RedBank.Com

What is going to happen to Red Bank is a question I am being asked almost daily. Due to being in the restaurant business here for almost 40 years, writing about the town and the number of people I talk to the question never surprises me.

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.

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.

From 1975 to 1990 I don't recall a great deal of change in Red Bank. It was as if we were in a time capsule that reacted to what was going on in the rest of the world. It was a time of personal growth for most of us going from young adulthood to middle age.