pt. 60 - christmas, newspapers

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 60)

One year I can remember, I guess it was perhaps

1959, a Christmas Eve spent, for whatever reason,

going back and forth, up and down the block, my

sister and myself, to the Kaisen household, about

10 or 15 houses up the street, or down, whatever  -

to the direction of Abbe Lumber's end. The idea

was somehow that  -  the bring the real joy of

Yuletime forth, we'd dress as Christmas things

and go spend the evening showing them our

costume changes. Don't ask me, as I really have

no idea of what was going on, nor where either

Kenny or Christine were and why they too weren't

doing this stupid trick with us. Whichever year it

was, I recall it being quite balmy out, as we simply

walked back and forth, a few times anyway as the

long night entered towards its midnight stage.

Another year, by contrast, when I was perhaps

9, I can remember (again, totally bizarre and out of

character for me) coming home  -  it was early dark

and quite cold, probably about the 12th or so of

December, and seeing that my mother had the

inside of the house newly completed with all the

usual Christmas decorations  -  little creche, the

lights, the angels and candles and wreaths and the

tree, as well  -  and I remember commenting to the

effect of 'Wow, how nice. Now all we need is the

Christmas music.' Which crack, of course, brought

on the Christmas music  -  in this case, to my memory,

a constant replaying, perhaps 10,000 times of the

'Little Drummer Boy' 45 my mother had, on the

record player. I guess it had a 'replay' or something,

because that it sure did. Superseding my usual

Officer Joe Bolton and his 'Three Stooges' nightly

presentations and dumb commentary. Officer Joe

Bolton was like some fake NYC policeman, in a

uniform, real or not, and standing in place, twirling

a nightstick, he'd expound about the episode about to

be played, or talk about the episode just shown. Little

insider notes about why Shemp, and not Curly  -  two

replaceable characters on the Stooges. Moe and Larry

always remained the same, but for whatever reason there

was a bit of drama with the Curly character  -  a guy named

Shemp, and another guy named Joe Besser, stepping in,

in varying episodes, as the 'new' Curly. Though Curly was

the best and  -  to my mind  -  irreplaceable, and possessing

the certain quality the Three Stooges needed to actually

be the Three Stooges. See the crap a kid learns.

-

Summer was one thing, but it always passed  -  Winter's were

internalized. We all still did things; we had our Winter ways

and cold-weather places, but it was different, yes, for sure.

A lot more solitary stuff went on. I can remember any number

of us, in that woods where they later built Doreen Drive and

stuff, being back there for endless after-school hours in the

woods at the little ice-crusted pond which was in the center

of the place -   ice skating little circles around for hours. We'd

arranged good-sized logs in some form of semi-circle or close,

around the water edge, and if not skating we'd all just be sitting

around there as whoever else was skating went about their skating.

I guess it got dark around 6pm, and we dispersed for supper and

all, because I can't recall any fires or sources of warmth or light.

But I remember it was close  -  we just all felt close, everything

was closed in around us. That was the thing about our little

group and those woods  -  there were trails, little paths that

went off, depending on the direction of home, people went

their varied ways out. Also, it was always, in there, just as

we'd left it  -  I guess there were no other people coming

around making changes or even visits. It was our place  -

the trees and the shade in the cold of Winter was just as

pleasant to us as were the possums and happiness glades of

Summer. Even now, I still get that 'long-lost' feeling inside

me just writing about it. A lot of our stuff was bicycle based,

but this woods never was  -  no entry for bicycles, no place

for them, and it just never happened. Up on the top end,

towards Route One, there was a small row of some trees

that used to drop these rippled green balls, about the size of

softballs. We later found they were called Ugli fruit  -  a real

odd name, in that they were ugly, but were named Ugli. I

never got to the bottom of that but it always puzzled me why

(here I go again with the God and Nature stuff) these things,

whatever they were, fruit, nut, vegetable, were so useless. I

couldn't understand why a proficient God would make,

 occasionally, such useless things  -  for instance, if these

were edible, and had some value, we'd have been rich! We

could be eating off the fat of the land. That puzzled me; were

we fated to have things not be usable by us; like, even, grass.

