pt. 119 - window painting

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 119)

One thing that's disappeared over time, and it relates

back to the 'visually expository' nature of Mr. Roloff,

is window-painting. There was a time when it was a

great favorite of local merchants, and of celebratory

school windows : Santas, reindeer, mangers, angels,

wise men, baby Jesus stuff, the 'Holy' Family  -  all

those matters that are now strictly forbidden by the

secularized, more vulgar takeover of everyday life. It's

OK to portray bikini-clad beach bunnies with breasts the

size of Nevada wearing Christmas hats while carrying

beer trays, as a for-instance, but God forbid any of

the other stuff -  the town council would have you

hanging by your own Yule balls off the nearest tree.

Back in the days I'm speaking of, a lot of the Main

Street stores of the small towns and cities would have

those sorts of business fronts that were all glass display

windows, with some even having depth that you

walked through to get to the actual front door entry

of the store. In those windows they'd display their

merchandise, whether it was clothing, cameras, bicycles,

or furniture. It would be upon these display windows

that the local high schools and other schools would have

kid-painting festivals -  all that tempera paint. It was

bold in color, came off thickly, and was 'temporary',

which I don't think had anything to do with the word

'tempera' but maybe it did. Those painted windows

would be all over towns  -  sloppy, sometimes ugly,

striking, those big Stars of Bethlehem always spiked

and shining on high. There'd always be a 'best-window'

contest or somesuch, run by the arts-council or the school

art departments, or whatever. The mayors and the fair

ladies of the town would come out for the big bash. I can

even remember, quite well, all through the 70's and 80's,

the town of Metuchen having a Miss Merry Christmas

contest  -  signed ballots at the local banks and merchants

to vote for your favorite of the six high school girls who'd

been selected for the contest  -  photos, smiles, head shots,
on each. Obviously based on looks; sexist, if nothing else, by

today's standards, and probably leering and lewd to in the

eyes of teen boys and gentlemen. Nobody cared. It was

Christmas. The winner and runner-up got to ride in the

Christmas Parade, on the town float. That stuff is all over

now  -  Metuchen 'balled-out' a long time ago and now

labels their parade as a Winter Fest or some name, as if

they lived in Finland or Norway for God's sake. Curlicue

chicken-ass bunch. But no different than anywhere else.

So be it. Mr. Roloff would have his window paintings  -

each of the portables too, I think. He'd select his art-kids

from whomever he thought was best or good, or favorite,

and they'd have a go at all the windows. Usually, by

January 10 or so, it was all taken down, washed away,

windows cleaned and back to clarity.

-

It was always a good indication, to me, of the situation

we were living : the 1950's had all sorts of cross-currents

going on, societally. A lot of it we were unaware of, but

people like Mr. Roloff brought some of it to us. There was

the entire 'beatnik' thing  -  if you recall my story-line

earlier about Alex and myself being given free rein to write

our own Christmas play  -  our 'Beatnik' rendering of the

kidnapping of Santa. That was Mr. Ziccardi's choice and

doing (selecting us)  -  and no one ever really mentioned 
anything to us about our play afterwards  -  we didn't get 
any real congratulations or kudos from it, but the true

zaniness and pure zest inherent in what we wanted to do

was allowed free-enough rein. I mean, we weren't including

profanities or rap lyrics or suggestive remnants of anything.

We weren't about that  -  it was 1960 for crap's sake. Alex

and I were probably the only two kids around anyway who

had a leg up on breaking cultural matters  -  irony, absurdity,

meaninglessness. We didn't exactly make mention of it, but

we knew what was up, and we sensed what we were doing.

And we were both hell-bent on breaking out, forging a

vanguard, even then. All was cool, and we were all.

