As the headline suggests, the weekend that awaits is jammed with the potential for good times.

We’ve got the fifth Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, this one making a migration from fall to spring.

We’ve got one of the inaugural events of this year’s weeklong Paint the Town Pink festivities to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

And capping it all off, rain or shine, is the first-ever Red Bank International Flavour Fest, an outdoor celebration of the wide variety of cuisines available year-round at Red Bank restaurants.

And Mother Nature appears to be in a mood to cooperate.

Details, as they used to say when that was still a two-syllable word, are just below.

SATURDAY: Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale
Location: all over town. Maps available at the Red Bank Public Library and at many of the participating homes.
Time: Officially, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but sellers can set their own hours.

From an email update from Beth Hanratty, president of the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, which has hosted the event since 2010:

lots of records, books and air conditioners

SATURDAY: Pink Hat Tea Party
Pilgrim Baptist Church
172 Shrewsbury Avenue
Doors open 10:30 a.m., Event 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Don’t miss this important Paint the Town Pink event, presented by Riverview Medical Center. Gather all the special women in your life to join us for an educational and entertaining Pink Hat Tea, with a hat and apparel fashion show courtesy Geneva’s Boutique of Neptune, a speacial presentation from Adi Smolinsky, M.D., a Riverview Medical Center OB/GYN, education about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of the importance of annual mammography, and more! Refreshments will be provided by Jameson’s Ultimate Southern Cooking Restaurant in Neptune. Don’t forget to wear your pink hat!

*Pink Sale Event. Deck your pink all year long with our exclusive Paint the Town Pink gear and goodies for sale at this signature event.

This event is FREE but registration is required. RSVP: 1-800-DOCTORS

SUNDAY: Paint Everything Pink Community Day
Riverview Medical Center parking lot
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pink your town, pink your house, pink your family. Everything is pink at our family-centered, free Community Day! Featuring many of the same pink “zones” families have come to expect as well as exciting new ones, this year’s event will feature:

Kids’ Fun & Games: Rides, arts and crafts, face painting – all the things your kids have come to love! And don’t miss photos with Dr. Bernard from the Pawsitive Action Team at
K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

Pink it Yourself Man Cave: In line with this year’s theme of Men in Pink, our “man cave” will offer the men in your life an area just for them. Activities will include DYI demonstrations from the Home Depot, interactive games, and of course our exclusive Real Men Wear Pink t-shirts.

Rockin’ Country Thunder 106.3: Bring out the country in you! With live music from a local country artist, this local-favorite station will have you dancin’ in your boots. Your kids will love our pony rides and everyone can enjoy some good old fashioned root beer!

And that’s not all! Enjoy some snack-food favorites and other sweet treats, and beverages from a number of local pink partners, and don’t forget to stop by our educational tables to pick-up important information about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

Special Pink Cotton Candy and Snow Cones presented by Arrow Limousine.

SUNDAY: Red Bank International Flavour Festival
White Street Parking Lot
12 p.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine

Here’s the National Weather Service forecast:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind around 9 mph.

By JOHN T. WARD

The building appears to sigh and lean, as though aware of its fate. Inside, nooks and corners that once teemed with the cast-offs of the decades have begun to empty out.

It’s a sad time at Monmouth Antique Shoppes, one of the anchors of Red Bank’s vaunted Arts & Antiques District. Eviction notice in hand, owner John Gribbin has informed his 23 remaining dealers that they, like he, must be out by the end of the month, ending a 29-year run.

“It’s not the best time for me to talk,” Gribbin told redbankgreen Tuesday, as he had also last week. “I’m trying to find a home for me and my dealers, and it’s not easy going.”

More than a dozen of the displaced shops are finding a new home just a few doors east, at the Gizzi family’s Riverbank Antiques. (Click to enlarge)

The wood-frame building, at the southeast corner of West Front Street and Bridge Avenue, was once part of the Eisner uniform factory complex – “a sweatshop,” said Gribbin. Now, it is slated to be razed to make way for the MW West Side Lofts project, a mixed-use assemblage of luxury rental apartments, street-level retail, live-and-work artists’ spaces, a parking garage and a Triumph Brewing Company restaurant.

