOU KNOW?

Medicare was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. It established eligibility at age 65.

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THE FINAL FRONTIER

What will the world look like for retirees now in their 40’s or 50’s? They will be part of what one strategic forecasting agency recently referred to as “a tsunami of senior citizens.” It may change the very nature and culture of the United States, and will certainly have a major impact on the economy. By their sheer numbers, seniors will represent a juggernaut voting block, and millions of new jobs and perhaps even new industries will be devoted to their needs. And remember, this is based on current life-expectancy rates. With advances in medicine, a lot of today’s 50 year-olds will reach triple-digits. They are only halfway home!

DID YOU KNOW?

88% of Americans today are worried about retirement as compared to 73% in 2010.

DID YOU KNOW?

The U.S. Census Bureau indicates that average savings for a 50 year-old today is $42,797.

What do those next 50 years have in store for us? A Place for Mom, a very successful for-proﬁt senior living referral service, recently put forth the following predictions:

A drastic decline in traditional nursing homes in favor of continuing care communities and aging-in-place with at-home care.
Improved technology to include a wide array of accurate health-monitoring wearables, smart homes powered by cloud-based artiﬁcial intelligence, and even exo-suits worn under or over clothing to enhance mobility.
Neighborhood-friendly civic planning to accommodate common senior limitations.
Going green among the graying population through eco-friendly domestic design to save energy and money while making seniors safer.
A booming healthcare industry based on the Bureau of Labor forecasting job growth at 70% for home health and personal care aides.

In the end (no pun intended) a happy, healthful, meaningful retirement comes down to quality of life. And in that regard, everyone is different. For some, it’s a matter of money—of never having to say no to something because you can’t afford it. For others, it’s about staying engaged and maintaining a positive outlook—of never being afraid to say yes. Just as everyone is different, every retirement is different, too. The more you can picture your own bright future, the more realistic your chances are of making it happen.

DID YOU KNOW?

Age 66 is the full eligibility age for Social Security for anyone born in 1954 or earlier, with partial beneﬁts available starting at age 62. For those born after 1954, the eligibility age increases by two months per birth year until it reaches 67.

Splash Zone

Count on summer camps to build aquatic competence in your child.

By Christine Gibbs

New Jersey can proudly boast of more than 200 lakes, about 240 rivers, and countless ponds, streams, and creeks. And that’s before you get to the 100-plus swimmable miles of Jersey Shore between Sandy Hook and Cape May. New Jersey can also lay claim to a good percentage of the 10.4 million residential and 309,000 public swimming pools in the US.

With such a plethora of fresh and saltwater options, the urge to go swimming, sailing, canoeing, kayaking or simply splashing around can be overwhelming.

Unfortunately, it’s not always fun and games. Water safety or, more accurately, water competence is a vital part of a lifelong enjoyment of all things wet and wonderful. Consider the following statistics, which come from Psychology Today:

Two-thirds of Americans are afraid of deep, natural bodies of water
37 percent of Americans are unable to swim
Almost 4,000 people a year in the United States die from drowning
46 percent are afraid of the deep end of a pool

According to CDC statistics, about one in ﬁve drowning victims is 13 or younger. Needless to say, water competence is something parents need to instill in their kids at the earliest possible age.

Which is where summer camps come in. A sleep-away or day camp with ﬁrst-rate aquatic programs and facilities is worth all the extra time and trouble to ﬁnd, and every extra penny you might have to shell out to build conﬁdence in your kids when it comes to interacting with the water.

Some children seem to emerge from the womb with a love for water. It’s evident from their very ﬁrst bath. Others not so much. They are burdened with an irrational fear of water, which sometimes originates with their parents’ own fears or insecurities. Wherever it comes from, it can make learning how to swim a seemingly insurmountable challenge. That being said, there are long-established methods for encouraging self-conﬁdence in children who have none, and also to temper any potential overconﬁdence in more reckless young water enthusiasts. The key is to foster respect for the water at the same time you’re building trust and a sense of security. This is a job best left to the professionals. Parents don’t always make the best swimming teachers. In a summer camp environment, you have trained instructors, lifeguards, other kids to learn with and long-established water culture.

In sorting through summer camp options, make sure you understand what type of water activities each camp offers. In some cases, it’ll be all about the water. In others, a water sport may simply be one of many activities. Whatever you’re drawn to, ask questions about instruction, supervision, and goals. Ideally, you want a camp where the owners/directors and counselors are professionally equipped and personally committed to turning even the most reticent young guppy into a fearless shark. The seven summer camps in these pages are all a little different, but share stellar reputations for their aquatic programs.

Adirondack Camp

Putnam Station, NY

Co-ed 7 to 17

adirondackcamp.com

Situated on Lake George, “ADK” has roots that run back to 1904. It offers kids two to eight weeks of challenging activities and the opportunity to make new friends from far-off places (20% of the camper population is international).

The camp is surrounded on three sides by the lake. According to Waterfront Director Ryan Harrell, ADK is “the perfect place to go canoeing, wakeboarding, stand-up paddleboarding, windsurﬁng, sailing, and kayaking. Because we’re on a natural peninsula, activities are not separated one from the other. Although the psychological effect of being in a natural water environment can be intimidating, the various conditions—ranging from deep water to a shallow sandy bottom in our Junior Cove—help to gradually build conﬁdence and ﬁght fear. We work step-by-step and stroke-by-stroke with each child. We strive to keep a safe environment to get our kids to take healthy risks. Our goal is growth through building self-awareness and self-conﬁdence…nothing is more real-world than being on the water.”

As is the case with pretty much all camps located on signiﬁcant bodies of water, ADK’s kids must take a swimming test when they arrive and participate in appropriate-level swimming lessons (certain activities like canoeing, wind surﬁng, and kayaking require varying levels of swimming competency). According to Shawn Carraher, a member of the owner’s family, beyond its aquatic program, ADK has a decidedly traditional camp philosophy that “provides an opportunity for campers to develop conﬁdence and leadership skills, and to discover a sense of themselves—all under the guise of having fun.”

From the owners and directors down to the counselors, the focus, adds Carraher, is on understanding the whole child and treating each as an individual. Counselors bunk with the campers and receive pre-camp training in how to get in touch with their charges to help them through any issues or anxieties, such as homesickness or aqua phobia. And although swimming is at the core of the waterfront program, the emphasis is on gradually branching out into the more challenging activities.

Camp Cayuga

Honesdale, PA

Co-ed 5 to 15

Campcayuga.com

Camp Cayuga is located on a secluded 350-acre estate in the Pocono Mountains, which features a junior and senior campus. The camp season is organized into nine different

sessions, ranging from two- to eight-week stays. In all, nearly 400 children from three dozen states and more than a dozen countries attend. The Cayuga staff numbers about 175, so no camper is lacking for supervision or attention.

Much of the activity takes place in or around the property’s 13-acre lake, which features 250 feet of beach, a sand volleyball court, a boathouse, a ﬂoating raft with a water slide and a separate ﬁshing dock. According to Director Brian Buynak (a second-generation family owner), Camp Cayuga’s Waterfront Program meets all standards and guidelines of the American Red Cross, as well as the American Camping Association (ACA). The Water Program is under the management of two Waterfront Directors who have a staff of 8-10 fully-certiﬁed instructors and lifeguards.

Assistant Director Marcus Whitehurst adds that the water program includes three pools that are used for swimming instruction and recreational activities, including water polo and scuba diving clinics. All campers are required to take a swim test and the younger campers are required to take swimming instruction. Most campers arrive with some level of swimming competence, but all participation in water activities is elective (except for the swimming instruction, if needed).

Camp Riverbend

Warren Township, NJ

Co-ed 3 to 14

campriverbend.com

Camp Riverbend, a family-owned and operated day camp, is celebrating its 56th anniversary this year. As its name implies, the property is situated at a bend in the Passaic River in Somerset County. This location is ideal for campers to learn the fundamentals of safe canoeing and kayaking, all under the guidance of certiﬁed camp instructors. Swimming is not allowed in the river itself, so campers spend a lot of time around Riverbend’s four swimming pools.

