Welcome to Montclair: hornets, murder, Montclair? - By KIRSTEN D. LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local
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Welcome to Montclair: hornets, murder, Montclair? The Asian “murder hornet” has made it to America. COURTESY MAX MUSELMANN ON UNSPLASH By KIRSTEN D. LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local
Kirsten D. Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the KIRSTEN D. LEVINGSTON side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. News of “murder hornets” in North America — in Washington state and British Columbia, to be exact — has captured my attention. For starters, whose head doesn’t turn when you learn that something called a “murder hornet” exists? And wouldn’t a plague of insects fit perfectly with how 2020 is shaping up so far? Second, though these critters may pose a threat to other insects, there is little evidence that they bother people unless people bother them, in which case they are capable of repeatedly piercing skin (and beekeeper suits). People stung by the hornet have described it as feeling like “being stabbed with a hot metal pin.” Despite the minimal threat to humans, the ridiculously sensationalized and overhyped news coverage is perversely welcome amid a pandemic that is destroying lives, livelihoods, and the global economy. The hornet’s official name is Vespa mandarinia, an apt descriptor for an orange-striped insect that flies at speeds up to 25 miles per hour. The world’s largest hornet, adult V. mandarinia are 2 inches long, the size of those baby carrots you may be chomping on incessantly these days. Though native to Japan and other Asian countries, last year a V. mandarinia showed up in Washington state, likely after hitching a ride on the wrong vessel. Might they turn up one day in Montclair?
Our town could be an attractive landing spot for V. mandarinia, what with our large trees, expansive gardens, and New Jersey’s adoration of bees. The honeybee, V-man’s favorite food group, was designated the official state insect in 1974 after a group of students from the Sunnybrae School in Hamilton Township created buzz around the idea. Currently Montclair is home to thriving communities of Vespa and Vespula vulgaris — scientific speak for hornets and wasps. A couple of years ago I discovered a Mini-Cooper-sized hornets’ nest in a tree in my yard. _______________________________________________________________________ READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR: TRUE LOVE AND MARRIAGE READ: HONEY ON ROSH HASHANAH, SAVING THE WORLD _______________________________________________________________________ The Asian “murder hornet” has made it to America. COURTESY YASUNORI KOIDE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Which seemed like a big deal until I saw one the size of a semi-truck hanging from a tree at Anderson Park — during the annual crafts show no less. If murder hornets did show in Montclair, they’d likely make a beeline to that show (assuming it happens this summer), reasoning that where there are honey vendors, there must be honey beehives. V-men get their “murder hornet” nickname for what they do in those beehives. As is the case in many species, among V. mandarinia the females do most of the work. Between summer and fall the ladies get together to carry out mass attacks on nests of other social insects, notably honeybee colonies. When a gal targets a beehive, she places a pheromonal mark on it that says, “Sisters, come help me get the goodies here.” (That’s a quote from Scientific American!) Her ride-or-dies show up to join in the slaughter. Meanwhile the worker bees inside the hive also whiff the scent and get into formation, preparing for attack.
This next part is where it gets real. Read on only if you can handle the truth. When V. (wo)mandarinia enter a beehive, they use the large pinchers on the tips of their mouths to decapitate every bee in sight. After overtaking the hive, they load up the immature bees still encased in wax and the thoraxes of slaughtered worker bees, carting them off to feed their own babies. Since honeybees from Asia have been dealing with V-(wo)man for generations, they have developed an ingenious defense strategy to protect their homes and families. If a lone V-(wo)man enters a hive, hundreds of worker bees jump on her and begin madly flapping their wing muscles. Inside the massive buzz ball, the temperature rises to 115 degrees Fahrenheit and carbon dioxide levels increase, simultaneously baking and suffocating the hornet. Might the simultaneous suffocation and warming of a creature by bees provide clues as to the etymology of the word “s-warming”? I’ll need to check that. In Jersey our honeybees — which are from Europe, not Asia — don’t know this “s-warming” trick, and hopefully will never need to. Entomologists and everyday bee-lovers are working to stop V. mandarinia from taking off in the U.S. Hornet hunters in New Jersey, on the lookout for V-men, have sent specimens to insect experts at Rutgers, who thankfully have confirmed the bugs were not of the murder hornet variety. “The species has not yet been detected this spring, and we do not expect them on the East Coast,” according to Dina M. Fonseca, director of the Center for Vector Biology in the Department of Entomology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick. For now, I will look out for reports on murder hornet sightings and release of the Netflix show “Real Murder Hornets of Seattle” – copping a new kind of buzz. Welcome to Montclair: true love and marriage
The heart pumps blood, and hands make a heart.COURTESY TIM MARSHALL ON UNSPLASH By KIRSTEN D. LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local
KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON Kirsten D. Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. Today heart-shaped boxes filled with chocolates, skimpy negligees, and fulsome rose bouquets are Valentine’s Day staples, but they were not part of its origin story. The tale of St. Valentine is open to several interpretations, none are for the faint at heart. According to one, Valentine was a third century priest in Rome at the time of Emperor Claudius II. When the Emperor decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, the story goes, viewed this decree as unjust. He ignored it, instead marrying young lovers in secret. When Claudius discovered the priest’s defiance the Emperor ordered that he be put to death. And we thought election year politics were rough. Rome was not the only empire to behave like a stereotypical mother-in-law-to-be by undermining marriage to further dubious goals. In the USA marriage bans have been used to promote blatant racism and to preserve whiteness. While New Jersey law has never banned interracial marriage, forty one of our fifty states have banned them. Massachusetts’ interracial marriage ban ended in 1843, Ohio’s ended in 1887, and California’s was repealed in 1948. Up until 1967 marriage between people of different races was a crime in Virginia (whose motto, by the way, is “Virginia is for Lovers”) and fifteen other states, including all of the Southern states. That year the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case brought by a black woman and a white man who faced jail time in Virginia for getting married. The facts were simple; the injustice was obvious. The Court ruled for love, finding all interracial marriage bans to be unconstitutional. That Supreme Court case also wins the prize for having a name that best explains the stakes: Loving v. Virginia. ________________________________________________________________________ READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; THE CPA COULD BE MORE OPEN READ: MOTHER MATTERS; CELEBRATE LOVE WITH CHILDREN ________________________________________________________________________ States across the country have also denied love between people of the same sex. Preserving the institution of marriage for men who marry women, and women who married men, denied gay and lesbian couples and families the ability to fully integrate into society, and to enjoy the benefits and protections marriage provides. After decades of struggle, in 2013 gay and lesbian couples convinced New Jersey courts to recognize their freedom to marry. Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court channeled Valentine once again, ruling that same-sex couples across the country have the right to marry.
Take that, Claudius. Far from that emperor’s Rome, Montclair is known for supporting lovers. Over 20 years ago, Interrace Magazine, a publication for-and-about interracial couples and families, conducted a poll asking people to rank which cities were most welcoming for interracial couples and families. Montclair topped the list. According to a 1998 Washington Post article “[i]n open-minded suburbs such as Montclair, outside New York City, mixed-race couples … are so common that they rarely turn heads.” Perhaps you saw that article when you were house hunting? Perhaps it even convinced you to move here. Montclair, along with our neighbors Maplewood and South Orange, is also known for welcoming gay and lesbian couples and families. When New Jersey courts ruled in favor of freedom to marry, supporters gathered here, in front of the First Congregational Church, to celebrate the decision. At the stroke of midnight on the first day people of the same sex could marry, two Montclair residents tied the knot at First Congregational, making our town the site of one of NJ’s first same-sex marriage ceremonies. The next time I pass that beautiful stone building at the corner of Fullerton and Plymouth I’ll think of its place in our state’s history. Step back Virginia, Montclair truly is for lovers. Welcome to Montclair: The CPA could be more
open
The Citizens Police Academy could be more open. KIRSTEN D. LEVINGSTON/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL By KIRSTEN D. LEVINGTSTON For Montclair Local KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON Kirsten D. Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. An intriguing email from the Montclair Police Department recently hit my inbox, an invitation to apply for the town’s 2020 Citizen Police Academy (CPA). Sign up to receive Montclair alerts and newsletters and you, too, will receive such an invite. Grow up with a dad who was a cop, like I did, and you might even geek out when it arrives. Officer Travis Davis of the Montclair Police Department Community Service Unit responded right away when I reached out to learn more, explaining the CPA is a free, nine-week course that teaches community members about a range of topics including police training, use of force, narcotics investigations, and domestic violence. Police departments from Montclair, Bloomfield, Verona, East Orange, and Glen Ridge jointly sponsor the CPA, and residents of those towns get first dibs on the 65 seats available. Across the country police departments host local Citizen Police Academies as a way to improve relationships, and strengthen trust and respect between police officers and the people they serve. One officer from another
state described them as a way to increase community empathy and sympathy for officers by humanizing them. ________________________________________________________________________ READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; A LIST TO EMBRACE GRATITUDE READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR: HALLOWEEN GOODS, WITH CAT _______________________________________________________________________ Unless you have lived with a police officer, you may not know that most officers never fire their guns, or that some have a dope moonwalk — subjects that may (or may not) be addressed in the program curriculum. The Montclair Police Department’s commitment to community relations is strong. In 2017 New Jersey’s Attorney General even honored our community policing unit for its success. As a Montclair parent and resident I’ve seen the department’s commitment to racial equity on display at our schools and in our streets. But Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we celebrate this weekend, would not have been able to participate. Though they vary from department to department, when you apply to participate in a CPA, police