Clinton Township Newsletter

F e b r ua r y is D e d i c at e d to H e a r t H e a lt h On February 7, people across the country will be encouraged to wear red, not in advance of Valentine's Day, but to bring attention to the fight against heart disease. In fact, the entire month of February is dedicated to spreading awareness about cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in this country: one out of three deaths is attributed to strokes and heart disease, amounting to about 2,200 deaths per day. There are a number of factors in our daily lives that can affect our heart health, ranging from the level of noise in our neighborhood to the season. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), heart-related deaths are more common in the winter than in any other season, no matter what climate you live in. The AHA cited two possible reasons for this: the colder temperatures' effect on our blood vessels, which causes them to constrict and our blood pressure to rise; and our less active lifestyles in the winter months. When a person suffers from sudden cardiac arrest, swift attention is critical to their survival. Without that immediate intervention, only 5% of sudden cardiac arrest victims survive. What happens, however, if you inadvertently injure someone by going to their aid? Can you be held liable for their injuries? New Jersey is one of 44 states to have adopted a Good Samaritan Law. Basically, the law protects anyone who, in good faith, attends to the victim at the scene of an accident or other emergency. Under the law, a person making an attempt to save the life of another cannot be held liable for injuring that person. The law pertains to any individual, including first responders, paid or volunteer. Adoption of the Good Samaritan Law allowed widespread access to automated external defibrillators (AEDs) by removing the fear from people to come to the aid of another. Prior to the law, businesses were reluctant to accept donations of AEDs for fear of retribution for injuries that could occur with their use. These devices, however, can mean the difference between life and death for a cardiac arrest victim. If presented with a situation where you are able to help someone in need of medical assistance, don't be afraid to act quickly. The Good Samaritan Law is there to protect you. Per the ancient Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martails, "Life is not merely being alive, but being well." Be and stay well. www.rotololawfirm.com Divorce & Family Personal Injury Criminal Defense THE ROTOLO LAW FIRM 908.534.7900 Lebanon, NJ 08833 Victor A. Rotolo, a resident of Clinton Township, was named to the list of 2014 NJ Super Lawyers for the ninth consecutive year. Call The Rotolo Law Firm today: 908.534.7900 to discuss any legal situation confronting you. Your half-hour consultation is free of charge! Their attorneys and staff are ready to serve your legal needs. The Rotolo Law Firm • 502 US 22, Lebanon, NJ 08833. www.rotololawfirm.com The Hunterdon County C u l t u r a l a n d H e r i t a g e C o mm i s s i o n by Frank Curcio As vast as the English vocabulary is, we have only one word that encompasses the various places where we live—municipality, a word that does not come smoothly to the tongue, so we call our home municipality our hometown even if it's a township. A municipality is a self–governing corporation with set boundaries—The Township of Clinton is the corporate name of our municipality. As for set boundaries, one boundary is the centerline of Potterstown Road, resulting in the fact that on the west side of the street, high schoolers go to North and, across the street, to Central. On the other hand, a named place is vague at best. Today most think of Annandale as only the village itself, yet old maps show Annandale stretching all the way to Allerton. And today, who can define the boundary of the place named Allerton? Place names come from numerous sources: mills (Aller's Town or Allerton), taverns (White House), and so on. But most place names can be traced back to general stores and railroad stations—why? Because through much of the 19th century, those two places served as post offices. Potterstown got its name from the Potter family general store which served as an informal and formal post office from the late 1700s until 1899. Annandale's post office was named after the train station. In the time long before ZIP Codes, there was no assumption that the name of the place were you got your mail was the municipality in which you lived. Mail would be addressed to Annandale P.O., Pittstown P.O., Potterstown P.O., Three Bridges P.O., and so on, indicating it's where you got your mail, not necessarily where you lived. RFD reinforced this dichotomy between where you lived and where you got your mail. Annandale P.O. delivered RFD to a large chunk of Franklin Township— several roads beyond the ShopRite are in 08801 territory. Even with RFD gone, those postal routes remain the same, so the Clinton Township Municipal Building gets its mail from the Lebanon Boro P.O. When I first wrote about the strange postal routes back in the mid–1990s, I indicated that they resulted from the road patterns that facilitated RFD service (which began in 1896). When the last Hunterdon RFD post office closed in 1993, it was too late to change the crazy–quilt patterns, because to do so would require that tens–of–thousands of people send change of address forms. Of course, not all place names are mailing addresses. So, just what is a place name? The best way to explain it is in the language of New York City. There are hundreds of place names in NYC—55 in Manhattan, more in Brooklyn. They range from the familiar—The Village, Harlem, Chinatown, TriBeCa, Flatbush, Coney Island, Williamsburg—to the obscure—Kips Bay, Leffters Garden, Alphabet City and Midwood. In NYC, place names are neighborhoods. In Clinton Township placenames are neighborhoods. Manhattan is 23 sq. miles and has 55 placenames. Clinton Township is 33 sq. miles and we have only five official and maybe a dozen semi– or unofficial place names. Does that make us less neighborly than Manhattan? Next time (April) we'll do a neighborly check on our place names. Frank Curcio "A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."– Frank Morgan F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 4 13

• Cover