If we could have eaten grass, or gotten food out of acorns or

leaves, or anything like that, the whole world would have been

different. Much less need to work. Food everywhere. You'd just

pick what you want and eat. No fighting over ownership or the

possession of, for it was everywhere! That could be Paradise

for sure. What was it that made a jealous God deny all that

from us? Was the 'The Fall' that the Catholic Church lesson

twerps were always blatting about? That's why we were all

so miserable, killing and fighting over borders and food and

stuff? So then, this God made a perfect world and then lost

control of it? What kind of God was that? It's not free-will,

couldn't be because it's all pre-ordained now, and the fault only

happened once and not to us, each, individually. That's free-will,

a one-to-one thing. The other was mob rule. Paying for this

bullshit Adam guy for ever and ever? I never got it, that story,

like sooo many others, made no sense. It was all commercial

poppycock to keep people under control, and paying up, always.

In those woods, at that ice pond, hell, the world was free and easy.

It made sense, and it was right. Who were these people, always

trying to muck it up for us  -  against all evidence, really, and then

demanding that only they had the way out and the right answers.

Having the right answers is easy if you made up the story.

And then anyway, one day it was just all gone.

-

The local newspaper, at the time called The Perth Amboy 

Evening News  -  later just The Evening News, and then later 

again The News Tribune, then the Home News Tribune, and 

later just The Home News. Some junk-bond conglomerate 

kept buying bits and pieces of NJ newspapers until eventually 

they had fairly killed the whole mess. Those papers now are

nothing but pages of junk. When I was in the printing industry, 

years later, one of my accounts and friends was John Burk, 

whose Burk family owned the News Tribune. He wasn't much 

of anything except a low-grade businessman looking to turn the

usual profit  -  not a journalist or newsman in any way. He'd sell

or include anything in that paper if it would get eyes to it, people

to see the ads, so that he could sell more by having big counts

of readership and exposure and thus charge more for big companies

advertising. For a while they had this stupid little 'character'  -  like

a small icon chubby guy holding a newspaper. They called that

character 'Newsie'. And they ran a stupid contest : each day, 

somewhere in the paper, buried in the words and articles and stuff,

would be 'Newsie'. Small. Readers who spied it were supposed to 

call in, give the location, and they'd win something and then be 

entered to win something else. It was a pretty cheesy, almost

shameful, gimmick, I thought. My mother always played it.

There'd be some horrid headline about 41 people slaughtered

in a fiery earthquake somewhere in Africa and eaten by

marauding elephants and then slaughtered by hungry pygmies

with a bus that rolled off the cliff  -  horrible stuff  -  and in the

middle of the continuation page paragraph, there'd be 'Newsie', 

smiling back at you. Jeez, huh.

-

One time, in the printing days, the guy I worked for, Bob Wiegers,

he had us represented at a luncheon thing the News Tribune threw

to show off some new, big million dollar equipment they'd gotten.

There were long-winded explanations about this and that, how it

worked, how fast it produced, all that  -  plus the industrial expert

know-it-all-manufacturer's rep stuff. After about an hour of this,

in the question period, Bob raises his hand and  -  in a businessman's

way but also in a way that came out sounding almost sarcastic, in

reference to making money and getting return on investment and 

all, he says  -  referring to news delivery boys  -  'So you've got 

all this new millions of dollars equipment, and you're telling me 

you're still putting all the responsibility for the success of this in the 

hands of 12 -year old delivery paper-route kids on bikes, to make it

work or not?' After a few titters, that went over like a lead balloon.

-

The News Tribune used to run  - exciting for me  -  this 'countdown'

panel each day on the bottom of the front page. It began about mid-

November each year. It wasn't much, but it was always exciting for 

me to see and watch the countdown, with some oddball form

of expectation. There'd be a little Christmas drawing, something

different each day, or the same maybe, I forget, and it would say

'25 shopping days 'til Christmas'...then 24 the next day, then 23 the

 next, and so on. I always thought it would be cool, since all

they cared about was money and sales anyway, if they used, instead

of 'til', meaning 'until', the word 'till' meaning cash-register drawer.

pt. 59 - the god of avenel

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 59)

When these items were being experienced, they

appeared as one thing. Of course, now, almost

50 years or more later, in a vague sort of broad-brush

retrospect, nothing is ever as it seemed. Then. There

was one period of time  -  in my brash, over-the-top

stupidity, when I can recall watching The Lone Ranger,

I guess a Saturday morning episode thing, and being

involved in some bizarre Saturday ritual of six, count

'em, six, bowls of cereal, in the sitting. Whatever was

that supposed to be? I remember my mother approving,

in point of fact, acting as a cheering section. I don't

remember any more of that  - except that it was, most

probably, egads, Frosted Flakes, to make matters worse.