Water Director Robin Breene Hetrick—one of the family owners with 30 years of swim teaching experience—is in charge of managing the swimming program (which includes 18 other instructors) and also seeing that the pools are kept clean, safe, and crystal-clear at all times. The average 750-850 weekly campers are grouped by age and then by swimming ability. The four pools are constructed with 11 inches of water at the low end to accommodate even the youngest campers, who are gradually encouraged to ﬂoat with face in water, the ﬁrst step in gaining aquatic conﬁdence.

For the older campers there is an instructional swim every morning and a free swim in the afternoon. Small swim groups are organized by competence (not age), which is assessed on a regular basis by swim evaluations. According to Hetrick, the word “test” is never used. “Instead we just ask the child to show me what you can do,” she says. “Camp Riverbend is all about participation, not competition. We believe there’s too much competition in everyday life, so we want our camp to be a place to escape from pressure. We are hands-on, watchful and supportive. We treat learning to swim just like learning to walk—in gradual stages with an emphasis on improving self-awareness and taking pride in self-improvement.”

Camp Wicosuta

Hebron, NH

Girls 6 to 15

campwicosuta.com

Established in 1920 as one of the region’s ﬁrst sleep-away camps for girls, Camp Wicosuta boasts a long tradition of morale- and spirit-boosting activities for up to 300 campers in each of its two four-week summer sessions. The web site states that the “goal is for every child to walk away feeling conﬁdent,” and it aims to get kids to surpass “their self-set limits.” Wicosuta is a Native American word meaning strength of mind and body.

Camp Director Justin Dockswell says Wicosuta is serious about “our philosophy of the Three C’s—Conﬁdence, Competence and Community. That’s what our staff is dedicated to inspiring in every camper at every age level.” That applies to the aquatic program, which is built around Newfound Lake, which is ranked #7 in a survey of US lakes conducted by USA Today and cited as “one of the cleanest and clearest lakes in America” by National Geographic Magazine.

Camp Wicosuta also has a swimming pool on its campus, which makes the instructional portion of the camp’s water program more inviting, especially since the pool is comfortably heated. Daily swim lessons are required for girls in Grades 1-4, while older girls can work on American Red Cross badges. For more excitement and challenges, girls with the required competency can move onto the lake for training in activities such as canoeing, kayaking, waterskiing, kneeboarding, wakeboarding and sailing. Other lake activities include boat rides, tubing, and a water trampoline. Dockswell estimates that 80 to 85 percent of the camp’s activities involve the lake or pool. Although after Grade 5, campers make elective choices among available activities, water-related options are always the most popular.

Campus Kids

Blairstown, NJ

Co-ed • 7 to 15

Campuskids.com

The region’s only weekday sleep-away camp is located on the campus of Blair Academy. Children are picked up in an air-conditioned coach on Monday mornings and returned to their families Friday nights. Each day, campers select their activity for the next day, with programming covering sports, ﬁne arts and performing arts along with other traditional camp activities.

The camp’s pool is indoor and heated, which makes it a popular choice. Every child’s water competence is evaluated the ﬁrst day, and there are daily swim lessons for every camper under the age of 13, grouped by similar ability. “The pool is also very popular for recreational swimming, as well as evening activities and special events,” says Director Tom Riddleberger, who started Campus Kids in 1991.

The Campus Kids bus ﬂeet does pick-ups from various collection points in Northern and Central New Jersey, and from Manhattan, Rockland and Westchester. Sessions run from two to seven weeks, with about 200 campers in session at a given time.

Valley Forge Military Academy Summer Camp

Wayne, PA

Overnight Boys 9 to 17

Co-ed Day Camp 6- to 17

vfmac.edu/academy/summer-camp

Valley Forge Military Academy, (VFMAC), has a long tradition steeped in instilling values and building self-conﬁdence to prepare tomorrow’s leaders. Not surprisingly, the Academy also offers a rigorous summer camp for both day and overnight campers. The summer camp is run by Elizabeth Wahlberg, Director of Student Activities and Summer Camps, who says the summer sessions reﬂect the time-honored tradition that has made the Academy itself into such a revered institution. The camp focuses on self-improvement, ﬁtness and leadership, with programs ranging from academic enrichment to physical training. The ﬂavor at sleepover camp is distinctly military (kids sleep in barracks and dine in the mess).

Among VFMAC ’s water-oriented offerings (for both day and sleepover campers) is a specialized scuba diving course. This popular program is conducted by Ultimate Scuba Adventures, a full-service diving center located in Media, PA. The center is certiﬁed by the International Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) and the camp program is overseen by Ultimate’s owner, André Horne. Scuba groups at the VMAC camp consist of about a dozen students ranging in age from 10 to 16, all of whom have provided waivers covering medical, liability and parental permission. Each group is supervised by two instructors and a Dive Master, who is responsible for overall pool conditions and safety measures.

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The scuba program is conducted twice each season and is considered to be a Discover Scuba opportunity as opposed to a full-ﬂedged diving course. Each scuba program consists of four 3-hour sessions: 1) orientation, 2) initial diving exercises [e.g., mask clearing, mask recovery], 3) introductory games to develop ﬂexibility and conﬁdence underwater, and 4) a ﬁnal series of exercises to be conducted for the ﬁrst time at the deep end of the pool.

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William Lawrence Camp

Center Tuftonboro, NH

Boys 8 to 15

wlcamp.org

William Lawrence Camp offers an active waterfront program on its half-mile frontage along Lower Beech Pond, which includes swimming and ﬁshing areas. The camp also boasts a small ﬂeet of sailboats, canoes, kayaks and rowboats, as well as a competition water-ski boat. Campers must pass various levels of American Red Cross swimming instruction to progress to the more challenging water activities. Executive Director Nat Crane emphasizes that, despite the popularity of WLC’s water program, it is only a part of the larger camp focus on overall wilderness skills, and keeping boys physically active and personally challenged—including riﬂery and archery. It’s a perfect blend of exuberance tempered with serious self-improvement, Crane maintains.

“Campers are exposed to an environment that is often the opposite of what they have at home,” he says. “They develop a great sense of community, a tremendous spirit, and a responsibility for themselves and others.”

WLC is more than a century old and differs from the competition in that it’s set up as a not-for-proﬁt, with all funds raised funneled back into the camp. This lowers the cost of the summer program, which runs seven weeks (divided into three- and four-week sessions). The staff to camper ratio is 2:1, and more than three-quarters of campers typically return the following summer.

When choosing a camp—whether water competence is your highest priority or not—your number-one job as a parent is to know your child. This means accepting your child’s level of physical development and emotional maturity, along with an awareness of his or her personal preferences. There are the basic questions: Is your child ready for a sleepover camp or would a day camp be preferable? Would your child like to be near to home or prefer an adventure farther aﬁeld? Is your child a natural water rat or a no way/not me water baby? In terms of a camp’s water program, don’t just go by the pictures on the web site or brochure. Look at reviews and comments from other parents. Call and ask questions, too. Find out what water safety regulations are in place, and what kind of swimmers attend the camp. And obviously, look at a camp’s other programmed activities and make sure they relate to your child’s interests.

Once all these questions have been answered, the ﬁnal and best choice should become much clearer. That leaves only two catches—does it ﬁt in your budget and is space still available? Generally speaking, there are camps to ﬁt every pocketbook. But the best ones tend to book up quickly, so if you haven’t begun your search at this point you may have to hustle.

As a ﬁnal footnote, be ready to be proud. If you’ve done your homework and made the right choice, you might not recognize the child you pick up from camp as the same one you dropped off.

