Corrections or additions?
This article by Richard Rein was prepared for the August 27, 2003
issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Richard K. Rein
Reflections on the recent past. Probably no recent
column
received more comment than the one documenting my sojourn into the
woods adjoining the Millstone River on the Sarnoff Corporation
property.
But before I recount those comments, allow me to share additional
thoughts about last week’s column, on the style of death notices,
just in case I am called prematurely from this labor.
About those paid obituaries: One of our freelance writers,Richard Skelly, informed me that U.S. 1 itself was mentioned in anobituary in the Star-Ledger newspaper. The deceased was MariannePreviteof Milltown, who died June 28. Previte was a nurse who had workedfor Johnson & Johnson and later taught health in the East Brunswickpublic school system. After chronicling her many career landmarks,the obituary commented on her life outside of work:”An avid ballroom dancer, Mrs. Previte and her dance partner werefeatured on the cover of U.S. 1 Newspaper.”Sure enough, Marianne Previte and her partner were featured in theApril 6, 1988, issue of U.S. 1, flying across the dance floor at theNottingham Ballroom and illustrating Barbara Fox’s story about”DirtyDancing,” the now classic movie. In addition, Skelly pointed out,Previte is the mother of Franke Previte, who wrote the movie’ssignaturesong, “The Time of My Life,” which won an Oscar.Other U.S. 1 staffers, meanwhile, pointed out that I did not haveto stray from that same issue of the paper to uncover yet anotherwonderful way of expressing the passage from here to there, or fromlife to death. In the article on the rebirth of the Doors, the 1960srock group, freelancer Barry Gutman referred to Paris as the placewhere singer Jim Morrison left this mortal coil. The reference isfrom Hamlet, referring to death as “when we have shuffled offthis mortal coil.”In other words, in the 21st century as in the 16th, you may not simplydie in peace. But whether you shuffle off or are plucked from above,it doesn’t hurt to keep on the dancing in the meantime.About that Rein column in the Summer Fiction issue , inwhich a fictional character attempts to write a grand opening to hisnovel and begins with “It was a dark and stormy night — orwas it?” E. E. Whiting, a contributor to the Summer Fiction issue(the third chapter of her novel, The Seven O’Clock Train of Thought,appeared this year), immediately recognized the reference as somethingmore than a catch phrase from a Peanuts cartoon. The genesis of theline, Whiting noted, is the 1830 novel by Edward George Bulwer-Lyttontitled “Paul Clifford,” which opens like this:”It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents —except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gustof wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scenelies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scantyflame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”Bulwer-Lytton’s opening sentence has become such a poster boy forpurple prose that a fiction contest now exists in his name, dedicatedto celebrating the worst pieces of writing that can be concocted.Fortunately for U.S. 1 readers, no other parts of this legacy appearedin the Summer Fiction issue. For more consultwww.bulwer-lytton.comAbout those Millstone River bluffs: After my walk throughthe Sarnoff property, which may be the site of a four-lane highwayto divert traffic from Washington Road in West Windsor, I suggestedthat the “bluffs” that environmental groups want to preservemight be more rhetorical than topographical.The ink was barely dry before I was reminded by Lincoln Hollister,the Princeton professor and environmentalist, that he had offeredto take me on a canoe ride up the Millstone to see the river formyself.Hollister gave me a second chance, but my schedule did not permitme to take advantage.Meanwhile, though, Sue Parris of West Windsor sent me a Ruth Rendellnovel, “Road Rage,” set in an English town torn by a debateover a bypass.Parris also sent a 1985 column in a historical society newsletter,written by a Florida retiree reminiscing about his days 50 yearsbeforeswimming in the area known as the “sheepwash.” Way back then,interestingly, the swimming hole was a principal recreation site andit was much more accessible than it is today: “A whole lace-workof braided roads [led] to the banks of the Millstone. As cars cameto the river they would be parked under trees 10 to 15 feet abovethe water.”Whether the banks of the Millstone are truly bluffs, or 10 feet highas the retiree recalled from his youth, or maybe five feet high asI measured them a few weeks ago, they are worth saving. The good newsis that Sarnoff already has agreed to site the bypass road 200 feetfurther away from the river than was originally planned.At that distance even people without a canoe tied to their car mightbe able to amble on over and enjoy it. Obviously reports of thesheepwash’s”passing” are grossly exaggerated.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