departments check whether you’ve had contact with the police, been arrested, or have any type of criminal conviction. These application requirements send a clear message to people with criminal histories — you are not welcome. King would not have cleared a background check. Nationally, between 70 million and 100 million — or as many as one in three Americans — have some type of criminal record. The Montclair Police Department’s CPA application informs people that “[a] background check will be conducted on all applicants and access may be denied to those with a criminal arrest record.” To be eligible, you must have no felony convictions (ever) and no misdemeanor convictions within the last three years. While the MPD police chief may waive or modify any of the participation requirements, the background check remains a hurdle someone with a record may not want to bound over. I became interested in checking out other police departments, and discovered some are even more restrictive. The police department in Fairfax County, Va., says it’s looking for CPA applicants “from different ethnicities, professions, cultural backgrounds, orientations, age groups, and communities … in order to enrich class discussions and strengthen community relationships.” But FCPD’s Kumbaya becomes a Kumbay-bye when it comes to people with a history. FCPD, like many other departments, requires applicants to “clear a review of your criminal record and police contact history prior to acceptance.” Montclair’s CPA experience should be accessible to everyone in our community with a good faith interest in
police-community relations. Period. Who better to complement a police officer’s discussion of the arrest process than someone who has actually felt handcuffs grip their wrists? If Montclairites who’ve had an encounter with the justice system — including a negative one — are willing to devote nine weeks to improving police-community relations, I’m all for it. Welcome to Montclair: a list to embrace gratitude
Dem Two Hands offers unique items. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL By KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local Kirsten D. Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on
KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON theside. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. Because Thanksgiving snuck up on me this year, the Honeybaked Ham store is “catering” our meal — that is, if you consider shipping a box of frozen food to your doorstep “catering.” Cousin Lisa is contributing her delectable corn dish. Without sharing family secrets, I will disclose that bacon is involved. My mother-in-law is supervising preparation of her macaroni and cheese, crispy on top yet moist and cheesy everywhere else. Two home-cooked dishes on the table makes this a home-cooked meal in my book. After feasting I’ll enjoy three days in a row to tool around Montclair, get in the holiday spirit, and embrace gratitude. Four things are on my to-do list: Visit Dem Two Hands. The weekend after Thanksgiving is dubbed “Shop Small Saturday,” and my favorite small shop in Montclair is Dem Two Hands. At the corner of Fullerton and Claremont, Dem Two Hands overflows with unique and beautiful clothing, jewelry, handbags, and shoes. Owner Marion Lake, who opened the store in 1992, designs and sews some of the clothing. I discovered it when a friend hosted a shopping party there. We sipped champagne and counseled each other on what worked. Years later, a couple of days after my dad died, store staff gently guided me to the outfit I wore to his funeral. Shopping at Dem Two Hands feels like visiting the home of a friend with impeccable taste and full closets. ________________________________________________________________________ READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; HALLOWEEN GOODS, WITH CAT READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; TRAIN DRAMA, GLAD IT’S OVER ________________________________________________________________________
Go through my closets. Some of the closets in my house are as full as my stomach after a second slice of pumpkin pie. This weekend I will go through them to find winter clothes we don’t wear anymore. Montclair’s Human Needs Food Pantry at 9 Label St. welcomes donations, and provides winter clothing, food and other services to people who need them. Its next regular weekend drop-off is Saturday, Dec. 14, from 10 to noon. The Pantry has to discard about half of all donated clothing because it is unusable — worn out, stained, ripped. For this season I will use a slightly different test, instead asking how I would feel receiving the clothing as a gift under my tree.
Picking out a Christmas tree is a sign of the season. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCl
Pick out a Christmas tree. Thanksgiving rapidly blurs into Christmas. While the aroma of roasting turkey wafts through the house and Macy’s parade balloons float across the television screen, Pentatonix and Nat King Cole carol through my living room speakers. Before the weekend is out we’ll visit one of the many lots around town to select our tree. A couple of years ago my father-in-law helped us pick the best tree on the lot at the Cub Scout sale on Church Street. My mom, who lives on the other side of the country, has already slipped me a couple of gifts she wants her granddaughters to receive on Thanksgiving — ornaments for the tree. Give thanks year around. One way we’ve given thanks around our table is to remember people no longer with us. Today I will miss my father-in-law, who passed away in January just shy of his 97th birthday. He had very particular tastes that did not include turkey, but he enjoyed cherry pie a la mode. The gratitude I feel today for him, my family, and our comfort is something I want to hold tightly throughout the year. To help, I’ve taken one of my empty notebooks off the shelf and christened it a “2020 Gratitude Journal.” Every few days I will jot down something in it, and encourage (uh, nag) my kin to do the same. Instead of waiting a whole year to center gratitude at our table we should serve it up on a silver platter at every meal.
