7226. BELOW THE WATER LINE, pt. 23

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 23)

There was a time when we could walk clear out

through the prison cornfields and woods and

eventually get ourselves out to the backfields of

the Maple Tree  -  a bar and picnic grounds  -  once

called I think the White Star Farm or something

of that nature. There was a pond there, where now is

a business/warehouse thing called 'Premier Die-Cast'

a machine shop of some sort. The old proprietor of

the Maple Tree Hazel, (wonderful lady, she only

seemed old; was probably in her fifties), used to tell

me how, when her husband broke up the property, in

the 1960's, the pond was covered over when that

warehouse/machine shop was built  -  covered over

without much fanfare. And she'd tell of how the people

in the business there were always complaining of things

being wet, the basement flooding, etc., and how no one

really ever let on. I don't know how true all that is, what

with building codes and things, but that's what she used

to tell me. That pond, when we'd finally reach it, was

sublime  -  it had a gracefully arched wooden bridge

running over a portion of it, and sunfish and small fish

were always being fished for  -  from that bridge and

from the sides and the banks. It was really a wonderful

spot  -   just a little distant, and just a little secluded.

Nothing crazy, in either direction, just distant and

secluded. We pretty much never went past that, to

anywhere else, and I  -  back then  -  wouldn't have

been able to tell you much past Rahway Ave. Only

later, with that paper route and stuff, did I venture

farther downward to the lowlands, as I explained,

the 'Way-Outs.' Some of that wooded area, with the

stream and waterway, is still there, on what's now

called 'Paddock Street', just a long, downhill slide

from Philadelphia Quartz, by the prison and by the

State School. That side of Avenel was familiar

enough to me, but no real freindships or connections

ever grew  -  only for church and school functions

did such disparate people come together anyway. It

was funny, all the little groups were different and

stayed to themselves. Our group, Inman Ave., Clark

Place, Monica Court, were for a time the 'newest'

constructions and therefore the latest 'outsiders' to

blow into 'town', or whatever Avenel was. So things

never really gelled  -  people stayed apart, the older

of the old timers even keeping themselves from the

oldest of the newcomers groups. Fragmented and

very structured, this society, the old society, had its

older and original names. I can't really recall any of

them now, really  -  maybe the Krugs, and the Cenegys

for that matter. Maybe. There were town names, yes,

but I do forget them. Messina. Cermayan. Ciggatura,

Kuzmiak. Taylor. Kosik. Gross. Crawford. Pichalski, 
which was the White Star Farms name, later the

Maple Tree. I don't know too much else on that.

-

I made mention before of the real lack of wildlife in early

Inman Avenue days, probably still now but no matter. These

days, however, when I walk that hill up Paddock Road, or 

whatever it is, Avenue, Place, etc., the woods stretching to 

my right have a herd of deer, perhaps 7-10 strong, numerous

ground animals, and a fine, running stream that looks not so

bad and which is, in fact, dog-drinkable. Big difference from

the dead lands and the turgid water-flows of dark grey, horrid

looking water back then. Nice to know. I know, of course, that

looks aren't a real key here for water quality, of course, but -

just sayin'  -  as it's often put today. The lands leading in and

out of that sunfish pond area were golden lands for me  -  there

were stands of trees which had apparently withstood the tests

of time, a lot of broken limbs and apparently storm-damaged 

stuff, but great for kids. Certainly, best of all, no people.

-

I always figured that a person had to think, really think it

through, to determine the how and why of this conquered land. 

I figured, and spiritually still feel it so, that the most-vibrant and

important spots and land, places where the frequencies of that which

spoke to peoples' spirits, were the first places taken over and covered

by 'Government' buildings and functions  -  their way of stifling

any pick-up on those vibratory remnants and thus stifling the

free-flow, at the same time, of peoples' thoughts and intentions.

It's a sort of invisible, mental colonialism, a slavery of sorts that

gets dropped into place.  Here, for instance, one had, first, the

railroad lands  -  taken over and used for ostensible 'public'

needs, but which were anything but. Then the vast prison grounds.

You just knew the prison, first built as a foreboding, Victorian-

era boy's reformatory, had to have been placed over important 

eddies of energy  -  the gurgling streams of revolt and anguish,

the old paths and settlement centers of the 'Rahway' River-side

natives (what we call 'Indians', only by mistake and enforcement

by edict  -  to make them sound distant and faraway). This all has 

to be stifled, sent-away, so to speak. A marauding National Govern-

ment can't successfully exist if the small corners of thought-insurrection

and revolt are left in place and allowed their workings. Those are

the spots whereon government buildings, town and city halls, schools

and churches are built. To quash what's beneath them. It's a curious

sort of American smothering, the past be damned, and those in

power, they know they're always to be running scared.