Often when non-locals think of New Jersey, they think Sopranos, they think strip malls, they think of one big suburb of New York City and in some cases they’d be right. But there is much more to the Garden State than meets the uninitiated eye. Just scratch a tiny bit beneath the surface and you will find a beautiful state full of dense woodlands where deer frolic (until they are hit by speeding SUVs), charming, quaint colonial towns centered on greens and mainstreets, and miles and miles of sandy beached coastline.

One of my favorite places in New Jersey has always been the attractive town of Princeton. Originally a stagecoach stop between the equidistant cities of New York and Philadelphia, today’s Princeton is a vibrant small city chock full of historic sites, diverse eateries, lots of green space, and magnificent mansions.

Of course, the most famous thing in town is the eponymous University.  Founded in 1746, Princeton University is one of the eight Ivy League universities in the United States.  A walk around campus will not disappoint – Gothic architecture, arched doorways, stained glass windows, and the apropos ivy-covered buildings abound.  Some notable alums?  James Madison, Aaron Burr, Jr, Ralph Nader, Donald Rumsfeld, Brooke Sheilds, Jimmy Stewart and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And let’s not forget famous Princetonians like good old Albert Einstein, Mary Chapin Carpenter, architect Michael Graves, professor and mathematician John Nash, Jr. (portrayed by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind), actor Christopher Reeve, and President Woodrow Wilson.

A stroll around the compact downtown is a nice way to pass an afternoon. Shops, cafes, and bars line Nassau street and Palmer Square.  We stopped for a “beer flight” at the local cavernous Triumph Brewing Company. Princeton’s dining scene runs the gamut from independent cafes, the eclectic Asian cuisine to fine dining. We ducked into lively Mediterra which oddly had Mediterranean cuisine. If you ever happen to be around New Jersey, or want to take a break from the hustle and bustle of New York City, don’t miss an afternoon in Princeton, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Does anyone dispute that walking is good for you? It’s good for the heart. It’s easy on the joints. It helps clear the mind. And it gets you out into a new or old neighborhood allowing you to soak in the sights, sounds, and smells around you that you would most likely miss from a car.  While traveling, we often walk more than when we are at home. It’s a great way to really ‘see’ a new city. But I often like to walk as much as I can at home too. Sometimes cities are thought of as dirty, polluted population centers. But, for the most part, this is simply not the case anymore. Many urban areas across the United States have revitalized and poured lots of funds into their downtown centers – greening, beautifying, and turning old, now defunct warehouse spaces (i.e. Chicago’s West Loop Market District) and even rail lines (i.e. Manhattan’s former High Line elevated train tracks) into new work and living spaces and parks.

Here are some great reasons to get out there and hit the pavement according to walkscore.com, a nifty site started by some Seattle (walk score of 72) software developers.

Why Walking Matters:

• Better health: A study in Washington State found that the average resident of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood weighs 7 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood.  Residents of walkable neighborhoods drive less and suffer fewer car accidents, a leading cause of death between the ages of 15-45.
• Reduction in greenhouse gas: Cars are a leading cause of global warming. Your feet are zero-pollution transportation machines.
• More transportation options: Compact neighborhoods tend to have higher population density, which leads to more public transportation options and bicycle infrastructure. Not only is taking the bus cheaper than driving, but riding a bus is ten times safer than driving a car!
• Increased social capital: Walking increases social capital by promoting face-to-face interaction with your neighbors. Studies have shown that for every 10 minutes a person spends in a daily car commute, time spent in community activities falls by 10%.
• Stronger local businesses: Dense, walkable neighborhoods provide local businesses with the foot traffic they need to thrive. It’s easier for pedestrians to shop at many stores on one trip, since they don’t need to drive between destinations.

Walkscore.com ranks addresses and gives them a walk score from 0-100. This is something realtors are starting to use in the sale and marketability of homes and neighborhoods.

Pedestrian-friendly cities and towns can make huge personal economic sense. If you don’t need a car, you can save thousands a year on financing, leasing, insurance, maintenance, gas and parking fees — especially if you own more than one vehicle.

Living where there’s ubiquitous and reliable public transportation and services within a mile or less also means fewer worries about traffic jams, accidents, wasted money and time. And walking is good for you, so you could improve your health and lose weight.

The nation’s top 5 most walkable cities? San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. My address in Chicago literally got a walk score of 100%. The score takes into account the restaurants, supermarkets, parks, schools, the lake, movie theaters, bookstores, and coffee shops, all of which are within comfortable walking distance.

My current address in the ‘burbs of New Jersey earned a meager walk score of 34%. It’s a lovely green town, but very spread out and you’d be hard pressed to get around without a car.

