7295. BELOW THE WATER LINE, pt. 43

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 43)

I guess to counter all the street-gang and

bad social-group stuff, and its effect on

teens, the nearby catholic church, St. Andrew's,

had what was called CYO : basically a religious

maniac's idea of countering, if any idea at all. It

was akin to, some years later, about 1968, when

society itself produced some hideous movement

called 'Up With People.' To oppose the nasty

and dirty hippie movement, there would be there

deliciously putrified groups of gingham and

clean denim kids rolling around the country  -

all parts had them, squeeky-clean, farmgirl

dresses, bright happy fellas  -  and they'd sing

for two hours or so at rented grange halls, Elks

and Moose halls, VFW's, school assemblies, you

name it. It was the equivalent of any other form

of East German or Communist, or NAZI propaganda

groups, not that different from Hitler Youth being

sent around to sing the Horst Wessel song everywhere.

The equivalent, for us, say, of having the Lawrence

Welk singers go around singing 'I Can't Get No

Satisfaction.' Completely ridiculous. Songs of uplift

and social-happy swagger have always made me

blanche at what I was hearing. Whoever dreamed

up 'Up With People' was most certainly a Great Society

nitwit. My friend, Joe, and I, in any one of his cars,

would be driving around to any of the oddball, little

crap towns around, 'looking for adventure, in whatever

comes our way' and see the signs for an upcoming 'Up

With People' appearance or songfest, advertised on a

pole or a signboard somewhere, places like Elizabeth,

Hillside, Asbury Park, or Keyport  -  any of those great

Central-Northern towns dotting the pale hide of NJ  -

and just want to go home and get a rifle. It was right about

then that I knew 'Society' was beginning to find again its

own ways of re-tying that strap which once had held

things tight. It had recently begin to fray, and they wanted

it all back place. This isn't to say Avenel was oblivious

either. I don't remember that there was ever any presence

of the 'Uppers', as we called them, but they did show up

on Woodbridge once or twice. The Woodbridge Elks was

a real schlockfest of that stuff. I forget where they were

located then  -  they built a big new Elks Hall on Rahway

Avenue about 1970 or so. But they were always running,

through the 1960's, really bad, patriotic stuff  -  essay

contests, $50 winnings, bonds, even occasional bits

of 'scholarship' things  - like they knew  -  about crap

such as 'What American Means To Me', or 'What It

Means To Be An American'  -  stuff like that, real

school-tinged malarkey. They'd advertise in the

local schools, have tryouts, the newspapers would

go along for the ride, cover it with a photo and story,

and some lucky, dweebish kid, parroting the words

needed, would be dragged up on stage to get his or

her prize and then get to actually recite that maudlin

schlock before an audience of  -  probably inebriated  -

adult nitwits, who would pound the flags and tables

to prove their case that America was right. Two years

later, the dumb asshole would be in Vietnam, recalling

all he'd said to win his 50-dollar bomb. Yeah, that was

then; this is now?

-

Right where that Elks Hall is now, right next to it, on

the side towards Woodbridge, about 1968 or 9, there

a little square house; small, a nothing really, just a

box-house to live in, the style called 'Cape Cod' for

whatever real-estate reasons they call such. It was for

sale, and me and my girlfriend were really interested

in buying it; we were always scouting places, were we

to remain there, after marriage, and all that. Anyway,

this was a long time ago and house prices were in no

way comparable to today's numbers. We were pretty

good at the market estimates, from having seen lots of

houses. What I'm about to retell, by the way, happened

to us twice and is indicative of the way this area of

industrial (once) central Jersey was beginning to turn

over and be influenced for the benefit of commercial

and warehouse uses : 'clean' industry, as it was called -

by any of 100 lame real estate people who had taken

over the essential interests of Woodbridge and environs

by then  -  the Walter Zirpolo, Robert Jacks, Ralph
Barone and Dick Bassarab and Ernie Dragos and

JJ Elek types, the whole bunch of rats who are still

around today under different names, doing the same

thing. This small house was worth, by market, maybe

about $14,000, tops. It was shrubbed and wooded

nicely, had a rear fenced yard, somewhat isolated

and one could be kept alone. What always happened,

of course  -  and this also happened to us along a place

near Scotch Plains called Bonnie Burn Road, a

hill-road which ran up into the Watchungs, (a chain

of local hills, a dividing geography of coastal from

inland, off the other side of Plainfield and Rt. 22), and

where  another desirable old house, for us  -  was that

we'd call or show up at the real estate office, expecting

to be able to see a 12 or 16 thousand dollar home, and

be told, instead, 'we're sorry, that area's been zoned

commercial. The listed price is $60,000.' ($60,000 was

a real ton of real-estate money back the, yes. And this is

God's-honest truth, and it continued to happen. Avenel.

Woodbridge, Colonia. Warren. Watching. Scotch Plains.

Once the evil-doers in the town-halls, of course with their

hands out for payoffs, percentages, and the rest, got what

they wanted, the zoning and variances were changed and

accepted, in the expectation of big-time payoffs. Point of

fact was, often, they were the very ones who  -  knowing

these old farmlands would be broken up, lots and acreage

subdivided, etc., - secretly in the know, they themselves

would go about buying it up cheaply, at their depressed,

fire-sale prices, and then reap the whirlwind of dough

after re-zoning came through. I ask you, why else would

any moronic workaday guy, outside of vanity and ego,

get involved in local politics? I saw this often in the

printing industry later, as I worked for the guy who

pretty much ruled some of the commanding real-estate

rackets in town, along with a local dentist doing the

same  -  in fact, one day, between them, they swapped*

and flipped some property. Both came away, literally,

believe me because I was taken to lunch that day in

the celebratory mood of these two clowns  -  they

came off with an instant, and I mean instant, by the

flip of a pen, $850, 000, plus the new commercial

values of the land in their (now switched) possession.

One became a dental clinic building, with all the other

land, to this day, rotting, vacant, and fallow and bare,

around it; and the other (the old Avenel Shop-Rite, in

fact, became the most disgusting-looking, bunker-like

'professional' building along Avenel Street, filled with

a few pathetic, third-tier business fronts. At one time

a massage place doubling as a sex-front business, and

another dealing abortion supplies called 'medical

equipment, back when. What was an Avenel boy to

think? My lessons from all this were many, and were

burned into my head. This stuff was my Harvard. And

I have plenty more to tell should I. So just keep sending

me that payoff money, boys, and I'll remain quiet.

-

The CYO was for geeks, let's face it. They'd have lame

dances, girl cannot touch boy, but dances nonetheless.

God forbid teen sexuality; it never entered those doors.

There be a couple of fleet-footed garage-band locals,

struggling through 'Telstar' or 'Barbara Ann' or whatever

gimmick song they could mimic. Girls would be all

screechy, and boys would try, just try, to reach that

point of 'dig me, I'm like Elvis, I'm alive' level  - (this

was all before 'pop' and the Beatles-breakout), another

to get a kiss or a feel maybe, from someone outside. Local

mothers (mine too) from 'Sodality' (another weird name and

concept) would be brought in as chaperones (Avenel had no

nuns then, of its own  -  of any, they'd import those fleabag

nun wastrals from Sister Josephus's place in St. James Church,

Woodbridge. These mother-chaperones, I'd say, fairly outdid

even the nuns in their fierce repression of boy-girl stuff.

it was inane always. It was sick, actually. Totally bizarre.

There were priests around too, but they didn't know how

to do anything about this stuff except flirt with the mothers.

Can anyone here believe living and growing up like this?
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*Names left out. You want the names, send me money.