Avalon and Stone Harbor authored interesting lifeguard racing campaigns this summer. Avalon relied on veteran leadership while Stone Harbor displayed some good young talent and an inspired effort from a guard who might have been experiencing his last season.

Hessam Abrishami is an artist with a message.

“These days – if you look at it – everywhere there is war,” he says. “There is anger. But my message is that this is not the way. We have to love. We have to share beauty.”

Nothing depicts history like a home. Especially one that predates the Civil War.

The Doctor’s Inn Bed & Breakfast denotes monumental time travel. Draped in the heart of Cape May Court House at 2 North Main St., this elegant 1854 Victorian mansion has been preserved, updated, renovated and showcased through the ages.

The sun came out on Aug. 3 just in time for Avalon’s baby parade. Participants paraded down 21st Street in decorated strollers, wagons, bikes and floats for the most adorable event of the summer. Participants lined up at 21st Street and Ocean Drive and paraded to Veterans Plaza with Avalon Chamber of Commerce president John O’Dea and “Miss Avalon,” Julia Magill, leading the way.

Deja vu embraces the Wolf lifeguard family.

It’s been six years, a relative blink of an eye, since Erich Wolf notched an electrifying rowing victory on area lifeguard racing’s biggest stage. Wolf’s first South Jerseys championship for the Avalon Beach Patrol was what his father and patrol captain Murray Wolf termed, “a great moment for us.”

It’s fall in Cape May and that means one thing – it’s time for the great migrations of wildlife headed south to warmer climates and abundant food. Cape May sits in one of the world’s great migration corridors and, in addition to being on one of these great highways, the narrow peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay is also a stopover point.

Music and laughter filled the air in Avalon and Stone Harbor on Aug. 1 as the boroughs hosted and joined the rest of the country in celebrating National Night Out with festivities and people of all ages to enjoy. Held annually since 1984, National Night Out was created as a way to strengthen neighborhood relations as well as police partnerships in an effort to fight and prevent crime.

Hard to imagine any discussion of hockey on a muggy, warm summer evening, but that’s exactly what happened Aug. 17 in Avalon.

There’s no doubt that Philadelphia hockey and sports icon Ed Snider was looking down from heaven with a big smile at the gathering at the home of Bill Whitmore.

For this issue, I’m going to let you in on a major secret. Summer may “officially” be over as Labor Day weekend passes by, but guess what? For those lucky enough to enjoy time at the shore in the fall, summer isn’t actually over! Fall on the Seven Mile Beach is one of our best-kept secrets.

Stone Harbor’s back bays made quite a spectacle of themselves during the Festival of Lights parade on Saturday, Aug. 5. The event, hosted by the Yacht Club of Stone Harbor, presented more than 30 boats and 17 docks decorated to fit this year’s theme, the magical world of Disney.

Fall Events

I love Endless Summer. I’m ready for pumpkins, the fall air and football! It’s fun to be excited about going back to school or whatever new adventure you are embarking upon. Whether it’s decorating your dorm room or wanting to take a piece of the shore home with you, here are some great items to help get you into the Endless Summer groove!

July and August Events

Armadillo, Ltd. will host a pop-up show on Labor Day weekend featuring hand-blown votive candle holders and drinking glasses from glassybaby, a Seattle-based company. The special event will take place Saturday, Sept. 2, from 11am to 4pm.

How is it that September is upon us and I have yet to have a crab feast? Fortunately, crabs don’t finish their summer season on Labor Day because our summer cannot officially end without an afternoon of sitting around a newspaper-lined table piled with well-seasoned Number Ones.

Nancy Crafts introduced cutting-edge physical fitness to Seven Mile Beach when she opened her first studio here in the early 1990s. Ever since then, Island Aerobics’ owner and director has offered dynamic workouts and yoga classes to keep islanders and visitors fit.

I don’t know how it was for you, but this summer seemed to zip by with the speed of lightning. Maybe it was all the hard work I put in, or maybe it is simply because I am getting older, and each progressive year is a smaller percentage of my life span. Either way, I am happy, because it means that fall is here, and it is by far my favorite season.

Maybe Seven Mile Beach is like any other community when it comes to its residents’ generosity, and maybe there is something special about this place I call home. I choose to think the latter, and Stone Harbor Postmaster Gene Summers learned first-hand recently just how giving the people of Avalon and Stone Harbor are.

Although Marie Nicole’s Grill moved from its former location in Wildwood Crest, Executive Chef August “Gus” Zimmerman is still serving delicious meals nightly at the restaurant’s new home on 79th and Ocean Drive.

The champagne house of Laurent-Perrier has been making outstanding sparkling wines for nearly two centuries. They are among the best sparkling wines in the world.