No permits for the demolition or ensuing construction have yet been issued, according to a borough official. But Monmouth Antique Shoppes and Ambiance antiques, which occupies a neighboring building owned by the lofts developer, have been told to clear out. They were recently given 60 days notice, almost six years after the lofts plan won approval.

Unaffected by the action is Guy Johnson’s Antique Center of Red Bank, which occupies two sprawling buildings, including the giant barn-red structure at the intersection’s northeast corner and a second warehouse opposite Brothers Pizza.

The diaspora has proven to be an awkwardly welcome boon for Carla Gizzi, who runs her family’s Riverbank Antiques business just a block east of Gribbin’s. She’s busily making arrangements to accommodate more than a dozen displaced dealers.

“I feel horrible for John, but it actually enables us to stay in business, and we’re keeping these dealers in Red Bank,” Gizzi said. “We’re consolidating and enabling them to stay.”

Among those making the move are Reggie Hawn and Cheryl Figliola. Hawn, who’s been at the shoppes for less than two years, said she’s “looking forward to the day when we can all reunite under one tent,” reforming a group of dealers with complementary specialties.

“What made us successful here was that we’re all collectors first,” said Figliola, a 17-year tenant of the shoppes. “Everyone found their own niche.”

Gribbin said he doesn’t know where he and other dealers, who together operate as a sort of cooperative, selling each other’s goods when dealers are absent, will wind up. But he sees his business’s departure as part of an inexorable slide toward oblivion for the antiques district.

“As to me, I’m leaving Red Bank,” he said. “This industry has been a major draw for the town, and it’s going away slowly.”

Just across the street, another storefront formerly occupied by an antiques dealer stands empty following the recent departure of Plum Cottage, which relocated to Fair Haven.

“I’d almost rather be incinerated than have to live down here,” says Suellen Sims, below inspecting her new home’s fallout shelter, built beneath an earthen berm alongside Harris Park. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

It survived the Cold War without so much as a scratch, but a Red Bank fallout shelter is about to prove no match for the great wave of American home renovation.

Sometime in the next few weeks, a backhoe is expected to demolish the underground bunker beside a River Road house recently acquired by Suellen and Jamie Sims, who plan an addition to accommodate her mother.

Suellen Sims in her soon to be demolished bunker. (Click to enlarge)

The Cold War was raging in 1959 or 1960 when Dr. James Clark, a Red Bank eye surgeon, decided like many other Americans that he needed a fallout shelter to protect his family from radiation in the event of a nuclear attack.

But when a manufacturer of mail-order shelters told him there was a two-year backlog, Clark decided to build his own on the Harris Park side of the house, said his son, David Clark.

“He drew it up on paper, dug the hole, designed the hand-cranked air-filtration system,” said Clark, of Fair Haven. “He built wooden platform beds, and loaded it with canned goods.”

The result, on the outside, was a handsome berm of soil, grass and pine trees trimmed with a low brick wall. Inside, about a dozen feet below the surface, was a room off about 12 by 12, set off to the right of the stairwell, because, said Clark, “radiation can’t turn corners.”

Clark, who was about 10 or 12 when the bunker was built, said his father gave him the chore of emptying water containers and refilling them each month, adding three drops of chlorine to each. The elder Clark died suddenly in 1962 of a heart attack, and in the ensuing years, the son and his pals used to occasionally hang out in the bunker.

“They’d ask if they could come down here if the Russians attacked,” he said. “I’d say, ‘sure, you and the 5,000 other people who have asked.’”

The new owners, who have never met Clark, referred to the bunker at a recent planning board hearing as a “bomb shelter,” but Clark says it wasn’t built for that kind of shock. “A bomb hits the top, everybody’s dead,” he said.

Suellen Sims said that when a real estate agent first showed her and her husband the house, the bunker wasn’t included in the listing information. “We said, ‘What are all those pipes sticking up out of the ground?’”

Turns out they’re part of the air filtering system, equipped originally with automotive air filters.

