About Eileen Moon

MIDDLETOWN – If you happen to be wandering the aisles of the Tractor Supply store on Harmony Road this month, you might hear a chirping sound coming from somewhere near the center of the store. If you follow that sound, you’ll come upon a scene you don’t see too often in Monmouth County’s retail meccas: a fenced-in pen full of live baby chicks, fuzzy puffballs of white and yellow that will one day grow into hens, roosters and ducks. Though unremarkable for farm country, raising chickens and du

MIDDLETOWN – Building on a relationship that has benefited students for many years, Brookdale Community College is entering a formal partnership with Ray Catena Auto Group that will fully prepare Brookdale’s automotive technology students for a well-paying career in the automotive industry following graduation from the college’s two-year associate degree program. While Brookdale has long had a training partnership with General Motors, its partnership with Ray Catena is its first direct training

Two River residents will soon have another chance to take a free ride on the Navesink aboard the wooden sailing garvey Pete’s Banjo. Members of the Navesink Maritime Heritage Association (NMHA), the New Jersey Friends of Clearwater (NJFC) and Monmouth Boat Club are joining together to present this Saturday sail from 10 a.m. to approximately 11:30 a.m. Sept. 14. The sail will depart from the small marina at Marine Park in Red Bank. All three organizations have a long history of encouraging appre

COLTS NECK – Thanks to a group of people united by a common vision, kids with visual impairments will no longer have to sit on the sidelines while other kids are having fun on the playground at Dorbrook Park. At 10 a.m. Aug. 22 members of the Colts Neck Lions Club and the Friends of the Monmouth County Parks will gather at Dorbrook Park to break ground on the Sensory Lions’ Den, a playground that will be open to all children but has been specially designed for kids with visual impairments. The

When summer ripens into August, the pleasures it brings take on a special sweetness. We know the days of bare feet and bike rides, fireworks and fairs, will soon recede like the warm tides of the summer ocean. But before they do we have a few more weeks to savor the joys of another summer. At the Navesink Hook & Ladder Company in Middletown, that means it’s time to get ready for the annual old-fashioned Navesink Country Fair, an event that the firehouse has been holding for 131 years. The fi

As it says in the New Testament, faith can move mountains. It can also move mountains of food. Just ask Gerald and Karin Duffy, veteran volunteers at the Barn for the Poorest of the Poor, a quietly powerful nonprofit organization that has been delivering food to people in need since 1987. Tucked away in a corner of a parking lot on Kanes Lane in Middletown, the Barn is actually a warehouse where a well-organized army of volunteers sort and pack surplus food they have collected from area super

When Johnny Gilbert introduces Roey Hadar on “Jeopardy!” in two weeks, he’ll say Hadar is from Arlington, Virginia. But a few thousand folks here in the Two River area know better. Although Arlington is where he’s living now, Hadar is a Jersey guy, born and bred – and his real hometown is Fair Haven. Despite his efforts to persuade producers otherwise, “Jeopardy!” rules state that contestants must claim the city they currently live in, not their hometowns. Fortunately, Hadar’s mother Ashley

LITTLE SILVER ­­­­— The flowering dogwood planted on the grounds of Parker Homestead will likely blossom for many springs to come, in living tribute to a woman whose career as a teacher and volunteer work on behalf of her beloved community will continue to bear fruit. Members of the board of trustees of the Parker Homestead planted the tree April 28 at a ceremony in honor of their fellow board member Elizabeth A. Hanson. She died March 14 at the age of 73 after a three-year illness that failed

RED BANK – All was in harmony Monday when the Count Basie Center for the Arts welcomed its newest member. Wielding a pair of giant scissors, Mayor Pasquale Menna and Basie CEO and president Adam Philipson cut the ribbon officially opening the Count Basie Center’s Monmouth Conservatory of Music at 65 Chestnut St. Calling the arts a “thriving engine” for the economy of the borough, Menna said, “As a music enthusiast and someone who wishes he could play, I can’t wait to watch it grow.” The Monmo

SEA BRIGHT – Generations of beachgoers have enjoyed taking a book to the beach for some second-hand romance and adventure in the sunshine. But the Borough of Sea Bright has taken that a step further by bringing an entire library to the beach. Mayor Dina Long, council members, longtime library supporters and residents new and old came out last Saturday, March 16, to celebrate the rebirth of their library which, along with many structures in this seaside borough, was a casualty of Super Storm Sa

