Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: DREDIOCK on October 19, 2004, 01:26:49 PM
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LOL this is exactly 3 blocks from my house
THE BOWLING BALL HOUSE
(http://www.weirdnj.com/images_stories/localheroes_bowlingballs.jpg)
IS NOW THE ROCKING HORSE HOUSE
(http://www.weirdnj.com/images_stories/localheroes_rockinghorse.jpg)
RICHIE AND LEILA ZORZI ARE COLLECTORS. Not as one might think of a collector, of say, fine art. The Zorzis collect items that they have purchased at garage sales and flea markets. These treasures are displayed proudly throughout their home, which has a kind of museum-like appearance to it. The Zorzis have lived in the same Kendall Park home for the past 32 years among their collectibles, and up until a few years ago had no problems with the township or neighbors. Then one day, all of that changed, when Richie decided to display a new collection of his.
"I just started acquiring bowling balls," says Richie, a retired bricklayer and volunteer fireman. "I placed them around my trees, and up and down the driveway. After awhile, people would just leave them at my doorstep. What was I supposed to do?"
So Zorzi, who has never actually been bowling himself, began adorning his flower beds, and edging his front yard walkways with the multi-colored spheres. Before long bowling balls dotted his back and side yards as well. But it wasn't just balls that studded the Zorzis' corner lot property. The display was punctuated with a variety of bowling pins, trophies, and all other manner of bowling alley paraphernalia.
Now you might think that in the United States of America a homeowner would have the right to display whatever he or she pleased on their own lawn. But much to the dismay of Richie and Leila Zorzi, this is apparently not the case. The Zorzi bowling ball collection was deemed "unsightly" by one of their neighbors, who brought the Zorzis to court in an effort to get them to clean up their yard.
"All of my neighbors were fine with my bowling balls," Richie exclaimed, "except one. She started spying on me. Then one day, when I was up on my roof doing some repairs, this guy comes by and asks if he can buy a bowling ball. 'Just take one,' I told him. So he does. The next thing I know my spying neighbor calls the cops on me and tells them that I'm selling bowling balls! So she takes me to court. I can't prove it, but I think that she sent that guy over to buy a ball so that she could frame me!"
After a bitter dispute with local authorities, and a court case that dragged on for more than two years, Zorzi was forced to remove the balls from his property and pay a fine of $500. So he rented a dumpster, and with the help of some volunteer firemen friends, disposed of every one of the more than 400 balls.
Zorzi's litigious neighbor might have scored the first strike, but she had started a battle that, before long, she would wish she had been spared. For as any bowler will tell you, the frame is not over until the last pin drops.
Not long after the last of his beloved balls had been hauled away to the dump, Zorzi began to decorate his property once again. This time with rocking horses. The technicolor plastic menagerie of galloping ponies soon filled the void left by the comparatively drab bowling ball display.
Weird NJ decided to pay a visit to the famous (but now defunct) "Bowling Ball House," to see what the current status of the Zorzi collection was.
"I've been written up in a lot of newspapers," boasted Richie, proudly displaying a box full of clippings concerning his landscaping achievements. "I just don't understand how some people can get so upset over this."
Touring the inside of the Zorzis' home, one would have to describe it as a "garage sale museum." Elvis collectibles and souvenir plates from all of the fifty states adorn the walls. There is one room filled with nothing but dolls, and another devoted entirely to baseball caps. It's no wonder that the rocking horses came to the fore, since Richie had a backyard stable full of them, just chomping at the bit, waiting to be displayed.
"After I was told to get rid of the bowling balls, I started to put the horses out," Zorzi explains. "It was a gift to my wife. As a young girl she used to ride horses on her family's estate, which wasn't far from here."
"As long as I didn't sell them, the judge said I could put them wherever I wanted, so I did. It was my right."
Zorzi commented that after the "battle of the balls" the judge paid a visit to his home to see that Richie was in compliance with his court order.
"When the judge saw that my wife and I were collectors and not just piling my house full of junk, he said that maybe I shouldn't have been fined, but what are you gonna do?" Then Richie added, "While the judge was here, this guy comes over and asks if he can buy a rocking horse for his niece. This was right in front of the judge, so I figure that my neighbor is trying to set me up again. "No way!' I told the guy, "They ain't for sale!'"
The "Rocking Horse House" has now become the most popular site in Kendall Park. It may be even more famous than the former bowling ball display. Richie and Leila Zorzi have certainly become the talk of the town, and probably the best neighbors you could ever hope for. Just don't ask them to sell you any of their collection, because they'll be wise to you.
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"Look at us, we're tasteless freaks who are ruining our neighborhood for the sake of a little media attention."
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Personally I liked the bowling balls better
Heres the entire website devoted to things weird in NJ
I've seen and waved back to Willie many times while driving down
Rt 206
Weird NJ (http://www.weirdnj.com/)
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Hmmm... It's not weird. Turning right so you can turn left is weird. ;)
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My town has that house beat. Give me a day and I'll snap a pic or two :)
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Ra must live in one of those housing developments where every house is required to be identical to the next one :p
J_A_B
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I live right off of Clinton rd drive it twice a day
(http://www.weirdnj.com/images_stories/roads_clintonrd_darkroad.jpg)
also we have in town
(http://www.weirdnj.com/images_stories/abandoned_habitat.jpg)
as well as, and I've seen it and can't figure out how it possibly got there.
(http://www.weirdnj.com/images_stories/roadside_jetinwoods2.jpg)
as well as couple of others listed in Weird NJ
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bowling balls .....?
rocking horses....?
they use caddillacs in texas :D
(http://www.wolfgangmeyer.net/images/route66/tx_nearAmarillo_cadillacRanch.jpg)