START ’EM YOUNG

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There are solid numbers to back this up. USA Swimming, the national governing body for the sport, has indicated that participation in formal swimming lessons can reduce the risk of drowning by as much as 88 percent among children aged one to four years. Psychology Today points out that “even more than learning strokes, learning to cope with fear and maintaining ease in the water is what prevents drowning.” For most of us, that begins with childhood swimming instruction. In cases of extreme fear, there are experts ready to step in—Jeff Krieger’s Strategies for Overcoming Aquatic Phobias (S.O.A.P.) and Kimberlee Shults’ program, called Face in Water, to name a couple.

MARCO POLO TO WATER POLO

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Many child psychologists and swimming coaches emphasize that swimming for fun—ranging from playing Marco Polo to competing in serious water polo—is one of the best ways to instill not just a love of water, but also a painless appreciation of cardio activities. Children don’t even realize they are exercising when they’re in the water; they are just enjoying themselves. Swimming is the fourth-most popular cardio activity among Americans (walking and gym-type activities hold the top spots) according to the US Census Bureau. Among youngsters aged 7 to 17, swimming easily moves into the #1 position according to Safe Kids Worldwide.

Editor’s Note: There are any number of ways to begin a summer camp search. The American Camp Association web site (acacamps.org) is a good place to start. If water

Running Out

Is water insecurity a New Jersey problem?

By Mark Stewart

In Israel, water treatment facilities recycle household wastewater to meet nearly half of the country’s agricultural needs. In Australia, water is treated as a commodity, leading to a 50 percent drop in residential and business consumption. In Singapore, water flows to five million people through a combination of importation, wastewater recycling, desalinization and an ingenious system of rainwater collection. In the mid-2000s, the Bush family (more specifically the W. Bush family) purchased more than a quarter-million acres of land in Paraguay, atop one of the largest aquifers in the western hemisphere. A bungled 2014 cost-cutting decision in Flint, Michigan, exposed residents to catastrophically high levels of lead.

You’ve heard about Flint. What you may not have heard is that other cities in other states are facing issues with the quantity, quality and reliability of their water supply. The same is true in many rural areas. That’s because “water insecurity” is one of the least talked-about issues…until it impacts you.

How is water insecurity measured? It’s not, at least not officially. For now, common sense and logic must suffice; transparency and information are critical. For example, say you live in a state where one in five kitchen taps produces water that contains trace amounts of perfluorooctanoic acid (aka PFOA), a chemical linked to cancer and low birth rates—as well as accelerated or delayed puberty and a reduction in the effectiveness of vaccines. You might think, Hey, my water is only 80 percent secure. Or Wow, my water is 20 percent insecure. Either way of measuring would be perfectly valid since, again, there is no accepted yardstick at the moment.

Would it surprise you to know that the aforementioned state is New Jersey and, according to a 2017 report issued by the Environmental Working Group, we had the highest prevalence of PFOA in our tap water of any state in the nation?

So, yeah, water insecurity does impact you—because you’re not sure if you are in the 20 percent or the 80 percent, are you? Either way, it kind of makes you wonder what else is trickling through your faucets.

No Doubt About Drought

When most of us hear the words water insecurity, we think about people living under life-threatening drought conditions. They seem very far away and so do their troubles. And to some extent they are, because we are unlikely to run out of drinkable water in our lifetimes, or even our grandchildren’s lifetimes. Thus it is only natural to believe that you are insulated from the misery of drought-stricken populations.

But those other parts of the world that are facing the very real prospect of running out, well, they are already affecting you. For instance, between 2006 and 2011, a vast region of the Middle East was hit with an historic drought. It killed off livestock and destroyed crops. Families abandoned their farms, local businesses failed and people flooded into already overcrowded cities—overwhelming infrastructure and creating social, political and religious unrest. That country was Syria, which was plunged into a full-blown civil war by 2012. That war, in turn, took more than 500,000 lives and triggered a mass migration that has altered the economic and political landscape of dozens of countries, including our own. Water scarcity did not “cause” the crisis in Syria, but it unquestionably served to ignite long-existing tensions within the country and the region. That, in turn, created complex, expensive challenges for the United States that you and your grandchildren will be paying for in one way or another for the foreseeable future.

Which other parts of the world are in real danger of lacking enough water for people to drink and grow food? According to a 2016 study, four billion people live in places where they experience serious water stress a month or more every year. When you see that number you tend to picture third-world villagers huddled in remote desert enclaves. But a surprising number of people in this category live like we do. In fact, 14 of the 20 world’s largest metropolitan areas (i.e. “megacities”) have experienced drought conditions or water scarcity in the past few years. More than a third are in Asia.

However, most are not. And some familiar and even picturesque cities have encountered unprecedented water crises. In the spring of 2018, the four million residents of the drought-stricken South African city of Cape Town were asked to stop flushing their toilets and to limit showers to once or twice a week. They had already been rationed down to 13 gallons per person per day—about one-eighth of the 100 gallons a day we New Jerseyans consume. Three years earlier, the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil simply turned off its water for 12 hours a day. If it hadn’t, it faced the prospect of a “Day Zero,” which is a frightening term for the moment people turn on the taps and nothing comes out.

Not-So-Funny Farms

For the record, humans technically need about four gallons a day to survive (drink, cook and clean). That’s less than three flushes of your low-flow toilet. If that makes you feel guilty about the 100 gallons you use every day, don’t. It’s important for each of us to be prudent about our water use, but those 100 gallons are a drop in the bucket. Residential water use accounts for maybe three or four percent of total consumption. Agriculture takes upwards of 70 percent, while use by industry and energy producers makes up the rest.

If guilt is your thing, however, you could cut down on California-produced almonds and pistachio nuts, which take a trillion gallons annually to grow—about 10 percent of the state’s agricultural water supply, according to the Pacific Institute, a global water “think tank.” Or take a pass on your next cheeseburger.

Growing crops like alfalfa to feed dairy cows and cattle consumes upwards of 2.5 trillion gallons of water a year in California’s agricultural heartland. The least water-intensive crops in the U.S. include sugar beets, beans, onions and garlic.

If you really want to feel bad about your impact on a region’s water supply, then it’s time to return to South Africa. A bottle of South African wine, by the industry’s own estimate, takes almost 200 gallons of water to produce. Some quick math suggests that the country’s wineries “export” over 400 billion liters of water annually. That is about three times as much as is required to satisfy the need of every South African who currently lacks easy access to water. Part of the country’s problem is its position on the map; the irrigation water that evaporates does not return to the land in the form of rain, as in most wine-growing regions. Instead it blows out into the ocean, where it stays.

Obviously, at some point, the human race will have to start prioritizing which crops are worth the water and which aren’t. That will almost certainly happen within our lifetimes. As the planet’s population expands, the demand for food will continue to slurp up the lion’s share of the global supply of fresh water.

Today there are more than 800 million people around the globe who do not have access to a clean water supply. The potential for extreme social and political unrest exists wherever these conditions do. On the bright side, that number is actually way down from where it was a generation ago. New technology and better education have cut the percentage of people consuming unsafe water by two-thirds. That is still far too many, but at the moment the statistics are headed in the right direction.

Some of the more high-profile work in this area has been done by charities attached to worldwide celebrities. Perhaps the most notable is Water.org, which was co-founded by actor Matt Damon in the early 1990s. Water.org has focused on promoting market-driven solutions to clean water and sanitation, which is a fancy way of saying that Damon et al. believe that reliable access to safe water is key to breaking the cycle of poverty in many areas—which in turn promotes better health, education and economic opportunity. One of the organization’s most successful tools has been the creation of micro-loans to fund household water and toilets for people who could not otherwise afford them.

Closer to Home

So are we running out of water? Are we likely to face a situation here in the Garden State where access to the water we need for drinking, cooking, bathing and growing Jersey corn and tomatoes is significantly curtailed? The answer is No, but with the caveat that other parts of the country may not have it so good.

