12,223. RUDIMENTS, pt .847

RUDIMENTS, pt. 847

(what is this mass sickness?)

It's always weird for me to

realize that in Woodbridge,

here, where most everyone

gets their family groceries

and the rest, was once the

thriving, local, 1957 version

of the Drive-In Theater.

Right about where the actual

'Shop-Rite' is was the screen,

and before it, in the near-to-

the-building parking area,

was both the 'snack' pavilion

and a small kiddie-playground.

Yes, kids used to play and

ride swings and all that park

stuff while waiting for the

movie to begin, or darkness

to arrive, or however it went;

parents waiting in the seclusion

of the car. I don't know how any

of that make-out stuff went, or

if parents even did that, but this

was perhaps 'warm-up' time for

them. Eventually, in another hour

anyway, those same kids were

probably fast asleep on the

back seat and none of it

mattered anyway.

-

Over to the left of the movie place

was Woodbridge Ford, a dealership,

on gravel stones, with used cars

out front, and new Fords and a 

showroom off to the rear. There

really was a time when you could

see 15 or 20 new '57 Fords, or '58's

in sequence, all lined up on fairly

primitive gravel lots. That was

the way it was all run back then.

The cars had little flags on them,

or banners about Great Deal or

Low Mileage, whatever, on the

used cars, with maybe pennants

or something stretched on wire

across the lot. The 'lighting' as it

was  -  and this I remember well,

because we probably broke 30 

bulbs per Summer week  -  was

just bare bulbs, not even the

frosted kind, just bare, white

light bulbs, strung on wires, all

across and around the lot. The

electric bill was probably their

largest expense outside of the

basic inventory. There were

railroad tracks right there too,

still are; freight tracks, running

coal and tankers  -  still does  -  

from the port area of Port Reading,

and over to the coal-storage

towers of some Woodbridge 

coal storage company that

used to be out there by the

three grouped Little League

fields. Across the road was

Dooley's Toys and Bicycles,

where the Library is now, and

just at the other side there, of

the tracks, and right close to 

the roadway, was some bar 

and restaurant and banquet

hall, called The Log Cabin,

maybe  -  I forget. It burned

down, to a crisp and quickly,

about 1959 or '60. Over to the

left of all that, towards Woodbridge,

was an always-thriving Carvel or

Dairy Queen, one or the other. It's

all, everything, gone now and not

even a memory. Newcomers who

move in don't have a clue.

-

I guess all American towns were

once something else. Same as

this. The small town-squares and

the central locations and focus points,

the churches and steeples and doctor

offices and local lawyer and real

estates and record keepers all died

away slowly, once the motor-car

introduced its own form of

superiority and stepped right in

on everyone's faces. I sometimes

still get amazed that now, as we

enter the end of that era of the

motorcar and fuels and exhausts

and engines and noise and oils,

we'll hardly recognize anything,

were we to come back in 200 years.

Maybe even far less then that time.

We'll scratch our heads and wonder

about how people could have once

lived like that  -  cars and roads 

everywhere, people speeding around

and dashing past lights and under

bridges and along ramps and

circles. Oblivious of their place

and travel, past their surroundings,

closing distances like needles close

a piece of sewing. Town centers?

They had none. Central and peaceful

locations, of quiet and serenity. There

were none. People were mad,

crazy mad, and the more mad you

could get, the more people thought

you successful. Crazy times.

-

I don't think it was supposed to be

that way in the beginning. I don't

think they ever planned for 100

acres of woods and trees to come

down just so a bunch of morons

could watch a movie from their

car on the open lot with sound

piped in. I'm not sure that Thomas

Jefferson and those guys had in

mind the little men in bad suits and

bad ties scrounging around to wreck

and destroy everything just so that 

for their own paltry 45 years of 

working existence they could wreck

everything around them, ruining

what was there for others, so they

could make a cheesy bundle of

chump-change and then find out,

at the final register, that it doesn't

leave with them. No sir, something

went way wrong.

-

I had a friend, school-chum, back

then, whose father had the Studebaker

dealership just up the road a bit too.

There's a vee in the road there, at

the high school (which was new too

at about this same time). I forget his

name, but the spot is now some Indian

restaurant or, yep, banquet hall. It

used to be a car dealership, but one

with no real 'lot' out front. Just more

a glassed-in showroom with very

cool, often bizarrely-styled

Studebakers, of that era  -  the

wild and outlandish fins, swaths

of chrome and even 'gold.' The

Studebaker-model cars were always

over the top, design wise; until the

very end anyway, when they were

just produced as dumpy boxes.

I forget my friend's name, which

should tell you something, I guess,

but I fondly recall both him and his

father. There was a Stewart's Root

Beer stand across the street, the

California-style kind, open to the

elements, a counter and stools, and

car-hop service too. Other things

came and went  -  a trampoline

recreation place, called 'Jumpin'

Jiminy's. I think that was a Disney

cartoon character take-off, Jiminy

Cricket, I believe. There were

one or two real estate offices set up

there. Now there are 'professional'

buildings, that restaurant, and

some Caribbean restaurant place

in an old Krauszer's.

-

One funny thing was how the highway

grew and kind of sucked everything

out with it  -  this 'Amboy Ave.' 

section that I'm talking of, with the 

car dealerships and all that (There

was a Chrysler dealership up that 

road as well, 'Mauro Motors'  -  and

probably Chevrolets and the others

were around too, but I can't recall),

in about 10 years would be considered

useless. All the big car names, by

1980, wanted highway frontage, large

lots, lots of space and a busy and

hard-running atmosphere. The small

town stuff was o-v-e-r, and everything

suffered and then came the malls.

The big political and business guys,

in every town, not just here (they're

ALL just as guilty as the other), they

knew all this beforehand and went

around, all committee'd and Kiwanis

Club'd up, put their monies together

and bought cheaply, all these fields

and highway meadows and all, 

knowing what was coming and what

was about to happen. Their 'cheap'

lands (insider trading really) would

suddenly grow in value tenfold in

two years  -  developers, chain stores,

car dealerships, and the rest  -  snapping

and buying high, just to get started.

Kissing the towns, one by one, down

the river (which they'd already

ruined and polluted with sewerage,

housing, factories, now dead), they

all made out like bandits. A few

went to jail, but only a few.

-
Right across from what is now the
entry street at Shop-Rite, (It's now a
TD Bank) was a nice, brick house and
building that housed a veterinarian.
It was there for years, and seemed
to have very little activity, although
we did once take an animal there.
Small-scale, almost non-descript,
the very conservative brick house
had a siding and entryway that
doubled as a the homey little
vet clinic. Once again, the small
and local and quiet sort of town
thing that the fools still bellow
about making, as they destroy it.
All they can ever do is memorialize
what they take away, by erecting
costly plagues telling you what
once was. Really? And what does
a fool see when the fool looks
in the mirror? You couldn't find
authenticity here now if you tried.
-
All of this I here relate is just the

facts and the real. What's missing,

in this telling, and in these places I 

mention, is the spiritual aspect of

Life and holy living. Doing for others,

regarding your fellow being as

something to be cared for and

respected, not fleeced. The only

threadbare effort made for the

spiritual side of things were the

pathetic churches and temples

you'd see around, even after the

towns had been emptied  -  the same

old fairyland routines, but always

ending up siding with the powers that 

be, the ethos of the moment. What

had ever become of 'cleansing the

temple,' like that Jesus guy had

flipped out over? That stuff doesn't

happen any longer? And those that 

should know better and be directing

people to a spiritual and clean end,

they instead have all made their

deals with the Devil incarnate.

Whatever then IS this mass

sickness? Anyone know?