About 35 years ago I wrote a column for the New York Times about strange ghost stories by Stephen Crane. This famous author of “The Red Badge of Courage” gave readers lurid accounts of spirits, evil or pitiful, roaming the New Jersey shoreline

“More hair”, he claimed, “has risen on the New Jersey shore than at any other place of the same geographical dimensions in the world.

“Some parts of this coast are fairly jammed with hobgoblins, white ladies, grave lights, phantom ships and prowling corpses,” he wrote for the New York Sunday Press in November 1894 and 1895.

Crane’s newspaper accounts began with reports of lurid legends such as a pirate ship with skeletons dangling at the mastheads and terrible faces peering over the bulwarks. There was the ghost of Indian Will prowling the beach at midnight in search of the squaw he’d drowned and who frightens the curious with a fiery, soul-piercing stare.

He also described a lady, ” a mourning, moaning thing of the mist” that haunts Metedeconk and a bloody Tory captain at Barnegat Light who might awaken you at midnight with a cold blade pressing against your throat.

The legend that really caught Crane’s fancy was “The Tale of the Black Dog” which, even in his time , was “much obscured because of its great age, having predated the Revolution.”

The Black Dog incident took place on the narrow strip of land separating Barnegat Bay from the ocean and could have been anywhere between Mantoloking and Long Beach Island.

To their surprise, a large black hound emerged from the sea dragging a young man’s body. Hauling his dead master in beyond the crashing waves, the hound sat back on his haunches and howled in despair.

Noticing the glint of precious stones in the young man’s hands, the pirates approached cautiously. The big dog bared his fangs and growled as the thieves attacked, but he was outnumbered and mortally wounded. Crawling to his master’s side, the hound laid his wounded head on the dead man’s chest and died as the thieves pilfered his master’s corpse.

According to Crane, the dog’s ghost is seen by fishermen returning from their boats late at night. There is a dreadful hatchet wound in its head, dripping with spectral blood, and its eyes are lit with crimson fire as it runs along the dunes, nose to the ground, as if on the trail of someone.

I came across a musty old book that quoted Crane’s newspaper pieces while minding a friend’s shore house in Harvey Cedars, just south of the Barnegat Lighthouse. One night, as I sat before the fire, reading the eerie tales I suddenly felt the urge to go out on the beach and see for myself. Had Stephen Crane actually believed these lurid legends?

A white full moon hung low over a restless sea, leaving a silvery track that reached from the horizon to the pounding surf. The moon and a strong southerly wind brought in a high tide and only a sandy lane of five yards escaped the ocean’s grasp.

It was difficult to take my eyes off the moon and its scattered image on the angry sea, but Crane’s tales were fresh in my mind and I felt compelled to scan the beach ahead and behind. There was nothing to be seen for miles.

I was alone, or thought I was. About a half mile up the path I noticed the wind was beginning to howl and I could see a patch of mist moving across the sands. It took me only a few seconds to realize the mist was moving against the wind. As this threatening vapor approached, the howling became louder!

I was tempted to race up and over the dunes toward the dark and empty cottages beyond the reeds, but instead, I stayed to see this through. This could be the chance of a lifetime. Besides, my knees had buckled and I’d fallen and couldn’t get up.

It was not the black hound or one of the evil pirates. The vaporous figure approaching in the pale moonlight was an old man and his clothing seemed too modern for the bloody Tory captain. Yet there was something very different about his clothing. The jacket looked modern and the trouser pockets were pulled out and flapping in the wind. “Ooooooh!” “said the ghost who was almost upon me.

“Who are you?” I groaned………”I am a victim!” he replied

“A victim of pirates, or brigands?”……..”No, a victim of circumstances.”

“Was it a lost love? ”

“No, the beaches and bluffs are teeming with their sobbing ghosts. It’s refreshing to see the black hound trot through here to stir things up. I suffered through a different type of calamity. Would you like to hear about it?” I nodded my eagerness and he began to scratch his transparent head and began.

“It was back in the summer of 80″, he began………”1780 or 1880?” I asked.

“I’m not that old. It was 1980. Me and the Missus drove down from Parsippany with six or seven very active grandchildren. They moved around so much I could never get an accurate count. We rented a big place near the beach for $6,000 , quite a sum.

“Well,” he continued (and there was a catch in his voice now), the clouds followed us down from Morris County and began to hover over that overpriced bungalow. I mean it rained steadily. I don’t think it ever stopped that month unless you want to count the hailstorm. And the brightest days were the ones with the most lightning!

