MENLO SKY
When the gas station blew up,
my mother was in the car and it
sent her sky-high. She was strapped
into the seat, and she landed OK.
Just a little bruised and scared. But,
she was 200 yards from where she'd
started, somewhere between Canale's
Liquor store and the Menlo Park Mall.
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The local paper wrote her up; some
jive about an Avenel housewife, 90
years old, who went for a flying trip
through the sky when the Sikh with
the rag-top let the Raceway Gas tap
overflow and spill all over the ground.
All she was out for was to find a
Christmas tree. I told her it couldn't
be worth it; she could cut one in the
woods for free. I even volunteered
to do it. Out by the Edison Moose
Lodge, backed to 287, they have a
wild spray of trees and shrubbery
not yet tended to or cut. No one
would ever know it was gone.
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You got Talmadge Road, and Sarno
Avenue; out that way. Scrubland and
worse, but lots of nice fir trees as well.
Ah, Hell, everyone's so scared of their
shadows these days; they do nothing
to a place like that, out of property and
trespass fears, and then some asshole
developer comes by, pays off the Mayor
and Council, and rips the whole place
up anyway for 15,000 condos and a ton
of new piece-of-crap people.
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Where was I? I forget. Oh, yeah, my
Mother. She took it all well, and all
she really ever managed to say (she's
in her 90's remember), was 'It's a
really nice view from up there, of the
Menlo Mall. I remember when all
that was nothing at all. Just trees.'
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