Sims, who said she had to duck under her desk and participate in air raid drills as a schoolgirl and recalls having been “terrified” during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, still finds it “weird that you would build this just for yourself and your family.”

And the shelter itself she finds “dystopian. I’d almost rather be incinerated than have to live down here the rest of my life,” she said.

With the bunker’s days now numbered, Sims says her daughter has suggested a sendoff party, complete with t-shirts bearing the message: “I got bombed in the bomb shelter.”

By TOM CHESEK

From the day that he opened the first of his two neighboring hair/ eye/ makeup studios on Red Bank’s Bridge Avenue, superstar stylist Glen Goldbaum has operated with an ulterior motive of racking up a to-die-for client base.

The Manhattan transplant, who earned a following as an instructor with Vidal Sassoon and the celeb-packed NYC salons of Patrick Melville and Kim Lepine, relocated his residence to the River Plaza side of Middletown a few years back with his wife Stephanie and kids — and promptly hit the ground running (or, more often than not, pedaling his bike) on a mission to “introduce a totally new creative energy to Red Bank’s West Side.”

Known as much for his charitable endeavors as for the public-invited art/ music happenings he’s hosted both inside and outside his salons, Goldbaum ups the ante on the “Left Bank” groove factor Saturday night with an event that defies easy description, even as it draws from the energy of two of Asbury Park’s most styling storefronts.

The PopArt paradise that is Asbury Park’s Parlor Gallery makes a station stop in Red Bank, for Glen Goldbaum’s BEWITCHED event.

Pitched as “a magical evening of fantasy, hair, art and more,” the event known as Bewitched unfolds beginning at 7 p.m. within the two Goldbaum locations — three year old Glen Goldbaum 72 (at 72 Bridge Avenue, the building with the fading painted ad for Wrigley’s Gum on the side), and its younger sister space Lambs & Wolves Den of Beauty (just a couple of doors removed at 66-D Bridge). As Goldbaum explains, it’s a “whimsical fairytale story” designed to “bring people together and have a party.” And yes, there will be fairies.

“We’ll be staging some little vignettes featuring models made up as fairies and other characters,” says the stylist, describing a scene that suggests a blend of performance art, interactive theater, roleplaying games and Open House commerce. “You’ll be able to tell who’s in character — some of them have wings, which is a dead giveaway.”

To create the distinctive looks sported by his “live sculpture” models, Goldbaum partnered with clothing designer and stylist Casey Pyle of Humor and Grace, the Asbury Park business recently relocated to the city’s Cookman Avenue “Arts Bloc.”

“Casey’s a creative visionary — a designer and a business person,” Goldbaum says of his collaborator on the clothes and makeup front. “It’s part of this nice energy going on there in Asbury Park, part of the same vision I’ve had for the West Side here in Red Bank.”

Also joining in on the bewitching will be co-owners Jill Ricci and “Juicy” Jenn Hampton of Parlor Gallery, an Arts Bloc anchor and a space whose eye-popping Pop Art group shows (including a breathlessly anticipated annual exhibit of erotic art works) have drawn throngs to the monthly opening events. Several of the gallery’s regularly featured talents, including Ricci and the artist known as Porkchop (creator of many of Asbury’s most-photographed murals, and a style pacesetter for the Hampton-managed, “Fellini meets Flintstones” trip that is Asbury Lanes), will be represented on the walls of the two salons, with the display “remaining up for a while” following Saturday’s event.

It’s all part and parcel of Goldbaum’s intent to “think beyond Broad Street,” and to forge a link with a not-too distant neighborhood that’s readily accessed by public transportation (both the Cookman Ave corridor and Goldbaum’s salons are within a fairy-wing flap of their respective NJ Transit station stops). It’s also another milestone in the ongoing effort to draw attention to the Bridge Avenue community, a project that’s seen the stylist work closely with nearby businesses that run a gamut from now-defunct Novel Teas to the endearingly rambling old-Red Bank fixture Dave’s Car Wash (“you couldn’t ask for a better neighbor”).

As regards any particular storyline for Saturday’s conceptual character piece, Goldbaum observes that the free-admission event was planned according to some notion of a script, but “we decided to play things a bit looser… we’ll be emptying the salons of all the chairs, and replacing the front desk with a bed.”