Anyone who has flown into Las Vegas over a long stretch of time can’t help but notice that its main source of drinking water (and power), Lake Mead, is slowly disappearing. The lake is not a lake at all; it is part of the Colorado River and was the country’s largest reservoir up until a few years ago. Las Vegas itself has done a decent job with water conservation. But downstream, 20 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California depend on Lake Mead, as do vast swaths of the nation’s most productive farmland. A combination of increasing drought and demand—and reduced snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains—has dramatically reduced the amount of water that flows down the Colorado River and into Lake Mead. So far, the main inconvenience has been to local boat- and marina-owners, but there are a lot more folks who stand to lose if the water level continues to fall.

Elsewhere in America, historically low levels on the Rio Grande have put cities such as El Paso on the at-risk list for clean drinking water. Somewhat closer to home, in Georgia, the city of Atlanta receives much of its water supply from West Point Lake, which was created on the Chattahoochee River on the Alabama-Georgia border. West Point Lake nearly ran dry a decade ago. Meanwhile, Georgia, Alabama and Florida are tangled up in court over water rights, which could negatively impact the Big Peach. Residents of Salt Lake City are rightfully worried about lower snowfall totals, which diminish the annual runoff that replenishes their water supply. Miami is game-planning for rising sea levels, which threatens to contaminate its aquifer.

These examples may seem distant, yet just as in the other water-stressed regions of the world, “out of sight, out of mind” doesn’t really apply. Take Nebraska, for example, which experienced an extreme drought seven years ago. The Platte River hit historically low levels, threatening its agriculture industry, which supplies the nation with wheat, corn and soybeans. Another drought of that magnitude could push things to an unpleasant tipping point—and change your grocery bill for the worse.

Here in the land of plenty, it has been two years since the DEP put any drought restrictions on New Jerseyans. And most major cities in the northeast are being smart about their water usage. The world may be getting progressively thirstier, but for now at least, here the water is fine.

Editor’s Note: Mark Stewart edited the 2011 book Clear Choices: The Water You Drink.

Kids and Water

For babies and toddlers, the threat of contaminated water rises to the level of a national emergency. In areas where old pipes taint the supply and families do not filter their tap water, blood lead levels test consistently high. Lead exposure in early childhood has a direct impact on intelligence, which creates a huge burden for the national economy down the road, and also limits an individual’s earning power in adulthood. Many parents and caregivers in areas where the water quality is poor opt instead to feed their children juices and sugary drinks. Unfortunately, they increase the likelihood of childhood and adult obesity, and the diseases that result from it.

Good to the Last Drop

Cape Town narrowly avoided Day Zero. The spring rains returned in 2018 and got the city’s reservoirs back to 60 percent. Cape Town began construction on four desalinization

plants and a new water-recycling facility. Each is expensive to build and operate, all the more so since they were started hastily, in the midst of a crisis. The future looks brighter for Capetonians, if for no other reason than they have reprogrammed themselves to consume about 40 percent less water. Old habits die hard, of course, but the near-death of their city will likely serve as a looming reminder of the value of conserving every drop.

Only a Day Away

Where will a 500-mile road trip land you?

By Jim Sawyer

Remember the good old days, when you could just hop behind the wheel on little more than a whim and just drive? For most of us, those carefree road trips are a vanishing speck in the rearview mirror. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that an old-fashioned road trip is totally off the plate. If that sense of adventure is still stirring inside of you, why not pick a direction and distance and see where life’s highway takes you? Okay, a little pre-planning probably makes sense, but you know what that old road warrior Ralph Waldo Emerson said: It’s not the destination…it’s the journey.

A solid day’s drive, say eight to nine hours, puts you in 500-mile territory. Where those 500 miles take you depends on the direction you choose, but—using the EDGE parking lot as a starting point—I found quite a variety of places that fall neatly within that range.

SNAPSHOT: The population of North Carolina’s state capital has quadrupled since the early 1970s, and it has transformed every conceivable aspect of the city—particularly in the last decade or so. It used to be a place you drove through (as quickly as possible) to get from college towns to the beach. Now it is young, diverse and vibrant. Forbes rated Raleigh the #2 city in America to run a business or build a career.

Alex Israel

Must See: The North Carolina Museum of Art—one of several superb museums in the city—recently underwent a lovely renovation. It features dozens of galleries and a 164-acre museum park.

Must Do: Lunch, dinner and after-hours Downtown. Young, upwardly mobile urbanites and foodies from the surrounding ‘burbs have kicked the restaurant and club scene up a notch.

Christian Geischeder

Must Eat: Carolina Barbecue. It’s vinegar-based in this part of the state with no tomato and uses every edible part of the pig. The Pit is one of several go-to spots in Raleigh.

Keith McDuffee

Hometown Hero: Dexter star Michael C. Hall

Little Known Fact: Raleigh’s pro hockey team, the Carolina Hurricanes, was established in 1972 as the Hartford Whalers. The ’Canes won the NHL’s Stanley Cup in 2007.

SNAPSHOT: A sleepy town of 13,000 on the North Carolina border, Martinsville snaps to life twice a year when NASCAR rolls in. The town is named in honor of Joseph Martin, a Revolutionary War general, and became known for its chewing tobacco and, more recently, its furniture and textile manufacturing. For many years, it proudly called itself the “Sweatshirt Capital of the World.”

Must See: Virginia Museum of Natural History—an affiliate of the Smithsonian in Washington—has 22 million items in its collection, including an Allosaurus skeleton that towers over visitors entering the building.

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Must Do: Race weekend at Martinsville Speedway. One of the first paved NASCAR tracks—and the only one still in existence since the organization was founded in 1948—it is also the shortest at just over a half-mile. The turns are banked only 12 degrees, testing drivers’ braking and accelerating skills and making for precious little passing room.

Must Eat: Soul Food at Walsh’s Chicken

Hometown Hero: Founding Father Patrick Henry

Little Known Fact: During the Cold War, Martinsville’s nylon factory put it high on the list of targets for a Soviet missile attack.

SNAPSHOT: Located on Lake Erie between Toledo and Cleveland, Sandusky has a permanent population of 25,000 that swells during the summer months, as tourists travel from all over the region to visit its amusement parks and off-shore islands. In 2011, Forbes ranked the city the #1 “Place to Live Cheaply” in America.

Ken Winters

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Must See: The Merry-Go-Round Museum, located in a stately old post office building, features a 1939 carousel you can ride for free with admission.

Must Do: Ride the roller coasters at Cedar Point. At last count there were 17 of them—six taller than 200 feet—making the park the self-proclaimed roller coaster capital of the world.

Must Eat: Toft’s Ice Cream, produced by the state’s oldest dairy.

Hometown Hero: 1963 Miss America Jackie Mayer

Little Known Fact: The name Sandusky is not of Eastern European origin. It is derived from a Native American word meaning “cold water.”

SNAPSHOT: Toronto is the best city you’ve never been to. Forget what you picture when you picture Canada. Half the people in Toronto proper are probably from somewhere else. It informs the food, the arts, the street life and just about everything else. The country’s most populous city is clean, safe and gorgeous—even when the February wind off Lake Ontario makes you cry for your mommy.

Must See: A ballgame from a hotel room at the Rodgers Center, the city’s famous domed stadium. The Marriott City Centre features guest rooms with views from high up in the outfield. Just remember, those 50,000 fans have as good a view of you as you do of them, so keep the kimono closed, please.

Must Do: Ride to the top of the CN Tower, at 1,815 feet the world’s tallest tower until 2009, when it was surpassed by the Canton Tower in China.

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Must Eat: Pemeal Bacon Sandwich. Warning: if you love bacon your head might explode. There are several places that make it in St. Lawrence Market.

Hometown Hero: Drake

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Little Known Fact: The Toronto Argonauts have won more Grey Cups (the Canadian Football League version of the Super Bowl) than the 49ers, Cowboys and Patriots have won Super Bowls…combined.