The secretly tolerated deadly sin of Gluttony, at home?

The upkeep of a maddening sugar quotient, unchecked?

-

Funny how ideas of 'quality control' about things only came

later. We never cared. Our Hillerich & Bradsby baseball

bats always came to us already 'up to snuff.' Sure sometimes

they'd break or splinter, but that was that. They were just

all good  - no one needed an inspector to tell us that. And

what kind of brand name was that?  -  the one which sunk into 

my brain as the icon of childhood  - the name of the baseball

bat company was right up there with the five names of God.

Mostly, anyway, like God too, everyone shared  -  we all used

the same bat, often  -  whatever the weight, 24, 28, ounces, I

think it was. Big, fat heavy bats, 32's or whatever they just went

for the big, strong, heavy dudes  -  who were probably, anyway,

already 15 in 6th grade. As dull they were as the bat was dense.

-

The five names of God, did I say? Now where did that come 

from? No one ever talked about that stuff  -  upside down as 

we half the time were, in those junkyard oil-tanker innards,

half the time expecting to die, no one ever started a God rant.

Anyone who would have done that knew already they'd be

punted out of there like a flat-tire wheelboard down a steep

incline, and with nothing at the bottom. God was what was, 

and for the rest of it all we didn't care. No over-starched

ninny-nun was going to try and set us any better straight

than we could set ourselves. Those half-men who ran

around with clerical collars choking tight their bubbling

red fat necks  -  they too were for all essential purposes

to us, non-existent, a Sunday kind of blast, maybe, only, 

maybe, if the courtyard at the portables and the stolen

Kent cigarettes didn't keep us otherwise detained. There

were two Gods, you see, and we knew it. Straightforward 

too : our God and the God of the rest of that hoary mob. 

That we were supposed to listen to, but never did, nor 

would.

-

The thing about God to me  -  and none of the other stuff

made much sense, nor did I really care; it was more 

magic-for-money than it was anything else  -  my thing 

was 'evaporation' the 'transformation of water', that's pretty

much what did it for me. I'd wake up in the cool morning

and see  -  on the hoods of all the cars and stuff  -  the

great beads of moisture  -  rain or dew or whatever  -  on

everything. That was factual and present. I could touch it, 

and my hands would get wet, get cold, and stay that 

way for a while. Then after a little bit of time and

even some sunlight, that beaded water, the moisture 

that was on my hands, would disappear, dissipate, 

go away  -  having turned into something else. The

evaporation back to another state  -  no longer water,

not visible, an ethereal gas or something passing through,

going 'round its own cycle until it somehow returned 

again from afar, from high above, as rainwater. That

cinched it for me, That was beyond efficiency; it was

far better than any Mankind based cockamamie 'we can

do it just as much' Science crap. That clinched the God

argument for me  -  it wasn't so much some angry and

mean son-of-a-bitch type God always trying to have it

back at his people, his own stupid creation (for God's 

sake). It wasn't ire and anger and rules and regulations,

no stupid fat-assed haunchy nuns slapping your wrists 

with their Virgin-Mary rulers and Sacred Family crap

(like they knew anything about that) rosary-strap 

sidewinder beads they wore down their ridiculous and 

stupid, crap-happy habits, the black dresses of goons.

It had nothing to do with any of that : that was, or might

as well have been, Nazi shit, by comparison. What caught

God in the fish-net for me was the idea of a perfect and

punctilious efficiency of silent mind and eye and purpose.

Enough said  -  the efficiency and wisdom of the exchange

of water over the course of an hour or five hours or a day:

clouds, oceans, rain mist and dew. Those beautiful beads 

of clear light, in the early Summer morning, clinging to 

blades of grass. That's your freaking transubstantiation. 

That's God, or the God of Avenel, at least, to me.

pt. 58 - sports, evenings, and bicycles

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 58)

I used to walk between things a lot - whenever

I walked, also, I would walk close to the buildings,

as if slowly crawling my way along, outside of the

passers-by's traffic walking by. I never know how that

got started, but I think it had a lot to do with alienation.