“We’ll have a model in the bed, and the idea will be that’s where the ‘story’ starts,” he explains. “Beyond that, it’ll have its own flow. You’ll mix with people and meet characters as you move from salon to salon, room to room, maybe out in the rear courtyard if the weather permits. It’s about the mood; the message is not that important.”

Russell Vann and Charles Dixon, both 54 years old, and Raymond Jackson, 41, were caught up on drug distribution charges in raids led by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office over the past month, the agency said in an announcement.

All three were alleged to have been “midlevel” drug dealers in a hierarchical” syndicate run by a Long Branch man, who was also arrested. No street addresses for Vann, Dixon and Jackson were immediately available.

Here’s the full text of the announcement:

The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office’s Narcotics and Criminal Enterprises Unit, arrested numerous members of a racketeering network responsible for the distribution of significant quantities of heroin and the illegal sale of assault firearms in and around the Monmouth County area. The arrests occurred between July 1, 2011 and August 3, 2011, with most occurring this week.

The investigation began in the fall of 2010 when members of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office received information regarding a narcotics distribution and firearms trafficking network based in Long Branch. As the investigation proceeded, the leader of this network was identified as Anthony Stevenson, a/k/a “Nygee,” 43, of Long Branch.

During the eight-month investigation that followed, Stevenson orchestrated and/or personally sold quantities of heroin to an undercover officer on several occasions. As a result, more than 38 “bricks” of heroin were purchased from Stevenson and his associates. A “brick” contains approximately 50 glassine baggies of heroin, which are bundled in groups of ten. On certain occasions, Stevenson also distributed quantities of cocaine as requested by his associates.

The investigation also revealed that Stevenson obtained most of the heroin he sold from Uwenzen Jenkins, 39, of West Orange. On July 1, 2011, surveillance officers observed Jenkins meet with two of Stevenson’s associates, Dario Woods, 32, of Asbury Park and Keith Rogers, 40, of Asbury Park, to purchase heroin on behalf of Stevenson. After this meeting, Woods and Rogers were found to be in possession of approximately 40 bricks of heroin during a motor
vehicle stop in Tinton Falls and were taken into custody.

In addition to narcotics trafficking, the investigation revealed that Stevenson brokered the transport and sale of illegal firearms brought into New Jersey by Amos Castro, 39, formerly of Long Branch, who currently resides in South Carolina, and Leroy Taylor, 40, of North Carolina.

During the course of the investigation, on April 11, 2011, Castro sold a handgun to an undercover officer in Christabell’s American Soul Food Restaurant, on Springdale Avenue in Long Branch, a restaurant owned by Stevenson. On July 21, 2011, Stevenson sold two assault rifles, obtained from Leroy Taylor, to an undercover officer in the parking lot of a West Long Branch gas station. Castro and Taylor were arrested on August 3, 2011 – Castro in New Jersey and Taylor in North Carolina. Taylor remains in North Carolina and is pending extradition proceedings.

On August 1, 2011, surveillance officers observed Jenkins sell a quantity of heroin to Stevenson and one of his associates, Kenrick Crawford, 43, of Asbury Park. Stevenson and Crawford were later arrested following a motor vehicle stop in Tinton Falls and were found to be in possession of approximately 50 bricks of heroin.

On that same date, a lawful search was conducted at Christabell’s restaurant in Long Branch. Police seized two bricks of heroin from inside the restaurant. Present in the business at the time were Andrew Davis, 46, of Long Branch, Francisco Gomez, 23, of Long Branch, Deborah Howard, 40, of Asbury Park and her daughter, Jessica Howard, 22, of Long Branch.

Davis was charged with Possession of Cocaine. Deborah and Jessica Howard and Francisco Gomez were charged with Possession and Possession with Intent to Distribute Heroin. Deborah was later charged with Racketeering Conspiracy on August 3, 2011.

The charges allege that Stevenson and his co-conspirators are members of a hierarchal criminal enterprise whose members have specific roles that were determined by Stevenson.

