Car of the future?

HERE IS A BIT OF HISTORY I BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW Hours after Pearl Harbour was bombed on December 7, 1941, the Secret Service found themselves in a bind. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was to give his Day of Infamy speech to Congress on Tuesday, and although the trip from the White House to Capitol Hill was short, agents weren’t sure how to transport him safely. At the time, Federal Law prohibited buying any cars that cost more than $750, so they would have to get clearance from Congress to do that, and nobody had time for that. One of the Secret Service members, however, discovered that the US Treasury had seized the bulletproof car that mobster Al Capone owned when he was sent to jail in 1931. They cleaned it, made sure it was running perfectly and had it ready for the President the next day.

Provided by...Romeo Cascaes – Freehold Officialdom; Former Freehold Township Republican Municipal Chair, and Former Freehold Township Mayor  

Al Capone Car

Al Capone’s 1928 Cadillac V-8 “Al Capone” Town Sedan became the President’s Limo December 1941

Al Capone Car2

Al Capone Car 4 Al Capone Car 5

Mechanics are said to have cleaned and checked each feature of the Caddy well into the night of December 7th, to make sure that it would run properly the next day for the Commander in Chief. And run properly it did. It had been painted black and green to look identical to Chicago ‘s police cars at the time. To top it off, the gangster’s 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan had 3,000 pounds of armour and inch-thick bulletproof windows. It also had a specially installed siren and flashing lights hidden behind the grille, along with a police scanner radio.

Al Capone Car 6

Al Capone Car 7

 JUST CALL ME AL, IT’S AL ALL THE TIME! BUDDY CAN YOU SPARE A DIME (OR A CAR IN THIS CASE)

“Senator Jennifer Beck’s 9th Annual Concert at the Stone Pony”

March, 2015 – Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony.

Jennifer Beck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you “Senator Jennifer Beck’s 9th Annual Concert at the Stone Pony”, on March 19th, you’ll just have to brood and go next year. The music by Bob Burger & Friends was great. Speaking of friends, Jennifer has many. They showed up for a good time, and were not disappointed. A little food and drink, plenty of conversation, no politics, and a wonderful experience at the historic place that Bruce Springsteen often considers his musical home.

Jen Beck Stone Pony

See you there next year!

Governor Chris Christie’s Town Hall in Freehold

Governor Christie highlighted his budget and reform initiatives in addition to answering questions from members of the audience at a Town Hall meeting in the hometown of Bruce Springsteen, the governor’s musical hero.

Gov. Christie

 

 

 

Governor Chris Christie came to Freehold this week, March 17, 2015, to meet citizens for his 131st town hall meeting at the National Guard Armory. As often the case, his comments receive much media attention from the likes of CBS News, Wall Street Journal, Newark Star Ledger, and the Associated Press, to name a few. While their attention was on his key issue of the budget plan, not so from our local Asbury Park Press. They seemed to lead with, although important, a Spelling Bee contest and their leaning against the PARCC testing.

As reported, the Governor’s comments focused on his proposed budget plan concentrating on issues such as the need to reduce health care costs, to fund the state’s pension liabilities resulting from past administrations from both parties. Christie contended that his predecessors, including Governors Christine Todd Whitman and James Florio, hadn’t paid their fair share in the pension plan.

“I’m like the guy who showed up for dinner at dessert and then everybody went to go to the bathroom and never came back, and I got the check,” Christie told the audience. “That’s fine. That’s the job I ran for and it’s the job I’ve been elected to twice and I’m not complaining about it. But you need to know the facts.”

He also expressed that his proposed changes to the budget would help to reverse the state’s repeated credit downgrades. “I believe if we were able to fix this problem that our bond rating would go up significantly.”

A highlight of the event was during the question and answer period, in his neatly pressed Troop 33 khaki scout uniform, 12 year old Zachary Seemar of Brick Township, reading from a carefully typed script provided by his mother Kathleen, asked if the governor was “aware of how difficult Brick’s permit review process is for families like ours trying to rebuild,” and “if there is anyone at the state level we can go to for assistance?” Providing a pen for Zachary to write down his address and phone number, Christie promising to have someone from his office get in touch on Wednesday.

Indicating the he was “aware of how long the permitting process is taking in a lot of places,” Christie said, “We want to get you back as quickly as possible.” “First off, we’re happy to help. But each town wants to control their own zoning, and make their own decisions,” he said, adding that municipalities “get a bit touchy when the state gets too involved in that” but that the “extraordinary circumstances” of Sandy allowed the state to “have influence” on some of the permitting processes.

Mr. Christie’s 131st Town Hall in the hometown of Bruce Springsteen, the governor’s musical hero, is the initial meeting that he will continue to hold weekly in New Jersey, until the fiscal year closes out at the end of June.

Along Time Ago.

Main Street

Note the Strand Theater on the left.

It burned to the ground in 1962, just before I moved down here.

The County parking lot is now located where the theater stood.

Romeo Cascaes – Freehold Officialdom; Former Freehold Township Republican Municipal Chair, and Former Freehold Township Mayor