Gratitude journal. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL Welcome to Montclair: Halloween goods, with cat
A familiar cat face graces the author’s home every October. ADAM ANIK/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL By KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local Kirsten D. Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. My husband is a Halloween person. Me, not so much. As soon as the calendar flips to October he pulls out the three-foot-by-five-foot inflatable black cat with orange menacing eyes and massive paws. He plugs it in to make sure the motorized tail still moves from side to side, and places it in the front yard. Then the cat unfurls the ghoul heads shrouded in long cotton, inspecting the fabric to make sure moths have not yet turned the tunics into swiss cheese. Those hang in our tree. Checking the batteries in the skull sculpture comes next. The collection of shrunken heads, messily piled one atop the other, hangs on our front door. Frightening enough at rest, when you get close to it each skull moves to and fro. Their red eyes, which you didn’t even realize were there, start flashing. The sculpture groans and chants “chaw”, “chaw”, “chaw” — mimicking the terrifying sound effect from the movie Halloween. Halloween enthusiasm runs deep in these parts. Next door in Clifton, for over a decade a dentist has been transforming the outside of his office into a house of horrors. The corner lot on Grove Street is filled with
spiders the size of horses, bleeding-out zombie torsos, and ghosts hooked up to float above the roof. To his neighbors’ chagrin a steady flow of onlookers meander by the haunted office at night. Am I the only one who thinks a dentist office is scary as hell even without the props? ________________________________________________________________________ READ: HALLOWEEN; SPOOKY, SCARY ENTERTAINMENTS WE LOVE READ: PROGRAM NOTES; SCARING YOURSELF SWEET ON HALLOWEEN ________________________________________________________________________ My kids’ bounty of treats has included everything from full-size bags of fresh Swedish fish to Bobbi Brown lip glosses. One of their friends even has a Chinese food fest where kids can re-charge part-way through the night. My Halloween breakout moment came several years ago when I handed out decorated pencils instead of that poison known by its stage name —“sugar.” The following morning my mortified children helped me pick up the pencils that littered our yard. Fortunately, the disgruntled candy-seekers didn’t use one to puncture our inflated kit kat. Our most memorable Halloween was the one that didn’t happen until November. The date was October 28, 2012. As the east coast braced for what weather people were calling the “Frankenstorm,” we hosted a long- planned gathering. Our costume-clad guests frolicked in the backyard all afternoon, enjoying the unseasonably warm air. That year, I paired Frankenstein head-wear and storm-cloud angel wings, thumbing my nose at the dire weather prediction. Oops. Within 48 hours, Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey, downing trees and power lines, triggering power outages that lasted for weeks in some places, and generally wreaking havoc across the state. Months before stopping traffic elsewhere, Gov. Chris Christie put the brakes on trick- or-treating, officially postponing it for a week. Even if extraordinary events don’t disrupt Halloween 2019, I might still take a pass because my husband will be away. Who will don an elaborate, home-made costume? Who will bound to the door with each ring, ready to compliment every costumed kid who knocks? A big part of the fun for me is watching my jolly rancher enjoy the night. Without him around I see a rocky road. I’ve jotted down some other options for the night: Unplugging the black cat, turning out the lights, and binge-watching Fleabag on a dimmed laptop screen; Placing a tub of candy on the front porch along with a sign reading “two pieces only — Freddy is watching”; Disabling the doorbell and playing dumb; and Paying my kid and her friends 100 grand to cover the door.
