8397. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #114

114. NEW SKIN

You can micro-manage places

to death, sometimes. They lose

their lifeblood. I often felt that

way about Princeton, later in time.

A prestigious community, I guess.

A perfect place then to demonstrate

corporate do-goodism, or smooth

and easy state-run policing. Two

instances : UPS gets new hybrid

delivery vans, two in the entire

state, to be test-driven and tried

out. One of them is assigned to

Princeton, to the UPS guy, Dave,

who does the entire downtown

area. It's displayed on the truck's

side, that it's a 'new, hybrid' clean

vehicle, etc. Dave says it's sent

to the Princeton route so that

people can see it so displayed,

on public use. He hates it but

has to use it. At each traffic light,

red, or any stop of more than

momentary duration, this vehicle

is designed so that it shuts down;

no idle, no pollution. Then, to

go again Dave has to touch or

press something and it re-starts.

He said it drove him crazy.

UPS, by the way, is fairly

crazy itself  -  Dave says the

rules and the management-snooping

of his daily driving are many: no

left turns are allowed with the trucks,

the routes are mapped out for right

turns only; the ring of keys must

at all times when not driving be on

be on Dave's fingers - he has to put

his index finger through the key-ring

loop when he exits the truck, which

must be locked at all times not

being driven. He can only leave

the truck from the right, 'passenger'

side; never the left, traffic side.

Dave says management is often

out with 'spy' cars, just observing

drivers to see that they abide by

these rules. Any infraction can

be written up as a violation. Too

many violations, you are

suspended, or gone. All this, of

course, while productivity agents

are also out watching the driver's

delivery/walking speeds, wasted

efforts, loss of time. So, he's

fighting the clock, the burden

of delivering packages, and the

assorted tactics of productivity

and efficiency nazis. (After 20

years of local driving, Dave's

now turned in his road days

for an inside management job).

Goes to show. Princeton gets

all the glory. Another point: on

Nassau Street, there's most usually

a police car with a cop in it just

watching things go by. This was,

some years back, also a test-tactic,

Princeton prestige, for police

license-plate scanning cars. The

cop didn't need to do a thing  -

just turn on the dash laptop, and

wait for it to beep or buzz as a car

went by. Any vehicle/driver with

outstanding warrants, violations

or other identifiable problems,

would be flagged by the plate-scanner.

That too was a Princeton test-run.

I think lots or all of the police cars

have that now. So, anyway, think

about it: from a UPS point of view

how commercial is it to publicize

and 'get credit' in the finest of

places for your corporate 'doing

good'? Must have plenty of value;

same with the cops  -  demonstrating

only the best and the finest. That's

another variant on being 'fine-tuned'

to death. What really could go

wrong in a place like that? But,

you micro-manage something to

those extent, the life-blood is taken

right from it.

-

Fifty years ago, if you walked

down the hill along Witherspoon,

past the old Princeton graveyard

on your right, and down to where

there was an old white church and,

across from it, a beat-up Chinese

restaurant  -  which most people

really would have thought twice

eating at, to your left you'd get

to the black section of town. 1960's

version I mean. Simply a neglected

and run-down section where the

people were OK with that and made

it fir their finer style of life. It had

been the old servant quarters of

town   -  all those in-home day

workers and stuff, and before

that it was the area of the homes

 for the free'd local slaves, where

they settled on their own, after

liberation. Weird stuff, but true

 -  Princeton had been a very

Southern style town, very, and

with slaves. In the 60's, it was

pretty vivid to look at  -  homes

and yards, big trees, broken down

cars and stuff everywhere. Very

cool. It's all gone now, having

been torn down in the 70's and

replaced with row houses,

complexes of interconnected

small places and apartments.

Now, years on again, the black

people are all gone and it's all

Mexican, Peruvian, Hispanic

anyway  -  an entire other and

distinct culture. Also vivid, but

so different. Depending on what

I did and how and where I walked,

I'd get up to Small World Coffee

about 6:30, as they opened. If I

was early and it was really cold,

they'd allow me in the back door

to stand in and warm up until

they opened. I always had

notebooks and stuff write or

read, so none of that was a

problem. What was curious,

always, and what was Princeton's

dark secret a well, was how,

about 6:30 or even 6, the buses

from Trenton and New Brunswick,

each of them a different direction,

would disgorge their streams of

10, 20, 30 Mexicans and Hispanics,

more than the ones who lived here,

for their behind the scenes kitchen

jobs in the almost countless small

restaurants everywhere. The

USFoods Co. trucks, from Perth

Amboy, the fish trucks, from

Philly, the garbage haulers  - from

whatever points, they'd all be in

early, doing their activity, in the dark

or the new day's early light. Cleaners,

cooks, servers, everyone busy with

the set-up for another day of serving

the white tourist crowd. Princeton

prided itself on authentic elitism, but

the dirty, dark secret was how it was

all done by imported, or not, Hispanic

tier labor, at whatever pay rate went.

Crowds of little people, milling the

early morning streets  -  with all their

chatter and jabber and laughter.

It was quite the sight to see.

-

I use names here; a lot of people

became my friends. It was an

exquisite place and no one ever

really knew what to make of me.

The townspeople just figured I

had something to do with the

university, and the university 

people knew me from the 

bookstore. On either side of

that fence, I never said a word. 

I was the complete outsider, 

the man from another place. 

One guy thought I was a leftover 

on-the-road beatnik type, 

scribbling my notes and 

reading books all the time. 

A micro-biologist chem lab 

guy befriended me because

to him I represented another 

world, a loose-fit, out of 

round personage; a writer 

guy because he thought 

I was writer, a publishing guy

 because he just assumed I was 

published, a beautiful 

woman, for a time, and

I only slightly hesitate to 

say this, in one swift segment 

of a month's time, fell madly 

in love with me. She was only 
a tad older than I was. Talk and 
words, no more. This all sounds 
so funny now that I ought to be 
laughed out of the room, but it 
was true and it happened, and 
having little to do with anything  
I did.  She had a great history, and 
plenty of  stories behind all that too, 
but I only mention this now, with 
little detail. Being done with it
was actually quite a relief. Pure
Princeton exclusivity, all the way.
When she finally did get the 
realization that nothing 

was to be, it was one of the 

saddest and most awkward

moments I experienced. She 

almost immediately, believe 

this, within two months at

the very most, sold her home, 

and went off to California with

some old guy she met. I'd still

see her little clutch of coffee

friends each morning; I'd ask

about her, they'd tell me about 

her, and they'd go visit her too.

Cross-country travel, to them

all, was like eating a donut. In

this fashion, I spread my contacts

and got to know many. All the

Scotts and Alans and Dans,

Steves and Walters and Marys 

and Janes too. Very strange and

very wonderful world. The 

funniest of it all was how, 

in this later period of my life, 

I finally both learned and 

realized how NOT to 

micromanage my life.

I had become tired and 

straitlaced and plain; a 

shelf-load of references and

memories that, I realized, 

I was too close to losing touch 

with. Somehow those seven

years brought me back to myself,

that whole new skin thing.