RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,207
candid representation......fixed bait
I figured early on that most
of life was a fake. As soon as
I was 4, and we had moved
from Bayonne/urban to some
new and rather-other skid-row
of a place called Avenel, it was
all pretty obvious. I did, later,
hold all that against my parents
too, in the weird way that
adolescents have of seething
on about something or other
that bugs them, and for which
they blame a lot of their woes.
Why in the world my parents
would bail from a nice, comfortable
little square-hole city like the
Bayonne/Jersey City connection
once called 'The Boulevard,' and
now, instead, some JFK Memorial
crap, to this rank wonderland
claiming the name 'Avenel,' was
beyond me. Like a zillion other
young and post-war veteran
couples turning into families,
this was presented to them all
as a step in the right direction,
a 'leg up' to making it in the
big-time, never saying that
most of the streets were more
or less marked with 'Dead-End'
signs, the oldest to the newest.
Abandon the cities and turn them
to derelict crap and crackheads.
Curiously, Avenel was the sort
of dump that made no distinction
between the two. Most people just
didn't know, and the 'newcomers'
were but blank slates, while the
old-timers with their stories cared
not as they entered the street
marked 'Dotage.' I guess that's
how places - and people - die.
-
In my own head it was always 1924;
that seemed about the best, practical
era for what was called 'Avenel.' There
were some (a few) solid, old homes
from the era of 1915-1924, and there
were still couples and people who'd
lived in those homes most or all of
their married lives. I knew a few, and
they were considered the 'old' names,
sort of, of a town that never really
existed anyway. There was one guy,
down towards the end of Park Ave.,
who lived in an old-style, once more
isolated, old home; large style, the
sort that were no longer being built
in Avenel. (The rules had changed
for the benefit of developers and
the local politicians so that tract
housing and rows of houses in
the style of the first-step up from
tents could be erected in massive
rows of sameness, while all the
little grubby town hall guys all
had their hands out and were in
on the take. Any number did end
up in jail, but who's counting)?
This old guy used to let myself
and my friend Jimmy Yacullo take
our bikes, every so often, into his
garage and remove his accumulated
cans and bottles, which we'd redeem
for like 2 or 3 cents each, I do forget,
at the local market on Avenel Street.
We had baskets on our bikes for just
that purpose and if we ever made
over 75 cents we were rolling in
dough. The bonus to all this was that
he also gave us a buck or so to rake
and tend to his yard - trees, woods,
and a tiny bit of curb-lawn. Autumn
would have us raking, piling huge
heaps of leaves out at the front curb
and roadside. Loose. The town guys
would, eventually, pick them up. BUT,
the really cool thing was that open
burning was still allowed, so we did
that too, and this guy would always,
without fail, tell of his growing up
there and how the old folks used to
fend for themselves - and he'd show
us, each time. We'd start the leaf-fire,
and he'd come back out with potatoes.
They were wrapped in foil or something,
but hed' heave 6 or 8 of them into the
burning pile of smoldering leaves.
I forget how much time was then
involved, but we'd always end up
with a cool mini-meal of buttered
baked potatoes, eaten right from the
aluminum-foil wrapper. We'd open
them up, slap down some butter, and
he'd salt and pepper them, and we'd
sit at the curb and feast! Try that
anytime soon - you'd get hauled off
by some Avenel fire-gendarme quicker
than ice melts. (Even though you can
buy pot now, right down the street).
The more things change, the more
they stay the same, unless you're a
potato.
-
The candid way, now, that things are
slipped in makes it insidious the way
brains are tackled and torn-up. Most
people just follow that route they're
on, because they've been told they're
on it and they've also been told 'That's
the route.' Sometimes, even, That's
the only route!' Which probably
accounts for churches. Avenel tried
a few of them too, but by 1965 the
two coolest ones were gone, torn-up
in each case for modernized versions
of where G-d would rather dwell.
There was a synagogue too, but it
became the cable TV center. Pretty
strange, I always figured, but, they
say, Moses did have that whole extra-
terrestrial communications thing going
on, so why not cable too?
-
Avenel, you see, simply found itself
unable to hold on to anything of
substance. The Catholic Church there,
so often just a joke, tore itself down
and re-oriented its new church AWAY
from the rising sun! It went from
facing a sort-of North, which too
had always ignored creation, to
then facing West, which belied
to me the true essence of all
religion from the very beginning
of creation, which I always saw as
being a true dedication to the Solar
being, the Heavens, and the daily
renewal of praise while facing
the new sunrise with prayer.
What had happened to all that,
I wondered? That was merely
one of a myriad of suggestible
betrayals of Humankind's realities
that were represented by 'Avenel.'
Pernicious and pervasive growth
and development. In the same way
as the entire area - not really just
'Avenel' but all those other donkey-
snot towns and places, all the grime
that went 'Woodbridge.' The guy
over at one of the local food markets,
before the big-fat blast of supermarkets,
one Mr. Metropoulos, or somesuch
Greek name but whose market
went by the name 'Metro's, used to
decry to me how he'd lost all the
best hunting lands he'd ever had
when they tore down the woods
where they had built the 10-zillion
'matchbox' homes (my Mother's
own phrase!) where we moved to
and lived. New school. New hardware
store. New churches. 'Joe's Meat
Market,' as a Shop-Rite instead.
Gravel roads paved. Bubble-top
swimming pools on rows, up and
down the block. AND, nowhere a
baked potato!!!! Planes, trains,
and automobiles.
-
That old guy with the baked potatoes,
he's probably long-dead now, and his
wife. I always think of that painting
by van Gogh or somebody, whether
it's 'The Potato Eaters,' or Potato
Pickers' I never remember and I
don't much care. I've done my own,
in memory. Also, he drove a very
magnificent 1955 Chrysler Imperial,
the one with those mounted rear
tail-lamps. I sure used to love
that car...You look at the
town now, it looks
like a nun's butt.
