During Wednesday's Maplewood Middle School moving up ceremony, School Board Member Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad, a guest speaker, told the students and parents that the recent weapons incident at the school could actually be a learning experience. Citing the arrest on June 3 of a 12-year-old boy with a loaded 9 mm. Glock pistol at the school, which sparked a tight security lockdown for several hours, Lawson-Muhammad said "learning how to properly navigate challenging times is an essential part of growing up. As much as your parents and adults around you want to shield you from difficult realities of the world, there comes a day when our shields are too small to cover you and you must walk the road alone."
We caught up with the buses heading out Wednesday night for Midnight Madness, the alcohol-free all-night graduation party for Columbia High School. The grads and chaperones were hitting the road to the undisclosed location at around 10:30 p.m., with plans not to return until this morning.
This is a reminder that our
Daily Pool Hours this week (June 22-26) are 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Next
week starting on June 29th, we will return to our normal daily hours of
12:00 pm to 8:00 pm Monday through Friday.
Special Event: This Saturday from 4:00
pm to 7:00 pm our inflatable obstacle course and water trampoline will
be set up in the Pool Area.
DJ Jimmy from New Jersey DJ Service LLC.
will be returning to provide music on the main pool deck during this
time. Come on out with the kids, and get ready to have a fun time.
Please be advised that Adult Swim, lap swimming (in the Main Pool), and
the dive tank will be unavailable during these three hours.
Maplewoodian Chris Nomura is known to many locals as a veteran youth baseball coach and father of three. But he's also an accomplished vocalist and is headed to Broadway. Nomura, a long-time opera professional, will make his Broadway debut in the much-anticipated Allegiance musical, which hits the great white way in October. The show focuses on a Japanese-American family suffering under the horrible internment camps of World War II.
The musical is the creation of former Star Trek star George Takei and is based in part of his own experience as a child in the abusive camps. You can pre-order tickets HERE.
If you were passing by the Maplewood Country Club Tuesday night at 9:30 p.m. you might have seen the massive crowd outside that was barred from entering the parking lot and spilled out into the street with police on the scene. No, it was not a crime scene, riot or public emergency. It was someone's idea of how to handle Maplewood Middle School students leaving their annual eighth grade dinner dance. Instead of allowing parents to drive into the country club lot and greet their youngsters in front of the building, the mob was formed outside and had to await students leaving and walking to the exit of the lot, where they signed out with adults. As you might expect, the approach caused traffic tie-ups, safety hazards in the street, and not a few upset parents.
Have you ever been locked out of your home?
Were you able to get in anyway? Now think about it…if you could break
into your own home, it's just as easy for someone else to break in, too.
It is important to take preventative measures now. Here are a few tips
that can help you keep you—and your property—safe and secure. Check Your Locks •Make
sure every external door has a strong, well-installed dead bolt lock.
If the door has a window in it or immediately next to it, make sure the
dead bolt is keyed on both sides and does not have a knob to unlock it
from the inside. Also make sure that the key is not left in the deadbolt
lock if there is a window within arms reach of it. •All
outside doors should be metal or solid wood. Install a peephole or
wide-angle viewer in all entry doors so that you can see who is outside
without opening the door. Door chains break easily and don’t keep out
intruders.
•If your doors don’t fit tightly in their frames,
have a professional evaluate them and install weather stripping or make
appropriate repairs.
•Sliding glass doors offer easy access if
they are not properly secured. You can secure them by putting a
broomstick or dowel in the inside track to jam the door or by installing
commercially available locks. To prevent the door being lifted off of
the track, drill a hole through the sliding door frame and the fixed
frame. Then insert a pin in the hole.
•Lock double-hung windows
with key locks or "pin" your windows by drilling a small hole at a 45
degree angle between the inner and outer frames, then insert a nail that
can be removed. You should secure basement windows with grilles or
grates (but make sure that they can be opened from the inside in case of
fire).
*If window air conditioning units are installed, they
should be properly secured. They must be screwed into place and the
window pinned so that the air conditioner cannot be removed or pushed in
from the outside. The window must also be secured in a way that does
not allow it to be moved or opened further from the outside.
•Never hide keys around the outside of your home. Instead, give an extra key to a neighbor you trust.
•When you move into a new house or apartment, re-key the locks.
*Make sure that windows are closed and properly locked even if there are screens in place. Check the Outside •Burglars
hate bright lights. Install outside lights and keep them on at night.
Motion-detector lights can be particularly effective.
•Keep
your yard clean. Prune shrubbery so it doesn’t hide windows or doors.
Cut back tree limbs that a burglar could use to climb to an upper-level
window. Consider placing thorny plants such as rose bushes underneath
windows.
•If you travel, create the illusion that you are at
home by getting timers that will turn lights (and perhaps a television
or radio) on and off in different parts of your home throughout the day
and evening hours. Lights burning 24 hours a day signal an empty house.
•Make sure you don’t let your mail and/or newspapers pile up.
Finally,
know your neighbors and watch out for one another. If you observed
suspicious behavior, individuals or vehicles, report them to the police
immediately. Provide the best possible descriptions of the individual or
individuals and why you feel they are suspicious.