-

The whole context of the window painting and the usual 

frolics that go with (what's now called) 'Holiday' crap, 

was basically within the context of a church-referential

mode, but it was quickly going out of style. Little did we 

know, Jack Kennedy was bonking Marilyn Monroe, Judith 

Exner, Mimi Alford, Priscilla Wear, Jill Cowen and others,
in the White House itself, and elsewhere, and while married. 
The entire thing was a cultural sham, with the Catholic hierarchy
involved as well. After all, he 'represented' them, he was held up 
as a regular, secular saint  -  proving the rightness of the Church 
and the wisdom and good sense which could come from it. It
was, as I said, all a sham  -  he was just as much a weasel as any
of the rest of the Senate, House, Courts, Congress or lawmakers.
Greed, corruption, power, lies, and all the rest. Later it was Bill 
Clinton too; yeah, but he wasn't the same sort of secular saint
because WE weren't the same sort of naive or duped people. 
Kennedy's father had been a criminal in a suit, a bootlegger, 
a racketeer, and one who'd risen to the top as head of the SEC 
(Securities and Exchange Commission), which only gave him a 
further means for the advancing of his doctrinaire capitalism 
through insider trading, deals, payoffs and commissions. The 
Kennedy family money was legendarily dirty, as was their son, if 
not the one, then the entire three who remained. We, as a Nation, 
however were expected to worship at this altar of lust and 
the misbegotten ventures it put forth. 
-

That was all part of  the essential fraudulence of the time.
In some ways, we no longer have that, in other ways it's worse.
Today's situation, the 1990's version of it anyway, was 'President' 
Cliinton (if you can believe that) telling Time magazine of his
late teens and early twenties in Arkansas, how he had the rear
pick-up area of his Ford Ranchero done up and covered in a
version of 'Astro-Turf' so he could better have sex with girls. Well,
at least it was girls, I suppose, as a positive. Big ha-ha that was.
'Oh that crafty devil!', they said. Hillbilly style, hi-fashion. A few 
years later he's sticking cigars in some intern Jewess' holes, in 
the Oval Office no less  -  oval orifice in the oval office? The nation 
laughs and applauds, and the only people who really get stuck are 
the people like Ken Starr, and others, whose Government-job it 
WAS to prosecute this stuff. The laugh tracks groaned on. For
THIS, I ask you, for this we were sentenced to 12 years of an
infernal be-jeezused schooling given to us by morons? It's
all worse today, for sure, but that's not excusing anything. We 
were, in the meantimes, supposed to have developed respect and
proper attitudes and the high-American reverence that goes for
bloviating on Decoration Day, Memorial Day and July Fourth 
for all the schmucks who've died for this crap. We've not come to 
that, yet. (Did I say yet?). Oh really!!...But, anyway, back then

we knew very little (because the lie that we lived as a nation 
couldn't yet let it out), except that there was an undercurrent of

some weird malaise taking hold  -  the idea of television, for

one, had already well-swept through Avenel. Our references 

were to all of that already. There was everything from Sky

King to Gunsmoke, Paladin, Maverick and Have Gun Will

Travel. Twilight Zone. Mouseketeers. Howdy Doody. The

list went on, and we began eating it all up. Kix and Fruit Loops

and Cheerios and the rest. Kids don't know it, but we had to

live without Life and Cap'n Crunch and all that crud until it

came to market a few years later. Karo Syrup was on 

everything. My mother used to put it into the baby-bottle 

water which she fed to my infant sisters. It was some hideously

sweet corn syrup or something. That was the world we lived in.

Turkish Taffy was a big deal. Bit O' Honey. This 6th grade

world was twirling its baloney into steak, and we were being

fed the sham-steak result. All of this, for all you can believe, 

before fast food -  no McDonald's and Burger Kings, let 

alone the rest. That whole California car-culture overlay was

just beginning. The idea of living like that, outside of the 

covers, so to speak, had never occurred to anyone here. 

There was a store along Route One, across from where 

the Howard Johnson's used to be  -  called 'American

Shops' or something, and it was perhaps the only thing that

ever came close. It had that ersatz, weird, warm-weather 

tropical feel. An entryway you had to walk along with palm

trees, a parrot or two, statues of guys with burros, sleepy

Mexicans with serapes and straw hats. All that, for selling

clothes. I think they gave out something for free too  -  

soda or popcorn, I forget. But for Avenel that was the 

only and nearest thing to outdoor culture that there was. 

