Have you been to Albert Music Hall?

It has been awhile, probably before the Pandemic, since I went to Albert Music Hall but I always enjoyed it so much! My friends and I would be the green tomato cake, a cup of coffee and enjoy the wide variety of folk groups and classic early rock groups that we saw there. If you haven't been, you should go, it is unique! Jo Ann

Albert Music Hall Anniversary Show

April 26th | 6 PM - 9 PM

Albert Music Hall, Waretown, NJ

Albert Music Hall will present a special show for the 50th Anniversary of the Pinelands Cultural Society(PCS). The PCS was established with a goal to preserve the cultural history of the Pinelands, including its music, literature, legends, and artifacts.

It used to cost $5, don't know what it costs now but it is worth it! Happy Trails!

April 27 Earth Day at Red Bank Battlefield Celebration

Head on over to Red Bank Battlefield in National Park on Sunday for a day of fun!

Don't miss out on all the fun!

Schedule of Events 11:15 The Life of the Honey Bee

12:00 Unusual Pollinators, Dr. Dan

1:00 Pollution Reduction Conservation Show

2:00 Colonial Conjurer Magic Show

3:30 Colonial Conjurer Magic Show

On going- Hearth Cooking Demonstrations

Glass Blowing

Pottery

House Tours

Battlefield Tours

Kid's Crafts and Games

Food and Ice Cream trucks

Craft Vendors

The event is free, we will be collecting donations for the National Park Food Bank.

What a great way to spend a day! Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

AVALON - A Great Film

Yesterday, Easter Sunday was a pleasant and peaceful day. We had omelette and pancake braekfast at Woodbury Friends Meeting, after which I went to my sister Susan's house. She rents a bungalow on Platt's Farm, so a visit there is Spring is a special treat: all the trees are in bloom, the chickens are running around, the rooster crowing, and happy people shopping for their spring gardens.

After a delicious ham and potato salad traditional meal (I am vegetarian, so I only ate the potato salad) we had dessert of Pisker's Easter Egg Cake and NY stule cheesecake! Delicious.

When I got home, I decided to watch Avalon, about which I had been thinking for a couple of weeks. It is one of my all time, top ten favorite movies. The writing, by Barry Levinson, is brilliant, evocative, profound. The acting Armin Mueller Stahl plays Sam, the main character, is superb, and at 93 is still alive. The film was nominated for nearly every catagory in the Oscars, and many of the other awards like the Golden Globes as well. To me it is the quintessential portrait of the rise and decline of the 20th Century. All the hopes and exuberance, the shiny metal flake dreams of the post-war era are brilliantly filmed in this loving portrait of a time, a place, a family. I have wateched this film many times over the 35 years since it came out in 1990 and it always makes me smile and cry. It is my childhood. It is all our childhoods, those of us born in the first half of the 20th Century. And in it. in Sam's decline, is ours as well as the world in which we lived.

The writer/director, Barry Levinson is still writing and direction and I saw another of his tv series awhile back, The Kominsky Method.

If you want a heartwarming, thoughtprovoking, and touching film experience, you can rent AVALON for 3.99 on Amazon prime. I thinkit is a masterpiece.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoocom (if you wish to comment, please use my e-mail as the comments section on blogspot is polluted and clogged with spam, thanks!)

AAA HOBBY SHOP for so many things - EASTER 2025

TODAY IN THE BRISK CLEAN BREEZE OF A NEW SPRING DAY, I DROVE OVER TO 705 N. WHITE HORSE PIKE, MAGNOLIA, NJ. I hadn't been to the AAA Hobby Shop in decades. My daughter is now 41 and she is the main one for whom I had shopped at AAA in the past. However, I have a nephew and I had bought him many things there as well, and I bought my father and my brother models there that they used to put together for my father's grandsons.

AAA Hobby Shop is my Santa's Workshop. They have EVERYTHING there. I bought my daughter's first set of trains there, and as she got older, her second set. And when she was a toddler, I bought bags of various kinds of animals for our potty training scheme. For anyone contemplating potty training (as my next door neighbors will be in a year or so) Here is a great idea! Of course you probably already know that the best training mode is positive reinforcement. Many parents make the mistake I think, of trainig with candy rewards. This is bad for their children's teeth and not a good way to encourage healthy food attitudes. The first great tip I got was from another mother at a party. She said she bought potty chairs at flea markets and put one in each room. My idea, in addition to this, was to make a wooden ark in my father's wood shop and I bought bags of different kind of animals at AAA Hobby Shop and whenever my daughter had a successfully potty event, she got two animals to put in her ark. My mother, in addition, bought her fancy panties with the days of the week on them, and I sewed her 12 little cotton print dresses to make it easy to get on the ptty. We bought the African wild animal assortment, the FArm animals, the ranch animals, woodland animals, and we even got creative and added some reptiles, dinosaurs and domestic pets. We had birds, too.

Many years later, I bought my daughter a radio controlled car there. This year, I went because my sister's grandson is 8 and spends far too much time on his IPad. He doesn't even want to walk around the farm anymore, where she lives, and visit the horses, cows, and alpacas. He used to love to do that.

These electronc games are stealing childhood. When he visits, he sits indoors captivated by video games on his IPAD. One thing he still loves, however, is Model Magic modeling material. So for his Easter Basket this year, I bought several packets of different colors of Model Magic and some cookie cutter shape cutters. AAA also has air drying clay! There are somany things there that would be great in an Easter Basket!

On one of my healthy living e-mail newsletters there were several suggestions of things to put in Easter Baskets with or instead of candy, jumping ropes, markers, bubbles, and depending on the age of the child, I recommend those bags of animals, and play dough - or better yet drive over to AAA Hobby Shop and look around! You might ind you have enjoyed the visit yourself! You might even find a hobby you'd like to try.

Happy Easter - Jo Ann

(please use my e-mail if you wish to comment as the comments function on blogspot is completey polluted by spam. Thanks!) wrightj45@yahoo.com.