HALLOWEEN FILM FESTIVALS AT HOME

Every year throughout my life, I have enjoyed a Halloween film festival of my own . Most years it was the childhod favorites: Dracula, Wolfman, Arsenic and Old Lace, Bell Book and Candle. Last year and a few years back, I branched out and did the whol Harry Ptter set of movies and loved them. This year I was thinking of other themes that might work such as Alien Invaders: War of the Worlds, Alien. The Day the Earth Stood Still. And of course the transformations: The Fly, The Invisible Man, or ghost stories such as Topper - the whole series. I suppose considering our recent pandemic, it wouldn't be out of place to have a germ film festival: Contagion, Outbreak, Pandemic. There are a bunch of movies about the end of the world due to climate disaster, but I haven't seen them, movies about a new ice age and so on. I suppose an argument could be made for movies about the end of the world due to atomic war, but the only one I know is On the Beach. I think there are a lot of ghost movies and probably many witch movies, but I am not familiar with them. Whatever you are watching now that the Trick and Treaters are all gone home, I hope you enjoy a cozy Halloween Evening with soe leftover chocolate candy bars, popcorn, hot cider or hot chocolate and a black cat curled up and purring beside you!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2021

Jo Ann

How the British Empire fits in with South Jersey

HOME TRUTH, by Sm Knight, The New Yorker, August 23, 2021

For the past month, I have been watching one season after another of Agatha Christie's great detectives: Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. If you have ever watched them, you know that many of the episodes are set in the 'great country manors' of Great Britain. If not, perhaps you remember Downton Abbey, or Brideshead Revisited, or for that matter, Upstairs Downstairs. Most of us, if we imagine ourselves in these dramas at all, imagine we would be the aristocrats, not the servants. I, however, having a strong maternal link to our Irish heritage, always notice the servants. In Downton Abbey, for example, one of the daughters of the manor elopes with the Irish chauffeur. Most often, the servants were the female housemaids, the kitchen workers, the general cleaners.

Sometime back, I wrote a post mentioning what Alice Paul, the noble, courageous and devoted Sufffrage activist, called "The Irish Girls" or the servants who took care of the housework in the Quaker farmstead of the Paul family, and who lived in the attic but remained mostly nameless.

Just recently, I received the confirmation e-mail that I was accepted back as a volunteer at the James and Ann Whitall House at Red Bank Battlefield, although the season is nearly over. There will be the candlelight tours December 3, 4,, and 5. It struck me when I was there years ago, as a volunteer docent, that the servants of the Whitall family, also remained largely nameless in the journals of both Ann Whitall and her son Job Whatll, both of which I read. My heart gave a little leap, however, when another volunteer showed me a phtocopy of an advertisement for a reward for the return of an escaped indentured servant from that household. Similarly, I read interesting dexcriptions of the clothing worn by escaped servants ina booklet put out by Rancocas Merchant called "Had on and Took With Her." The author, who makes and sells authentic period clothing for re-enactors and volunteers, had made both that booklet and another one of recipes which were fascinating. Clothing was highly valuable in the days when fiber had to be grown, harvested, spun, and then woven before being cut and sewn. So it was almost portable wealthy that thos eescaped servants made off with.

I am not against a fair deal, but 7 years of labor in return for passage to the new world seems a high price to me, not to mention the brutal conditions under which many indentured servants labored. so I was glad when one got away.

the article I referenced is mainly about the National Trust and its efforts to address the Colonial slave trade of the British Empire which made the aristocrats so rich that they could build thos lavish country manor houses to rule over the feudal systems by which the villagers were actually a form of sharecroppers. About three million Africans were trafficed in the Triangle of trade from Africa to England, to the colonies in North America and the Carribbean. The inhumane and torturous existence of the poor souls transported to the plantations in the Caribbean is a whole world of books and articles, as is the plantation system in our own southern states.

