When Pennington architect Maria Burke-Slover decided to build a dream home of her own she faced a challenge with a paradox: design a new house that looked old.
A modern home with an attached garage, she knew, would look out of place in her 19th century neighborhood of Colonial Revival and Homestead-style homes. She wanted the house she built on her 45-by-120-foot lot to blend in seamlessly with the existing buildings on Academy Avenue, which included two local landmarks: the First Baptist Church, built in 1857, and the Pennington Academy building, a former public school that dates to President William McKinley’s administration.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, two teams meet in Mercer County Park. They’ve got bats and balls, but this isn’t a baseball or softball game — it’s cricket.
Players, dressed in white, bowl and bat on a pitch bookended by wickets. Fielders try to catch a speeding ball of leather and cork with bare hands. It may seem out of place, but the Warriors Cricket Club has called Mercer County Park home for seven years.
One of 48 teams spread across three divisions in the Cricket League of New Jersey, the Warriors take on teams from throughout the state over a season that spans from April through September.

“It’s just a passion,” says Mihir Patel, a Lawrence resident and Warriors team member, as the Warriors warm up for a match against fellow Cricket League of New Jersey team Gymkhana. “I played in India as a kid. We have players from the West Indies, the U.K., New Zealand, Pakistan, all over. Some people might get hyped up for football or baseball but it’s cricket for me.”

Norman Torkelson, director of facilities for the Hopewell Regional school district, had wanted to participate in the Anchor House Ride for Runaways for a long time. The annual charity bike ride raises funds for the Trenton-based social services agency. Finally, when his kids were old enough, he signed up and was ready to go — he had done long training rides, raised his $750, and was totally psyched. 
Then, a couple of weeks before the bike race, he crashed and broke his wrist and three ribs. Luckily his physician, a sports medicine specialist, did not rule out the ride but instead fitted him with an adjustable cast that could be loosened when his muscles swelled.
Working with one arm and broken ribs that prevented deep breaths, Mr. Torkelson had to make some adjustments but he completed the entire 500-mile route. Of course, you have to understand that Mr. Torkelson is a dyed-in-the-wool biker who once dreamed of racing competitively — that is, until he and some biking friends traveled to Europe to “chase” the Tour de France by carefully plotting the riders’ starting and stopping points each day.
Mr. Torkelson’s “French connection” caught up with him during that first ride. Toward the end of the second 80-mile day, Mr. Torkelson faced a very steep, four-mile-long hill. “I was having a hard time hanging on to the bike with one hand and feeling really sorry for myself,” he recalls.