The logic seems obvious: You can lose weight each time you walk to the grocery store. You can go out with friends, have a glass of wine and not worry about driving. You spend less money on your car, car insurance, and gasoline—or you don’t own a car at all. When you shop, you support your local economy. You talk to your neighbors. You build a life and a community. Sounds nice, no?

While I was home in New Jersey living once again with my dad and his new wife in my old childhood house, I helped them sort through 36 years worth of stuff (dare I say crap?) before they sell the house and possibly move to a lovely over fifty-five community where the grass is always green and nicely mowed.

So our house here in NJ is a lovely typical suburban split level abode circa 1972. And it hasn’t changed much since.  As I described earlier, my pink bedroom was nearly exactly as I’d left it 20 years ago. And the same could be said for most of the rest of the house, like the kitchen complete with yellow Formica countertops, yellow linoleum floor, and beautiful faux wood grain cabinets. But, now my dad would be selling and trading up for newer more contemporary digs. So I was helping him sort through all kinds of miscellany and junk, a lot of which hadn’t been touched in several decades.

Here are some fun items we came across in the garage…most of which went straight to the trash:

• Burpee seed catalog circa 1987
• Bicentennial commemorative 1976 hot plate
• A tiny Torah. Mazel Tov!
• Old plasticy table cloths
• Half used cans of WD-40 and Oil-in-One
• 20-30 plastic, cobweb-filled plant containers
• Dried up craft paints
• ‘Cleen! Brite-White’ white wall tire spray circa 1978
• 6-7 ice scrapers and various snow brushes
• Approximately 512 used golf balls
• 1 old red snow sled (a keeper!)
• An unidentified tool that looks like a ray gun from a 1960s sci-fi movie
• Drain snake
• Plutonium reactor (just seeing if you are paying attention)
• Coleus Plant seeds circa 1979
• One Headlight (The Wallflowers would be proud)
• 1 Styrofoam egg container
• Axe handle sans Axe head
• Metal Mailbox Letters
• 1970s hanging lamps
• Random bits of wood, glass, Plexiglas, skin
• 1 Hedge Trimmer
• Solidified Turtle wax
• Various balls of twine, rope, and electric cords

Besides most of this stuff that hit the trash before I could say ‘toss it’ we still decided to have a moving sale—the classic American weekend of fun—hocking old, dirty wares to old, dirty bargain hunters.

The morning of said sale, the darn garage sale groupies showed up around 7:30am. Our sale started at 9:00. They were circling like vultures, just waiting to score that coveted old Sinatra LP or misplaced antique.  The funny thing was these early birds all knew each other…it was like a scary gang, but scary as in ‘get a life’ scary.  I went out at 8:30am to say ‘hi’ and ask jokingly ‘what about NO early birds’ didn’t they understand?! I did relent and let them in at 8:50am…nice salesgirl that I am.

Here are some of the luxurious items I sold throughout the day:

• A mini fridge (which was later returned as it was said to ‘not work’ even though it actually did…later sold it on Craigslist.com)
• My ‘Sew Perfect’ little girl sewing machine
• A small pocket knife
• A green glass dish
• An old transistor radio
• My old Soundesign small radio
• A plastic laundry hanger thingy
• The Hardy Boys books
• Couple other books
• A Sudoku coffee table set
• My brother’s old nun chucks. Some kid is going to attack someone with those soon. At least I made a few bucks.
• An old softball bat
• Random stuffed animals
• Assorted games
• A Nurf basketball set
• Barware
• Watches
• Several wall prints
• Frames
• 2 plastic storage boxes
• A never-used charcoal grill
• Old Sheets/bedspreads
• Brass candlesticks
• A silver ice bucket
• A glass jar for .25. (for the buyer to store her ‘fish food’)
• A beautiful never-used car shammy
• Car Seat Cover
• Basket of fake flowers
• Sunglasses
• Clip on Sunglasses
• Sports flip up sunglasses
• Outdoor Chair Cushions

This is it. This is what my life has come down to on a beautiful Saturday. Hawking lame wares to lame people. Ugh.

The last sale of the day? My Fiddler on the Roof Music box. Sniff, sniff. Goodbye Tevye! Just like him, I wish I were a rich (wo)man…and now I know that having a garage sale is not the way to achieve that.

But there is still stuff left if anyone is interested in a twenty-plus year old outdoor umbrella or a shoe horn shaped like a horse.

As a good friend of mine put it so perfectly: One man’s trash is…well, another man’s trash.

Well, technically with 26,000 people I’m not sure if you’d call Randolph, New Jersey a small town, but it’s my hometown and it’s the latest destination of a grand world tour and perhaps just as worthy of recognition as Paris or Hong Kong…well, almost.