Like the roofless Menlo Mall, it was something starting 

and  something new. By ten years later, the world 

was on fire, we'd touched on the moon, and 

all the kids were crazy.

pt. 118 - teachers

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 118)

I always thought female teachers to be ineffectual.

What I had to go by, of course, were Schools 4 and 5,

which presented us mostly with women teachers,

or almost girls sometimes  -  fresh out of school

and training themselves, thus unsure. I remember,

say, Miss Artym in 5th grade  -  I'd figure she was

young and just beginning a career. My later high school,

pesky, English teacher, Mrs. Oettle (written of earlier),

was very good friends with her  -  this was ten years

later, of course. She called her, or referred to her as,

Ceil. So I guess her name was Ceil Artym. They were

both very Jewish, that I knew  -  nothing wrong about

that, my piano teacher had been Jewish and lived with

her mother, so I'd gotten a lot of exposure to the habits

and peculiarities. Especially there, in that piano house

on Claire Avenue, Woodbridge. That was Miss Frank,

by the way, and Claire Avenue, back then was a white,

concrete  road. Now it's just black macadam, like all else.

It was the last road we were on, leaving lessons, to turn

onto Rahway Avenue back to Avenel, when I got

creamed by the train. It was a really fussy house, very

pin-point neat and structured, not a thing out of place.

The mother was apparently some neatness-nut; she'd

walk around rearranging the chair-doilies, they're like

oil-collectors for the backs of peoples heads and hair as

they sit, so the chairs didn't stain, or something. That

always annoyed me. I just couldn't take a liking to that

old, short, chunky European lady always meddling about.

It was like those crazy people who used to get new furniture

and somehow think it was right to keep it in plastic forever,

all the time, to show newness and preserve it too. Nutso?

I'd think to myself, how the heck could Miss Frank live

here, like that, and no wonder she didn't have a husband.

Of course, I didn't know anything about her love life and

all. It was all conjecture based on what I saw. Mopey,

morose, overly-strict people. Real bores. The last time I

saw her was when she came to say goodbye. It was a

really sad occasion, and I felt the doom that rode heavy

over every minute of Life. I'd been home from the hospital

a little while, but was all injured up, crutches and all that,

and I'd not had a lesson since the crash, nor had I seen her.

I don't think, anyway, unless she'd come to the hospital

during that long coma and convalescence thing. She was

very sad, like to think I could still die or something,

and she began to cry. I hadn't seen her in a long time.

I always wondered if she'd snuck a look at my fingers

or something, just like a piano-teacher would do, to see

if I still had them, maybe. She was really sorrowful and

acted, still, as if my life was over. Then she sadly made the

announcement  that I'd not ever see her again  -  she was

leaving, moving to Atlantic City, where she was to open a

music studio and teach kids, like in a conservatory. Atlantic

City was still a little fancy back then. It wasn't yet all

slummed up and rundown, and certainly not the kind of

dung-heap it is today  -  gambling and whores and

show-girls and all that crud. For all I know, Miss Frank's

still around, running some crazy music harem. She was

crying good, and hugging me. I don't remember any real

reaction on my part, just the sort of distanced, eerie view

of seeing this scene from afar, from above. It was weird.

Something was passing. Have you ever had a moment like

that, when you're like out-of-body, watching something

happen that involves you but somehow isn't really you? Hard

to explain, but  - I'd just eked back from real Death anyway,

so my grim reaper antennae were all up. Maybe her neatnik

mother had died in the interim. There was something spiritual,

but without reason or merit, happening. Weird. Eventually, all

I do remember is being sad too, and just watching her walk away.

In my memory, she's seen walking away a real distance, like

all the way down the block and all, all sad and broken. But that

couldn't have been. I'd guess she drove herself in a car, but I

don't know. Maybe she really was just walking away, to the

train station and back to Woodbridge, one stop off. Funny

confusion, all this stuff. Also, no one ever mentioned

anything about this to me, never, ever again. And I really

don't even remember my mother being around. Certainly

not my father  -  he'd probably have blamed her for all this.

