RUDIMENTS, pt. 406
Making cars
When I worked at NJ Apellate,
the owner guy, Ron, said what
I thought was one of the oddest
things. He spoke it to me, as he
was passing by. We had some
guy in the County Court, in was
New Brunswick - name forgotten
now - who used to hold dockets
open for us, or even a few times
alter dates and times of entry.
It was a difficult business, and
he was recompensed, for the
service. Illegal? Who knows?
These stormy businessmen types
get away with a lot. Anyway,
he said to me, 'That man (by
name) is an asset to my business!'
Now, you need to understand, in
all my upbringing and youth, I'd
never come to the point of having
to consider people in those terms.
At first, in fact, it was difficult
for me to understand - what
he meant. It was all new to me.
An 'asset,' to a business? I felt
what he was meaning to say,
but also felt it to be all wrong.
Some things like that were just
too hard for me to understand.
Another person being an 'asset,'
business or not, was one of
those concepts I couldn't readily
grasp. Good or bad. Actually, even
more than that, as I imagined
myself looking down the long
corridor of work and career
and all that crap, I realized
already it wasn't for me.
That entire ethos, the
manner in which they
thought. The format of
life they endeavored
to uphold. Not mine at all.
-
When we were in the old bank
building on Main Street, (our
second location), Ron's brother
came by one day, with an
enormous, and I mean h-u-g-e,
road-camper U-Drive motor
home unit, one of those 70's
things, he'd just purchased.
While he was pulling along out
front, Ron said, head shaking,
'My brother; trying to save his
marriage, with that. I'll have to
play along.' And he did. As the
two of them (brother and wife)
came in, Ron did all the needed
stuff - 'How nice! 'What a great
idea,' and all that' - to get the
approval across. Everyone was
happy. I stood wondering if
that was so. Probably not really.
I wondered if slaves had been
considered assets. Criminals?
It was about then when I realized
the entire system was filthy.
-
The bank building we were in
was really cool. I'd never had
an air-conditioned workplace
before, and the big old granite
bank building had two enormous
Chrysler Air-Con units, each
abut 12 feet high, running us the
center of the side walls. The were
loud, but they really blew out
some cold air. It was neat. Nor
did I know, until then, that car
companies actually DID other
things. Chrysler made commercial
volume air-conditioning units.
Who knew? Now to me THAT
was an asset.
-
There was a little upstairs balcony
section up along the rear, with a
large wooden railing, and beneath
it all was a huge, walk-in safe. Mmm,
thought I? Have I discovered safe
sex? My luck probably, the door would
clink shut and we'd be lost forever.
One to remember anyway. These old
banks were like churches, very much.
Our Lady of Lucre. Holy Mother the
Safe. Dollar Harbor Church of Coin.
The balcony here was a cool money
loft where a lady named Anne did
payroll and accounting. That became
my first exposure to Metuchen - the
three days a week when she worked,
(I never knew how she got there), I'd
have to drive her home, to the 287
end of Metuchen, Durham Ave,
which was still a dirt road until
about 1970, where they'd just
built about 50 new homes, those
split-level dream-home things that
today, if still standing, look like
cheap rat-traps.
-
We had about 6 printing presses,
a collating machine, a cutting
machine, an area of reamed
paper, binding tables, packing
areas, and all that. It was big
time for us. The same place now
is an auto parts and gun shop
combination place, also selling
bicycles and other hard-good
oddments. Duck decoys, legs
of lamb, sandwiches, sides of
beef. OK, NO, just kidding.
It's all funny how things go.
-
Whatever Summer that was,
Main Street, Woodbridge was
always about a thousand degrees.
The air was always as thick as
heavy fog, except it was yellow
with pollution. That doesn't happen
much any more (we don't make
anything here anyway) but it used
to be that hot weather compounded
itself, day after day, getting hotter
as all the particulates and pollution
in the air heated itself and held
itself in. Nasty. Plus with the
Turnpike right there, gunning
through town and all those
behemoth cars back then using
leaded gas, you could just about
eat the heavy, foul air, or at least
taste it. For a while I lived at
285 Fulton Street, turning in at
Lomax Appliance Store, it was
it was about 5 houses up from the
Turnpike. The resultant noise and
pollution was enough to despoil
the dead. If nothing else, the 60's
counterculture bullshit did at least
get an ecological movement started,
and in whatever way it happened
at least now we can breath. There's
another asset for you, but a guy
with 'business acumen' would
never say that. They'd just want
more production, junk, progress
and pollution, no matter what
it took. Capitalism 101, right
up your ass.
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