Randolph Township’s motto? “Where Life is Worth Living.” It is a bit sad since the opposite would be ‘where life is not worth living’ – are we saying that’s the case if you lived just one town over in Rockaway or Denville?? Seriously, I suppose it speaks to this community’s abundant sense of pride.  Located in the north-central part of the state,  Randolph is a 21-square-mile township in historic Morris County.  As a part of New Jersey’s Highlands region, the land is full of streams, woods, hills and valleys and curving country roads. On a clear day you can see parts of the Manhattan skyline—about 40 miles to the east— from the most elevated bits of Randolph. Although, I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen this or know where to even go to find it.

Designated by the state as half suburban and half rural, some of the sections in Randolph include Mount Fern (where I grew up and my father still lives), Mount Freedom, Millbrook, Coleman Hollow, Center Grove, Ironia and Shongum Lake. I have brought some friends back home with me to Randolph over the years and I recall they were very surprised as to how rural, green, and wooded it was – old stereotypes die hard.

Randolph was originally settled by the Lenni Lenape native American tribe and later by European Colonists and Quakers.  In 1713, New Jersey’s first iron mine was registered and it was located in Randolph. Early Quakers were among those who discovered iron in the area and began to mine it, resulting in New Jersey becoming the country’s third top iron producer for a time.  The iron mines in the township supplied the Revolutionary forces with necessary ore for tools and weapons.  For the next 200 years the iron industry thrived, playing an important part in the development of Randolph.

During the late 1700s, Randolph was a supply point for George Washington’s Continental Army during their winter in nearby Jockey Hollow.  Local legend says Washington came up with Mount Freedom’s name after horseback rides from Morristown to the top of the mountain, where he would contemplate his next war strategies.

Throughout the 1930s and 40s, Randolph’s reputation for healthy water, natural beauty and clean air attracted vacationers from New York City.  During that era, 11 hotel resorts, 45 bungalow colonies, and summer camp and swim clubs– many converted from old farms– were built. Hotel performers included Frank Sinatra, Henny Youngman, Phil Silver and, yes, my grandmother, Esta Saltzman. She came here to perform at the old Saltz Hotel, on the corner of Sussex Turnpike and West Hanover Avenue, having no idea that one day her son would move to this very town to live for nearly four decades.  I became fascinated with these old relics of the past as a kid when I was just exploring the woods with friends. Now abandoned and mostly demolished, I happened to come upon them one day without even knowing what they were. I remember seeing old dilapidated bungalows and an old resort swimming pool formerly filled with happy, splashing vacationers, now filled with tires and junk.  Two of the largest resort hotels, Saltz’s and Ackerman’s, survived into the 1970s.

Today, Randolph’s 24 historic landmarks range from the centuries-old Liberty Tree to the Friends Meeting House founded by Quakers in 1758, to the circa 1924 Millbrook School, which is now used as office space.

Even though, development has continued, Randolph still has many acres of open space and parkland. And old farmhouses, mills, and historical churches dot the landscape reminding us of its heritage.

Within its 400 acres of parkland, Randolph has soccer and basketball fields, tennis courts, skating ponds, a theatre, and a cross-country skiing trail.  A biking and hiking trail system also traverses 14 miles through five parks and 2,000 acres of open space.

I have to admit, as a kid, I didn’t appreciate all that Randolph had to offer. I found it ‘boring.’ There was ‘never anything to do.’  All the ‘cool things’ were in other towns. Sure, it is still a sprawling suburb with no real town center, but now that I had time to hang out there again as an adult over the last three months I appreciate it much more. It’s a beautiful, green, historical town and I was lucky to grow up there – even if I had no idea until now.

What famous (or quasi-famous) people came out of Randolph, New Jersey??

• Klaus Peter Loebbe – retired chairman and CEO of BASF Corporation.
• Dale Baumwoll – children’s author
• George Parros – professional hockey player for the Anaheim Ducks.
• Gary Rizzo – sound re-recording mixer whose credits include Office Space, Munich, Clerks II, The Prestige, A Bug’s Life, Batman Begins, The Incredibles (for which he was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award in the category Best Achievement in Sound).
• Hayden Schlossberg – screenwriter of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
• Oh…and Lisa Lubin? Emmy award winning producer and professional traveling vagabond? Well, maybe someday.

I’m from Joisey? Are you from Joisey?
What exit?

Let’s get two important things out of the way right now. I am originally from New Jersey (pronounced New Jer-zee by just about everyone here). And, while there are some major highways (the NJ Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway, and US Interstate 80) that run through our little state, New Jersey is still known as the garden state for good reason: a large portion of it consists of expansive rural areas, beautiful wooded acreage, and farms. In fact, half the state is still woodlands and it is home to more than 9,800 farms covering 790,000 acres of farmland. No, you don’t really see this on The Sopranos – well, unless Tony or one of his boys are dragging someone into the woods by their ankles. Got it? Good.