Thank God he wasn't anywhere around. End of that scenario.

-

Back to Miss Artym  -  like I said she was learning on the job,

You may remember that whole Louie Carew episode I wrote

about, where she punished the whole class for one guy's

infraction (money theft) and the fact that even though we

knew, no one would squeal on him or finger him to the office.

So, she pulled us out of that 5th grade Philadelphia trip. Way

over-played that one. A rookie error, maybe, but not cool.

In that same 5th grade, my friend Kenny Lackowitz, maybe

it's Lackowicz, I forget, was a classmate. He was goofing

around one day, about something, I don't recall what happened

exactly, but she called him out, shut him down, by saying, 'Mr.

Lackowitz, don't let your lack of wits get you in any further

trouble.' You had to 'hear' it, because it sounded perfect, even

better than it reads. At that age, it kind of took a minute to

realize what she'd just done  -  a cool  play on words, with

wit herself. Either she got lucky, or was word-crafty like that,

or had learned on the job that maybe you could sometimes

better sooth things with pleasantry and laughter. Whatever.

I don't think anyone else even got the joke. But it has stayed

with me, lo all these years.

-

Outside of those two episodes, I actually remember nothing

else about 5th grade, or Miss Artym. It's a haze. I remember

one of the men teachers always seemingly had the hots for her,

teasing and fooling around in the hall whenever she was

around. Or, maybe that was for Miss Boop, who was another

new-fresh-teacher face back then. I can't remember what

either of them looked like  -  or if they were 'buxom', let's say,

or virginal even. Just don't know. Anyway, my point was the

apparent ineffectualism of female teachers. They seemed either

weak novices or burned-out old hags stuck in another world.

In the same school, however, there was a raging triumvirate

of men  -  distinct, well-defined, precise to their own specific

definitions, and each represented, perfectly, to me, one aspect

of the idea of 'Man' each. Mr. Raisley, Mr. Ziccardi, and Mr.

Roloff. The only one who's first name comes to mind readily

is Mr. Ziccardi, as Joe. The other one may have been 'Ray'

Raisley. I don't know. But that's not important. These were

three completely different people; distinct physically from

each other as well as by comportment and approach. Over

time, in my 'kid-head' they almost worked themselves out

to be prototypes of my silly-boy view of the world. Mr

Ziccardi was the 'Catholic' one, all sunny and agreeable 

about everything  -  extending mannerisms of warmth and

hope talking about his Korean War stuff all the time,

blabbing about Mesopotamia and the fertile crescent

(that always sounded very sexual to me anyway), going

on about the Babylonians and King Tut. It was like almost

all there, but not. Almost correct but mostly incorrect. He'd

gotten the gist of most things, and was just passing on a

happy version of a story-line. Like the Catholics and all their

deliverance stuff and saints and martyrs. He had a wife, lived

locally, had adopted two boys, who he brought in to school,

really, his workplace. He played drums for us there too.

Mr. Raisley, on the other hand seemed more like the grumpy,

Barney Rubble type (Fred Flintstone's friend and neighbor, we

all knew). Short, rounded, talked funny. Lived in Staten Island

or somewhere. He always seemed annoyed or almost-mean, on

the edge of being upset about something. Blunt and direct. Like

Presbyterians and all their do-it-yourself religion stuff. Witness

the Lord directly, work your way into Heaven with grit and

determination. Maybe even sweat. Justification by faith alone,

as Martin Luther put it in the 1500's. Mr. Raisley would sweat;

he'd walk around school with the sleeves of his dress-shirt and

tie rolled up. Tough old determinist dude. And then we had Mr.

Roloff. Pretty sure he was the bastardized one of the three  -  the

gay, Jewboy outcast, always pouting and steaming, all flamboyant

and gay as they come. He lived in Greenwich Village NYC! And

came to work each day, get this, driving a blazing blue 1959

Lincoln Continental convertible. I don't, or didn't much, know

what all that meant. He was the arty one, the grumbly flirt, the

one the stagelights had to always be focused on. The Peacock.

