Dear Insider Editor and readers,
It has been a pleasure and a privilege for me to share my nature writings with you in the Insider during the last four and a half years. In mid-October, my wife and I moved to a retirement community in south central New Jersey. With this column, my Nature 101 series comes to a close.
In moving from the Granite State to the Garden State, my wife and I are returning to our roots where we both lived in the shadow of Philadelphia during our early years. She lived on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, north of Philly, and I grew up on the New Jersey side in Camden, which is just the part of Philly that jumped across the Delaware River. My wife received her nurse’s pediatric training in a Philadelphia hospital. On Oct. 17, my wife and I celebrated our 53rd wedding anniversary.
Our retirement community in New Jersey is near the famed Pine Barrens, which occupy 22 percent of the state’s land surface. With 1.1 million acres, it is the largest open space on the Atlantic seaboard between Richmond and Boston and is heavily forested. The area is dominated by pygmy pitch pines and oak trees, along with a few red and white cedars. Cranberries and blueberries grow in abundance. Other flora includes rare orchids and carnivorous plants. The soil is “sugar sand,” and the region has some of the purest water in the United States.
The Jersey Pine Barrens is the location of the Pineland’s National Reserve, which is the nation’s first national reserve. Meandering through the Pine Barrens are two rivers, the Maurice River and the Great Egg Harbor River, both of which are listed among our National Wild and Scenic Rivers.
The Pine Barrens is the home of the famous Jersey Devil. According to folklore, a woman pregnant with her 13th child in 1735 said, “I wish it were the devil!” The child was born a hideous monster that attacked the mother and flew up the chimney, disappearing into the barrens. There have been occasional “sightings” of this legendary ominous cryptozoological creature. The New Jersey hockey team got its name from the Jersey Devil as a result of a 1982 contest in local newspapers when 10,000 people voted to select the name. I may send readers a story about the Jersey Devil or any other strange natural or unnatural happenings I experience in my trekking through the Pine Barrens.
I will miss the many friends I have come to know during my five years in Concord. I wish Ben, Keith, Sherri, Reynold, Clay, Brenda and John along with the entire Insider staff the very best.
I hope you and your readers will continue to enjoy the invigorating grandeur of the great outdoors and the marvelous stories and photos about nature.