You know it’s a special state when it’s only one of two in the entire nation where you cannot pump your own gas. That’s right – all gas stations are full service and full service only. Eric DeGesero of the New Jersey Fuel Merchants Association said New Jersey requires full service gas stations as a way of creating jobs, limiting accidents and assisting the elderly. And there are no plans to repeal the full service requirement.  After living elsewhere, it seems a bit snobby and lazy to just sit in your car while someone else scurries about tending to all your fueling needs, but then again, I haven’t been here in winter in a quite some time. Of course, we all get out of our cars in the frigid Chicago winters to fuel up so maybe New Jerseyans are a bit pampered.

New Jersey, the home of renowned Princeton University, is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, to its east the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean. Delaware borders New Jersey only on the southwestern side and Pennsylvania lies to the west.

Inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, the first European settlements in the area were established by the Swedes and Dutch in the early 1600s. The English later seized control of the region in 1664, naming it the Province of New Jersey. The name was taken from the largest of the English Channel Islands, Jersey. Our little state was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution and it was an important site during the American Revolutionary War; several major battles were fought here and we learned about them over and over and over in grade school. So much so, that I think our knowledge of other major wars was quite limited. Today, New Jersey has the highest population density and the second highest median income of any state in the United States. Several New Jersey counties are ranked among the highest-income counties in the entire nation.

I was born and grew up in Northwest New Jersey, or the “Skylands.” It is known as a wooded, rural, and mountainous area…and was often a surprise to my friends who visited me here expecting it to look like Newark, a big industrial city near New York City. They were not disappointed by its beauty, curvy wooded roads and rural colonial feel. The rest of the state is filled with lakes, the Appalachian Mountains which create a wide area of hills and valleys in the entire north region, the pine barren forests in the south and the miles and miles of coastal beaches running all up and down the east coast–locally it’s simply called the Jersey Shore.  In fact, Cape May, at the southern tip, is the oldest seashore resort area in the United States. It has the second largest collection of Victorian-era homes in the nation after San Francisco and is the only entire city in the country to be named a national historic landmark. Yes, there are some cities and lots of industry near the Hudson River and New York City area.  But the rest of the state is plenty green.

New Jersey is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse states in the country. By percentage, it has the second largest Jewish population after New York; the second largest Muslim population (after Michigan); the third highest Asian population, and the third highest Italian-American population of any state according to the 2000 Census.  All this translates into some fun people and some damn tasty food at every turn.

Once I left the state back in the early 90s, it was only then that I finally started to appreciate it for its beauty and everything it had to offer. I defend my home state early and often and although I love my adopted hometown of Chicago, there has always been a piece of my heart right back here in New Jersey.

Some fun facts:

New Jersey has the lowest rate of depression in the United States found by a study from NAMI National Alliance on Mental Illness (Is this because they are all rich or because no one has to pump their own gas??).

New Jersey is the birthplace of many modern inventions such as: FM radio, the motion picture camera, the lithium battery, the light bulb (thanks Thomas Alva Edison), transistors, and the electric train. Other New Jersey creations include: the drive-in movie, the cultivated blueberry, cranberry sauce, the postcard, the boardwalk, the zipper, the phonograph, saltwater taffy, and the ice cream cone.

1. The first organized baseball game was played in Hoboken, NJ in 1846.
2. New Jersey has more diners than any other state or any place in the world: more than 600
3. New Jersey’s State House is the second oldest still in use (Maryland has the oldest).
4. New Jersey was known as the “Pathway of the Revolution.” Over 100 Revolutionary war battles were fought on New Jersey soil.
5. New Jersey has more horses per square mile than any other state. The United States Equestrian Team is headquartered in Gladstone, NJ.
6. The properties in the United States version of the board game Monopoly are named after the streets of Atlantic City.
7. It’s the first state to sign the Bill of Rights.
8. The first professional basketball game was played in Trenton, NJ in 1896.
9. New Jersey has 127 miles of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.
10. New Jersey is home to more than 9,800 farms covering 790,000 acres of farmland.

Some Famous New Jerseyans:

• Bruce Springstein
• Jon Bon Jovi
• Frank Sinatra
• John Travolta
• Tom Cruise
• Bruce Willis
• Brooke Shields
• Budd Abbot
• Whitney Houston
• Jack Nicholson
• Martha Stewart
• Jon Stewart
• Jason Alexander
• Zach Braff
• Danny Devito
• Michael Douglas
• Kirsten Dunst
• Ed Harris
• Derek Jeter
• Laryn Hill
• Queen Latifah
• Jerry Lewis
• Kelly Ripa
• Joe Pesci
• Dennis Rodman
• Meryl Streep
• Anne Hathaway