RUDIMENTS, pt. 448
(iselin's alabaster pie)
Maybe once or twice I
went to the racetrack with
a darling of mine, and when
we got there the horses were
gone. All that was there was
that glue-truck, the one that
used to be at Roosevelt Stables,
in Iselin. Man that was a weird
world. It must have been a
long time ago too, say 1966,
on Wednesday nights. We'd sit
there together, probably until
midnight, watching the auctioneer
prance and the horses get bid for.
They were all older; not lame,
just tired and slow - good for
kiddie rides and such. Which is
all they were sold for. They'd
always have some pretty,
western-style girl, or two,
riding the horses around,
slowly, or walking them,
while the bidding went on -
all these weird Jersey cowpoke
types, mostly from trucks and
farms out of Hunterdon or
Somerset Counties, going by
the names on the truck sides. A
few of the guys always got more
interested, it seemed, in watching
the girls than the horses. Not that
anyone could blame them. My
crazy friend had a band back then,
and their signature song (this
reminded me of it, sorry) had
the refrain 'A man's gotta' do
what a man's gotta' do, to the
woman he's gotta' do it to.'
Ridiculous stuff, for sure. It
would get you hung today, but
these horse-guys back then at
Roosevelt Stables would never
have minded. Makes for some
frightful stuff.
-
It was sad though - and for the
horses who had no successful
bids, each Wednesday, it was
truly the end of the line. They
kept the horse tractor-trailer
right out back there, ramped
and ready, and the name on
the side was some glue factory.
Adhesives. I never even knew
they really made glue and stuff
from parts of horses, but the
guy said yeah, hooves and other
things. I guessed maybe bones?
The ones that did get bid on were
loaded onto the farm's truck
and taken away too, but for
light-duty service for the rest
of their days. I never got over
the fact that the auction place
was even there - and it stayed,
well into the late 1980's - or
why in Iselin? It was right off
the old Oak Tree Road, before
it was widened and became all
South Asian and the rest. Back
then it was still open country,
gunslinger stuff - a drive in
movie, an old copper mine,
open fields and power lines,
Off Oak Tree Road, by the
little Dairy Queen that was
there, the dirt road led back
into the wooded area, and there
it was - corrals, a nice tack
shop, belts, saddles, buckles,
and a hundred other horse
things like boots and spurs and
that - no guns though. There
was also a pretty miserable
dining area/snack section. Like
'Bunky's Bad Cafe' or the
Iselin version of that. The entire
place, unlike things today, was
hazed over with a thin cloud
of that bluish smoke that you
get in a roomful of 70 plus
people milling and moving about
looking at horses, talking amidst
the straw and hay bales, dusty
ground, and old-painted tired
walls, corners and doorways
etched and crowded with the
scrawled pencil note of lines
and phone numbers and names.
The place was a tinder box, and
most probably ready to torch up,
though it never happened, from
all the butts and lit cigarettes and
cigars, which often seemed to be
walking around with lives of their
very own. I never sensed a real
profit going on here, though the
person or people who did the books
must have finagled it all enough
to be so. Can you imagine an
accountant type having the task
of sorting through the books of
a horse auction? Must have
been perplexing.
-
Back at St. George Press, funny
to think, my boss used to use the
cover of 'my accountant,' for any
bad news. It was tricky. The actual
accountant was a Colonia guy
named Sid Glassel, who probably
didn't know beans about the printing
industry but knew how to do
finances and the statements for
profit/loss etc. He had a little
office in a professional building
on the small hill there above
Jo-Ann's Fabric Shop, which
before that was a W. T. Grant
store. Any other time of the
year, the boss guy would mostly
scoff at him and keep it all to
himself, but whenever he had
to let someone go or change a
tactic or tighten up wages or
anything of that nature, he'd
pipe up with, 'Well, the accountant
was reviewing the books, and
he says I have to.....' whatever.
Let you go, too many pressmen,
cut back on expenses, forego or
lessen the upcoming pay increase.
However it went. I never knew
how involved this 'Sid' fellow
ever really got; whenever I saw
him he always looked like a fish
out of water and better suited to
doing, maybe, amortization tables
for insurance companies.
-
One night they had a horse in
there, the stables, that I really
fell in love with - and it was
the horse itself, nothing else, not
the rider, no girl, etc. It was a sort
of creamy white, tall for its crowd,
seemed really agile and able, spry;
nothing ready for the glue factory.
Attentive, responsive, lively. Man,
it couldn't have been any better.
Whoever it was, they brought it
in tagged and named as 'Alabaster
Pie.' Great name too. The horse
had such presence that it electrified
the whole place; everyone's eyes
and attentions went to it. A girl
rode it in, pranced it around; it
was truly almost mystical. Kingly.
Royal. They made a perfect team,
and immediately the Middle Ages,
or some better old and ancient time,
took over the whole place. The
storyline was announced, its
history of frisky behavior, hard
to control and all that - I guess
the owners had just given up.
The really bad horses, the ones
with the slanted backs, the
pitted, sorry faces, the tired,
the poor, they went, on a good
night, for maybe 200 bucks.
Anything under that usually
went right into the trucks.
(Sad!). Alabaster Pie just kept
rising, 600, 700, 850. Someone
finally snagged it at something
like 1150, as I recall. But boy
what a moment was that!
-
I never was sure where these
guys all cam from : farm hands,
swill and hay and straw and oats.
It was all natural stuff for them;
horses and all being their business.
In addition, used to a really nice
Flemington Fair each year, over in
the old Flemington Fairgrounds
(with racetrack); it's all gone now,
built upon, and they've moved the
municipal equivalent of that fair
now to some new, much lamer,
location. In the horses segment
I'd sometimes see some of
these guys too, sitting around,
playing cards over a beer at the
food and drink concessions area;
or pumping their fists at the
race-track section between
equestrian events. Saw a lot
of that, but never did see
Alabaster Pie anywhere again.
or pumping their fists at the
race-track section between
equestrian events. Saw a lot
of that, but never did see
Alabaster Pie anywhere again.
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