Additional individuals involved in the enterprise were arrested on Wednesday, August 3, 2011.

Their roles, charges and respective bails are described more fully in the attached chart and listed as follows:

Anthony Stevenson, is the alleged Leader of this criminal enterprise; Stevenson’s primary heroin supplier is alleged to be Uwenzen Jenkins; Dario Woods, Keith Rogers and Malik Williams are alleged to be three of Stevenson’s key associates.

Walter Taylor III, Kevin Foye and Trevor Stovall were arrested on August 2, 2011, and are alleged to be drug suppliers to Stevenson. Taylor was found to be in possession of 20 bricks of heroin at the time of his arrest.

The following individuals were arrested on August 3, 2011, and are alleged to be midlevel heroin dealers who purchased various quantities of heroin from Stevenson for distribution to their own respective customer bases: Russell Vann, John M. Cooper, Robert Gilliard, James Soweski, Derrick Alberts, Nelson Alberts, Paul Brown, Guillermo Reyes, James Williams, Raymond Jackson, Emanuel Jones, Gregory Glover, Charles Dixon, Robert Jones, Douglas Gibson, Sr., Vanessa Evans, Ryan Fitch and Joseph Aviles.

The following individuals were also arrested on August 3, 2011, and are alleged to be “runners” who distributed quantities of heroin under Stevenson’s supervision and at his direction: Christopher Brock and Rozina McCullers.

Additionally, Latief Forbes, Patrick Brock, Joseph Stovall, Leon Norman and Patrick Norman, Jr., were arrested on August 3, 2011, and charged with various possession and possession with intent type offenses.

The following individuals remained at large as of August 4, 2011: Keith Rogers, Raymond Pridgen, Steven Worsley, Paul Brown, Patrick Norman, Sr. and Willie Starks.

All of those arrested were remanded to the Monmouth County Correctional Institute in
lieu of bail, which was set by the Honorable Lawrence M. Lawson, A.J.S.C. All bails require a
hearing to determine the source of the funds being posted before they can be accepted.
During the course of this investigation, over 150 bricks (in excess of 7500 separate glassine bags) of heroin, approximately one pound of marijuana, a small quantity of cocaine and approximately $72,000 in U.S. currency were seized. The heroin alone has an estimated street value of approximately $75,000.

Notwithstanding these arrests, the investigation into the activities of this criminal enterprise is continuing. Members of the public possessing information regarding criminal activity by any of the individuals arrested are encouraged to contact Captain Brian Rubino of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office at 1 (800) 848-0668.

Photographs of the individuals arrested are attached to this news release to assist members of the public in ascertaining whether they possess information regarding these individuals’ activities.

The charge of first degree Leader of Narcotics Trafficking carries a maximum custodial term of life in State prison. For those defendants charged with first degree Maintaining or Operating a Controlled Dangerous Substance Production Facility and/or Possession of Controlled Dangerous Substance with Intent to Distribute and/or first degree Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, the maximum custodial term is 20 years in State prison. For those defendants charged with second degree Racketeering Conspiracy, the maximum custodial term is 10 years in State prison. For those defendants charged with second degree Possession of a Controlled Dangerous Substance with Intent to Distribute and/or second degree Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, the maximum custodial term is 10 years in State prison. For those defendants charged with third degree Possession of a Controlled Dangerous Substance and/or third degree Possession of a Controlled Dangerous Substance with Intent to Distribute and/or third degree Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, the maximum custodial term is five years in State prison. The charge of third degree Aggravated Assault carries a maximum custodial term of five years in State Prison.

For those defendants charged with second degree Unlawful Possession of an Assault Firearm and/or second degree Transporting Firearms into State for Unlawful Sale and/or second degree Certain Persons not to Have Weapons, the maximum custodial term is 10 years in State prison. For those defendants charged with third degree Distribution of an Assault Firearm, the maximum custodial term is five years in State prison.

Despite these charges every defendant is presumed innocent, unless and until found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, following a trial at which the defendant has all of the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and State law.

