Train, Bon Jovi on Shanna's summer concert list

Kevin & Kathy and Shanna were among the crowd at the Jones Beach Theater on July 23rd to see Train, the California pop rock band in the midst of its "Mermaids of Alcatraz" tour. Shanna writes: "Gavin DeGraw and The Script were the opening acts. They were both amazing and it was like we had already seen a full show before Train even started."

"Train had a great performance and we all agree that it was one of the best concerts that we have ever seen."

But wait, there's more!

"On Saturday, Rick and I went to MetLife Stadium to see Bon Jovi. We were able to tailgate before the show, which was a lot of fun. Bon Jovi was great and played to a packed stadium for three hours straight. It was really cool to see such a great show in a stadium with so many people."

In the photo above, Rick and Shanna stand near their floor-level seats. Behind them is a huge mock-up of the front end of a 1959 Buick on the stage where Bon Jovi performed.

Photo by Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger

Cicadas and 17 Years: A personal essay by Dan

Christine holds a 2013 cicada

When the cicadas began emerging in our yard this spring, it came as no surprise. Julie and I lived in this same house in 1996, the last time Magicicada Brood II appeared in parts of New Jersey and other states along the Atlantic coast. And while the noise and the mess they make are a nuisance for sure, to me their reappearance after a long interval felt a bit like meeting an old acquaintance, or revisiting a place from my past.

It especially brought me back to one particular moment in 1996.

Christine, with her cousin Shanna, on Memorial Day 1996 - at the same spot where she first discovered a cicada that same spring.

At that point we had lived in our New Jersey house for six years – and had not previously encountered these particular insects. I’m not even sure if we’d heard any advance reports that they were due to appear. One weekend afternoon, my three-year-old daughter Christine and I were in the backyard, and I was clipping a bush or maybe pulling some weeds, when she came up behind me asking, “Daddy, what’s this?”

I turned around and she held up to my face this bizarre, creepy thing -- like an alien creature with two heads and multiple appendages. I had no idea what I was looking at.

If I recall correctly, my reply to my daughter’s question was: “GggyyyyAAAHHH!” But my shock didn’t faze her. She continued to hold the strange thing, examining it and watching it squirm around in her hand.

The thing, of course, was a cicada emerging from the brown shell in which it had crawled up into our yard from several feet below the ground. Soon there were zillions of them around our house and neighborhood, and of course we quickly learned about the life cycle of the periodical cicada. After six weeks or so they were gone, and quickly faded into memory.

This spring, news reports reminded us that they were coming around again, so we were ready when we started seeing cicadas here and there in late May. Still, we saw something this year that we must have missed last time.

The emergence, May 27, 2013

On Memorial Day, as we sat on our patio after burgers on the grill, I noticed Christine looking closely at the lawn and went over to see what she was looking at. It was quite a sight: The grass was crawling with brown-shelled cicadas that had suddenly emerged by the thousands.

As we watched, they moved across the yard toward the trees and fences around the edge, then crawled up the trunks and planks. There they started emerging from their shells – white, wormy things that soon fledged out into their black, winged adult form. Christine picked up various specimens to examine.

Andy and Shannon examine a Magicicada

But this time, she was not a curious three-year-old. This time, she was a 20-year-old woman – still a big fan of nature and all creatures great and small – stepping gingerly, barefoot, across the grass to experience and study this phenomenon. This time, she was showing the critters to her boyfriend. And to her brother, not quite 17, who hadn’t been born the last time these insects came around, and his 17-year-old girlfriend, too young to remember them.

It was a scene guaranteed to make one acutely aware of the passage of time – of how much changes as the years go by and how much does not. Seventeen years ago, Christine and I discovered cicadas together in this same yard, behind this same house. At that time, Julie and I were expecting Andy. We’d been married about seven years; our family, our house, our life together still felt new. I had been married before, and my 18-year-old daughter, Marie, and 15-year-old son, Danny, lived an hour or so away.

