RedBank.Com

Everyone loves a success story. And if you're looking for one, you needn't look much further than the familiar banks of the Navesink. For it was here on the streets of Red Bank that a young immigrant turned a dream into a global business. It's a saga of a business whose fortunes were intertwined with America's own history during two centuries and the Red Bank family who helped make that history.

The "Move of the century" seemed at times that it was going to take that long to complete. Noah's Arc with animals stampeding inside might have been easier to move than this monolith of a house that was moved from the Riverview Hospital property on East Front Street to the parking lot behind Oakland House on Monmouth Street.

We felt the first day of spring on St. Paddy's Day before the cold weather came back. Hopefully it will be short lived with warm weather to follow. That means the budding of trees and flowers, young and old getting spring fever and a rush to get outside after a horrific winter.

In the last year I have gone to too many funerals of friends and loved ones that have not died of old age. It was this overwhelming emotion that hit me when four local Middletown policemen told me that Red Bank Detective Richard Coutu had passed away on Ash Wednesday, March 5th, 2003. I had met and worked with him only a dozen times over the last twenty-five years. He was always a gentleman a professional and one of those people you knew you would always remember.

Due to the snow storm last week the Kaboom cocktail fund raiser on February 20th was postponed until March 27th.

This letter was sent to President Bush on the Eve of 9/11/2002.

What was it and were the hell did it come from? I have lived in this area my entire life and I have never seen a storm like this one last Friday night. I have held on to trees during hurricane Donna and watched it wipe out all the boats on the river. I have seen just about every storm that has come through this area....even helped to evacuate friends from Sea Bright in the early eighties during a hurricane.

I never got along with smoking as I was growing up especially if you consider my first experience with them. I was 10 years old and I took one of my mother's Salem cigarettes in to the bathroom.

Watching Billy Staples' set at the Count Basie Theatre fell somewhere between witnessing a seal clubbing and watching Robert De Nero play Russian roulette in a Vietnam prison camp. Billy Staples, a stand up comedian and regular on the Ron and Fez show, performed in front of the sold out crowd at the recent Jim Norton show on August 10th.

In order to assess the benefits that were derived from the Special Improvement District called Rivercenter you need only to walk around the downtown district of Red Bank. At this point in time it is flourishing with new businesses and restaurants.