This is a big decision — no snickers, please. Welcome to Montclair: Train drama: glad its over
The Hoboken train station produces anxiety and drama in NY-bound commuters. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL By KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON Kirsten D. Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. As much as you love summer, this year Sept. 9 couldn’t get here fast enough. That’s the day the NJ Transit “service changes,” launched in mid-June, finally came to an end. And the day you realized how good you have it. For that period NJ Transit eliminated Montclair’s weekday midtown direct trains — the ones that carry rush hour commuters directly into NYC — so it could repair tracks. Instead of making a beeline to Penn Station trains carried commuters only part way, to Hoboken. Once you arrived in Hoboken you picked your next adventure. For starters, when you stepped off the train a crowd of commuters moving in unison, briskly and purposefully, absorbed you. Like a living organism it pulsed forward, propelling you to a fork in the road where you chose how to continue the journey into the city: either as a mole person — traveling underground on the PATH train; or as a sailor, boarding a ferry to cross the Hudson. To avoid the remote possibility of contracting scurvy, you went for the PATH. ________________________________________________________________________
READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL? READ: AS MONTCLAIR GROWS, SO DO ITS PARKING PROBLEMS ________________________________________________________________________ As crowded as the Hoboken NJT platforms could be, at least they were out in the open with air, sun, and peeks of sky. Once you descended into the earth to access PATH trains your pupils dilated to take in the only light available — the glow of fluorescent tubes. Claustrophobics were not happy — the morning crowd rolled six and seven people deep from one end of the PATH platform to the other. Despite the efforts of a few whirring, but decrepit, fans hanging above, the only time the cavern’s heavy air circulated was when trains pulling in and out of the station made it swirl. A dusty smell hovered. The cracked paint on the walls and pillars was shades of blue. You wonder whether that color was chosen to convey design or mood. In the belly of the PATH you had to figure out which train would get you where you needed to go — the World Trade Center line with its downtown stops, or the 33rd Street line, the subterranean version of 6th Avenue. Selecting one of the four or five platforms upon which to stand was important, as each train line alternated from track to track. Standing in the wrong spot resulted in watching your train roll up on a platform across the way and you making a mad dash up stairs, over tracks, and back down again to board. Hard-to-find signage explained which train was next to arrive on which track, but you never quite figured out that system. The most consequential decision you made when riding the PATH was predicting which doors on the train would open first. The setup was such that passengers boarded from both sides of the train. BUT, doors on one side of the train opened before the others, giving riders on that side a 3 or 4-second jump on grabbing a seat. During the morning rush if you were not on the early-open side you were out of luck. After a few rides into the city standing in a packed train car, you vowed to position yourself on the side where doors opened first, standing on the platform’s narrow front end that could accommodate only a few people. Less competition that way. While not quite a last chopper-out-of-Saigon scenario, as the train approached you could smell desperation rising in the musty air. Would there be room for you on the train? Would you get a seat? You’d flashback to childhood experiences of “musical chairs,” when your heart raced in anticipation of that moment when the music stopped. Humming a revised version of that Chorus Line song — “God, I hope I get it, I hope I get it, How many people does [this train car hold]” — you’d watch as the PATH pulled closer, gradually reducing speed. By the end of the summer you’d figured where to stand to align with the doors when the train stopped. Like a 100-yard dasher, you had to anticipate the starter gun’s pop. When the doors parted you did what you had to do as bodies darted, hip checks were thrown, and bags blocked seats before butts did. Once seated you glanced up as the train pulled away, seeing the forlorn faces of those who didn’t make it, praying that you would not be them tomorrow. As fall begins and this drama ends, you want to hold on to its most important lesson. The next time an NJT train is late or canceled, or Penn Station is hot and crowded, you’ll still be grateful. Montclair’s direct train service is a gift.
Welcome to Montclair: school for ‘Scandal?’ Just keep swimming…
Crumbling stairwells turned out not to be an April Fools’ joke. KHARI JENKINS/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL By KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON Kirsten Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. Like a kindergartner preparing for first grade, I’m entering the 2019-2020 school year with trepidation. Unlike a 6-year-old, I actually have 12 years of Montclair Public School experience under my belt (as a parent, not a student). But I’m nervous anyway. A year ago, during the first week of the school year, part of a staircase collapsed at Montclair High School. When my daughter, a junior at the time, called me at work to tell me what happened I thought it was a late April Fools’ gag — until she sent a picture of the scene. Subsequent building inspections turned up problems with other staircases in the high school. Administrators closed the main building for a couple of days and opened it late for several more. Portions of the building remained inaccessible and unusable, forcing teachers to repurpose hallways, auditoria and other spaces into classrooms. Rumors circulated about when building repairs would happen and how they would affect class schedules and instruction. Students would receive virtual instruction; would go to school in the freshman building in shifts; would skip school altogether and go work in the salt mines (OK, the last one is made up). But, for real, it’s August and the repairs are ongoing. Fingers crossed — come Sept. 3 MHS will be ready for students.
