12,923. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,095

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,095

(no joke, but it was funny)

Some people said Pine Barrens,

some said Pinelands, some said

Jersey Pines; some even said

'The lungs of New Jersey.' 

Whatever they said, I always

knew what they meant. It was

a grand expanse of open-air

space: Water, streams, lakes,

camping areas, old roads, the

factories and encampments

(most fascinating)  -  seasonal

encampments. Bog factories.

Cranberry-workers' settlements.

I found at least 3. Lines of 10 

or 12 cabins, weedy and almost

wrecked, with communal outdoor

water-troughs with soap and

shaving mirrors, all that stuff

just left there, as if the guys

just departed; except it was

dried out and caked.  Fungus.

Bugs. Mold. Slapping screens

and doorways, and old  funky

cars left, down on their springs.

Here and there, old houses, or

remnants of old houses, homes,

small farms, and recreational

camps were still left around.

By the 1980's, apparently from 

what was seen, the informalness

of the earlier era's (1930's or so)

was gone, and Government had

taken over park areas, campgrounds

larger lakes and such. Park Service

police and rangers, camp-stores,

for supplies, canoe rentals, maps

and guidebooks. And of course,

the rental format, for access to the

waterways, gave one's name and

group away to the authorities and

their darned 'timing' systems of

closed at sunset and all that. No

longer did the 'adventurous' linger

or stay out all night on sand or

water. (Of course, the really

adventurous, such as we were,

made it a point to stay away

from such organized sites. No

one was ever to know where

we were....and we had no 'when.'

People seem always so willing

to dilute everything away to

controls and systems, all for the

sake of one organized place where

they could buy their damned chips

and soda. I never figured that out).

-

It wasn't always easy to find, but

at the 'place' called Indian Mills,

which I found a way of getting to

by turning off 206 by the Columbus

Market (a sort of 150 acre highway

horde of flea market, junk shop,

vegetable and food stands, and a

million outdoor sheds with tables

selling everything from holsters

to motorcycle parts, comic books

to flavored condoms, musty, old

issue magazines, of cars, hobbies,

motorcycles, or women, and the

attendant 'sellers' of all these goods

loitering about, just to be making a

riotous array of fat, skinny, toothless

or over-toothed, cowboy or hillbilly,

farmer-anger-girl or slut). Once I'd

make a left there, at an fine, old, brick

house, now long gone, the road would

sled out, after a few miles, over and 

into a more rolling greenscape. There

was an ancient old house  -  wood,

turned almost black by the weather,

slats and broken slats, windows,

etc.  -  which house had claim to

being the home, a hundred years

back, then, of someone called

Indian Mary, as I recall, who'd

been an original, tribal, Indian,

local, until she died, quite old.

The house had since then just

been left. It was pretty weird, 

almost ghostly, to look at. The

fence slats were everywhere fallen,

the foundation was of rock, very

shallow, short to the ground. And,

off to one side, amazingly, was a

small oval of racetrack, from the

way, old days  -  a horse-track

oval, like something painted by

Albert Pinkham Ryder, in a

painting he's got called 'Death

Rides a Pale Horse.' Pretty

spooky, and caught me every

time. Last time down there, 

doing something else, I tried 

to find it, but couldn't. Not was

I ever able to figure out any

import for that race oval, though

I, yes, did find a reference to it,

and her, and her racetrack, in a 

history-book-guide. Hers was

but one of the old, rather

mysterious, houses I kept

somehow running across. 

You need to imagine, really, 

an entire network of roads, 

paths, and sandy lanes, just

things never paved  -  in the 

same manner we now have 

highways, cross-streets, and 

main boulevards. In some 

older American ways of life,

whether by horse, or wagon, 

or horse cart, the Pine Barrens 

had a life of their own wherein

people traveled by just those,

on just those, small but solid 

roads. It's quite fascinating to 

still see most of it intact. One 

can drive out, or along, almost

any sort of odd lane or pathway, 

being careful of course first

about seeing car tracks and 

not just ruts and soft-spots. My

rule of thumb mostly, though I

admit not 'always,' was that if

I saw no evidences of previous

car tracks, I ventured not.

The danger of getting stranded 

in some of these places was too

real. Lakes and waters abounded,

as did swamps and bogs. Here

and there, maybe, a  fishing hut, 

hunting club,  or rifle-range, 

perhaps. But you'd not find any

foodstuffs, nor refreshments, nor

amenities.  One pee'd on trees,

if that 'one' was a male anyway.

Once again, my wife was strafed

one day while in her girl-pee crouch

in secluded weeds, by fighter jets. 

No joke. But it was funny.
-
The center of all of this, if there
has to be a center, a sort of 
'place' anyhow, from which I took
my bearings, mainly because from
that point at, in each direction, ran
the sand roads, the center of the little
area was called Chatsworth, and, back
in the 198's anyway, the center of 
Chatsworth was Busby's General
Store. There's something still there,
but owners have changed, the place
has been totally re-done, and all the
charm of the original sense of 1920
has disappeared under the toilet-paper
facade of new charm, 'Chatsworth'
mugs and towels and spoons for
sale, and a sort of new and genial,
chamber-of-commerce type BS
charm. The original Busby's was,
for me, the real McCoy  -  hardware,
hardtack, a furnace fire in the center,
during cold days, a service counter,
sandwiches, coffee, and any sort of
sundry barrel and crate loose goods
needed. Shovels. Hammers. Dog food,
ground corn, syrups, chips, sodas and
most anything else. A few benches
inside, and a table or two, often had 
old-timers and locals jawing about,
over coffee and cake, or whatever.
They did have a great sandwich and
salad counter, and, along with the 
long wooden bench out front, when 
all that was, suddenly, one day, on 
a return visit after a while, gone, all
the air just left me. It was like killing
a town by, yes, killing a town! Ripping
a heart from something living. By
contrast now it's just a dead lump with
not much around it. The old Gulf
gas pumps, along across the street,
is gone. The Cranberry Co-Op has
moved on. Ocean Spray Cranberry
Company used to even keep a presence
there. All gone. On time I found myself
in Chatsworth in a terrible-mileage
Land Cruiser, way low on gas, like
'E' and under, in a most troublesome
fashion, and the Gulf guy whose door
I knocked on, refused me gasoline.
Infernal outsider, late on a Saturday,
NO! Be gone! I did fortunately make
it along to the next, larger road, where
I did find a normal, corner gas station.
Damn I do miss Busby's.