I don't know where I got it from, maybe one too many

Kafka books read (man, they were deliberate and

plodding, one sequential, mysterious disclosure

after another). It was a way to 'show' or make

manifest, my 'separate' status. It was a manner

of acting out my inner Kafka. Well, maybe  -  in

any case, it's not the stuff you talk about, so I never

did. But my quirk was no different either than the

quirks mentioned earlier, of my friends : Jimmy

Yacullo reciting back everything he'd just spoken,

and Kenny Kaisen, smelling everything he touched,

pulling everything to his nose (the opposite of my

dog, who pulls her nose to everything). The emotional

equivalent of one of today's 'emo' kids  -  the feelers and

those with complete fearful and soft relationships with

the world. The kind of kids you just want to swat.

-

You think of it now  -  when we were kids we were

insulated from all that. The place was wide open, and so

were we. I never knew exactly what was going on inside

the heads of the grown-ups. I'd see them on their little

steps, porch-things, stoops, whatever they were called

on those new houses with the minimum of everything.

But I never really knew what they were thinking, or where

they were at  -  and I'm just as sure that they, looking at me,

never thought a second either about 'what' it was I was about.

It's odd. My father used to come home from work, in the

Summer anyway, and  -  after eating  -  it seemed most every

night my mother and him both would come out, she would,

when done with dishes and chores and stuff, and sit. My father

always hosed the lawn ; he'd sit there in one of those metal and

plastic strap lawn-chair things, from Two Guys, the store, and

just hose-spray the lawn, always. The spray would move around

as he moved his arm, and eventually it all got hit with water.

I guess, by planning  -  it was more ritual relaxation for him.

Less about the lawn and water than it was about his 'closing'

the envelope of the day. Neighbor to neighbor, some would 

talk, or shout back and forth  -  hey, hello, what's up...all that

stuff. But they mostly stayed apart too. My father also used 

to get the square cube of ice cream Shop-Rite used to sell, a

large, I guess, half-gallon box. He liked it, we all did. But we

could only get the flavor  -  what he called 'Neopolitan' I think

it was  -  three flavors (vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, or 

their ersatz versions of these flavors anyway) in one box, in

rigid rows, all the way down. He'd sometimes bring that out

too, and sit there with a long spoon and pick at it as it softened.

We'd do the same too, eventually. There'd be these great tunnels

of picked ice-cream by whosever it was who last ate at it, their

favorite flavor. Very weird, but simple and  -  back then  -  like

69 cents or something. In the meantime, we kids would be out

in the street, going bonkers for the evening, playing wiffle ball,

wiffle ball home run derby (which meant beast-fully  bashing the

plastic ball and bat to only hit high, crazed wiffle arcs that we'd 

hope would launch over the opposite curb). Or, the same, with 

Spalding (pink) balls, against the curb. As Fall got nearer, it 

would change over to touch football scrimmages and games,

telephone pole to telephone pole, or sewer cover to sewer 

cover, whatever. Parents watched. Lightning bug, crickets,

mosquitoes, the whole array of stuff. I'm not sure what it 

was that girls did, but I guess they had their own pastimes 

and games. Then it would slowly darken, things would

settle, things would hush, and we'd all be gone. Other

nights, different pastimes  -  hide and seeks, ringolevio

games, 'box' ball (which was a sort of bouncing games 

using three of the sidewalk sections as playing field, and 

slapping some sort of careful corner action on the pink

Spaldeens). I can't really remember. Also, the younger

kids had chalk-lines of Hop-Scotch and all that stuff.

Later on in years, Jim Yacullo, and Ray Szemborski,

both had basketball hoops installed, regulation height 

and size and all, on the telephone poles at their properties.

Ron Napoli, also down the street, had a really nice one 

installed at the top of his driveway, where there was a garage.

It had a nice, dedicated 'dribble' paving area, good range

for shooting, and we'd gather there, for a while, nearly

every night after school. It was funny how habits and

small schedules of time for these things developed 

themselves. We never went without  -  cold and dark, 

or hot and sweaty.

-

It was chummy stuff  -  when an  outsider arrived you'd

know something was up  -  interest in a local girl, some

connected grudge to work off, or a budding friendship with

an 'outsider'   - which usually meant then that we'd be 'losing'

somebody. It was like family, and when attentions and 

allegiance shifted, everyone knew. Pretty much, anyway,

that's what adolescence was all about  -  expansion, both

of geography and of emotion. Yeah, I can almost remember

falling for someone different, some other girl, somewhere,

in a crazed infatuation, back then, at age 11 maybe, like 

every other week. Now they say it's healthy and it's normal

to experience and evaluate varied kinds of sexuality. Huh?