The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office credits all of the law enforcement agencies that assisted in this investigation, including the following: Asbury Park Police Department, Freehold Township Police Department, Keansburg Police Department, Long Branch Police Department, Neptune Township Police Department, Ocean Township Police Department, Red Bank Police Department, Shrewsbury Police Department, Tinton Falls Police Department, Wall Township Police Department, Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office, New Jersey State Police, Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Marshal’s Service.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant Prosecutor James E. Jones, Jr., Director of the Narcotics and Criminal Enterprises Unit, and Assistant Prosecutor Paul Alexander.

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

Christmastime at the Provini household in Middletown is full of tradition, one of them being the line of questioning Liz Provini delivers to her son, Andrei.

“Every single year, we can’t find the bolts for the (tree) stand because Andrei’s got them in one of his inventions,” she said.

Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood off Navesink River Road, Liz Provini’s home is as much, if not more, a laboratory for her 19-year-old son who, since the age of five, has tinkered with everything from bolts to strainers to stumbled-upon Volkswagens to create hundreds of inventions.

“He’s very creative,” she said. “His mind is going a million miles an hour. If he doesn’t have an invention in the works, he gets very frustrated.”

Provini, his mother said, was born to create. More specifically, he was born to change the world, he said, and doesn’t see himself settling for any less.

Provini in front of his two-story tree house, complete with a slide, zipline, and half a Volkswagen. Below, with a robotic arm he made to expedite getting dressed. (Photos by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)

Rather than harbor his findings and keep them a secret, Provini wants to share his gift any way he can. When he’s not making gadgets for himself or school, he’s making them for friends or just about anybody who asks.

“I feel like people today, I know they have all this cool technology but they’re holding onto it,” Provini said, “but I want to bring this world into a new generation.”

Take for example the universal charger he made for his father, Charles, who, as CEO of Red Bank-based solar developer Natcore Techonolgy, does a ton of traveling. He doesn’t have to worry about looking for a special jack to get his devices to work with varying electrical outlets; his son made him a charger with built-in power.

On a recent Thanksgiving, young Provini pondered the Lazy Susan, then one-upped the household staple by mounting a kitchen strainer to a base with a motor, creating what he calls the Rotator Waiter, “because I didn’t know what the point of a Lazy Susan was, because I was still using energy, so that’s not too lazy.”

Provini, who spends most of his off-time piecing together parts into the wee hours of the morning, said his friends tease him that he puts an incredible amount of work and energy into making inventions so he can be lazy.

Like the robotic arm attached to a PC processor he made while he was a student at the University of New Haven.

“When I was in college this thing would get my clothes out in the morning and close the drawer. In some events I’d have it get my breakfast for me,” Provini said. “Talk about lazy, right?”

His drive goes far beyond manufacturing something for convenience. Provini’s mind simply won’t allow him to do anything else.

“Ideas will never run out,” he said. “Even when I think they will, ideas keep coming.”

It all started when he was five and an admittedly annoying child who wanted things his parents wouldn’t give him, he said.

“I wanted everything. I was the biggest nag,” Provini said. “My parents would say no and I figured they’d keep saying no, so I built my own things.”

One of his earliest creations was an action figure/metal detector that he used as a stud detector in his home’s walls. That’s when he realized he could use his inventions for a greater purpose than self-satisfaction.

From there he busted out inventions like a solar-powered DVD player, glasses with a hands-free headlamp, a hydraulic pogo stick and a backpack with built-in power, which he put to use his first day on campus in New Haven.

“Somebody’s car broke down and I did have to jump-start them,” he said. “It took 10 minutes but we got it started.”

Now a mechanical engineer major at Brookdale Community College, and with hopes to return to school in New Haven, Provini said his goal is to invent something “revolutionary,” perhaps in the auto industry. He foresees inventing something along the lines of using perpetual energy to power a car.

He’s working on a prototype — his tenth — in his bedroom at home, made from parts he’s gotten at the hardware store and, naturally, at home.

Liz Provini said every year for Christmas, family friends ask her what they should get Andrei. She tells them he’d be happy to dig through a junkyard to pick out a gift.

“Just junk. Boxes and boxes of junk,” she said. “But to him it’s treasure.”