SNAPSHOT: Bar Harbor is the main town on Mount Desert Island, so part of your 500-mile journey will require a car ferry. Part of Maine’s heralded Down East region, Bar Harbor has a long history as a summer and fall tourist haven, and has become a destination for lovers of the outdoors. A portion of Acadia National Park sits within the town’s borders. The harbor itself was an important stop for transatlantic schooners in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Must See: Stained glass at St. Saviour’s

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Must Do: Summit Mt. Cadillac in Acadia National Park

Must Eat: Breakfast at Everyday Joe’s

Hometown Hero: Sportswriter Shirley Povich

Little Known Fact: Bar Harbor previously went by the name Eden, and once rivaled Newport as a playground of the rich and famous—including the Astors, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. In the fall of 1947, following a summer of drought, a wildfire burned for nearly a month and destroyed several hotels and dozens of summer homes.

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Must See: Stained glass at St. Saviour’s

Must Do: Summit Mt. Cadillac in Acadia National Park

Must Eat: Breakfast at Everyday Joe’s

Hometown Hero: Sportswriter Shirley Povich

Are You Too Cool for Coolville?

One of the more intriguing spots at the 500-mile mark is a town of 500 people, called Coolville. It’s situated on the Hocking River in Ohio. The village celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2018. Coolville was laid out by Simeon Cooley, a New Englander who opened a flour mill with his brother, Herman. If you decide to stay, land is a bargain: The taxes on a 60-acre wooded lot currently for sale run a whopping $23 a year. While you’re in the area, why not visit the nearby towns of Torch and Frost?

Breakfast of Champions

Confessions of a cereal consumer.

By Mark Stewart

As a boy, I found milk to be utterly disgusting. I didn’t like the color, the taste, the smell or the texture. The bottles were too heavy and, when it started coming in cardboard, the opening never separated properly. All these years later, I honestly cannot remember drinking a glass of plain milk. Not that I didn’t—I’ve just tried really hard to bury that memory. Whenever I visited a friend’s house, I’d tell his parents preemptively that I was allergic to milk. One mom said, “Too bad, I poured it…you drink it.” Hello? Child Services?

Eventually I wore down my parents. The final peace treaty was that I didn’t have to drink milk if I consumed a bowl of cereal each morning. So of course I would pour as little milk as possible, sometimes just a drop or two. It took a couple of years, but I won and the adults stopped caring. The problem was that, by this point, I was kind of hooked on dry cereal. And here I am, a half-century later, still cleaving off from my spouse on our joint supermarket trips to explore the breakfast aisle looking for interesting boxes to stash in the pantry.

I say this unabashed. Every so often, I need something sweet but not too sweet, with a good, eardrum-rattling crunch.

I suppose I’ve convinced myself that a handful of Honey Nut Cheerios is healthier than a handful of potato chips. Maybe they are. I really don’t know. What I do know is that, starting in the early 1960s and running right up to college in the late 1970s, I became something of a dry cereal aficionado. Or addict, if you prefer. I was on the winning side of Quisp vs. Quake and can still rattle off the jingles of defunct cereal brands. The human brain apparently has a mind of its own; I know this because after 10 years I still can’t remember my younger daughter’s phone number.

My babysitter was a Zenith 19-inch TV so I basically saw every cereal ad ever made, again and again and again. Cereal commercials from my youth employed myriad strategies to convince kids it was worth harassing their parents into buying this box or that. The “free toy inside” could be an effective sales tool, but the toys were always lame and if the cereal was, too, then you moved on pretty quickly. The most impactful cereal commercials were probably the ones that aired during morning cartoons, and were also cartoons themselves. A lot of these characters are still with us, as you know, but they’ve been cleaned up for 21st century sensibilities.

The Coco Puffs bird of my childhood (his name was Sonny) was severely ADHD; now he’s been effectively medicated, although the brown sugar-balls probably aren’t doing him any good. The Lucky Charms leprechaun that the kids were always trying to catch sounded like the kind elderly first-generation Irish gentle- men who lived in my neighborhood. But “Lucky” sure didn’t look like them. As I got older, I realized he was a racist caricature that had barely been updated since the 1800s. Lucky Charms are still around, but the new guy on the box has been drawn with a bit more cultural sensitivity.

Not for nothing, but what the devil were those marshmallow-dependent hoodlums planning to do to that poor leprechaun? I swear there was one commercial where they were trying to drown him in a well and take his cereal. Talk about crossing the line.

Actually, the cereal commercial I can’t quite get out of my head is a particular one for Sugar Pops. It was a live-action ad that featured a cowboy in a cornfield. He tosses an ear of corn in the air and cracks it with his whip, which creates a cascade of glazed yellow mini-boulders that fall neatly into the box. Oh…so that’s how they make those things. No one I knew could actually stand the cereal, but for several weeks the boys in my grade were obsessed with whipping things. I guarantee if I look these guys up on Facebook, one or two of them will still be into whips.

Like Coco Puffs and Lucky Charms, Sugar Pops are still around. I believe they are just called Pops these days. You see, a lot of cereals removed “sugar” from their names a few years ago. Who eats Pops now, I wonder? Arthur Fiedler fans? Because that’s kind of a limited market.

Many of the cereals of my youth came and went after brief, unsuccessful runs. I tried them all and remember most. After Hawaii was admitted to the union, Madison Avenue leveraged the state’s newfound celebrity and rebranded a number of consumer products. The one we all know is Hawaiian Punch, which actually played off the word “punch” more than “Hawaiian.” You’ll recall that every commercial was a textbook case of felony assault. At about the same time, Kellogg’s came out with Puffa-Puffa Rice, which was basically Rice Krispies sprayed with a brown sugar and honey after-coating. In the TV commercial, Hawaiian natives dumped bushels of rice into an active volcano, then hauled their grass-skirted butts off the mountain before it blew. And when it blew, it spewed out a delicious pyroclastic flow of the aforementioned puffed rice. As a dry cereal, it was sticky on the hands, but still pretty good. Puffa-Puffa Rice disappeared sometime in my teen years.

By then, I had been sucked in by a new genre of breakfast cereal: brand extensions of the actual cartoons we watched. Who didn’t love the Pink Panther, right? It was a fast-moving half-hour of clever, subversive unpredictable violence and fun—a perfect Saturday morning warm-up for a weekend with my family. Well then, who wouldn’t love Pink Panther Flakes? These were Frosted Flakes with an unhealthy dose of Red Dye #2 that made them glisten when the light caught them just right. The gimmick was that the cereal turned your milk pink. Well, that sounded disgusting to me and, apparently, it was, because it didn’t even outlast the cartoon.

I mentioned the Quisp and Quake feud earlier. This was a brilliant piece of marketing. Kids didn’t have much say in anything back then. The idea that the “losing” cereal (it was Quake) would blip out of existence was incredibly empowering for a child. As the day of reckoning drew near, the tension was palpable. It was like watching returns in a razor-thin election, except it wasn’t for something stupid like governor or senator or President of the United States. This was breakfast-table life and death. Most kids who tried both realized Quisp and Quake were essentially the same cereal, just different shapes: Quisp was an alien, so his shape was a flying saucer, while Quake was some sort of jackhammer operator, so his shape looked like chunks of construction material. Prior to the contest, they changed Quake to a cowboy or a safari guide or something that didn’t make much sense. Well, duh, you don’t do that so close to a national election. When the results were announced, Quisp won in a Nixon-like landslide, while Quake probably didn’t even win his home state.