I don't rightly remember him as but handsome, tall, well-dressed,

snarly, moody. Problem was, much like Sister Josephus, of St.

Andrew's Church fame, everyone hated him, no one wanted to

be in his class, and he became known as a petty tyrant. People

still speak of him in some form of Stalinesque awe  -  the things

they all wound up having to do (same stuff, year after year), his

manner of brusquely scolding or dismissing people. Not so much

a confidence builder as a raging maniac. All that stuff stays with

you, at least apparently to Avenel kids. So, for me, the three

poles of aptitude were roundly represented by these three, very

triangulated, men. Apparently, they all got along with each other,

even if, each in their ways, not so much with us. One time, a 

few  of us kids were in the courtyard of School 4, on the 

library-building side, where we always played stick-ball 

off the brick wall. Mr. Roloff's 'portables' classroom was

right there. It was late August, and we'd all gotten our class

and teacher assignments, for two weeks off when school began,

in the mail already. One of the kids began bemoaning the fact

that he was going to have spend 6th grade in Mr. Roloff's

class. Oh God, Roloff!. We were all screeching and moaning 

about him  -  while unbeknownst to us he was in the classroom,

right there, with the windows open, setting up for school, and had

heard everything. He came to the doorway and yelled out at us,

'Oh yes, Roloff! Your worst nightmare, and he's right here now, 

with you!' Yikes, we were flabbergasted! Nobody had cussed 

him out, but we'd come pretty close. I never found out how

diligent Roloff's note-taking was that day, nor do I know how

that friend fared in his year there. His baby-blue Lincoln, with

white convertible top, after that we were always on the lookout

to see if it was there before we started anything.

-

So, anyway, these three guys each represented three different 

character types, and world views to me, from day one. I took

the lessons from it I needed and went on. But it was interesting,

and it was also a good dose of psychological thinking on my 

part too. There's a joke I stumbled on somewhere that sums it 

up pretty well, how different types would think and react to 

things. You know, harsh realist, the rational, engineering type, 

versus the bleeding-heart, sentimental type, and the orderly 

proceduralist. It goes like this, but it sums them up perfectly :

Three guys are out playing golf  -  an optometrist, a doctor, 

and an engineer. Their golf game is continually held up by 

the slowness of the group playing ahead of them. The group

consists of blind men. The optometrist says, 'I must investigate

my case books, to see if there's anything I can do to help them

regain their vision.' The doctor says, 'I too will see what my

medical group can perhaps do for them.' The engineer, he

pipes up, a bit annoyed, and says 'why don't they just 
play at night?'

pt. 117 - the lord's prayer

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 117)

You know, here and now, let me state that I

think every place should be a sacred place. That's

what life is about  -  making things so. It all gets ruined

by jerks trying to turn coin, yes, but if you really believe

in all that you profess, money-changers in the temple and

all that, they're going to Hell anyway. Most people would

deny that, sure - even the most fervent Avenel Catholics.

A person knows when they're lying to themselves, the Spirit

tells them, and they know it. They may deny it, they may

'profess' differently, all because of being in the Devil's

employ - whether sheriff, sharpshooter, bailiff, mayor,
lawyer, doctor, councilman, or even 'justice of the peace'.
When I lived in Pennsylvania, in the wilds, most every
little civic action  -  license plates, permits, taxes, fines,
all that stuff, had to come from a local 'Justice of the Peace'
as he or she was called. Elected, I think. They always had,
connected to their home, or a shed or garage, a special place,
 a scared place, of sorts, separated and lit nicely, and quiet,
with a desk, etc., to do the business. I always loved that.
The 'JP', they were called.  At most any level, All that
stuff's the same. Duties. Clerk chores. That's the rational

world, the one you really put your belief in. It's actually

quite irrational, because it doesn't exist. Oh sure, if you 

stub your toe or bash your finger, it'll hurt. It has to, only

because you're way invested in the system  -  our entire

life and outlook depends on all that being real. But it's 

not. The Spirit within you, the ageless one, endless, the 

one that lives forever  -  the one in fact at the end of The

Lord's Prayer, if you use that slightly longer, 'Presbyterian'

version (?), knows. (We people across and at the 'other' end 

of Pocahant Place weren't allowed to use that one. Figure 

that out). When you say 'world without end, amen,' do you

really believe that then? Or is it just words you say? Can

this really last forever? What's it mean? When I told about

those other houses of my neighbors, being lit and quiet, all

differently, like sacred spaces, did you understand that?