I am glad that enlightened members of the National Trust are making the effort against the unexpected and intransigent backlash they have faced, to do justice to those voiceless people whose freedom and lives were forfeit to the fortunes of the residents of thos English Country Manor Houses. It is also gratifying that so many of our own historic sites are finally making the effort to acknowledge the labor and the lives of the invisible werving and field labor in our own country. After all, the vast majority of the people who came to this country regardless of what myths they may have offered their descendants, were not aristocrats, but working class and poor, seeking freedom and opportunity. And while on that subject, let us add a note to praise the efforts of those who affirm and acknowledge the immense suffering and loss endured by the indigenous people, the First Peoples of both North America and South America in that same period.

As we approach Halloween, we may join with the Southern himisphere in celebrating "The Day of the Dead" by given a few moments of silent acknowledgement to all those who suffered and died and succeeded and ended up being us!

Halloween - WEIRD NEW JERSEY - Mt. Holly - Witches - New England - SHARKS!

Today, Sunday, October 24th, I was thinking about the Witches Ball in Bordentown. Sadly, it was held on October 6th and so it is over and I can't let you know about it so you can attend, however, it made me think about witches in New Jersey. The only place I know of that sports any witchcraft history is Mount Holly and what I learned a long time ago about that, was that it was probably a journalistic hoax!

According to an old issue of WEIRD NEW JERSEY, one of my former favorite magazines, the article describing a witch trial in New Jersey may have been a satirical one penned by Bejamin Franklin to mock Philadelphia's rural New Jersey neighbors' ignorance. How I miss Weird New Jersey - and I may be forced to subscribe again. I think I left off when the founders moved to Pensylvian but I am forever imprinted with that magazine! I always see odd things in the shape of the state of New Jersey such as oil spills and rotted holes in trees, missing fur patches on my cat who has autumn allergies, coffee spills on my coffee table!

So many places I found out about via WEIRD NEW JERSEY magazine became places that I loved to visit on a regular basis such as the New Egypt Flea Market! Haven't been there in ages. First my car got old (I just bought a new one two weeks ago) and then my eyesight got bad (Fuch's Dystrophy - inherited cornea disease), and then the pandemic came and everything closed anyhow.

Like moving on after a broken heart, I have new interests and I read new magazines, but today, Sunday, is devoted to the Sunday New York Times and in the magazine section of the Sunday paper there was a FASCINATING article on SHARKS which have begun to proliferate along the New England Coast. More about that in a little bit. First, let's remember that New England was the locus of the witch persecutions in America. They flourished all over Europe from the middle ages however, and thousands of innocent women were tortured and murdered as a result. For the most part, as research has shown in the many articles I have read on the subject, the real cause of the persecutions was GREED and FEAR. As is so often the case, the vulnerable were targeted by unscrupulous neighbors, denounced, and after their persecution and murder, their land was confiscated. Needless to say, elderly widows were a freuequent target as were solitary elderly women living on the outskirts of villages and towns. Since it was not uncommon for people, before the advent of access to medicine, to practice herbalism, many elderly country women were wise in the ways of plants, plants that could cure and plants that could kill. There were, too, combinations of plants that worked as abotifacients and we all know that conservative powers then and now are terrified of the proposition of women controlling their own reproduction! Women without ecducation, employment, and burdened with many pregnancies and children, are women dependent and thereby controllable.

It has been my pleasure to have visited New England many times in past years, including Salem, Massachusetts, and Plymouth Plantation, the root of the Puritan invasian of North America. It wasn't only witches who were tortured and murdered, dissenters often encountered the same fate, as in the case of the nearly a dozen Quakers, including Mary Dwyer, who were condemned and hanged, yes, even here in the colonies where people had fled to escape religious persecution, by those very same Puritans! There have been many books and esssays about the very real peril faced by these traumatized Puritans fleeing their homelands - the raging seas, the immensity of the wild forest they encountered in the 'new' world, the original inhabitants of this land, who to these inexperienced Puritan colonists were nearly incomprehensibly alien, and the animlas including bears and wildcats and wolves. ,p/> In the aforementioned article on sharks in New England, once again, that stalwart of American literary classics, Moby Dick was mentioned. Since 1975, when I first saw Jaws, I have often wondered if the Great White Whale of Moby Dick, might not have been a Great White Shark which can grow to 20 feet in length, live for 70 years, and weigh thousands of pounds! Frankly, I have never been a fan of water or swimming, and despite a childhood spent visiting my Grandmother Mabel at Ocean City every Sunday and for weeks in the summer, I never trusted the Atlantic Ocean. Although the worse encounter I have ever endured at the seashore was with jelly fish, I never doubted for an instant that something larger and more dangerous could be silently slithering through the ocean currents looking for something to bite. The reason for the increase of sharks along the coast in New Englandat present is the unexpected consequence of the Clean Air, Clean Water, Ocean Conservation Acts of Congress of the englightend 1970's. The gray seals which nad nearly disappeared from New England are back and sunning their sleak torpedoe shaped bodies on the sandbars along the coast in the hundreds. This has brought large numbers of sharks to the area to feed on seals. Really, sharks don't want to eat us, boney unpalatable humans, and why would they when chubby seals are available, it is our wet suits and surfboard silhouettes that trick them into taking a bite of our bony bodies. And although the numbers of people killed in half centuries is still in the dozen range, we experience an outsize fear of this 'apex' predator, much as we once felt in regard to wolves.