At about the same time—and I know that no one with a real job will remember this—there was another cereal feud trying to break through the noise. Borrowing from Quisp and Quake, while also riffing off of Snoopy and the Red Baron in the Peanuts cartoon strip, were a pair of World War I fighter pilots, Baron von Redberry and Sir Grapefellow. Grapefellow was a Brit, while von Redberry broke Teutonic. With the older brothers and cousins of kids you knew coming back from Vietnam not quite whole anymore (or not at all), what better way to sell breakfast cereal than by celebrating a conflict that killed 20 million people? Not surprisingly, both pilots crashed and burned shortly after takeoff, but let me tell you…the grape flavor was a bold move and I thought it was one of the great dry cereals.

Incidentally, as a child and, yes, as an adult, I put bananas in the same category as milk, a category I call “Nope. Nope. Nope.” My parents loved to slice bananas directly onto their cereal. It was horrifying to me on a molecular level. The only upside was that I knew for sure they were telling me the truth about my being adopted.

Cereal makers tried again and again to come up with products that approximated the taste of freshly sliced bananas—sometimes with an artificial spray or flavoring, sometimes with freeze-dried pieces that reconstituted into banana mush when bathed in milk. The summer I turned seven, I noticed Kellogg’s Corn Flakes with Instant Bananas during a supermarket visit. Naturally, the concept was disgusting to me…but at the same time oddly intriguing. Maybe, I thought, crunchy freeze-dried bananas would work for me as a milk-less cereal. I stared at the box for a long time, which is how you make buying decisions at that age. The character on the front was a banana-man with a windbreaker formed by his own banana peel. I think he also had a hat tilted at a slightly rakish angle. Well, he seemed like a decent enough guy, so I snuck it into the cart.

At the checkout register, my mother did a double-take when I placed the box on the conveyer belt. She squinted at me, looked back at the banana-man, squinted at me again hard, and then sighed and said, “Okay.” I knew what that meant: She thought I’d consume one dry handful, make a fake gagging sound and then throw it away (and within an hour she would be proved correct). Mom could have started a public confrontation, and it wouldn’t have been her first, but apparently that was not the hill she planned to die on that day.

So recently I encountered a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes with Instant Bananas for sale on eBay. In retrospect, I see that the banana-man definitely had a registered sex offender vibe. I wonder if that’s why my mother was squinting at me. Anyway, I still buy the occasional box of “healthy” cereal now with banana bits, which are still a thing, ever hopeful that my taste buds have matured. Sadly, they have not. Dried bananas still make me fake-gag.

Meanwhile, my quest for another grape-flavored cereal continues. (Shame on you, Grape Nuts, by the way, for teasing me my whole adult life). Blueberry Cheerios, which I picked up on sale at a CVS recently, came pretty close flavor- and crunch-wise to what I was looking for, but they fell short. I suspect that they will be on sale forever, because they don’t taste much like anything found in nature and have the additional disadvantage of approximating the color of death.

Another cereal I encountered recently while shopping for something else was an old favorite, Alpha-Bits. I flashed back to what I believe to have been the first time that I made someone laugh with words I wrote. I was six years old and, okay, it was one word. And it’s a word we can’t print in this magazine. And it was a word I assembled on a spoon, not one I wrote on paper.

So let’s finish up with Cap’n Crunch. In terms of mouth feel, the folks who made this cereal really got me. Even as a pre-schooler, I understood that “staying crunchy even in milk” meant they would be super-crunchy right out of the box. (Only later did I begin to wonder why the word “even” was part of the sell copy; was someone pouring something else on their cereal?) Well anyway, they were sensational. Even now, I have to talk myself out of a date with the Cap’n every time I go to the store. For the record, I preferred the original, unadulterated version, without the Crunchberries and all the stuff they’ve added since. I’ll bet there are a dozen different Cap’n Crunch flavors right now. I should state here that I don’t eat Cap’n Crunch anymore and haven’t had a handful probably since the 1980s. It’s not because they are too sweet (which they are) or too crunchy (which they aren’t) or that the insane sugar rush one experiences while consuming them would have enabled Jean LaFoot’s fellow Frenchmen to hold the Maginot Line. I think it’s about how Cap’n Crunch affected the way I viewed my father.

My dad piloted bombers during World War II and attained the rank of captain. That’s pretty much all I knew about his military service as a a little boy. He didn’t talk about the war much, or what it was like to fly or even be a leader of men. The only story he liked to tell was about how he and a buddy were ordered to “police-up” a stretch of beach in Savannah as punishment for some minor transgression committed during flight training. They raked the debris into a large pile before realizing that they had no way of transporting it to the dump. Their ingenious solution was to soak the trash with aviation fuel, toss a match on the whole mess and get back to more pressing matters. The resulting explosion propelled them through the air, singed off their eyebrows and convinced everyone within a couple of miles that either a plane had crashed or some saboteurs were up to no good on the beach. My father would tell me this story whenever he was igniting charcoal for a summer barbecue—usually after

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downing a couple of beers, with an open can of lighter fluid in his hand and a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.

At some point I made the connection between my father the Captain and Cap’n Crunch. I was five or six but I wasn’t an idiot. I recognized that Dad had been in the Army and, clearly, the Cap’n was a Navy man. But with their rank being identical, I began to question how and where my father’s military career had gone off the rails. He was by this time a newspaper editor, a job that was difficult for me to comprehend since I had only recently begun to read. (If he had edited Good Night, Moon obviously that would have been different). All I knew was that he didn’t have a big blue hat. He wasn’t on TV. He didn’t have his own ship. And he didn’t have his own cereal. What exactly had happened? Was it the garbage explosion in Savannah? Oh, my God. Was that what the barbecue story was really all about?

One morning I summoned the courage to confront my father at the breakfast table. He was consuming something unspeakable like liver and onions while I was fussing nervously with my bowl of Cap’n Crunch, moistened as usual with a half-ounce of milk. Without saying a word, I slid the box slowly to his side of the table. He looked at it for a long time, long enough so I knew I could open my line of questioning: “How come you were a captain and he’s a captain—”

My father tipped the box over so we could both see the front, pointed to the apostrophe in the top word and like an ex-officer and good editor, showed me something I had missed.

“He’s not a captain,” he pointed out in mid-chew. “He’s a Cap’n.”

His look said everything: Let us never speak of this again.

And sure enough, we never did.

Growing Season

Sowing the seeds of outdoor play.

By Sarah Rossbach

Imagine yourself as a grandparent. Perhaps you already are one. It was only natural that the kids grew up, ﬂew away and feathered their own nests. And you settled in nicely to your empty nest. Yet, not entirely empty…every so often, a disruptive, “invasive species” overruns your island of orderly calm: the grandchildren come to visit. While you welcome them, they do present a challenge…what to do?

Instead of planting them in front of a screen, this is your opportunity to introduce them to the wonders of nature, wonders that will educate, engage, enrich and, ideally, exhaust. You don’t have to be a grandparent, of course. The idea is to exercise a young mind and body. It’s as simple as a walk in the park and —who can tell?—your efforts may start a beautiful relationship with the outdoors, as well as a deep grasp of the nature’s cycles.

If this sounds like a job for Sisyphus, you’re not alone. Educators and researchers have been struggling to strike a balance between indoor technology and outdoor play going on two generations now. More on that in a moment.

To me, it feels odd and obvious to be writing about the advantages of playing outdoors. My own memories of my grandfather are of walking with him in a dense pine forest, smelling the deep scents, and running at his request to pick up twigs that had fallen to give to him for kindling. Alas, the over-programmed, lesson-ﬁlled and electronically addicted lives of today’s children has practically precluded free play and spontaneous outside activities. Indeed, now the concept of playing outdoors has been codiﬁed: Nature Play is a formal term used to describe the beneﬁts of unstructured outside activity. Its proponents say that Nature Play enhances the “cognitive, creative, physical, social and emotional development of children.”

Cultivating an interest in (and identiﬁcation with) nature and its forces may help your young ones discover a new fascination with the birds and bees, bugs and butterﬂies and their nurturing pollinators. We baby boomers grew up with unchaperoned and impromptu adventures in neighborhood open spaces, catching minnows or tadpoles, and dirt under our nails. Today’s children— granted this is a generalization—are strangers to their natural environment. In fact, they suffer from what child specialists and botanists diagnose as “Plant Blindness”.