- 

Avenel had its religion, all splashed and squandered about  -  

those decorations of Christmas time, the mangers and 

babies and angels and all that. That stuff was splashed 

everywhere. Most every secular establishment played off

the religious angle for sales  - Christiansen's, jeez it was

built right into the name, and that was the landmark

business of Main Street , Woodbridge, a stone's throw

from Avenel.  Back then they still had 'Christmas' Parades,
weren't afraid of saying so, using the word  -  on displays
and on lighted messages thrown across Main Street.
Now, nobody can get away with that anymore  -  except

maybe the churches. You have to get inside one of them, to
hide away and otherwise 'profess' what you're not supposed
to otherwise utter. Like a catacomb in ancient Rome. Nobody
bothers now with the churches,  because everyone realizes
they're nothing at all. Just an edifice with a storyline meaning,
bold and solid. Maybe a soup-kitchen with a cross. A certain, 

foppish, male sentimentality has taken over, as if the Yule

is now to be ruled by secular 'designers' with all of the

near-sightedness of 'religion' left out. Even St. Andrew's

itself  -  Avenel's very own  -  if you go in there now, for
Christmas, is sweetly and childishly decorated up for

the 'Christmas' scene as pageant and little else. Perfect

backdrop for a civic-consciousness, for homily and 

sermon about nothing so much as maintaining the 

status quo. Which is bullshit, because the status quo is 

Evil incarnate, and should be fought off. St. Michael 

with his sword. This now is more like Bunny Lake 

with her mystery battalion of hungry urchins. Looking

for a meal. Should be fed. By others. Looking to do good. 

Great for those thousands of telephone photos done by 

parishioners. That's religion now? Churches used to be fairly 

clear and respectable. They were sacred spaces, for sure.

Just go look at any old scene anyway, all that darkness and

mystery. That's what it all was. No lights. No bothersome

community crap. Churches had personal, sacred space and

they mucked it all up. What orphan would run there now?

Sacred space is really personal, dark, quiet. The opposite

of most everything now presented. 

-

The Lord's Prayer was pretty much religion for me. That was

all I needed  -  it's short and pithy, and sums everything up.

The rest is all rules and regulations, fake dogma and control.

That's where the money comes in  -  church people are no 

different that anyone else. They'll lie to you over finances, 

as well as mess around with your son or daughter. Give me

a break with your silly high-falutin' rubbish. The Lord's

Prayer knows we're hopeless, knows we'll be tempted, 

hopes we don't fail but pretty much knows we will. It

'forgives' us the trespasses that it knows we'll do. Resigned

to our meager being, our helpless indifference. It's a shrug,

and offers daily food, maybe, steering us clear of trouble, 

maybe. Forgives us when we fuck it all up, as it knows 

we'll do, but gets hung up on nothing else. It starts out, in

fact, with the equivalent of, 'Yeah, yeah, God, in, oh, 

wherever you be, yeah, yeah, sacred and hallowed you 

are, and all your plans and stuff may they come true, but 

here's where we need the help, we're a mess. That's all it

says -  it offers nothing else  -  certainly no 3-day redemption,

back from the dead express notions of Salvation and 

Deliverance. That's all Council of Nicea stuff, year 325 AD, 

when they made all this stuff up and decided to grow an 

established church because the whole world was just getting

started with this societal stuff, and civilization, and Nature

abhors a vacuum and there were no established anythings, 

except the feuding and killing of false rulers and lords and 

kings and that Emperor and Holy Roman shit. Dead people

fighting over death, kind of. They made up a 'church', like

a secular power but scarier, because it burned into your 

soul some, and found ways to tax and reign people in and

get real wealthy  - gold and jewels, relics and stories. People

were desperate. It all grew from there. Today, it's called

Dogma, by people who live off that stuff.  Let me tell you

something, Freddy, and this is the real Avenel speaking  -  

there's nothing there except what's inside you, so forget the

niceties and the angels and babies and mangers. Go it alone.

