Thursday, May 24, 2012
Judge in New Jersey to decide Friday if woman whose boyfriend seriously injured a couple in an auto accident while reading her text message can be added to lawsuit.
One of the big advantages of sending a text message as compared to an e-mail is that the text pops up on the front of someone's cellphone immediately. So can you be held liable if the person reading that message loses control of a vehicle and injures someone? A New Jersey judge says he will rule on that question Friday in a case involving a Dover couple who each lost a leg after their motorcycle was struck by a driver allegedly reading a text message. According to the Daily Record, court records show that Kyle Best, who was 18 at the time, and his girlfriend, Shannon Colonna, exchanged numerous text messages on the day of the crash, including one sent just before he lost control of his pickup truck near Montville and struck a motorcyle …
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
A Patch reader wondered about a photo his mother kept; you answered!
Patch asked and you answered -- and how! Earlier this month, a reader sent in the following query along with the photo: My mom (and her sisters and mother) were very active in Girl Scouts in the Oranges in the 1920s. Mom's maiden name was Irene Tonks. Mom and her sister - Betty Tonks - were Golden Eaglets," writes a reader. "I now own a very good quality 8 x 10 photograph of a US flag being formally raised on a flag pole. The following is written on the back of the photo: 'October 26, 1923. First flag raising at Camp Natalie Kip.' Can you tell me more about this setting and event? Thanks! He also notes that, "There is also something else on the back of the photo: a large, black ink rubber stamp 'impression' that reads 'From Drew, Bynum, …
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
"We can revert instantly to hot-blooded boyishness," writes Dan Barry, who plays Sunday basketball in Maplewood
The first time at sleepaway camp is a milestone for both the child and the parents.
My sister has been taking her daughter to visit potential sleepaway camps for the summer. It's her first time and she's never been away from home. My niece is nervous; my sister is anxious. And rightly so. I was too, when my boys first expressed interest in going off to a faraway camp for the summer. It's a milestone in their young lives and in their parents' lives as well. Your little one's not sleeping at home. No longer under your roof and watchful eyes. You don't know what they're doing every waking moment. It's a giant step forward on the road to their independence. Exciting and nerve-wracking. Sad and sweet. A giant grab bag of mixed emotions. Having gone through it with all three of my boys I can only say that sleep-away camp is …
The only daughter of a Montrose family with a local extended family
Jean Graves, only daughter of Edward and Jean Graves of Scotland Road, was a debutante who made headlines. The Graves Estate made room for a growing family. Parents Jean and Edward Hale Graves had a daughter, also named Jean (year of birth unknown). The list of household residents grew with the addition of a nanny, two maids and their children, according to the 1910 census. In addition, the Graveses had an extended local family, with deep roots in the Oranges. (The extended family will be covered in a future column.) Many of Miss Jean Stevenson Graves’s activities were chronicled in The New York Times. Her debut was headline news in December of 1926. The young debutante and former student of Miss Porter’s School in CT was introduced to …
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Seth Boyden School puts on the The Wizard of Oz.
Call to Seth Boyden Parents: Please upload your photos and videos of The Wizard of Oz here! We need more, more, more of this great production. You might think that today's kids are too jaded to make it through nearly three hours of a fifth grade musical production. You would be wrong. My fourth grader and second grader have been to IMAX theaters. They've been dazzled by Avatar and Harry Potter and, yes, The Avengers. They have access to iPads and iPods and iPhones. But I have never seen them more enthralled with an entertainment than they were last night at Seth Boyden's fifth grade production of The Wizard of Oz. My second grader was so excited during certain scenes that she could barely sit, a big grin splitting her face. My too-cool-for…
Looking to avoid the mosh pits, Mom prepares for mega music festival with four teens on Saturday.
Like any good mom, I wanted to give my 15-year-old daughter something she really wanted for her birthday. So what did she want to do more than anything else this weekend to celebrate? Maybe a Broadway show? A Knicks game? A day at a spa? A trip to the beach? She wanted to go to the beach all right - to Bamboozle, the three-day music festival at Asbury Park that is expected to draw 90,000 concertgoers down the shore over the weekend. A few months ago, a concert on the beach sounded like a fun and reasonable thing to do – at least one day of it – so I let her pick a day, and I offered to drive and chaperone. I didn’t really think too much about what I was getting myself into. Now it’s here, and I’m getting bulletins about traffic and how to …
After-school program continues to grow for middle school students in Maplewood and South Orange.
Here in Maplewood and South Orange there’s a thriving, exciting after-school network advancing the social and intellectual development of our youth. YouthNet, now entering its fifth year, offers an after-school learning opportunity at South Orange Middle School and Maplewood Middle School, staffed entirely by district teachers. At YouthNet’s core are more than 30 after school enrichment activities offered free of charge, along with a fee-based developmental program for focus on homework help and tutoring. Far from being just custodial, YouthNet has measured its success by advancing the learning and life training skill sets of our students with its programs, helping them broaden their participation in both social and work settings. …
Friday, May 18, 2012
Looking to avoid the mosh pits, Mom prepares for mega music festival with four teens on Saturday.
Like any good mom, I wanted to give my 15-year-old daughter something she really wanted for her birthday. So what did she want to do more than anything else this weekend to celebrate? Maybe a Broadway show? A Knicks game? A day at a spa? A trip to the beach? She wanted to go to the beach all right - to Bamboozle, the three-day music festival at Asbury Park that is expected to draw 90,000 concertgoers down the shore over the weekend. A few months ago, a concert on the beach sounded like a fun and reasonable thing to do – at least one day of it – so I let her pick a day, and I offered to drive and chaperone. I didn’t really think too much about what I was getting myself into. Now it’s here, and I’m getting bulletins about traffic and how to …
Saturday, May 12, 2012
A daughter shares memories of her mother.
This Mother’s Day many women will mark the day without their mothers physically by their side. I am one of those women. Although I will celebrate my mother on Mother’s day, I remember her in a special way every day of my life. My mother’s name was Colette. How blessed I was to share that name with my wonderful mom. I once heard that the name Colette meant “victorious” and although my mom was victorious in so many ways, if I was to put words together that describe my Mom and her life, they would be: faith, family, love, and joy. Mom had a lot of really good sayings and one of them was that “Joy is not the absence of sorrow.” That meant that no matter how tough things were, we should still try to see the joy that surrounds us. My mom …
dweezie48
11:26 pm on Thursday, May 24, 2012
Personal responsiblity, what's that???? In this sue happy world we live in now, nobody has any of that anymore. more ›