As I have mentioned on many another Halloween on this blog, one of my lifelong favorite Halloween film festival movies has always been The Wolfman, with Lon Cheney and Claud Raines. "Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers at night, may turn into a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the moon is bright!" And there it all is - the power of herbs, our fear manifested in animal form, and our attempts to mediate it through our religious rituals!

I am sure I will be back to converse with you again before Halloween arrives, but if you want to connect, pleasue use my email rather than the comments feature. wrightj45@yahoo.com

Leaf Print - a Memory

Ok, I apologize and confess that although this blog was creted to bring news of places to go and things to do in South Jersey, relating to historyk sometimess, I allow myelf to veer off into personal events and memories. One memory that pops up frequently, even regularly, is of a day in public school in Philadelphia in the early 1950's. Perhaps I was in third grade. I was a shy, traumatized, sensitive child and everything about school terrified me, but one day, our teacher handed out 5 inch squares of construction paper, little wooden framed screens, and pots of tempera paint. We had all been instructed to bring in old toothbrushes and tree leaves, though where most of the children would have gotten tree leaves in our red brick canyons of South Philadelphia is anyone's guess. I was lucky in that my block had a tree, poor noble, long suffering specimen entrapped in a small 3 foot square of soil surrounded by concrete blocks. Sesonally, it sprouted new green leaves which turned red in fall fell off to be collected by children like myself. I wonder if that tree is still there? Anyhow, I had leaves to bring to school. We placed our leaf on the construction paper, dipped our toothrush ito the pot of paint (mine was white) and scraped it across the screen to create a spatter over the leaf and paper. When it dried the leaf was removed and we had the silhouette of the leaf against what looked like snow.I was enchanted and that memory has stayed with me, arising at odd quiet moments over these nearly 70 years. I think it is what made me an artist, what guided me to my career as a techer, and in my Art school major in Printmaking.

A lot of people ar cativated by lighthouses but my favorite historic structures are the one-room schools of which we have so many and which ar disappearing rapidly. The Burlington County Historical Socity used to run an annual one-room school tour which was delightful. I went on it about three times I wish they still had it. What a huge part of the American Democracy has Public Education been. All the generations of teachers guiding all the generations of children into the world of reading and writing and science and art. And I wonder what joyful moment from your school experience has stayed with you! I have many sad ones too and terrible ones of course the Philadelphia public schools in the post World War II baby boom weren't idyllic - they were overcrowded, filled with tired teachers dragged out of retirement to hold down the fort until the next generation of teachers could be trained and certified. We had few suplies and the threat of nuclear war always hanging over us. Everyone of my generation remembers the dreadful air-raid siren exerises. We had to go down to the darkm roach infested basement of our huge brick public school and lie on musty smelly army surplus cots until the all-clear. We didn't think it wa fun!

Some of my favorite oe-room schools in historic South Jersey are the one at what was Shellpile, down near the Bayshore Discovery Project at Bivalve, the one on Main Street in Maple Shade, the Goshen School (and I might add the church across the street has had some stelar Halloween decorations in years gone by) and the one in Vincentown, NJ. Hope you get to visit some someday!