“That was the worst summer of my whole life and, as it turned out, my last. My wife had to get back to her church meeting and to check our sump pump. I never got over being trapped inside with those active kids day in and day out. I mean how many games of Monopoly can a man play?

“I left the kids with a sitter and drove down to Atlantic City and paid for a $600 blackjack lesson. Ooooooooohhhh!”

I tried to calm him down, but “when I reached for his shoulder, my hand went right through! “Ooooooooohhh!” he continued. “The sun came out the last day and I went down to the beach and got a third-degree burn. After that I lost the will to live.”

“What I don’t understand is what satisfaction do you get , after all that suffering and loss, to haunt this beach in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, I don’t haunt the beach. I’m just out for a bit of air. I spend most of my time down at the real estate rental office dragging chains through the attic, howling and levitating file cabinets and agents.”

😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

Some

Back in 1953, six of us Korean War vets were sharing a $20 room in old Mrs. Murphy’s “House by the Sea” in Point Pleasant. We were saving $20 a day because Mrs. Murphy thought there were only three of us. This required a great deal of stealth and trellis climbing but, back then an extra $20 a day could be well spent on a Jersey Shore vacation by six guys safely home from “Frozen Chosen” and used to sleeping in tents or slit trenches beside the Yellow Sea and its sandy beaches, but also the possibility of land mines.

For $20 back then you could get 40 gallons of gas or bankroll a free spending date. I once bought an extra large $3 pizza at the Riptide Bar on the boardwalk and spent a pleasant hour chatting and dining with three good looking young ladies until their angry boy friends showed up. I left in a hurry, but with three phone numbers.

Our money-saving plan would only work if two of us slept on the beach or in my car while another “volunteer” slept in the closet. Outside our second story room’s window there was a strong trellis supporting a climbing rose bush. This was our escape path if Mrs. Murphy was patrolling the hallways and knocking on doors when all six of us were present. In an emergency, there would be a red T-shirt hanging at the top to warn occupants returning from seaside adventures.

Our girl crazy buddy Frank’s ploy was quite imaginative. He carried a small notebook and interviewed girls at the beach, getting their names and addresses and all kinds of interesting personal information saying he was with the Bergen Record newspaper, which he was. But he was in advertising. Each of us had similar harmless tall tales to help get acquainted.

That was a wonderful summer: Swimming, clam-digging, bonfires on the beach at midnight, the cries of the gulls, the crash of the surf, the sweet clear voice of Mrs. Murphy on Sunday mornings, waking us up for Mass at St. Christophers, all of us, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and atheists. She was unbiased.

One Saturday night late in August, Andy and I left the dance at the Riptide early. We’d become disenchanted with our dates who’d yawned during our Korean adventure stories. They might have been good looking if they both weren’t so badly sunburned and peeling. They looked like skin donors. We mentioned to Joe and Eddy that one of our dates had a new Cadillac in the parking lot and they cut in on us during the next dance and we sneaked out. It was really a 1946 Chevy with a broken muffler.

A half hour later, since the emergency red T-shirt was not dangling, we were climbing the trellis. Andy was above me, carrying a pizza. The midnight stillness was suddenly broken by a loud “AHA!” and we both leaned back and looked up. This was followed by a sharp snapping sound and I was almost airborne as Andy plummeted past me. I could hear his muffled cries in the darkness and hoped he wasn’t seriously hurt until a flashlight was snapped on revealing Andy with a pepperoni pizza draped over his head.

“Aha!” Mrs. Murphy repeated. “Just as I suspected and where are the other rogues? I found I’ve been sheltering three freeloaders all summer. She later took our pledge, signed by each of us, to pay for 90 plus days rental plus $100 for the destroyed trellis and damaged roses.

During the ride home we tried to figure how our cover had been blown. We’d been so careful. “It wasn’t anything we did that tipped her off,” Tony said. “She told me later that she’d developed the knack of counting snorers per room through closed doors.”

It is late winter and as I look out at my backyard through a frost-covered window, I begin again, ignoring my many past failures, to plan several gardens of nourishing fresh vegetables and beautiful arrays of flowers, framed by a lush green lawn.

I cannot understand why, year after year, my horticultural efforts have not born fruit, blossoms or grass. I mean edible fruit, presentable flowers or a healthy green lawn. Could I have offended my backyard as far back as 1962 when I moved in? I remember following an oldtimer’s advice then of burning off last year’s crop of weeds. Without a neighbor’s quick help, I might have burned off my house and got on my plants’ “Most Dangerous Enemy” list.