In an attempt to understand what was happening with the stair crisis, I started attending Montclair Board of Education meetings. Turns out the crumbling stairwells are a metaphor for deep, structural problems in this district. At one meeting former board president Laura Hertzog dramatically announced she was stepping down, describing a palace coup in which other board members secretly maneuvered to replace her as president. “Sadly,” she said, “when I see this almost comical and hypocritical behavior, and ongoing pettiness, I must accept that the hard work that I have done to help change things has basically meant nothing. I understand that despite my best efforts, I am unable to change the toxicity that I have experienced while volunteering on this board.” Wait, had I accidentally stumbled on to the set of “Scandal?” Was that Olivia Pope peeking out from behind the blue curtain in the Inness Annex? _______________________________________________________________________ READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; THIS TOWN LOVES HER SOME JULY 4TH READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; AU PAIRS DISCOVER AMERICA _______________________________________________________________________ At the next meeting I attended district superintendent Kendra Johnson announced she would be leaving after a year in the job, citing her desire to practice self-care and be closer to family. The announcement wasn’t a revelation — days before, the news had broken online, forcing Johnson to share her plans earlier than she had intended. As frustrated as I’ve been with the chaos, I feel for Johnson. She had been our superintendent for just a few weeks when the stairs collapsed, along with any hope she would be able to carry out whatever agenda she brought with her. Our town has had a hard time finding and keeping school superintendents. This week the board intends to appoint an interim superintendent to replace Johnson while it searches for a permanent successor. By the time my daughter and her 2020 classmates graduate, they will have had at least three superintendents and three interim superintendents during their 12 years of matriculation. Consistent inconsistency. Still, this latest pause is an opportunity for the board and those who care about our schools to take a breath and identify the barriers that have prevented our superintendents from lasting and thriving. What tools, resources, safeguards, or guidance are necessary to ensure progress and success? Maybe the next superintendent needs a pope-like adviser to help them read the tea leaves and navigate the unique community and interpersonal dynamics — the toxicity — they may be stepping in to. Part of the solution has to be tapping into resources on full display at school board meetings. I’m talking about the MHS students who stand up during the public question-and-answer period to advocate — with reason and passion — for the issues they care about. The parents who attend meetings to hold the board and superintendent accountable and to support them in ensuring quality education for all Montclair students.
Teachers and staff, people whose lives and livelihoods are affected on a daily basis by the district’s turmoil, bring to these meetings constructive ideas and recommendations. (I see you, Mr. Manos.) These are the assets our next leader can marshal and lean upon. No doubt our 2019-2020 school year will have its challenges. In preparation for whatever is coming we can adopt a mantra that most soon-to-be first graders likely know: “Just keep swimming.” Welcome to Montclair: This town loves her some July 4th
Children wave to the parade as it comes their way, in 2017. ADAM ANIK/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL
By KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON
For Montclair Local
KIRSTEN LEVINGSTONKirsten Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. On the 4th of July, Montclair rolls out the red (white and blue) carpet, inviting the community to a daylong town party. Festivities start with a parade, followed by a Family Picnic at Edgemont Park, and are topped off by a fireworks show at Yogi Berra stadium on the MSU campus. Montclair’s celebration is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourselves. Independence Day revelry was never my thing, unless you consider hitting up sales racks at the mall and gorging on Bomb Pops to be legitimate commemorations of the Declaration’s signing. My first July 4th in Montclair changed that. The year was 2009; the first black president was about to mark his first Independence Day in office. Energized and proud, as the holiday approached I bought a package of mini-flags, planting them in my front yard and taping them to the front door. Beholding a new beauty in the symbol, I no longer saw the stripes as horizontal bars. Instead they stood vertical, like ladders to climb up, up high enough to grab the stars. ________________________________________________________________________ READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; AU PAIRS DISCOVER AMERICA READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; READING BUILDS COMMUNITY ________________________________________________________________________ Primed for a party, Montclair’s Independence Day parade, a town tradition for seven decades, summoned. My family staked out a choice viewing spot along the parade route on Midland Avenue and set up our chairs. Attending this parade is not a spectator sport. Between joining in anti-war chants, leaping to grab candy tossed in to the crowd, and dancing to the live music, we stayed on our feet. At one point we even had a brief exchange about tax policy with a then-congressman as he passed by waving to the crowd. In 2018 many of his constituents, frustrated about his policy positions and his unwillingness to host a town hall, relentlessly protested at his office. He decided not to seek a 13th term. Presumably his successor, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, will be the one waving this year.