The new rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel says the ponderous Jewish holidays could use some levity.

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

The Jewish holiday season just isn’t as much fun for Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro unless he’s watching faces transform from pale to patina while blowing into the horns of a dangerous wild animal.

Shapiro, who took over at Congregation Beth Shalom on Maple Avenue in Red Bank last year, has injected his idea of mirth in between the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashana, which was last Friday, and Yom Kippur, which is Sunday.

To break up the austerity of the holidays’ introspective and atoning nature, Shapiro has put his twist on an old Jewish tradition called Shofar blowing: he’s made a contest of it.

The idea is simple: A person blows into a horn (a ram’s horn is preferred, but there’s no hard-lined rule; it can be a mountain goat’s or a gazelle’s horn). Shapiro says the act itself is a form of repentance and self-evaluation.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t also be a blast. Shapiro runs a contest with categories for participants to win prizes for longest, loudest, most creative and most traditional blow. This year’s contest will get started around 8p Saturday at the synagogue.

“The first time it was pretty funny. People were blowing and turning green,” Shapiro said. “The Jewish holidays are pretty somber and serious, so it kind of puts a happy note to it.”

At the same time, though, Shapiro says wailing away on the Shofar has its own religious merit, which is why he instituted the tradition at Beth Shalom.

“It kind of gets you thinking about repentance and introspection,” he said. “You hear this sound of the horn and it’s this kind of sound that really cuts to your soul and makes you think introspectively.”

Shapiro anticipates a good number to turn out for this year’s blowing, including a few children who may take the Shofar challenge.

It’s free and open to the public. And don’t worry if you forget your ram’s horn at home. The rabbi’s got a few spares to lend out.

Are you planning a yard sale, or to go out on a garage-sale shopping spree?

redbankgreen would love to hear from you.

We’re gearing up for the second annual Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, scheduled rain-or-shine for Saturday, September 12, and we’d appreciate your input.

redbankgreen is the event’s primary sponsor, and will once again serve as its main information portal. Next month, we’ll be launching a dedicated webpage packed with everything both sellers and shoppers will need to know about this border-to-border shopping extravaganza that last year had 150 participating homes.

Yes, we’ll have printable registration forms (participating homes are asked to sign up for a $10 fee). And as we did last year, a day before the event we’ll also post a downloadable information packet containing lists of every participating home, special items, and a locator map.

(Why just one day before? To keep the most, um, avid shoppers from showing up a day or more before they’re supposed to.)

Meantime, we’d like to hear from readers who love yard sales.

• Do you have any unusual items you’ll be selling in the yard sale? Tell us what you’ve got. We’ll be giving plugs to some of the most interesting.

• What’s the best bargain you ever got at a yard sale? Ever found an overlooked treasure? Got any funny stories from yard sales you’ve held or visited? We’d love to hear your stories.

• Do you spend Saturday mornings going from one yard sale to another? Mind if we tag along with a reporter and a video camera?

•  Tell us what makes the experience of hunting for bargains in people’s yards and driveways special.

And as always, if you’re hosting a yard sale on a date other than September 12, let us know. Maybe we can help you generate some traffic. No charge.

Send it all by email, please. Thanks.

A townwide yard sale proposed by South Street’s Audrey Oldoerp got the thumbs-up from the Borough Council Monday night after questions about bulk-waste leftovers and the transmission of bedbugs and other vermin were met.

After consulting with his counterparts in Belmar, which has long had an annual townwide sale, acting public works director Gary Watson Sr. said vermin transmission “is not an issue.”

As for the detritus of the event, Watson said that time of year is the lightest in terms of bulk pickups for his department. He said a pickup would be done on the Thursday before the event and on the Monday afterward.

The day between the sale and the pickup would enable passersby to grab unsold goods left at the curb, Watson said.

Oldoerp told the council that the event makes sense on a number of levels for Red Bank. She said it will draw in visitors who, after perusing what’s on offer curbside, might then do some shopping in the Antiques District. It will promote reuse and recycling, she said, and foster a greater sense of community.

Nearby towns such as Atlantic Highlands and Belmar have successfully held townwide sales for years, and “it would be nice for Red Bank residents to enjoy the benefits of one also,” Oldoerp said.

