R H Charles off to Press!

 

Jim has mostly finished his retirement project of writing a biography of Robert Henry Charles, a leader of the early 20th century in Jim's field of early Judaism.  Jim's goal is to send it to Oxford University Press by the end of the month.  They have already accepted it for publication.  The hold up is because Jim is finding it difficult to get permission from a few sources to use archival material and photographs.  

To celebrate the ending of the project, Jim suggested we go to Ocean Grove for an overnight stay.  I made a reservation at Laington Hotel, a historic inn built in 1875 and located right on the boardwalk.  It took a bit of emailing and telephoning to get Room 2, a two room unit in front but it all worked out eventually.  

I had two medical appointments in the morning so I was ready to get away and relax! We arrived yesterday afternoon, checked in early,  and were pleased with our room on the second floor.  It was foggy outside but we went for a walk towards Asbury Park looking for potential places to eat dinner.  Sadly Pop's Garage where we had eaten before was closed until later in the season.  We checked out menus at two other places.

We walked back to the hotel to settle in to watch Notre Dame play Alabama in the first round of the NCAA tournament.  ND had beaten Rutgers in a double overtime game on Wednesday in a play-in game.  We had to get the innkeeper and his grandson to come up and get the TV working and find TNT but it all worked out--and we watched what seemed like a closer game than the final score indicated, a  78-64 win over Alabama.

After the game we walked to Stella Marina where we both ordered pizzas.  I had a local beer (Asbury Park Blonde) and Jim had his usual Sauvignon Blanc wine. There was enough left over for meals today--so we stored them in the car overnight where it was plenty cool enough. 

Back to more NCAA basketball and a night of sleep in a four poster bed.  An old hotel is noisy and we could hear steps (sounded like jumping!) and toilet flushing overhead.  But it all quieted down at midnight and we slept well.   The howling wind and waves were good sounds for us to hear from inside our cozy rooms.

Now it is back home for our usual routines of Saturday groceries and NY Times and more basketball.  ND plays Texas Tech tomorrow and we will see how far they can go!