RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,096
(when lawlessness becomes the law)
One thing I always noticed in the
Pine Barrens - which is a large
area - was the lack of any real
police patrol or presence. It's
been said, of the many supposed
issues of dumped bodies and
hasty burials, that the mob boys,
over from Philly, in one direction,
or New Gretna and Atlantic City
from the other, that the gangs
and mob boys loved the sandy
soils and the isolated roads and
paths, for just that reason. An
easy dig, and an easy dumping.
Maybe so, and I read numerous
accounts of whores and call
girls being found dead along
the Atlantic City Expressway
and roads leading in and out
of the Pine Barrens. Always
unidentified, and always a
'mysterious,' unsolved slaying.
Perhaps. And only perhaps:
'Jimmy Hoffa, meet Jasmine
Lilyflower.'
-
The only times I saw police
activity were when a passing
State Trooper whizzed along a
paved road. One episode I had did
involve a parked State Trooper,
just sitting by observing what
passed, and then, eventually,
stopping and asking me of our
reasons for being there and
driving out of the sandy-road
woods as we did. It was all OK,
and nothing came of it. I never
ran across any citations or
traffic violations being written,
nor any patrolling. Perhaps the
settled anarchy of place and
tradition there ruled itself and
kept settled its own turf. The
abandoned cranberry bogs and
camps seemed never touched or
violated, and there was none of
that weird urban graffiti and
messiness that we so much see
elsewhere. It almost seemed
like a long, exaggerated, 1950's
that had never left.
-
Out along Rt. 206, I could always
find excitement at a place called,
for whatever the name meant, the
'Pick-A-Lilly Inn,' at Shamong, NJ.
It masqueraded as a dining place,
but in actuality was, for the most
part, a down and dirty Biker bar,
frequented late and frequented
often. And not always by the
most upstanding of characters.
Club guys, (I'm too weary to mention
names) out of Philadelphia, and
the local branch-office club types
around the area. You kind of had
to keep a watch on things, lest
'ye getteth your headed handed
to ye.' For all sorts of reasons.
Perhaps that kept the cops busy?
In any case, they never were in
the woods. A few times I'd run
across cast-off individuals, walking.
I guessed they were local enough,
never very amenable to talk, nor
friendly. I either just kept going,
nodded, or, if stopped, found a
way to jump-start a conversation,
just to get a read on the person. I
found a way to talk about anything.
There were fishing spots, hunting
spots, even piles of firewood, I
guessed gathered over time and
constantly as a stash to be picked
from by those in the know. And,
occasionally, there'd be someone
at one of them. Never a problem.
In fact, the biggest problem at
times were the one-lane sand roads,
for which, should another vehicle
be coming, in the other direction,
immediate decisions had to be
made. I always ceded the territory,
immediately, and pulled as much
over as possible to let what I
always figured was a more local
inhabitant, pass. No challenge.
No beef. I don't know what the
local protocol was, between
two local fellows in that same
situation, but I guessed it was
always worked out.
-
I think it was 1977, maybe '78,
when I first discovered-by-entering
the Pine Barrens. It was, in any
case, the Summer before the
election that granted 'casinos
and gambling' to Atlantic City,
which at the time was just a
run-down rump of a place; a
black ghetto rezoned from an
older, mobster-elite ring of
clubs, bars, hotels and third-rate
entertainers running down their
own skids of a career. It was shot.
We got there at probably its very
nadir (lowest point) before the
'supposed' but quite temporary
renaissance of the gambling and
casino constructions and rebirth.
The stories were legion, and even
Springsteen has a song about
that one. I never for a minute
believed that anything good would
come from it. What most interested
me, to tell the truth, was how the
Pine Barrens just sort of emptied
themselves out, at New Gretna, and
all that sand and stuff began to be
little, old, strips of towns running
towards Atlantic City, which once
really did have a big presence.
If the Pine Barrens were the 'lungs'
of New Jersey, old Atlantic City
had been the lungs of Philadelphia;
the Atlantic City Expressway, running
a cool straight east and west, had
seamlessly connected to two. Places
like New Gretna seemed all mixed up;
neither sandy Pine Barren towns, nor
Atlantic City show and club glamor.
Every once in a while, along that area,
you'd run into some great and glamorous
looking building or old lodge or club
or hotel, just out in the middle of
not much - looking seedy and dirty,
but still there, and proudly so. The
reality was, instead, all a lost, old
America eating with its own bent
spoon and fork. That's called Legacy,
good or bad. Nowadays they don't
let that stuff exist.
-
The Pine Barrens burned often enough
too; great big portions of it would get
set off, lightning or some other natural
and localized calamity. You see, the
amazing thing was, with all the dwarf
pine, or pitch pine, or whatever it is,
I learned, that those trees depended
upon fire to propagate. That's how
they reseeded themselves, and how
new trees got started. It was pretty
amazing to learn that, in the heat of
fire, the trees explode their seed pods
and send them flying, everywhere.
Of those that land, some decent
percentage of them then take, in the
burned sands and soils underfoot.
Not a good deal, I grant you, for
ground animals and small critters,
but it seemed that they usually did
manage to stay ahead of the flames.
Back in those days, on another point,
as I think of it, there were a lot fewer
animals around; nothing like today,
when we have plentiful deer, hawks,
scavenger birds, herons, egrets, and all
else. Take it from me, 30/40 years ago
it was NOT like that. Nature was a
quieter place. People now get all la-la
and fired up if they see a red fox, or
a coyote, hell, or even a raccoon. Like
it was some foreign object. That's the
kind of thinking that nearly wiped
them all out during the 1950's and
60's. A weird, tired, sicker world, if
you can figure for that - DDT,
exterminations, wholesale plowing
over and building, no regard for
waterways, swamps, or fens and bogs.
All the sorts of things the Pinelands
thrived on and were filled with.
At least some things got done
right. The funny thing is, now, that
the average Joe no longer does that
stuff, so much anyway, but the towns
and road departments - all the ones
who make the restrictions and laws
about what other can NOT do, are
now the ones doing it! Toxins and
defoliants spread at will along
roadways, sidings, and turn-offs.
When lawlessness becomes the
law, then there is no law. Just
like they did to Atlantic City.
Killed it.
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