Had I heard that shit then, I'd have barfed. For me it was,

first and foremost, the feminine aspects of life I wanted,

the opposite of me for sure  -  I was in no way after my

pals. That can be colored a hundred different ways, yeah,

and psychoanalyst stuff will do that to it, but all we ever

cared about was girls. You can talk a blue streak about

anything you want, but that was for sure the truth.

-

People would move about; even as I grew through the ten

year old and eleven year old level, I can remember things 

expanding. One time, by myself, I took my bicycle all the

way up Route One, up to the Linden Airport area. Just to

see; that was big-time travel. Another time I did the same 

thing all the way up St. George or whatever it is, as it 

threads northward, all the way up the Warinaco Park 

area  -  Roselle or Linden or Elizabeth, I didn't know.

My friend, Robert Shipley  -  maybe two years older

than me  -  was in a sort of awe. He just said something

like 'Boy, you're brave!'. He had a perfectly kept J. C.

Higgins bike he rode around on, really nice, black  -  and

on the back of the rear fender hanging down, like the car

clubs, he had a plate installed, that read 'Black Beauty'.

He'd named and titled and plated his bicycle! Now that,

to me, was more amazing even than running up Rt. One.

pt. 57 - murray and martha's

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 57)

You know how it is about life, how

sometimes things about others flabbergast

you when you think of them later, or sometimes

it's things about yourself that you still can't

believe or understand? I go through that a lot,

in that I spent a lot of my time with with

people I liked  -  other kids around me, with

whom a certain sort of local-brotherhood took

root and grew, and then one day was just gone.

The ones who are gone and dead, yeah I'd like

to talk to them now, sure  -  some sort of local

Inman Avenue area megaphone to the new and

shiny dead. But it can't happen and it's all the sadder.

My friend Joe, who blew his brains out with a rifle

shot (I guess it's never two) and was only found an

afternoon later in his back driveway, in his car, plastered

over as it was with his brain mattter   -  found only

because his dogs were howling and the lights had

been left on. Yeah, you know, Mr. Big Deal, found

dead in his freaking Renault Le Car, the running (but

only sometimes) joke of the later 1970's. Right up there

in Pacer heaven with the rest. Yeah, I'd have a few

things to say  -  and just as much I'd like to hear.

Death by death is one thing  - but death by 'interdiction',

yeah that's another thing entire. It ain't right. How are

you supposed to grieve for someone who only ended

up, selfishly once more, doing what HE wanted?

-

My other friends who've died. What of it? What can

I do now? Just gotta' move on. Things about myself

that flabbergast me  - my (living) friend Al Zinze, he

tells me about a verbal showdown he remembers me

having with Martha, of Murray and Martha Candy Store

fame. I can't believe it, nor can I remember it, but Al

has it down right. Martha was Jewish  -  I've written

before of that  -  it never made much matter to me. He

says one day she'd scolded me for throwing down some

paper candy-wrappers in front of her store instead of

putting them in the trash can. In the verbal scolding,

evidently I turned to her and sarcastically said back,

after she said something like the old 'do you live in a

barn?' routine  -  I said, 'Yeah, well at least we don't

eat with our hats on.' That's crazy. I tell you, crazy,

and he remembers that like one of my golden,

Oscar-moment lines. I remember nothing of it; nor,

I here swear, does it seem like something I'd say

or even have the gumption to say  -  let alone even

know about (eating with hats on?), yet he remembers

it perfectly. Another time, he says, a few years later

in my later-teen years after all the squibbling and

squabbling problems I'd gone through, he remembers

himself and Robert Stewart seeing me near them on

a bicycle, passing along, and they called out to me

to have a moment, say hello, all that, and that I

simply looked right past them, completely ignoring

them, and went along my way. I don't recall that

either, and again it doesn't really sound like the

'me' of me. For these sorts of things, now, I'm

humbled, sorrowful even, to these people, for

what I've apparently done, and for being a schmuck.

'Flabbergasted' is what I called it, right? I have to

live with it, and can't take anything back. And I

will. What is this life anyway?

