EAST ROAD – FOND MEMORIES FROM MY CHILDHOOD

The bulldozers woke me up early Monday morning with their thunderous movement down East Road. I jumped out of bed and rushed over to the window. My first thought was that someone new was moving into our neighborhood. While still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I continued to watch as a giant flatbed truck pulled up just one house away. Wow! It was the biggest “Caterpillar” I ever saw. I pulled up the window just enough to get a better view, as the cab operator released the air brake and the diesel engine grinded to a complete stop. The smell of spent fuel wafted through the air and found it’s way to my bedroom. My curiosity was piqued now as I rushed around like a spinning top, throwing on a pair of worn jeans and a wrinkled Rin Tin Tin T-shirt. I didn’t even pause long enough to brush my teeth or do a quick brush of my hair.

I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. My two younger brothers were so immersed in sucking down their Cheerios that they didn’t even see me stealing a piece of their toast before I rushed out the side door. My first and only thought at that moment was that I had to see the excavation equipment before heading to the school bus stop.

East Road was usually a very quiet neighborhood. Nothing much ever happened here. There were no schools, no factories, no churches and not even a small department store along our rural byway. In fact, it was so quiet that the government decided to install a top security military Nike base not far from where we lived. I guess they thought that no one would ever suspect that there was an army ammunitions base secretly hidden behind the old Scheckly farm. I remember reading the posted signs saying “GOVERNMENT PROPERTY – KEEP OUT UNDER PUNISHMENT BY LAW”. Those signs were serious enough for both me and my friends that we never once even attempted to climb over that fence.

It was a chilly April morning as I walked from my house down East Road. As I came upon the flatbed truck, a number of construction men were standing around in their orange and brown overalls and bright yellow hardhats, busily chatting. I said a polite “hello”, while pausing just long enough to imagine that massive machine sitting there with it’s giant claws tucked in. It sat idle, anxiously awaiting for one of the men to set it free, to devour the earth, down the trees and perhaps anything else that might get in its way. One of the men gave me a quick “hello” back, while another one just flicked his smoldering cigarette butt at me and walked away.

I started walking towards Linda Street, passing our neighbor Mrs. Burdick. She was out in her yard tending to her bees and just coming out of one of her large metal cages, when she spotted me. We exchanged “hellos” as she lifted her face shield to make eye contact. I shouted to her asking, “How’s it going? Are they putting out this morning?” I thought for a moment that I should have rephrased that a little better, but since it was already said, I just kept quiet. “They are doing just fine.” Mrs. B answered back. “I think they may be a bit more jumpy this morning from all the noise,” she continued. I didn’t respond, but just kept walking to the end of the block.

“There it is!” I shouted to myself and pointed to the vacant lot adjacent to Mrs. Burdick’s, at the corner of East Road and Linda Street. Sure enough, there was a sign on the lot in big bold lettering: ON THIS SITE…3 LUXURIOUS SPLIT LEVEL HOMES FROM THE MID 20’S.

For almost a month, I watched that construction crew every morning and every evening when we came home from school. My brothers and I would sometimes make bets as to how much progress the crew would make by the end of the day. Not that those guys were lazy or anything, but I never made a dollar on any of my bets. Little by little, the piles of lumber and the bags of concrete would dwindle, as we watched them become the beginnings of someone’s new home. It sure was fun to watch.

As it turned out, however, it wasn’t until December that the completed foundations were finally finished and at least the main outer walls of the houses were erected. Of course, in New Jersey hardly any construction is done during the winter months, because of the cold weather and frozen ground.

As the rains and snows continued through the next several months, the basements of the homes would fill with water and freeze, making them the perfect places to do some ice skating. The bad part was that you had to be pretty good at skating between the pipes and other fixtures sticking up through the ice, or you could wind up in the emergency room of the nearest hospital for not being careful enough. During the winter we would sometimes get some really heavy snows. I used to love to walk over to the construction site and sit on the foundation and just watch the snow fall all around me. Sometimes it was so quiet there in those moments. When no cars were traveling down East Road, you could almost hear the sound of those giant flakes landing on the open rafters. The house would have a sort of eerie echo about it, but I enjoyed those times, just sitting, watching, thinking and being alone.

I guess the construction company ran out of operating money because those unfinished houses stayed in that condition for the next three seasons.

There was also a really nice pond on East Road. It was high above the homes near the Scheckly farm. It wasn’t too big, but just right for three adventurous youngsters to try their hand at building and launching a homemade wooden raft. My brothers and I called it the Kon-Tiki, after the famed Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s raft, in which he adventured across the Pacific Ocean. I guess you could say we were just as adventurous as he turned out to be.

