Muriel shares her story

Anyone with an interest in what’s going on these days in the New Jersey town of Atlantic Highlands, which overlooks the Atlantic Ocean where it merges into Raritan Bay at the place called Sandy Hook, should probably check out what Muriel is writing about the place.

Muriel is an 86-year-old former newspaper reporter who knows a lot about what’s happening in her hometown, especially what’s going on in the realms of politics and local government affecting taxpayers, voters and others in this town atop hills that mark the highest point on the eastern seaboard south of Maine.   

Her stories are carried on her own news blog, “Veni. Vidi. Scripto,” a play on the oft-quoted line that historians of antiquity say Julius Caesar uttered to declare that he came, he saw and he conquered the enemy in a brief battle in what is modern-day Turkey. Unlike Caesar, however, Muriel doesn’t claim she conquered anything or anyone…she just writes about what she sees and frequently discovers is going on in the world of Atlantic Highlands   

“I write,” she explains on her wide-ranging and information-packed blog, “hoping it stimulates you to watch your government more closely, to question, to learn more about history, travel, how to eat well, protest if you like, quit reading if it annoys you, but enjoy a few minutes sharing thoughts, love and inspiration.”

Muriel has led an extraordinary life, marked with periods of great joy and happiness, especially the time she and her late husband shared.  She remembers:

“We sold the house we bought ourselves an RV and for the next 10 years, we took off and traveled to all 50 states. Our goal was to visit the birth or burial places of all the presidents in the United States. We did 28 of them. But we also found that we could volunteer on national wildlife refuges. So we did that and I learned how to band terns and pelicans. I learned how to rescue sea turtles, and I gave canoe tours on the Rio Grande for birdwatchers, even though I didn't know birds, but I could give tours on the Rio Grande because they were all experts.”

As in most lives, Muriel’s life has also been punctuated with loss of loved ones and health issues, including the death of her beloved husband. 

Muriel realized that her memory wasn’t as sharp as it once was.

Muriel had noticed some Prevagen commercials so after checking with her pharmacist, she decided to give it a try.  “I started using it four or five months ago,” she reports.  “After the first few months my daughter noticed and said, ‘Congratulations, Mom.’ I knew then that Prevagen works.”

Like Caesar, Muriel has faced her adversaries and overcome them.  Unlike Caesar, Muriel is still telling her own story.