Wednesday, September 30, 2015

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.

No comments: