BELOW THE WATER LINE
(pt. 198)
One thing about growing up in Avenel,
I guess I should mention, is the fact
concerning highway ideas about roadside
motels, and diners. As a kid, each of
us knew they were there. The highway
was, literally, a string of small motels,
and a few diners - the Avenel Diner
and the Premium Diner among them.
Rahway had diners, in town there was
'Irene's.' Up and down Routes One and
Nine they could be found. The word
'iconic' wasn't really in use yet, though
in time that's what these all became -
not yet grown into their concept then.
What made it all interesting, for me,
was that down at the bottom of Omar
Ave., and Blair Road, was the factory
location, and yard of, Kullman Dining
Car Company. They actually MADE
these things, and were known nationally!
(See insert; follows): "Kullman Dining Car
Company, established in Newark, New
Jersey in 1927, originally manufactured
diners. The company expanded and
later became the Kullman Building
over the years production grew to
dormitories, prisons, schools, banks,
equipment buildings of cellular
communications towers. It also
built the first pre-fab United States
incorporating the use of new materials,
as they were developed and appyling
technologies developed through
construction of diners to other buildings
and is credited with introducing the
term accelerated construction.
The company re-organized in
bankruptcy and Kullman Industries
went out off business in 2011.
a company formed by the management
team that left prior to Kullman going
out of business, now owns all the
Kullman Intellectual Property
purchased at auction."
-
Diners like that have, of course
and over time now become part
of the road-weary American
traveler's legend, all part of the
presentation. It was strengthening
as well as weird to see that have a
basis in Avenel. It was a small
enough factory, and much of the
work was done outside. These
metal trailer type things, the
dining cars, were constructed and
then the insides were appointed -
we'd see guys building counters,
stove-sections, seats, padding,
tables. The entire shooting match -
shiny metal, glass and mirrors.
Everything would be done,
ready for hook-ups and power
lines. Even the little table-top
juke-box selector things, in place.
Then they'd be coupled to trucks,
or lifted onto flatbeds, etc., for the
trip to their destination. It could be
Ohio, or Indiana, or Arizona. Evidently
these things were shipped everywhere.
We even learned geography from this
- the guys would talk a little to us,
lunchtimes, eating sandwiches. No
matter what they said, we'd believe
them. 'Some King bought this for his
private dining room. It's going far away,
getting lifted there by plane! We gotta'
hang it, at the airport, at the bottom
of a plane. Hope the wheels can hold
the runway speed for takeoff!' Then
they'd laugh. We kind'a knew it was all
BS, but we'd laugh back and I guess
'pretend' we took in the whole tale.
Crazy stuff, but it was fun. The other
cool thing was that, out back, at the
ends of the work-yard, there'd be one
or two wrecked or abandoned or old
diner-car things, just sitting there.
We'd usually manage to get in, just
traipsing around - we treated it all
the same way we treated the car and
the truck junkyards. It was just how
we lived. Cool stuff, and a million
memories. Kullman eventually
closed up or moved on. But for a
long time, whenever I entered a
diner, I'd look for the little
'manufactured by' sign, in metal,
usually somewhere on the side
wall or, in the larger ones, on the
entryway inside wall. Kullman
Dining Car Company, Avenel, NJ.
-
So, I mean then, I'd tell myself,
what was Avenel about if not
supplying the entire big, bad
world with dining cars. Just like
the portables at school - as if
they moved - on wheels, silver
metal, like Airstream trailers that
some bimbo family would drive
around with, or in, to Utah or New
Mexico, scrambling eggs in their
diner-car kitchen all the way, sitting
there to eat while humming to Elvis
on the juke-box, the sloppy diner-cook
guy, in his dirty white apron and funny
white cap, dropping his cigarette ashes
when you hit a bump in Ohio right into
your pureed ham-strap, creamed peas
and potato-crisps. Kullman Dining Car
Company, from us to you! And not
only that, but we lived in a town where,
every 1000 feet, all along Rt. One, north
and south, was another roadside motel!
Some of them with walls around them
so the cheaters could park their cars
unseen. All those office guys with their
secretaries, and all that, taking an hour
out of their busy day, right there, in Avenel,
to make time with Sally O'Malley and
her wonderful salt-shakers! What a
world! Mystery world, to be sure. Ten
year old kids, saying, 'what do they
want to do that for?' not quite sure
yet what the whole motel strip was
about (in both senses of the word!).
So much to be said for the innocent
life. I can't begin, and I've long ago
sold away my birthright to that.
-
Anyway, again, Avenel was 'indubitably',
(such a 1950's word), the center of
some part of the world. I often just
walked to the end of Inman Avenue,
right to Rt. One, just to watch the
traffic passing - wondering and
wishing. All those people, busy with
doing, going somewhere, and set on
a human task. I little cared, actually,
for anything of the southbound traffic
- it was only the northbound that took
my spirit away. I made the (false)
assumption, of course, that they were
all going to New York City, some 1960
crazy-image I had of tunnels and
bridges leading to intense company,
intellectual adjustment, creative and
crazy people. Certainly where I'd want
to soon go and be. Not that they were,
I just approached it that way as 'place
of dreams, end-site for any travel,
golden city to be at'. Just a kid's
fantasy maybe, like being once more
in that tree house behind my house,
hanging over the tracks and viewing
from the treetop heights that distant
city. Man, was I made of dreams or
not? And if it all was a dream, how
different was it, really, from any of
those dreams in the hot-sheet
motels nearby?
-
One last thing too, years later - back
in Pennsylvania, after I'd left there,
a lot of the farmers hit hard times.
Some closed up their operations.
One guy, my old farm neighbor
Warren Gustin, I know he took a
'second' job, in Elmira, 20 miles
away from his home in Columbia
Crossroads. His 5 kids and wife,
and him, managed to still continue
the farm work and the cow chores
and planting, but on a different scale,
and the job he took enabled some
needed extra money to carry them.
He took a job with the Bombardier
Company, from Canada. They
refurbished NJ and NYC railroad
cars - the old, crummy ones would
be brought in, they'd gut them, make
everything new and updated, re-do
the entire car for safety and service
qualifications. He found it all very
amazing, but what shocked him more
was the day-to-day workman's things
he had to do - he'd never before worked
in a factory format. It depressed him at
first, and caused him some problems,
having been a free and open farmer his
entire work-life. No matter - just like
the Kullman Dining Car place, on each
of their rail cars (and I'd look for, and
see this badge too, on many of the trains
I rode) they would rivet in a metal plate
that says 'Refurbished, July 20o1,
(or whatever date), Bombardier Railcar
Co., Elmira, New York. I still always look.
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