Find your own damn sacred space, cradle and hug it, take it

home with you like the lost baby it is, within you, and grow

and prosper until Death here takes you to there. The rest is

all crap. And by the way, fellows, while you're here, don't go

fucking up the Earth. They'll get you for that, and it's hell

to pay. You're supposed to 'husband' the earth, as in Animal

Husbandry, say, not turn it over for coin and profit. Jerks.

-

Even in  a place like Avenel, with all the little fixtures of people

and place we'd get to know  - the eccentric pallor of Hiram's

Mobile Home Park, where everyone always seemed dense 

under  a cloud of cigarette smoke too big for their trailers, and

where a lot of husky-voiced women coughed and hacked as they

(tried to) speak; the caterwauling hysterics of Murray and Martha's;

or my own house for that matter; the strange gloom of the old

people we'd know; the churning garbage-can noise of those 

township garbage men, with their roaring trucks, letting us run 

and follow along as they flung the old metal garbage cans and 

lids around like plastic gambling ships -   roaring, loud, clangy  

- there were always special places that took you aside, apart.

'Sacred' spaces, if you will. That swampy woods above 

Avenel Park over the dirt access utility road that ran out to

Amboy Avenue. It's now King's Garden, Cloverleaf Gardens,

or some crap. Filled with weird immigrant-foreigners still

insisting on native dress. The land of the saris and the 'sorries'

too. It's even worse over by School 23, which also used to be 

a really nice hilltop sacred space there for me. There was 

some old manor house in the woods, which had been turned 

into a more vast roadside hotel/motel and banquet hall. It

lasted a long time, but then it was gone. I never knew what it

was, nor much about it  -  but I'd bet even I knew more than

Sheik Ramigampath Abiwani, or whoever lives there now.

The Lord's Prayer doesn't tell us much about that stuff, 

just lets us know that we'll probably screw it all up, 

but we'll slide by as long as we admit God's in His Heaven

and all's right with the world. Especially in His Avenel.
-
Probably the most sacred but still fun space was the junkyards.
For us, they were a definitive adjunct  -  the proverbial
hop-skip-and jump down the street to where there were no adults.
Truck-drivers lurked, maybe. Old guys with flashlights, towards
dusk. They never much cared about us and it showed since they'd
never fenced off any access or made it in any way hard for us to get in.
Anyone not feeble-minded  -  and we didn't hang with them anyway  -
could walk right into the place  -  a grand assortment of junked trucks,
and some cars too. But mostly trucks. It was wide-open. Have you ever
seen a young boy set loose in a truck junkyard? Whew! All those
steering wheels and dials and gauges, the big doors that swung open,
the cabs and trailers, the box trucks and tankers. I mean we were in
some metallic form of Huck Finn river heaven : forever and seeming
it stretched, just just like Heaven too. We'd jump into the tank bodies,
all those compartments, echoing chambers, and all that. Well, once
or twice now I can even remember there being a girl or two come
into the place. We had a few 'tomboy' types who now and then would
get riled up enough to check it all out with us. No romance or nothing
ever happened, though once or twice, yeah they got felt up or
something. What's an 11-year old superscout know or care? You tell
me and then draw your own conclusions as if it were you doing
the doing. The railroad tracks were right nearby too  -  which was
another great draw, the double-duty excitement of hearing the roar of
a train rumbling right past the truck you were hiding inside of. Excuse
me for getting wistful, but they don't do 'em like that any more.
Today's kids are tied and shackled compared to us, to what we were.
Maybe they care, maybe they don't. I know I don't, for sure.