10,731. RUDIMENTS, pt. 285

RUDIMENTS, pt. 285

Making Cars

I was first introduced to Avenel

in 1954, when we moved here.

I came as a 4-year old, from a

sort of semi-urban place that

bore the hallmarks of not much

of anything but the backsides 

of the little Hudson and Bergen 

County half-cities then passing

for service adjuncts of the two

really big places, New York

and Newark; three or four if

you chose to count Jersey

City and Hoboken. It was

kind of just glommed together

in reference. Each of the places

had water in their definitions:

there were busy, active waterways,

with tugs, steamers, barges 

and tankers at all times. Ferry 

service was a constant. I 

grew up very conscious, 

those first years, of waterways, 

bustle, and the comings and

 goings, sounds, smells, sights,

and workers, of the harbors. 

Most of it all, sad to say, 

by the mid-1950's was all 

closed off and no longer 

used  -  pollution and 

highways together doing 

their utmost to steer people 

to other places as the entire 

country hereabouts went 

auto-centric. Parkway, 

Turnpike, etc. We used to 

pass, at the big curve on 

Route One where the old 

Newark Airport was, the

 billboard-sign, illustrated 

with laboratory flasks, 

test-tubes and bunson burners, 

which read 'Newark, City 

of Industry; Hugh Addonizio, 

Mayor.' [It may have been
'Science,' actually]. In a few years 

he was in prison, the signboard 

was down, Route One's 

course had been altered  

-  with no more big curve  -  

and the airport was underway 

with a huge reorganization 

and modernization-by-

construction as the larger 

Caravelles and turbo-jets 

came in. It was the same 

with Linden, which had 

a small airport of its own, 

across from the GM plant 

where a lot of locals  -  

dads and new grads out 

of the local high school  

-  took jobs in that 

sprawling car-factory 

whipping out Pontiacs, 

or whatever came off 

the line there (it changed). 

It was quite a sight. At the 

shift-change hours, there 

would be hundreds of cars 

intent to be coming out, and 

Police-crossing controls 

would stop Route One 

for the traffic.

-

Incredibly enough, in 

its own small-scale way, 

Avenel Street was handled 

in the same manner  - 

Woodbridge police 

stopping traffic twice 

a day for shift changes 

at General Dynamics, 

which back then was 

Security Steel. It made steel 

file-cabinets, for industrial 

and office use. There were 

a couple of brand names 

tossed around from that 

label, but Steel Cabinet 

Company, or Security Steel 

were the two most common 

in the 1950's and early 60's. 

That two was an employer 

of first-resort for the sorts 

of working class Natty 

Bumpos who got out of 

Woodbridge High School 

or any other local high 

school and took their 

first stab at any work. 

Hot rods, swoopy cars, 

and clunkers proliferated. 
It was the kind of job that
allowed you to keep your
project car and partsmobile
in decent shape just by
dribbling it back and forth 
to work and parking it.

These were local, Avenel 

and Woodbridge people 

who could spin a good 

wrench and thought nothing 

of swapping engine parts or

whole engines on a whim. 

Glass-packs, lowered 

rears, skirts, and fuzzy 

dice too. This was before 

the days of convenience 

stores, Krauszers, 7-11's, 

and all that, so Mike's 

sub-shop brought in hordes 

of money and people to 

chomp away a lunchtime. 

Stanziola's coat factory 

would have guys sitting 

on the ground with their 

backs to its brick wall 

eating and slurping their 

lunches, off from Security 

Steel right across the street, 

and the luckiest of them 

juiced up at the Roxbury too.

-

Maybe you wonder now 

about what sorts of 'men' 

were made from a crucible 

such as this. I know I do. 

Avenel was strangely redneck  

-  gruff, pushy, and strong. 

Then. Today it's not that at 

all  -  it's run by tiny little 

squint-eyed men who run 

themselves like girls, 

comport themselves like 

cheerleaders and, if they 

ever have spare time, 

probably check below the 

belt to be sure what's 

really there. Used to be, 

in Avenel, any number 

of the homes had gun 

racks on the wall or in 

the garage. I remember, 

on Cornell Street, about 

1958, the Brooks kid 

blew his face off with 

a gun-cleaning accident 

that left traces of blood 

everywhere. The whole 

house had to have a carpet 

change because of the 

reek left in the carpeting. 

Life was like that  -  few 

laws, with but a few instances 
of today's scabby, in-your-face 

people. The guy, 'Metro' 

(he had a small cold-cuts 

store by the First-Aid squad), 

I remember him telling me how, 

when the houses on Inman 

Avenue were built, down 

from Abbe Lumber, he was 

miserable. Why? Because  -  

he said  -  his best local 

deer-hunting lands had 

been taken from him. I 

couldn't even imagine that, 

when he told me  -  in 1962 

one was lucky to find a 

Japanese beetle or an 

ant hill because of the a

applications of DDT and 

various bug-sprays that 

had cleansed the area 

of all wildlife. Even the 

prison-farm was sterile 

by the end.

-

By the end of time  -  as 

my reckoning went  -  the 

prison farm was removed 

for the stupidity of the 

State School. Whatever 

America was going through 

at this time, 1960-65, it 

seemed incredible to me  

-  it seemed communist, 

it seemed horrible  -  that 

people would abandon their 

children to become wards 

of the state  -  retarded, 

severely or not. It was sad. 

That's when it began to dawn 

on me that besides my own 

being here, in Avenel's 

new version of things, the

idea behind it all was to fit 

the situation of 'Avenel' as 

a dumping ground for the 

state-controlled policies  -  

like the prison  -  where 

low-budget lands and 

poor quality places were
put to authorized uses. It 

was like the bottom of a

drain, where all the junk

ends up.  The end of Avenel
before it had really even
gotten started. Anything 

organizational, anything 

bureaucratic, seemed to 

land in Avenel. All along 

the course, nearby, of the 

Rahway River, were shacks 

and blacks, living in what 

were nearly shanties, as 

one left Avenel and 

entered Rahway (my 

friend Harold and I often 

did that, each year in April, 

as fishing season opened  -  

leaving at 6am and starting 

walking towards Rahway, 

fishing the river. By noon, 

we'd have passed all these 

cool black shacks, junked 

cars in the yards, old guys 

sitting around, saying hello 

and nodding  -  by noontime, 

along the river, we'd be deep 

into Rahway, over by 

Milton Lake, where his 

aunt lived who'd have 

lunch sandwiches and 

soda waiting for us. It 

was pretty cool, and a 

free world for sure). Hell,

we became men. Not like 

some of what I see from 

Avenel these days  -  it

seems like the only wildlife

they ever knew was 'weasel.'