AI tells me now that brainless plants do not have real emotions. But what about reactions? What about revenge ? AI admits plants do have something like emotions. I couldn’t get a straight answer on whether or not plants can harbor feelings of revenge. I mean, revenge is certainly a product of emotions.

Plants do have nervous systems and they are highly sensitive living organisms that feel the presence of light, touch, predators and nutrients but I couldn’t get a straight answer to my question: Can plants recognize the difference between a well-meaning, but numbskull gardener and an actual predator?

I have known for years that my lawn has an annual death wish and can become suicidal around July 15th. No amount of fertilizing, weeding or watering can delay this inevitable tragedy.

My rose bushes are hybrids which makes them high strung and moody. I can imagine the pessimistic conversations that go on out there in my rose garden: “Hey Pinky, is he gone?”…..”Yes, Rosey, he was feeding me manure again, Yuck! He thinks it will get rid of my black spots. I hope they’re getting worse. The last thing I want is a lot of gorgeous blooms, crawling with beetles and those buzzing bees making a racket.”

Vegetables also have feelings. I’ve always known this instinctively. I silently cursed broccoli when my wife served it. My brother-in-law, who’s not an expert in the field of agriculture, looked over my garden last summer and commented, “Those are the saddest-looking tomatoes I’ve ever seen.” He was right. They never made it into our BLT’s.

I really hope, with the recent advances into the psyches of our rooted fellow earthlings, our ability to protect and improve their lives is increasing. Our crops will be more abundant and our gardens will cooperate by joining the survival team.

On some future day, a distraught gardener will phone his agri-psychiatrist. “Doctor, I have this twenty-foot apple tree that is dropping leaves and showing no signs of producing fruit. Please come over and get in touch with his inner self.”

“Sorry, I don’t make yard calls, but this sounds serious. You’d better get that tree over here as soon as possible!”

On some future date.

This week’s illustrated lesson includes seven almost easy steps to build a patio which will improve the appearance and value of your property and will encourage you to spend more healthful hours outdoors. (NOTE: The writer is not responsible for damage to persons, property or marriages.)

Figure 1: Select a shady, flat as possible location to minimize grading work. Well, do the best you can.

Figure 2: Level the ground by simply moving the earth from the too high spots to the desired low spots. This is called by landscapers, “The earth moving stage.” (Some have added unprintable adjectives which cannot be included here.)

Figure 3: After bordering the area with railroad ties and spreading two inches of sand, lay your bricks or tiles in an orderly, eye-pleasing pattern unless you’re an abstract expressionist fan.

Figure 4: Tamp down the bricks or tiles snugly while wearing steel-toed safety shoes to avoid including your feet in the tamping.

Figure 5: This stage involves crowd control. You must not lose concentration on the many important details of the project. Constant bystander questions, suggestions and criticisms about design and construction must be eliminated.

Figure 6: There might be interruptions and delays caused by bad weather, faulty materials or complete exhaustion, but carry on and don’t be too proud to call for help.

Figure 7: One of life’s satisfying moments. The job is done and you are about to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Some people joke about the Weather Bureau being a non-prophet organization, but that’s unfair. The National Weather Service, as it’s officially known, makes consistently reliable short term forecasts now.

” A 50 percent chance of rain, sleet or snow late in the day” may not be that precise but it’s useful enough for you to postpone your golf game or parachute jump and to check your sump pump and don your long johns.

One of the worst inaccurate forecasts for the New York City area was in March of 1888 when warm rain showers were predicted, but instead, the disastrous Blizzard of ’88 brought 40 inches of snow, 50-foot drifts and over 25o fatalities.

I was sidetracked by the bureau’s second most inaccurate forecast. I was a truck driver’s helper, headed for New York City from Jersey on December 26, 1947 when four inches of snow were predicted for the Metro area. My truck driver said his powerful Reo could handle that easily so we crossed the George Washington Bridge to make our deliveries. We ended up snowbound in the Bronx and spent the night in a saloon with a tipsy crowd of stranded commuters whose street cars stood outside behind snowbanks.

Two feet of snow had paralyzed Manhattan and closed the G.W. Bridge. I was too young to accept the consoling Irish bartender’s offer of a warming snort on the house. The saloon’s radio confirmed the G.W. Bridge was closed, but some stalwart Jerseyans were walking across to get home.

Long range forecasts of seven days or more can be meteorological educated guesses based on a number of computer models trying to make sense out of the dynamic nature of the atmosphere. What we hear on the evening news is a description of next weeks “most likely” weather, but “stand by”.