Bubbles make the holiday festive. ADAM ANIK/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL If you don’t eat during the parade (well, even if you do), the Edgemont Memorial Park Family Picnic is a natural next stop. For our inaugural picnic we brought a blanket, a food-filled picnic basket, and a plan to lounge in the sun. Two tips. There’s no need to bring food; vendors are there selling it. And, you’ve got to lounge with care in Edgemont’s grass. People aren’t the only ones who flock there — Canada geese love it too — so use caution when throwing down your blanket. Ending the day with the fireworks show at Yogi Berra baseball stadium is, well, da bomb — loud, smoky and bright, and possibly concussive — though after at least a half dozen trips to the show no one in my family has received an official diagnosis. Long before the sun goes down and the fireworks shoot up, the stadium is abuzz with music, mingling, and contests engineered by promotions staff for the New Jersey Jackals — the team that calls Berra stadium home. On game days they hype up the crowd to root, root, root for the home team. On the Fourth they pump it up to root for home: “Go, Freedom!” My favorite contest is the tennis ball toss, where people throw balls from the stands, trying to land them inside one of many hula-hoop type contraptions spread out on the infield. If the ball lands inside the circle, you win a prize. (Jackals tickets, anyone?) I never win, but it’s lots of fun to try. Surviving Montclair’s July 4th demands a little planning, a little savvy, but mostly stamina. To get through the day consider advice from Yogi Berra himself, who said, “I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.”
Welcome to Montclair: Au Pairs discover America
Kirsten Levingston’s first au pair, Grasiela Avelar, from Brazil, left the family these designs. COURTESY KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON.
By KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON
For Montclair Local
KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON
Kirsten Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the side. In “Welcome to
Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in The New York Times,
Huffington Post and Baristanet.
When I was a kid, my grandmother or the woman down the street from my grandmother took care of my
brother and me while our parents worked. When my own children were young, our babysitter came to our
Brooklyn apartment each morning to care for them. After moving to Montclair another childcare option and
term entered my lexicon: “au pair.”
Perhaps you have hosted an au pair or known a Montclair family that has hosted one, a young person from
another country who lives with a U.S. family and studies for up to two years, and in exchange spends about 40
hours a week taking care of children and helping out around the house. For a young person from another
country, Montclair must be an attractive place, what with all this town offers and New York City just 12 miles
down the road.
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READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; READING BUILDS COMMUNITYREAD: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; A LOCAL PASS OVER _____________________________________________________________________ My husband and I discussed going the au pair route after our train home from work was delayed one too many times, making us late retrieving our kids from summer camp. Child pickup time is dimensionally different than regular time. Arriving at 5:45 p.m. for a 5:30 pickup feels like arriving for a party the day after it happened. Having live-in child care would relieve the stress of getting home on time for pickups or to relieve a baby sitter. We also liked the idea of being part of a “cultural exchange”— learning about another person’s country, while they learned about ours. The combined expenses for an au pair: the weekly stipend, fee to the au pair agency, spare bedroom, and some other expenses, were less than our Brooklyn child care costs. But I was uneasy. What would it be like having a stranger living in my home? Let’s face it, the idea of having any kind of “live-in” help seems a bit pretentious. Back when we had a babysitter people sometimes referred to her as our “nanny”; even that made me bristle. I’m a Black woman with roots in the South. My relatives were (and are) the industrious and hardworking women who, often because of limited opportunities, lived in and cared for White children and families, sacrificing autonomy, and time with their own children and families. The thought of having people living and working in my home triggered a complicated mix of the personal, social and political concerns.
After a bit of hand wringing and introspection, our scale tipped in favor of hosting. People choosing the au pair program would be unencumbered (theoretically), and seeking out this adventure. For us, having someone who would get our kids to and from their destinations on time, and having an adult close by — just in case — would provide peace of mind. Since 2008 we’ve hosted three au pairs, one from Brazil and two from Colombia. Our final au pair (now on a student visa) continues to live with us as she completes her studies. One of the secrets of our hosting success is that WE — our au pairs and my family — jointly shaped the terms of the relationship so we all got what we needed out of the arrangement. Still, if I had it to do over again I would do some things differently. Our au pairs told us that the agency coordinators assigned to help them navigate au pair life were often unavailable to provide support or advice. To build that community I would have introduced myself to other host families, encouraged our au pair to host get-togethers, and set up a Montclair Facebook or Whatsapp group to stay connected.
If I had to do it over, I’d also pay our au pair more. The au pair agency recommended we pay about $200 per week, far below minimum wage, and provide room and board. That’s what we did. But class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 100,000 au pairs against 15 agencies changes that. Though the agencies deny wrongdoing, this year a $65.5 million fund was created and invited people who served as au pairs between 2009 and 2018 — and received the recommended $200 stipend amount — to make claims for additional compensation. Our au pairs, and 99,997 like them, came to this country to work and learn, and ended up improving the situation for au pairs for those who come after them. They got more than they bargained for, and, gratefully, so did we.
