DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
You often complain about the actions or inaction of local leaders, so why not offer more solutions? For instance, the weather’s been HOT yet only one of our town’s three public pools is open this summer. What to do?
Sincerely,
Summer Bummer
I’m on it! My apartment’s bathtub is available to all adult Montclair residents who weigh less than 10 ounces.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
Are you in the diet-supplement biz? Please provide a more credible suggestion to make up for the Essex and Nishuane pool closures.
Sincerely,
Start Making Sense
Edgemont Pond as a swimming hole! Sure, the water isn’t “chlorine clean,” but the geese there will lend you their Swiffer mops in return for a waterproof DVD of the 1996 film “Fly Away Home.”
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
What about Toney’s Brook?
Sincerely,
The Toney Awards
That shallow stream’s weak current is better for white-water rafting than swimming. Still, you’ll stay cool in Toney’s Brook…as long as you strap an air conditioner to your bathing suit.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
More ideas?
Sincerely,
Not Morbid Ideas
Reading John Cheever’s short story “The Swimmer” would be vicariously refreshing. But don’t emulate the protagonist by diving into every backyard pool in Montclair; you’ll crash into several rubber duckies.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
What about burying a local road in water to create a paved pool?
Sincerely,
Curb Appeal Curbed
That already happened once, years ago, on “Waterbury” Road. Before that, the street was known as Dry Drive.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
Is water the only possible liquid to swim in?
Sincerely,
Quart of Appeals
Depends on how large the fresh-pressed orange juice is at Le Salbuen.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
On Walnut?
Sincerely,
We Need to Talk About Kaveny
No, that glass of juice is on a table.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
If a sink in Nishuane School were enlarged a bit, could it be a substitute for Nishuane Pool? And is Nishuane an elementary school or a middle school?
Sincerely,
Dr. Watson
Elementary, my dear Watson.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
Near the closed Essex Pool, could we melt the ice rink in Clary Anderson Arena to create a temporary swimming facility?
Sincerely,
A Clary Tale Come True
It’s hard to paddle-board on a hockey puck.
DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,
Words to live by. With enough rain, Valley Road floods under the train tracks near Bruce Road — a street that shares Bruce Springsteen’s first name. So, a road pool there?
Sincerely,
Born to Pun
A pool Springsteen can jump in when he sings “I’m on Fire.”
Dave Astor, author, is the MontClairVoyant. His opinions about politics and local events are strictly his own and do not represent or reflect the views of Baristanet.
Interestingly, our Council is getting more grief than the members of the Montclair Beach Club.
https://montclairlocal.net/cause-of-fish-kill-at-bonsal-preserve-named/
The good news is there is a draught watch so Montclair is acting responsibly in not filling the pools for 3 weeks.
Dave, ‘The Swimmer’ is one of Cheever’s best short stories. Poor Neddy Merrill, I can picture him doing a lap at Mountainside Park Pool then stopping at DeNovo for a quick vodka rocks before moving on for his next dip.
In case you haven’t read it lately.
https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Cheever_Swimmer.pdf
Thank you for the comment and link, Frank. Somehow I missed reading about that awful fish die-off this past spring. What a shame. Sounds like the Montclair Beach Club messed up big-time. 🙁
And, yes, we have not been getting nearly enough rain the past few weeks.
Thank you for the comment and link, silverleaf. “The Swimmer” is one of my favorite short stories by any writer. A great read all the way through, and the shocker ending is even better. And — ha 🙂 — Montclair would indeed be an excellent setting for Cheever’s tale. Neddy Merrill might even dive onto some homeowners’ basement pool tables. 🙂
Lol. No one better than Cheever at chronicling the manners and morals of upper middle class suburbia.
Cheever was indeed a master at that, silverleaf.
A current master of the suburban milieu, over in Australia, is novelist Liane Moriarty.
The article Frank posted above regarding a recent broken discharge line at the Montclair Beach Club that was found to be the cause of an almost complete fish die-off in the portion of the Third River that runs through the Alonzo F. Bonsal Wildlife Preserve is both sad and alarming. It states, “We had a severe die-off, where what we believe is the entire population of fish in the river just suddenly turned up dead. The dead fish included American eel, blacknose dace and white sucker species, and that he saw no live fish in the water,” Grupper said. “The substance infiltrated the water and all the fish died. Part of what was really tragic about that was realizing how robust [were the] species of fish that lived in the river. For instance, we didn’t even know about the eel. It’s been endangered.”
Grupper, how’s that for an irony!
A real tragedy, silverleaf. 🙁 Some humans sure do a number on other species. 🙁