We can also make use of time-honored signs like aching arthritic joints that indicate low barometric pressure and other bad weather signs like mare’s tail clouds, mackerel skies and rings around the moon that are said to predict storms.

If the birds start heading south earlier in the year and squirrels have bushier tails, tune up your snow blower. And if you hear I’ve rented a bungalow at the Jersey shore for a week next summer, expect drenching rain all seven days.

There’s the story of the modern Indian chief who was asked by his tribesmen if they should prepare for a severe winter on the reservation. The chief, fresh out of Harvard, had no idea, but to save face, he recommended they begin gathering firewood immediately and during the following weeks, he urged intensified timber chopping.

Around the end of November he was getting nervous. So he made an anonymous phone call to the local weather bureau to ask for that winter’s prediction.

“It’s going to be very severe, a record breaker, the head meteorologist told him.

“Is that based on a jet stream shift, or satellite data?” he asked.

“Somewhat, but to a greater extent it’s based on observations of a local Indian tribe that has stored up a mountain of firewood on their reservation.”

When the cable system crashed the other night it reminded me of a time when TV watching was more interactive and personally challenging. Now, when the screen goes black, I spend an hour listening to the cable company’s busy signal or its recorded reassurances that an associate will soon respond.

In the old days if something disrupted our viewing of Jack Benny, the entire family would spring into action. That’s when we had real parental controls.

“See if the cat’s on the antenna again!” I’d shout, reaching for the check list. My son Steven would start pounding the set just above the RCA emblem. That sometimes revived it. My wife Barbara would operate the channel selector to make sure it wasn’t just CBS that had a transmission failure. My three daughters would fetch our TV Repair manual and start reciting the resuscitation procedure. They would also find the spare TV tubes box and the first aid kit.

Finally, if Jack Benny was still unreachable, I would begin to manipulate the controls. This rarely worked and you could get into serious trouble with the look-alike knobs. There was the time I’d managed to get the TV back on, but I must have twisted the wrong knob and rotated the picture from vertical to horizontal. We all had to lie on the couch or floor to watch our favorite programs until I figured out the solution. Poor Lassie had to run uphill until I fixed that one . Our last hope was “the tubes-testing stage” when all the small tubes had to be removed and tested on the local drugstore’s contraption. A lower compartment contained replacement tubes.

It was always a moment of glory when I’d managed to get Jack Benny or Lassie back into into our living room and I was congratulated for my electronic know-how.

On the other hand it was quite depressing to admit defeat and call Joe’s TV Repair. Joe was a competent technician and diplomatic enough to imply my procedures were correct, but this was a very special case. “Dave” he said.

“What’s a Dave?” I asked.

“Isn’t that your cat’s name?””

“He wasn’t on the antenna. We always check there first,” I protested.

“No, he was behind the set and pulled the plug out of the wall socket and it’s going to cost you twenty-five bucks.”

“Twenty five bucks to plug in the set? That’s kind of high!”

“No, I’m only charging two bits for that but there were three tubes in the wrong sockets and I had to work an hour to figure that out. That’ll cost you $24.75”

Dave could be spiteful and he never liked Jack Benny, but whenever he sprawled on the antenna in just the right spot with his tail pointing south, the reception from Philadelphia stations was greatly improved.

This is the time of year when the winds get wintry and your fingers are numbed playing golf or tennis too late in the year. It’s when you start making plans for a vacation in the Sunshine State.

That’s the nickname the Florida Tourist Bureau prefers. There are other names used by tourists who’ve been attacked by alligators or broiled on beaches. Oldtimers who’ve pulled up stakes in northern climes and traded Hoboken homes for Cape Coral condos, call it, “God’s waiting room.”

It might sound like a good idea to imitate the birds and go south in late autumn, but unfortunately, it’s also instinctual for the human race and thousands of us will race southward to avoid the falling temperatures and try to live with the rising prices.

You’re probably just a short flying time away from Florida (plus the current takeoff delay hours). You might try a more leisurely car trip and get to see the sites up close along the way instead of at an oxygen mask altitude.

One creative lad’s idea was to leisurely drive a rich man’s limo down to Florida and visit interesting places along the way. Unfortunately, one day the rich man noticed his limo was missing and the young vagabond was apprehended while sightseeing in Savannah and sentenced to several winters and summers in the Garden State.

You can easily spot the recently arrived typical “snowbird” at the Florida shore. She will be enjoying the warm sea breeze while her husband frantically searches for a parking space for the rental car. And she will be the only one on the beach wearing a fur coat and galoshes.