The event, sponsored by the borough Environmental Commission, the Human Relations Committee and Department of Public Works, is a rain-or-shine one. It will run from 9a to 3p.

Residents who wish to participate will be asked to register with the borough for a modest fee that hasn’t yet been set, but will be about $5, says Oldoerp, to help offset the borough’s bulk-waste disposal costs.

Registrants may opt to have their addresses included in a master list and location map that will be published by redbankgreen, which has volunteered to help publicize the event.

Participants are being encouraged to set aside an area for giveaway items to further encourage reuse, Oldoerp said. And a list of agencies that accept specific types of donated goods, such as clothing and computer equipment, will be distributed in the hope that it will lighten the borough’s waste load.

Councilwoman Grace Cangemi, who had raised the prospect of bedbugs moving from one house to another in used clothing or furniture, was absent from the meeting.

http://ads.redbankgreen.com/2008/01/townwide-yard-s-2.html Yard-sale proponent Audrey Oldoerp.

For a long time, South Street’s Audrey Oldoerp wondered aloud why towns such as Belmar and Atlantic Highlands had annual or even semi-annual yard sales that embraced every street and home, but Red Bank didn’t.

Moreover, with each passing year, Oldoerp saw community calendars spotted with events meant to attract visitors to the downtown — sidewalk sales, jazz festivals, road races and Christmas tree lightings — but litle or nothing designed specifically for the people who live here.

It irked her, and she said so, apparently often enough that her husband, Tim Blankley, suggested that instead of grousing, perhaps she should do something about it.

So for the past year or so, Oldoerp has been on a quest, trying to figure out how a townwide yard sale might happen here and navigating the bureaucracy of local government. And last night, though some possible obstacles were thrown in her path, she moved the idea into the public realm.

“We have so many events in this town that are not for the residents,” Oldoerp told the Borough Council at its bimonthly meeting. “There are very few events for the whole town.”

A joint yard sale put together by residents of South Street, Hudson Avenue and other nearby streets last year showed that such an event was a great way to bring together neighbors who might otherwise never interact, she said. Because of the sense of community it fostered, she rejected a suggestion that the event be held in a centralized location, such as the White Street municipal lot.

The sale idea, though, prompted Councilwoman Grace Cangemi to voice what she called “very grave concerns” about practical aspects. In particular, she said the borough could end up footing significant costs in bulk waste removal efforts afterward, as homeowners and landlords decide that it’s easier to discard unsold, heavy items than bring them back indoors.

Cangemi also said the sale or giveaway of upholstered furniture and used clothing could foster the spread of bedbugs, a growing problem in many U.S. cities and towns. “That’s not just fearful, that’s reality,” she said.

Councilwoman Sharon Lee, though, countered with the suggestion that Red Bank do what Belmar does for it’s Spring Fling-related yard sale: require participants to purchase disposal stickers, priced by weight of an object, for every item headed into the waste stream.

Ken Pringle, Belmar’s mayor an Red Bank’s borough attorney, said his town’s event, run for eight or nine years now, “has been a tremendous success.”

“It’s a possible solution,” Lee said. “It would stop any landlords from dumping, or people coming in from outside the community and dumping.”

Such concerns, though, were misplaced, Oldoerp suggested. “I’m fairly certain that Red Bank residents can be trusted to do what other towns have done successfully,” she told the council.

A resolution directing the Public Utilities department and Environmental Commission, in consultation with the Special Events advisory committee, to come up with a plan for the event passed unanimously.

Oldoerp told redbankgreen she’s hoping the event can be pulled together for early May, but that a fall event would also work. Summertime, she said, isn’t the best time.

The event, she said, would be publicized through the local media and placement of fliers in stores. The Environmental Commission is already looking at using the event as a way to promote a “reduce, reuse and recycle” theme, she said.

And while she’s shooting for townwide representation, she does not envision border-to-border tables and yards groaning with goods for sale.

“I don’t want to make it bigger than it needs to be, especially the first time,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll get just enough participants — that’ll be a good start.”

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