Plant Blindness is a real concern. If you introduce a child early-on to how plants and ﬂowers are necessary to our food chain, the well-being of humans, and the health of the planet, over the long run, he or she may discover a passion to work with nature. And there are lots of plant-related jobs waiting to be ﬁlled. Professional ﬁelds in what are called the growing arts—botany, ecology, horticulture, garden and nursery work—more and more go begging for suitable employees. Last year, 40,000 jobs in the growing arts went unﬁlled. Many organizations—such as botanical gardens, university agricultural departments, Garden Club of America— have sounded the alarm regarding this fall-off of interest on the part of school-age kids in the growing arts. The ripple effect of this trend is unknown. But it is also unpromising. Environmental stewardship, regardless of your politics, is not something that happens all by itself.

Educators in New Jersey (reminder: we are the Garden State) have prioritized outdoor play for wider-ranging reasons, including socialization, development of motor skills and overall emotional health. Getting students moving out in the air is part of the daily schedule and, in many cases, a component of the curriculum—from grades K through 12.

“Play is really the basis for all learning in early childhood,” says Kellen Kent, Early Childhood & Lower School Division Head at Chatham Day School. “And what better place to play than outside? Whether digging in the Learning Garden and sandbox, climbing and sliding on the playground, or running on a playing ﬁeld or nature path—exploring the outdoors is how young children strengthen their connection with nature, build gross motor skills, and enhance brain development.”

Getting young teens and ’tweens to put their phones or game controllers down—and venture out into the world for a few minutes every day—is a more complex challenge. Woe is the parent or grandparent who makes the heretical suggestion that a child this age actually venture outside. That is where schools can make a big impact. Preparing students for college and beyond involves more than foundational pieces (reading, writing, math, etc.). The social/emotional component is critical to adolescent development. “For middle-schoolers, outdoor time is really a social activity,” points out Boni Luna, Head of Middle School at Morristown-Beard School. “This is where they develop relationships outside their families and navigate the murky waters of friendships and social exchanges. We have recess a half-hour a day and it’s mandatory to be outside, weather permitting. They play ball, walk around, just clear their heads and gain some internal time so they can reset.” In 6th grade, Luna adds, the students tend to segregate themselves by gender. By 8th grade they are more blended. The school psychologist is often outside at these times to observe the social dynamics.

Gill St. Bernard’s School in Gladstone uses the outdoors as a learning environment to ingrain sustainability and promote collaborative inquiry. The campus encompasses 128-acre Home Winds Farm, which includes a two-acre garden, tree nursery, stream and pond. “The natural features of our campus invite students in all three divisions—lower, middle and upper—to probe the world around them,” says Noreen Syed, who teaches Science to middle-schoolers and heads up GSB’s STREAMS (sustainability, technology, research, engineering, agriculture, mathematics and service) program. “This space is a gift and a hallmark of our school. That is why we make active efforts to utilize the campus in a variety of ways.”

At the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in New Providence, outdoor time is folded into the formal curriculum as the students get older. “Academically, it’s great for them to explore the world around them,” says Jaclyn Church, who teaches middle school science and also serves as OLP’s Science Coordinator. “They are able to take the information we learn inside outside and make those connections. It’s great for application of the knowledge learned, even on a smaller scale. They can then think abstractly about the info on the larger scale.”

The school is building a greenhouse that will enable students to learn a variety of different concepts and see their work in hydroponics from inside continue. Church is also planning more activities that allow for outdoor play and real-world connections with the science curriculum, such as collecting water from outside and looking at it under a microscope.

“Getting the students outdoors is important for them in so many ways.”

Back to those visiting grandkids (aka invasive species). An adventure in the outdoors will build a life-long connection with nature, as well as deepen the connection between you and your young family members. Regardless of whether the “nurture with nature” approach takes root in your backyard or in a school setting, the goal is for children to gain knowledge, have fun and exercise. And, as a bonus, study after study has shown there’s a beneﬁt to you, too: Gardening appears to be a key to longevity and good health.

Backyard BBQ a la mud

Back in the 1960s, a neighbor wrote a doll cookbook, Mudpies and Other Recipes, a compendium of plant, sand, water and dirt-based concoctions. It was all about entertaining a la mud. From literal SANDwiches to MUDloafs, I, aided by a taciturn, unresponsive sous-chef doll, would create sun-baked foraged feasts. And I washed my hands after I cooked and ate, instead of before. The book still is available online, but you and your offspring could play Chopped kitchen with a variety of foraged natural materials and see what you come up with on your own. Bon Appetit!

Creating a Foodscape

If you have a backyard garden, a wonderful way to strengthen the connection with nature is to plant edibles with your young guests. Nothing is tastier or healthier than fresh-from-the-garden produce. Create a vegetable patch or plant herbs and vegetables among your ﬂowers. Brie Arthur, author, and horticulturalists, jokingly swears by child labor. She welcomes students and young neighbors to help her plant. She has worked with learning-disabled children and says being engaged in planting and part of a workgroup fosters learning about the growth cycles of plants and a sense of belonging to a group and the world at large. She recommends pairing—or, as she calls it, “foodscaping”—vegetables and herbs with your ornamental plants. An added bonus is that your helpers will want to make a return visit to consume the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor. A caveat is that you need to be organic and avoid chemical pesticides and fertilizers. To learn more, check out Brie’s website: BrieGrows.com.

Welcome Mat

A grown-up project that resonates with all ages is the Butterﬂy Waystation Project, which is designed to create and protect Monarch habitats and can be incorporated into an existing garden. These beautiful butterﬂies, which help to pollinate our vegetables, are at risk. (Their population has been dwindling thanks to pesticides and human development.)

Native pollinators, such as milkweed, coneﬂower and Joe Pye weed, create habitats for larvae and energy sources for butterﬂies. Once you create a butterﬂy welcome mat, watch in the summer as the large striped caterpillars feast on the plants and morph into Monarchs. You can go a step further and contact the University of Kansas, which has a worldwide registry and can certify your Monarch-friendly garden. Nothing like helping to save a beautiful species and getting the acknowledgment. too!

#WeToo

Mariah Morgan

A few years ago, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook fame authored a book entitled Lean In. In her book, Sandberg made the point that women in the workplace sometimes hold themselves back by not demanding the credit and respect they deserve. Women who succeed at the highest professional level do indeed face myriad obstacles— both internal and external. By the same token, history has shown us that the individuals who ﬁnd ways to push past those limits not only achieve great things but serve as inspirations for all who follow. Looking back at 2009, the year the ﬁrst issue of EDGE rolled off the presses, there was much to inspire, although we still had a long way to go. These nine leaders provided some of the year’s best moments….

January 12 • Brazilian soccer star Marta becomes the ﬁrst player of either sex to be named FIFA World Player of the Year four years in a row.

Ludovic Péron

The heir to Mia Hamm’s unofﬁcial title as best of the best, Marta burst onto the world soccer scene as a teenager in 2004 when she led Swedish League team Umea IK to the UEFA Women’s Cup championship. At the age of 20, she won her ﬁrst Player of the Year title. Marta won for the fourth time in 2009 while splitting her time between the Brazilian national team and the Los Angeles Sol, champions of the Women’s Professional Soccer League.

10 Years Later • Marta won a ﬁfth straight Player of the Year award in 2010 and continued her pro career in Sweden through 2016. In 2017, the cat-quick forward joined the Orlando Pride of the National Women’s Soccer League. The following season, Marta won her sixth FIFA World Player of the Year Award, at the age of 32.

January 21 • Hillary Clinton is conﬁrmed as Secretary of State.

