It’s been thirteen years since my boss, my Assemblyman, my Senator, my friend, Joe Azzolina passed away. I wrote this story three years ago, and wanted to share with you. Joe was a heck of a guy.
To anybody who knew him for more than five minutes, he was Joe. To those who worked with him on the USS Portsmouth in the Mediterranean, he was a Lieutenant, or later, on the USS New Jersey in Beirut, he was Captain. To those who saw him as a political figure, he was Assemblyman. Or Senator. To those who knew him as a philanthropist he was the generous guy who was ready to contribute to any worthy cause. To those who use the Middletown library, he was the guy who donated the largest share to get it started. And to those who have visited the USS New Jersey, BB62, in Camden, he’s the guy who led the fight to get it back to New Jersey and created and chaired the New Jersey Battleship Commission.
It will be 10 years on April 15 since Joe Azzolina died. The Courier – the newspaper he bought and kept going after the death of Matthew J. Gill – also died after him, but not without leaving written evidence of everything that went on in Middletown and the Bayshore since 1955 in the bound copies available at the Middletown Library.
Ironically, while it is the 10th anniversary of Joe’s death, one month later on May 18 marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Food Basket, the first real supermarket in the Bayshore. The Food Basket was located on Bay Avenue in Highlands, Joe’s hometown. His parents, John and Angelina Azzolina, had moved to Miller Street in 1926 after spending a summer vacation here from their home in Newark. They decided it was the perfect place to bring up their infant son, and three years later, their daughter, Grace. And when the lady who owned the building where they rented the apartment also said the downstairs store was vacant and available for rent, the couple decided to make Highlands their home. Within months, John and Angelina bought the building, opened a deli and began catering to the needs of Highlands. John had to keep his job as a jeweler and travel every day by train, but Angelina tended to the store and the family. And when people began asking for staples and meats for dinner, well, John simply bought them in Newark, filled his suitcase, and carried them down on the train.
Years later, when Joe graduated from Atlantic Highlands High School and went in the Navy under the ROTC program, he began studying the huge grocery store across the street from his dorm at Holy Cross College. Why couldn’t Highlands have that, he thought.
So, when he finished his first tour of active duty service with the Navy, he went back to school again, studied business, merchandising, and a few other things, and he and his dad opened the Food Basket.
It was like no other store the Bayshore had ever seen! There were freezers for frozen foods and ice cream, meat refrigerators that ensured quality, proper temperature and moisture for fresh meats, and refrigerated shelves for cheeses, milk and butter. There were aisles with shelves on both sides, where the bottom shelves were 12 inches off the floor to make it easier for the customer, and there were two checkout counters, Angelina almost always being at one of them. Joe and Grace, as well as Grace’s husband, Lou Scaduto, were there sharing the load and helping to satisfy the grocery and staple needs of the town and beyond. At the beginning, Grace still had a job in New York, but like her dad before her, she also worked at the Food Basket, the family business.
The rest is history. A few years later, Joe at the helm, the family opened the Food Circus store on Route 35 in Middletown, where the iconic clown sign became another part of history, then another supermarket, then another. 
Joe Azzolina had well learned the lessons of hard work and dedication to the people from his immigrant parents. And the Foodtown chain of grocery stores became a huge success.
Joe didn’t take a daily interest in The Courier when he bought it. But he always wanted to know what was going on there and always wanted to be sure its editorial stand was in keeping with what he believed. When he ran for the late Jim Howard’s Congressional seat in 1988, his editor followed journalistic standards and despite his ownership, ran political stories both for him and his opponent, equal space to both.
When Joe lost the election to Frank Pallone, he fired the editor, saying she cost him the election by the coverage she allowed for his opponent. He told a daily newspaper he fired her for “philosophical differences.”
Confident with another job with Malcolm Forbes immediately, the editor wasn’t angry with him. Rather, she felt honored that Joe Azzolina, Navy Captain, politician, powerful and outstanding businessman, thought that the little tabloid newspaper that covered one small part of the third Congressional District was big enough, strong enough, and powerful enough, to throw an election.
Their friendship never ended, and he re-hired her a few years later.
That editor was at St. Mary’s Church in New Monmouth 22 years later, standing next to Senator Jen Beck, crying at the funeral of Joe Azzolina.
Jen had known Joe for years as well, had worked with him on his campaigns and in his office, and credited her own political career and successes to the lessons she had learned from a master.
It’s hard to believe another 10 years has passed.