Welcome to Montclair: reading builds community
The Montclair Public Library displays local authors. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL By KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON For Montclair Local Kirsten Levingston moved to Montclair in 2008. She works in the city and writes on the side. In “Welcome to Montclair” she explores the quirks of this special town. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post and Baristanet. Decades ago, television stations aired public service announcements encouraging children to read. In some of the spots a celebrity sat surrounded by children, talking up the importance of picking up a book. At the end of the ads the kids would shout the tagline in unison: “Reading is fundamental.” In Montclair, reading is fundamental to building community. Montclair encourages readers to ask both “what am I reading?” and “with whom am I reading?” After moving to Montclair from Brooklyn, four book club invitations were slipped under my door before I had even unpacked my paperbacks. One was from fellow Brooklyn transplants, another from people from work, a third from lawyer friends, and I can’t even remember who rounded out the quartet. Socializing around prose has always made sense to me. Once we celebrated my daughter’s birthday at the Brooklyn Public Library on Grand Army Plaza — a “Very Hungry Caterpillar”-themed throwdown complete with story time, serpentine cake, and goody bags with copies of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” and “The Grouchy Ladybug,” equally compelling Eric Carle titles eclipsed by their voracious, shape-shifting sibling. And I have fond memories of participating in Scholastic book fairs in elementary school. After making our purchases we’d return to homeroom, spread out on the floor, and giddily begin a barter ritual akin to the post-Halloween candy exchange. ________________________________________________________________________ READ: WELCOME TO MONTCLAIR; A LOCAL PASS OVER READ: MONTCLAIR LITERARY FESTIVAL; A FESTIVAL OF BOOKS AND IDEAS ________________________________________________________________________ “Book club” is a misnomer for the activities undertaken by the collection of brilliant women I fell in with after moving here. We read and discuss books, sure. We also see movies, sip wine, celebrate new jobs and promotions, and plot activism. Our literary choices sometimes inspire our meeting menus. The evening we discussed “The Handmaid’s Tale”
I brought red velvet cupcakes, sweet homage to Offred and her sisters. And when we discussed Elizabeth Alexander’s beautiful memoir, “The Light of the World,” I prepared her husband’s recipe for Shrimp Barka (see pages 9-10), “Eritrean fantasia food,” as Alexander describes it, combining tomatoes, dates, coconuts, parmesan cheese and magic. Reading may be fundamental here because we are overrun with writers, real-life authors in residence. Local literati are so plentiful that our library has book displays dedicated to authors who live in the township. Our librarians have even spiced up the Dewey Decimal system by creating a special tag for the spines of books written by Montclair authors. Even writers who live elsewhere make it a point to stop in Montclair on their book tours. I’ve enjoyed author talks at Watchung Booksellers (“Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination,” Professor Alondra Nelson), the Buzz Aldrin Middle School auditorium (“Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina,” Misty Copeland & townie Charisse Jones), and Central Presbyterian Church (“An American Marriage,” Tayari Jones). Michelle Obama may not have passed through during her Becoming tour, but Montclair-based authors who wrote about her in “The Meaning of Michelle,” a collection of essays about her cultural significance, recently appeared as part of the Montclair Public Library’s Open Book/Open Mind series. When “Becoming” hits shelves in paperback perhaps Obama will reconsider. Until then, this month we can enjoy the Montclair Literary Festival presented by Succeed2gether, a non-profit that provides children and families who lack equal access to educational resources with free, high quality enrichment and academic programs. Launched in 2017, the festival seeks “to engage the entire community in a celebration of reading, books, and Montclair’s vibrant and diverse literary scene.” The event, which runs from March 20-24, features more than 130 authors, poets, and other participants appearing in venues across town — the Montclair Art Museum, Succeed2gether’s office on Pine Street, the Montclair Public Library, First Congregational Church and Watchung Booksellers. One night there is a poetry slam open to middle school and high school artists and another day is the “Ultimate Book Club Experience,” where clubs can speak to authors they’ve read. Year-round, the Adult School of Montclair offers classes focused on literary treasures. A recent workshop –“Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow: A Close Reading of Romeo & Juliet”—was taught by Yale-trained thespian Geoffrey Owens, who has actually appeared in the tragedy on Broadway. “One act at a time, participants will experience the thrill of reading aloud the world’s greatest romantic drama. The reading will be accompanied by the instructor’s comments regarding literary, historical and theatrical elements.” Brilliant! Adult School of Montclair, can you please offer this course again (asking for a friend)?
Hometown authors on display at Montclair Public Library. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON/FOR MONTCLAIR LOCAL
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