Two of Rumson’s landmark restaurants are greeting spring with a fresh direction and a reaffirmation of their strong connections to the community. At Ridge Road and Avenue of Two Rivers, the elegant Victorian building that was long home to the legendary French restaurant Fromagerie has been reborn as The Rumson House. And on River Road, the former What’s Your Beef/Russell & Bette’s is now Victory Park Tavern. Owners of both restaurants have chosen names that honor each restaurant’s deep roots

RUMSON – It was a Level 2 on the Fliuch Scale last Sunday when the seventh annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade set off from the top of River Road near Allen Street for its one-mile or so trek across the borough in celebration of the saint who legend credits with driving the snakes out of Ireland. The Fliuch Scale, created by Irish journalist Michael Freeman, attempts to organize the varying kinds of rain that fall on Ireland into a scientific-ish pattern that ranges from the lovely 1 – A Grand Soft

If music be the food of love, as Shakespeare proposed in his play, “Twelfth Night,” it’s no wonder that members of the Shrewsbury Chorale continue to gather once a week, year after year, to feast on the music of classical composers with a dedication that endures all the twists and turns that life can offer. Founded in 1957 by conductor Alden Hammond, the group is currently celebrating its 62nd season. Over the decades, the chorale has earned numerous honors, representing the state of New Jersey

SHREWSBURY – “It was a wonderful, strange place when I lived there,” the poet Ed Ryterband said, musing on the year he lived in Athens, Greece, as a newly-minted Ph.D. teaching psychology at a private school for girls at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a place he finds himself revisiting from time to time, in his memory, as he casts the reflections of his long life on to the blank page, making a poem. It’s a statement that could apply to his view of life itself, both beautiful and str

RED BANK – Red Bank Public Library was about to celebrate its 80th anniversary in 2017 when Linda Hewitt, the library’s circulation supervisor, outreach and program coordinator, decided it might be fun to conduct a walking tour of the town as part of the celebration. To make it happen, Hewitt enlisted the help of retired teacher, lifelong borough resident and dedicated library volunteer Kathy Lou Colmorgen. Colmorgen, a veteran traveler who taught elementary school in Middletown for 37 years,

FAIR HAVEN – Next Monday, with the bustle of holiday chores behind them, George and Kathy Dorn Severini will be doing what they’ve done together on many Christmas Eves. The longtime Fair Haven residents will be leading a Christmas sing-along at the piano in the lounge at Nauvoo Grille. Snow might not be falling. The weather may be warm. But Christmas will be coming anyway, as it has always done, through good times and hard years, bringing with it a few brief hours to celebrate, to count our bl

ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – The weather outside was frightful, but inside the Atlantic Highlands Arts Council gallery at 54 First Ave. things were as sweet as – well, gingerbread – as the council hosted its semi-annual Gingerbread House workshop. Sitting amidst an array of candy canes, gumdrops, nonpareils, Tootsie Rolls, marshmallows, sprinkles and cookies, about 15 aspiring gingerbread house makers glued their walls and raised high the roof beams under the expert tutelage of arts council board membe

Part of the Two River Times 25th Anniversary Commemorative Coverage Fox News television correspondent Geraldo Rivera is in the middle of a phone call in his 17th floor corner office in New York City, speaking rapid fire Spanish to the person on the other end of the phone. As the conversation concludes, the man that just about everyone in America recognizes by his first name alone turns himself to the next task at hand: a trip down the river of time to the days when he was majority owner and man

Google the words, “Two River” and you’ll see a slew of businesses by that name: Two River Computer, Two River Realty, Two River Theater and, of course: Two River Times – to name just a few. But like a modern Brigadoon, the Two Rivers didn’t fully come into being as a community until it came alive in the imagination of a woman named Claudia Ansorge. Ansorge is the founder and past publisher of The Two River Times. By the time she published the first issue of this newspaper in 1990, Ansorge had

SHE GOT TO meet her idol, Gregg Allman. And she got to dress to the nines and walk the red carpet, wearing she noted, “gorgeous black diamond earrings” she’d borrowed from the Gold Tinker in Deal, not to mention her $29 boots from Daffy’s. Sea Bright musician Linda Chorney earned her place as a Grammy nominee in the Best Americana category after 30 years on the road and 5 self-produced albums. Her history-making nomination in a category that included Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris, Ry Cooder and