Christine and Julie, Memorial Day 1996

Memorial Day 1996: Shanna, Danny, Brien, Marie, Kevin, Christine, Kevin

That Memorial Day, we invited my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews to a little party in our backyard, along with Marie and Danny. I'm not sure if that was just before or just after the cicadas emerged that year; I don't remember them crashing our cookout that time.

A few weeks later, Marie graduated from high school. Not long after the cicadas born that summer began their 17-year stay underground, Andy was born. Soon, Marie and Danny moved with their mother to California.

Dan and Marie in California, 1999

Over the years since, Marie married Brian, moved a couple of times, gave birth to their son, Xander, moved a couple more times and settled in Virginia. Xander is now an astonishing six years old. Dan has remained in California, working and enjoying West Coast life.

Marie, Brian and Xander at home in Virginia

Since 1996, Julie and I have each changed jobs a couple of times, watched our children grow and (hopefully helped them) mature into smart young adults. Christine is half-way through college and Andy is in the college-search phase as he enters his senior year of high school.

Things change; we grow older. I miss my dad, who died two and a half years ago, and my mom, who has faded into late-stage Alzheimer’s. We’re lucky to still have Julie’s parents, going strong in their 80s. Julie and I are doing our best to hold off the effects of age. I am, as people used to say, “pushing 60,” while she can still claim “mid-50s.”

Cicadas of 2013. Photo by Christine

The cicadas that were born this summer will emerge in 2030. Where will any of us be then? At this stage, I can only hope to see one more emergence, and that assumes I live well into my 70s. The three-year-old cicada girl of 1996 and her younger brother will be 30-somethings, well into their lives, careers, possibly marriages, possibly parenthood. My older children will be middle-aged, and my grandson will be a young adult, probably already out of school and working. I can only hope they’ll all be healthy and happy.

Maybe Julie and I will still be in this same house; maybe we’ll be in some retirement community, or roaming the country in a motorhome. Maybe some other family will be watching the cicadas emerge from this backyard after a barbecue in late May, 2030.

If this house, this yard, this town, this world is still here and more or less the same. After all, a lot can happen in 17 years.

Balloons, music and fireworks at an NJ festival

On a beautiful July evening, Dan, Julie, Christine, Andy and his girlfriend Shannon caught part of the annual New Jersey Festival of Ballooning in Readington, N.J.

Heading there after work on Friday night, they arrived just as the last of the balloons were making their sunset ascent. They enjoyed the evening's entertainment - a concert by Blues Traveler, followed by an excellent fireworks show.

Warmth, waves and wildlife on LI

Dan, Julie, Christine and Andy made a quick trip to Noyac last weekend and managed to keep fairly cool despite the heat and humidity. Above, Christine and Andy soaked in Mill Creek on Saturday afternoon while a couple of cormorants hung out nearby.


That evening they watched the sun set and the moon rise at the Ocean Road beach in Bridgehampton. An onshore wind had stirred up the surf and made the air much cooler than it was inland.


On Sunday the foursome visited Jessup's Neck, hiking the nature trail to the beach for a splash and continuing the tradition of hand-feeding the bolder members of the wildlife preserve's population.


Dan reports: "There seemed to be fewer chickadees this year than in the past, or else they just weren't very hungry, but we did feed a few. Meanwhile, another species of bird - tufted titmouse, we think - has apparently learned the trick of landing on an open palm to take sunflower seeds. Christine and Andy each fed at least one of those. And Christine persuaded a chipmunk to snatch some seeds as well."

Here are a few photos of the critter encounters - including a shot that captures one of the birds in mid-flutter.



And just for fun, here's a slideshow of a series of pictures Dan caught as a cormorant took flight over Mill Creek.

Stephanie's artwork wins top honors at county fair

Stephanie created this piece in colored pencil and marker for a school art class, and it was selected by her teacher for a school exhibit. This month, she entered it in the Franklin County (Ohio) Fair. It won a first-place blue ribbon - and was selected as Best in Show. "So proud of my Stephanie," said her mom, Cathy.

A hot and sunny Fourth at the beach

Kathy and Kevin, son Kevin, daughter Kathy and her boyfriend Rick headed out to Noyac on the Fourth of July and stayed until Sunday.

