the unacknowledged elephant

Have you ever felt like there's an elephant in the living room, and you're the only one who notices it?


It's an odd feeling. You watch in disbelief as the rest of your family and all your guests walk around or under the elephant. You expect at any minute for someone to chase the elephant away, or at least to say, "Why is there an elephant in the living room?"


Oddly enough, no one ever does, and after a while you wonder if there's a problem with you for even noticing the stupid thing.


That's the way I've felt for the past week or so. Well, all right, that's not true -- I've felt that way all my life, but that's beside the point.


During the past week, I've watched in profound mystification as first regional media and then national news media began to give air time to a dispute between Lorraine Zdeb and the Borough Council in Millstone, N.J.


Back in September, when Hurricane Floyd struck New Jersey, Ms. Zdeb went into neighboring Manville and Bound Brook, and saved nearly a hundred pets from drowning. Dogs, cats, snakes, you name it -- probably even an elephant or two -- she saved them.


It was a touching story, and when someone wrote a lengthy letter to the newspaper describing Ms. Zdeb's efforts, I was moved enough to recast it as a guest column, giving it a little more attention than it would have received as a letter.


Still, it's worth noting that earlier in 1999 Ms. Zdeb had applied to the Millstone Planning Board to build a permanent-standing animal shelter on her five-acre property, but the Planning Board denied her request. So it should come as a surprise to no one that Millstone slapped Ms. Zdeb with a fine when she sheltered the animals on her property in September, since she was doing what the Planning Board had told her she couldn't.


In the ensuing weeks, I have watched from my editorial desk as Ms. Zdeb's star has risen higher and higher into the stratosphere. Some area newspapers took an interest in her plight, and then one of the New Jersey 101.5 talk show hosts focused on her for an hour or so. It was when the Associated Press ran a story on her that things really got going.


Toward the end of November, my curiosity got the better of me, and I punched Ms. Zdeb's name into a few search engines on the Web. I found hits on CNN.com, on FOXNews.com, and a few others. On Nov. 30, ABC News called one of my reporters and asked him to fax them the stories he's written about Ms. Zdeb.


Celebrities like actress Mary Tyler Moore and model Rachel Hunter have taken an interest in her case. Ms. Zdeb has -- unwittingly, she claims -- become an overnight celebrity of sorts herself.


Not surprisingly, with all this attention, the Millstone Borough Council agreed to drop the case, which would have gone to trial Dec. 1.


Maybe I'm stupid, or maybe my brother hit me in the head with that log harder than I thought at the playground when I was 6, but I just don't get it. All I see is an elephant.


I'm not unsympathetic to Ms. Zdeb or her love of animals. If my dog Hamlet had been caught in flood waters, I would have been in the thick of things too. But I can't help feeling my colleagues in the national news media really missed the mark on this one.


When Hurricane Floyd hit Manville back on Sept. 16, it put more than a third of the borough under water, according to some estimates I've heard. About 200 people have asked the state to buy their homes because the flood damage was so severe.


Visit, if you can, Manville's Lost Valley section. There are people whose homes remain uninhabitable, putting them in trailers while they try to rebuild and find a way to pay for it all.


I was on the phone earlier today with a woman whose house has been hit four times in as many floods. She's hoping the government will buy her house from her so she can leave. Is her story worth less than the story of a couple parrots?


Then there's Main Street. A number of businesses have reopened, but there are many that haven't, and some that may never again, including businesses that have been part of the community for decades. Should they be ignored in favor of dogs and cats?


And don't forget the children whose homes were hit, and who probably won't have as big a Christmas this year as they have in years past. There's real tragedy in their stories, as well as real joy. Their stories are worth hearing.


When Hurricane Floyd hit Manville, it appeared as though the local news media were the only ones to give a rip; the national media were more concerned with the drama of fires in Bound Brook and the tragedy of the two deaths there.


A little more than two months after the flood has passed, and now the spotlight is turned back to Central Jersey, not to highlight the people who are digging out and deciding what to do with their lives, nor on the real fiscal problems Manville and Bound Brook will face if state buyouts proceed and they can't make up their lost population somewhere else.


It's a shame that Millstone wanted to prosecute Ms. Zdeb for giving animals temporary lodging on her property, and I'm glad the Borough Council dropped their case, but that's not where the real story is.


The real news about the flood is found in places like Manville, amid the continuing heartache of the losses and in the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.


To pretend otherwise is an insult.