The pond was just brimming with tadpoles, frogs, crayfish and probably a hundred other slimy creatures we didn’t know existed beneath the murky surface of the water. With the help of some of my dad’s hand tools, my brothers and I built her out of discarded tree limbs and used clothes line ropes. We tried our best to make perfect knots and used cloved hitches for the joints. After a couple of weekends we were sure that the launch of the Kon-Tiki would be a success. Boy were we wrong!

Saturday came quickly. We rushed through our chores and headed up to the top of East Road. Our raft was covered with Dad’s old tarp and scattered leaves. We uncovered it and dragged it over to the pond’s edge. We were so excited, but first we had to figure out who was going to be the real adventurous one of the bunch to take the maiden voyage. We decided to draw straws and yep, you guessed it, I won the draw.

We launched the raft at the shallow end of the pond, and I proudly sat in the center with my makeshift oar. I slowly sunk the stick/oar into the silty bottom and gave it a quick tug. The raft inched backward and ever so slowly drifted out into the middle of the pond. It was there that one of the log ropes got snagged on a piling sticking up out of the water. The raft came to an abrupt halt, and the next thing I knew, the ropes began unraveling. The logs separated from each other, and each one found itself going in a completely different direction from the others. A large gap opened up in the middle, and water came up as I went down. Although I wasn’t wearing a life vest, the water wasn’t that deep, but it was rather filthy. Within minutes, I was covered in mud, slime and a multitude of unknown creatures. I managed to get back to shore, and when we realized what had happened, we all just started laughing. The raft was no longer seaworthy, and I looked like the creature from the black lagoon.

Once we got home, one of my brothers started pouring buckets of water on me in the backyard, while the other went up to my bedroom to get me some dry clothes. I stripped out of my dirty clothes and hid them in the outside shed. My pocket comb came in handy and before you knew it, I was presentable again, or so I thought. Dinner was called and we three waltzed in as if nothing happened. Mom started putting the food on the table, when she noticed a couple of small mud balls in my ear and then got a good whiff of me. Next thing I knew, I was in the shower and went to bed hungry.

I had many friends on East Road. There was a pair of 9-year-old twins who lived down past the butcher shop at the lower end of the street. They had a big front yard with lots of trees, and even a treehouse that their father built for them. I used to go to their house a lot after supper to play, because they had the latest toys, swings, and there was always something new to play with.

I loved when Mom sent me to the butcher shop for meat. If we got a big order, Mr. Savoros would give us free popsicles. The twins were always jealous, because their mom never bought meat. They were vegetarians, so they never got free ice cream.

At the very top of East Road there was a really big mansion. We neighborhood kids found out that there was a very old, crotchety lady living in that huge place, and apparently she hated kids. She had a great big metal cauldron on her front lawn, the yard was unkempt, and the shades and curtains in every window were always shut and closed tight. My friend Tommy told me that his brother spied her spreading honey on the bark of her dogwood tree, so that she could catch insects to eat for dinner. We all believed him, for whenever any of us kids stepped foot on her property, she would open her front door and scream at us nastily to get the heck off her land. Needless to say, we all tried never to go near her gloomy old house.

Dad came home one day and gathered the family around the dining room table. “I have something important I need to tell you all,” he said. The whole family was all ears at that moment.

“We’re going to have to move from East Road,” he said with trepidation in his voice. We kids just stood silent. Of course, no one in the family wanted to hear that, as we had moved around at least six times in the past nine years growing up. I was the first to speak up. “But dad, I have friends here. I love my school, I love the pond, I love the twins and Mrs. Burdick,” I continued. “I love the old Scheckly farm, and the butcher shop, and I even love that old wicked woman who lives up on the hill,” I said untruthfully. “I don’t want to leave here, dad.” Dad looked at me sadly, but I could tell that he wasn’t very convinced of my sincerity. “We need a bigger house,” he added. “We have another kid on the way, and we need another bathroom, a bigger kitchen, and well, we just need to move.”

I became very solemn, dropped my head and started to walk away. Dad put his hand on my shoulder, turned me around, looked me right in the eyes, and said, “That’s why I just put a down payment on that newly built house down at the corner of East Road and Linda Street.”

Hi Again Everyone… Thanks for taking the time to read my blog stories. I really enjoy bringing a good story to life on these pages. If you do also, please consider hitting the LIKE button and better yet, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment in the comment section. I would love for you to share your thoughts. We all have at least a few great memories from our past… I’d love to hear yours. Thanks… Lenny