The Senate conﬁrmed Clinton by a vote of 94 to 2, making her the ﬁrst former First Lady to serve in a cabinet position. Yes, it was kind of a consolation prize. But “State” seemed like a great stepping stone to a renewed presidential bid in 2016. What could possibly go wrong?

Corwin Colbert US Dept of Defense

10 Years Later • Clinton used her experience and connections from the Senate Armed Services Committee to coordinate the goals of Defense and State, and to give the civilian arm of government more responsibility for responding to international crises. She and President Obama rarely disagreed and formed a surprisingly effective partnership. By the time 2016 rolled around, however, the political landscape had shifted and Clinton found herself facing Donald Trump in the election. Trump’s “upset” victory meant that America would have to wait for its ﬁrst female chief executive.

US Dept Homeland Security

January 21 • Janet Napolitano becomes the ﬁrst woman to be named Homeland Security Secretary. Born in New York and raised in Pittsburgh and then Albuquerque, Napolitano was voted Most Likely to Succeed at her high school graduation in 1975. Following a meteoric law career, she was elected Governor of Arizona and was on the shortlist of VP candidates for John Kerry in 2004. In her ﬁrst year as Homeland Security chief, Napolitano dealt with the Swine Flu outbreak, the “Underwear Bomber” and a rise in right-wing extremism.

10 Years Later • Napolitano left her post in 2013 to become the ﬁrst female president of UCal Berkeley. She has led efforts to address sexual violence and harassment, managed tuition costs and improved the food choices available on the 10 campuses, as well as starting a carbon-neutral initiative for the school. However, Napolitano has also taken heat for misleading budget practices. In 2017, she ﬁled a lawsuit against the federal agency she once ran after the Trump administration ended DACA.

Iceland Ministry of Social Issues

February 1 • Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of Iceland becomes history’s ﬁrst openly lesbian prime minister. Sigurðardóttir began her professional life as a ﬂight attendant and was elected to Parliament in 1978 at the age of 36. Over the next three decades, her popularity and approval rating soared. In 2009, following the implosion of Iceland’s banking system, she was asked to lead her country out of economic free fall.

10 Years Later • Sigurðardóttir’s administration restored the economy and put safeguards in place to ensure such a ﬁnancial calamity could never happen again. She also made Iceland the ﬁrst Western democracy to ban strip clubs and other businesses that proﬁted from women’s bodies. The nation is now considered the “most feminist” in the world. Sigurðardóttir retired from government life in 2013 and authored the autobiography My Life in 2017.

June 3 • Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, and Beyoncé grab the top four spots on the Forbes 100 list of Highest-Paid Celebrities.

UN Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Big names. Big Money. A big year for female celebrities. Jennifer Aniston also made the Top 10. Jolie earned an Oscar nomination for Changeling; Winfrey was voted America’s favorite TVpersonality in a Harris poll; Madonna wrapped up a world tour and released a Greatest Hits album; Beyoncé performed “At Last” at the Inaugural Ball and was named top female artist of the decade by pretty much everyone.

10 Years Later • The top two slots are still held by women: Taylor Swift and Kylie Jenner. After that, it’s all dudes: Kanye West, soccer star Lionel Messi, musician Ed Sheeran, soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, The Eagles, Dr. Phil McGraw, and boxer Canelo Alvarez. For the record, in 2019 Jolie (44) starred in and co-produced Disney’s Maleﬁcent: Mistress of Evil; Winfrey (65) produced the disturbing documentary After Neverland for HBO; Madonna (61) released her 14th studio album, Madame X, which was the nickname Martha Graham gave her as a dance student; Beyoncé (37) voiced the character Nala in The Lion King and sang “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” with Donald Glover on the soundtrack.

July 8 • Angela Merkel succeeds George Bush as the senior G8 leader.

European Peoples Party

Four years after becoming Germany’s ﬁrst female Chancellor, Merkel presided over the 35th summit of world leaders in Italy. (The G stands for “Group” if you were wondering.) She was the only woman among the G8 leaders, who made progress on issues related to climate change and infrastructure needs in Africa and also endorsed the Global Summit on Nuclear Security, scheduled for the following year in Washington.

10 Years Later • In 2012, Merkel was named by Forbes the #2 Most Powerful Person In The World—the highest-ever ranking for a woman. In 2014, the G8 became the G7 after Russia was expelled for its annexation of Crimea. In 2015, Merkel was named TIME Person of the Year. Near the end of 2018, she announced plans to step down as Chancellor in 2021. In 2019, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard.

Wojciech Migda

August 2 • 39-year-old Catriona Matthew wins golf’s British Open 11 weeks after giving birth to her second child. Despite golf’s long history in Scotland, Matthew was the ﬁrst Scot to win this tournament. After a so-so opening round, she shot a scorching 67 for the second 18 holes and a 71 the next day to establish a three-stroke lead. On the ﬁnal day, 2002 champion Karie Webb made a magniﬁcent run at the lead with a 67, but Matthew birdied 13, 14 and 15 to lock up the championship by three strokes. Her daughter, Sophie, had been born on May 16.

10 Years Later • In July 2009, Matthew and her husband, Graeme, narrowly escaped a hotel ﬁre during the Evian Championship in France. He suffered burns on his feet which prevented him from caddying for his wife. The Open victory turned out to be Matthew’s only victory in a “major.” She came close again only once, at the 2013 LPGA Championship, losing to Inbee Park in a three-hole playoff. Matthew’s lone victory on the LPGA Tour after 2009 came in 2011 at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico.

August 8 • Sonia Sotomayor becomes the ﬁrst Hispanic Supreme Court justice

Steve Petteway/
Supreme Court of the United

Following the retirement of Justice David Souter, Sonia Sotomayor was conﬁrmed by a Senate vote of 68–31. The daughter of Puerto Rican parents, Sotomayor grew up in the Bronx and graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1976. She attended Yale Law School and went to work for Robert Morganthau in the New York District Attorney’s ofﬁce before becoming a federal judge in 1992. Sotomayor’s ruling in 1994 ended the Major League Baseball strike.

10 Years Later • Sotomayor’s key rulings have involved the upholding of Miranda rights, immigrant rights and rights to privacy in the digital age. She has also forged some interesting alliances, including one with Neil Gorsuch over the defense of due process and law-enforcement overreach. In 2018, Sotomayor published Turning Pages: My Life Story.

October 21 • Nicole Stott participates in the ﬁrst live Tweet session from outer space.

NASA

The “NASA Tweetup” initiative ofﬁcially got off the ground in the fall of 2009 when Stott—one of ﬁve ﬂight engineers on the mission—and her crewmate Jeff Williams conducted the ﬁrst live Tweet session from the International Space Station (ISS). Previously, astronaut Tweets were posted on the Internet by NASA. Stott returned to the Kennedy Space Center the following month.

10 Years Later • Stott returned to the ISS on the space shuttle Discovery in 2011. Among the goals of this mission was the delivery of a humanoid robot (aka Robonaut 2). Four years later, in 2015, she announced her retirement after 27 years working for NASA. Stott’s husband, Chris, is an aerospace entrepreneur.

ZBlume

December 12 • Houston becomes the largest city to elect an openly gay mayor, Annise Parker.

Parker, Houston’s City Controller, ﬁnished ﬁrst in a four-way mayoral race on November 11, but fell short of a majority against Gene Locke, Peter Brown and Roy Morales. Brown threw his support behind Parker in the December runoff election, while Locke received the support of two ex-mayors. Parker prevailed by 11,000 votes.

10 Years Later • Parker served three two-year terms, from 2010 to 2016, winning more than 50% of the vote both times. In 2014, she married her long- time partner, Kathy Hubbard, in Palm Springs. In recent years she has been a vocal advocate for women in government and has spoken frankly about the particular abuse female mayors endure from their critics. In 2019, Houston was eclipsed by Chicago as the largest city with an openly gay mayor when it elected Lori Lightfoot.

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