Happy Trails through the memory or the backroads of NSouth Jersey - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

New Car - Old Car Sorrow

This week, after a final beaurocratic roadblock (I faied inspection due to engine light) I was forced, finally, to trade in my trusty, loyal, hardworking Ford Focus stationwagon and buy another car. This should have been a happy occasion but I couldn't help but feel sad at trading in my old Ford, my trusty friend of so many years 16! Together through the decade following retirement, my old Ford and i traveled the highways and byways of rural South Jersey discovering all sorts of fascinating places and creating myriad new threads of interest, as well as inspring many voluteer placements, all of which, eventually I had to abandon due to my car's aging and my own knees and back.

Today, while walking the dog, a picture arose in my memory of a small, shabby, turquoise camper turned into a home, that my old Ford and I passed otne winter evening on our way home from the lower reaches of the Maurice River - oyster territory. The little trailer had a string of old fashioned big bulb Christmas lights in the tiny window and a small lit up tree. It spoke of warmth and the human desire to join in with our fellow humans to celebrate another year of survival, another winter when we had a roof over our heads and warmth, however humble. That was probably 20 years ago that my old Ford and I passed that humble but warm little home on the roadside, yet I think of it often.

I already miss my old car and the adventures we shared. I don't feel absurd for this affection or alone in experiencing it because I read once in a novel set in a Native American Reservation out west, how a gorup of fellows named their car and both treated it and felt about it as though it were like their old horses. I am sure I am not alone in giving human affection and respect to what is popularly known as an inanimate object. People have always held onto lucky objects, and companionable coffee cups, lucky caps and old uniforms from military service. These objects come to incorporate and resonate with our experiences which we shared with them.

I know people have felt that way about their old typewriters, their old laptops, lucky backpacks and so on. It makes me sad to think of my car being stripped for her parts and then junked. But like the biblical character, if we look back, we turn to salt - salty tears. We must all learn to pick up and move on faces turned resolutely to the next step, the next place, not the one we have left.

This is the time of yeara that I loved most to travel the old roads. I would pick a road and simply follow it until it ended, often at magical places like Greenwich, or Bivalve. Speaking of Bivalve, and the turquoise trailer home, I am reminded of other small, humble shacks that I often saw off roadsides and beside creeks. It made me think of the migrant oyster shuckers from down South who came up to work in the oyster industry before it was wiped out by the bacteria carried in the bilge water of ships coming home from Asia during the Korean War. It was a multi-million dollar industry with hundreds of boxcars carrying iced oysters as well as canned, shucked oysters, to the markets of New York City and Philadelphia. My own last taste of an oyster was at my grandmother's house in Philadelphia bout 65 years ago when even relatively poor people could afford them. New York City polluted ints own rich oyster beds, and then New Jersey lost ours. Stray individuals in those migrant farm worker convoys of pickers found a way to survive off the creeks and agricultural harvest seasons in South Jersey and stayed. Bivalve, Shell Pile, Port Norris and other small towns in the area have these descendants as residents.

It makes me wonder about the personal history of the individual in the little turquoise traer/home, how that person lives, the family history that brought him or her to that shady grove. There was no car nearby, so how did that person manage? How did that resident grocery shop, for example? But maybe he or she had relatives nearby who came to help. Maybe it was another person, like myself, washed up on the shores of old age.

Well, new car or not, I won't be having those adventures anyore becasuse of my dwindling eyesight, which, even supported by all the new on board aids like the gps and back-up camera, doesn't permit of such potentially dangerous recklessness as driving off into the great unknown, even with a new and trusworthy car. But you still can - so Happy Trails!

Jo Ann (as stated before - skip comments and if you wish to communicate e-mail me at wrightj45@yahoo.com - comments gets regularly hacked by porno trolls)

From today's e-mail - PATCH - 6 things to do this weekend in SJ!

CAMDEN COUNTY, NJ — Here's a list of upcoming events in Camden County, courtesy of our friends at Visit South Jersey, the official Destination Marketing Organization for Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem counties, and the Outer Coast Plain Wine Region in South Jersey.

