RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,353
(ash is good wood for baseball bats)
One thing that always bugged me
were quarries. Anywhere. They're
up here too, usually hidden off to
the side of denuded hilltop, with
an access road that you can see
dump trucks coming and going
to or from. I never knew what
was actually going on until, one
day, the Welcome Lake Fire Dept.,
I noticed - about 8 miles from
my home (guessing), was getting
a new 'parking' lot area - first it
was dug out, and then layers of
rocks were put down and the new
surface was steamrolled and pressed,
for the new macadam. I kept seeing
large dump trucks rolling along,
full in one direction, and empty
in the other. Once I realized what
was going on, I decided to actually
follow an empty truck where it was
headed. It wasn't five minutes, and
it wasn't ten minutes. It was more like
20 minutes, and that long, twisty trip
brought me to a nearly-concealed
quarry, with its own turn-off and
entry area.
-
I pulled over to watch, as the truck I'd
been following went into the quarry
yard. I forget the name, but was some
BS name, like Universal Gravel and
Stone Quarry. In that quarry yard, two
or three giant hills, which had been
stripped of dirt and surface, were torn
open and exposed, to the bedrock and
stone beneath the dirt. Gigantic stone
shovels went up and down, ripping more
surface and tearing the broken rocks
into smaller sizes, where a crusher, set
to varied sizes, I guessed, churned and
produced sizes of gravel and stone.
Under each conveyor rolled an empty
dump truck (like the one I followed),
and it got filled up, had paperwork
checked, and went back out on the
road. The truck I followed in is the
truck I followed out.
-
That's a lot of story for little result. I
wasn't aware, until after that, that there
were at least 3 more quarries, with a
20 mile area, that I'd passed over time
and never even knew they were there;
except for one which, seen from a
distance and from a certain turn and
angle, was totally obvious, once it
was discovered. That one's named
after someone, like 'Henry Seeley
Stone and Gravel.' Equally as busy
as Universal. I remembered, back
in NJ, how there used to be a quarry
just off R. 22, in Watchung somewhere.
It was massive, and again it was well
hidden, and - I might add - ruinous
to the local lands, and another large
one as you entered Princeton along
River Road or Rt. 27, whatever it
was.
-
This all led me to learn that nowhere
is the surface of the Earth sacred, nor
revered, nor sacrosanct. It's a disaster,
in fact. I was surprised by what I found,
never realizing how, way out in the
country like this, any new footing
or foundation for a house, home,
or barn or garage, needs a gravel
and/or stone base. Thus a need is
constant for this ravaging of the
land. No one seems much to care
and, though the visibility of the old,
rocky, sub-surface Earth is dense
and interesting, the hurt done still
lingers.
-
I'd never seen a quarry, I realized as
I thought about it, in or near Columbia
Crossroad or Troy PA, or even Elmira,
NY - but they must have been there.
Then again, I'd never seen a baseball
bat factory here in Wayne County, but
there was one in Troy, along Rt. 14.
Ash is good wood for baseball bats.
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