Kevin writes: "Hot but gorgeous weather everyday! On Thursday we went to Mecox beach for some sun, waves and frisbee.

"We watched fireworks at the back beach Thursday night - which were pretty close to professional grade! It seems to be becoming a pretty big back-beach event, as there were probably over 100 people gathered to watch the show.

"On Friday we met up with Vivien for a day at Long Beach, followed by some pizza with her on her family's deck.

"Saturday, Shanna and Rick explored the Hamptons, stopping in at Duck Walk wine vineyards in Water Mill and the Whaling Museum in Sag Harbor. Sunday it was back to the ocean, and then home."

We have reason to believe that there also was at least one visit to Big Olaf's in Sag Harbor during the weekend.

You know you're a marching band parent when...

 ... you spend your Fourth of July playing roadie to the band. Cathy hiked along as the Hilliard Darby High School Panthers Marching Band took part in the Independence Day parade in Hilliard, Ohio on Thursday.

Ye Olde Birthday Celebration for Brien

A couple of days after Brien's recent birthday, he celebrated with feasting and merriment at Medieval times in Lyndhurst, N.J., accompanied by Kevin and Kathy, Kevin, Shanna and her boyfriend Rick. They dined 11th Century-style and watched demonstrations of horsemanship and a jousting tournament featuring six knights in armor.

Kevin writes: "We were seated in the Yellow Knight's cheering section, but sadly, our knight met an untimely demise at the hands of the eventual champion, the Blue Knight." Nonetheless, he says, "A good time was had by all!"

Liz goes to Hollywood for curling with the stars

Liz traveled to Los Angeles for a curling bonspiel July 5-7 that included a charity match with some celebrity guests.

"I came out here with a team from Maryland, including my roommate Emily and her sister-in-law Morgan," Liz writes. Along with taking part in the competition, Liz got to play in the Hollywood Curling Club's first-ever celebrity game.

Liz, in Ravens #52 jersey, with her teammates and opponents in the celebrity match. Actor Mackenzie Astin is at Liz's left, in grey shirt and white cap. Actor Brendan Fehr is second from right.

"They had one celebrity and three curlers per team and you played against another celebrity's team. I played on a team with Mackenzie Astin, against one with Brendan Fehr and my teammate Morgan," Liz writes.

"Wil Wheaton was on the sheet next to me, so I didn't get to play with him, but asked him for a picture after the game." Wheaton, who was in the movie "Stand By Me" and played a teenaged crew member on "Star Trek: Next Generation," lately has made several appearances on CBS' "Big Bang Theory."

Getting together at 'The Lake'

Hugh and Dolores spent the end of June and beginning of July at their retreat on Deep Creek Lake.

Hugh writes: "Last weekend, Cathy came for a visit, and of course we had to go out to the Crab Shack for steamed hard crabs.

"On Tuesday, Dolores’s brother, Jack, and his wife, Barbara, came to spend the Fourth with us. We spent the holiday visiting Penn Alps in Grantsville, where we shopped in the Artisan’s Village and had lunch in the restaurant.

"They stayed over until Thursday, and since we had not seen them for awhile, we spent most of the time catching up."

Xander's art on exhibit

Catching up on an event from a month or so ago: The elementary school where Xander attended kindergarten this past school year held a student art show shortly before the end of the term.

Xander went with his parents and was pleased to see two of his works on exhibit. Yet another artist in the family!

Xander's is on the blue paper

Happy Independence Day 2013

Happy Fourth to all! Above and at right are pictures from Clark, N.J., where Dan Julie, Christine and her boyfriend Matt watched the annual fireworks show.

Andy and his girlfriend Shannon saw fireworks in Metuchen, N.J., where they were visiting her cousin.

We hear that Kevin & Kathy were checking out amateur displays at the "back beach" on Noyac Bay and planning to take in the pro show in Sag Harbor on Saturday night.

Let us know how you spent the Fourth! 

Tish shared this holiday-appropriate image (below) of her recent painting, "Summer at the Village Green."