This fall, Collingswood chefs get to the Root of it All during Collingswood Restaurant Week, Oct. 10-15 in Downtown Collingswood. Restaurants will offer farm-focused menus packed with exquisite flavor in original dishes that showcase the very best of New Jersey farms. Participating Collingswood restaurants offer exclusive prix fixe menus to their guests throughout Restaurant Week. For more information, visit https://visitsouthjersey.com/events/collingswood-restaurant-week-6/.

The next Family Game Night at Haddon Square takes place from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday night in Haddon Township. There is something for everyone to play – easy board games, word games, even a vibrant game of Pictionary. For those who enjoy more active games, there's Badminton & Cornhole set up. Each week is a little different, but a sample of the games they've played include: Ticket to Ride, Exploding Kittens, Taco vs Burrito, Bananagrams, card games, and more including classics like Sorry, Life and Clue. Want to play something else? Please bring your own game – they will have the players. The lights will be on and the toilets open. So bring some food and drinks (of any kind) and join your neighbors for some fun. This event follows CDC guidelines surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. For more information, visit https://visitsouthjersey.com/events/family-game-night-at-haddon-square/.

Cherry Hill's Barclay Farmstead hosts Welcome to the Farm, a free, outdoor event for all ages, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. There will be an apple pie baking contest, crafts for children, and live music by Cherry Hill singer Faith Kidd, guitarist Richard Layton and flutist Cynthia Smith. Bring a blanket or chairs, buy light snacks (or bring lunch) and picnic on the pretty grounds of our 1816 Farmhouse. Photographers welcome. You'll have the chance to attend 5 presentations related to farm life (including chickens the children can pet). Beautiful homemade baskets, pottery, handwoven yarn products, and tole products made from paper and cloth will be for sale, along with limited-edition prints of the historic farmhouse, painted by a local resident. Rain date is Sunday. This event is free, but space is limited, so register at:https://www.chnj.gov/1319/Welcome-to-the-Farm-Event. The event is sponsored by the Friends of Barclay Farmstead. For more information, visit https://visitsouthjersey.com/events/welcome-to-the-farm-at-barclay-farmstead/.

Enjoy live music and art all over Collingswood during Second Saturday in Collingswood, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday. Second Saturday was started by a collection of store owners that had an interest in promoting the arts in Collingswood. Each month from March to December, visitors can plan a night on the town to experience the unique arts, music, shopping and dining Collingswood is known for. As always, Second Saturdays are free and there are local artists and musicians on each block. Just arrive and enjoy the culture. For more information, visit https://visitsouthjersey.com/events/second-saturday-in-collingswood-4/.

Find out what's happening in Haddonfield-Haddon Township with free, real-time updates from Patch. Let's go! Downtown Haddonfield hosts Boutique Week from Oct. 12-14. Enjoy three exciting days of exclusive deals and events at participating boutiques located throughout the historic Downtown business district, along Kings Highway and the borough's charming side streets – which include Mechanic Street, Ellis Street, Tanner Street, Haddy Lane, Kings Court, and Haddon Avenue. Boutique Week leads up to the Grand Finale and favored fall tradition Girls' Night Out! on Oct. 14, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Discover the latest fall trends in fashion and home decor, stock up on the season's coolest athletic wear and taste the flavors of autumn. Adopt a houseplant, sip local wines and beers, or attend a festival fall event. There are so many ways to get in on all that the "Most Charming Town in New Jersey" has to offer! With unique gifts, upscale dining, and luxurious services offered town wide, your Downtown Haddonfield experience awaits. For more information, visit https://visitsouthjersey.com/events/boutique-week/.

Tour the Art Installations of A New View Camden through Halloween. Tours are all day. Visit www.anewviewcamden.com for a map and audio tour to start you on your way. See for yourself the sculpture that transformed Camden lots from dumping hot-spots to community sculpture gardens. For more, visit https://visitsouthjersey.com/events/a-new-view-camden/ and www.anewviewcamden.com.

I copied and pasted this from my e-mail, so I hope it turns out legible and I hope you find something appealing! If you wish to contact me, use my e-mail rather than 'comments' which is always full of junk mail, thanks. wrightj45@yahoo.com