-

Murray and Martha's was a candy store  -  of gold to

us. Cherry Cokes and candy, ice cream, all that stuff of

Summer, after playing stickball in the schoolyard nearby.

It was something like 7 cents for a refreshment. They 

had a million stupid little penny-candy type things in

an open glass case to the left of the register. The register

itself was in a sort of little box-cage corner, but not 'caged'

as in today's security caging, just like 'removed' so it

got to look important and serious, and of course it 

overlooked the open-faced candy trays too  -  glass

display, endless array. My friend Alex tells me the

shoplifting quotient was pretty high -  I don't know, and

it seems like it would be a pretty difficult heist, but he

was tight with the family, so maybe so. I can recall,

in a closed-eye visual of the place, pretty much every

last detail of the interior. Newspapers. Magazines. 

School supplies, rulers, models, hair pins, glue, a

entire array of things. It was something. I had, in my

fourth-grade class, under Miss Evans, a girl named

Patsy Ann Zionce (check the spelling; a guess), and

there was a time, that Spring, when for some reason

the class or the grade was having an 'ice-cream party'

for something. The classroom windows looked out

over Avenel Street, and Miss Evans sent Patsy out to

get the ice-cream order (another time I can recall

Murray himself limping over with the boxes). Anyway

the boxes were plain, gray cardboard, with little round

holes every so often, about the size of a quarter, I guess

for air flow into the interior or something. I can remember

Miss Evans looking out the window with us all, at Patsy,

holding the ice cream, maybe two or three square boxes 

of twelve ice creams each, or something, and she remarked

'Look at her, isn't she a beautiful girl?' And Patsy, was, yeah -

her reputation, for a fourth-grader, was that she was very

pretty. But, hearing Miss Evans say that, aloud, it was weird.

I only think she was a 'Miss' anyway; could have been a 

Mrs., I guess. Don't know.

-

Murray and Martha  -  I mentioned earlier  - seemed always

to be at war over something, seething and screeching at each

other. Somedays the Cherry Cokes (all made from syrup)

would be made with happiness  -  other days you could just 

feel the anger and animus with which they were made  -  so

much so you hardly wanted to drink it. Funny. I guess they

always made up.

-

Over on that other side of Route One, right by the light,  our

neighboring family, the Raspitzzis (check my spelling anew),

they moved out from Inman and ended up there  -  a big house,

still there (but not for long, I'm told) behind that little building 

that later became Nelson House Printing, but which at the

time was the original Introcaso Cleaners. Walter and Betty

Fehring  -  with the encyclopedias I mentioned in an early 

chapter, they bought the Raspitzzi house, and moved here

from Elizabeth. The house the Raspitzzis moved to was

nothing like the Inman Avenue houses  -  it was large,

really large, and rambling, and from another time and 

another Avenel day entire. I never really heard from

them again. They had two kids, I think  -  Laurie, the

girl, and perhaps Peter, the younger boy. That's an 

example of the sort of 'layering' that I mentioned  -  in

which Avenel has so many different stratas of housing 

and people  -  the new, the old, settled and recent, all 

mixed into these varied sections. The mingling between 

them all  was just never that much. Things from 'another'

time were always so much more rambling and over-sized.

As was their idea of 'Time' itself, I always thought.

-

Across from them, there was  -  for a while  -  another

'supermarket, when those started happening. Foodtown

or something, and later then, a 'Fine Fare'.  Now it's

been a print-shop for years  -  my once-friend Steve

Glassman moved it there from Perth Amboy, where he'd

started out in a little dump named 'Business Cards

Tomorrow'  -  which at first was just that; a niche supplier

of next-day business cards to other printers, so they didn't 

have to bother (business card printing was always a pain in

the butt -  small size format, ink washes, etc. The idea of

'gang-running' a bunch at a time actually made some sense).

Near him also was another friend, Louis Schlesinger, whose

father, right there in the next building, ran Schlesinger's 

Hardware, for years. It was a really nice, crowded to the

hilt, with a massively great hardware store aroma, traditional

hardware store. Louie himself, in later life (now) has become

a fairly important psychoanalyst or somesuch, forensic stuff,

etc., with a few of that subject reference type books to his

name. I lost touch years ago. There was, also, just around

the corner there, in a house now right next to the pizza place

there, another friend, and his sister, a twin, Peter Panzarella.

I think I remember his sister's name as Patricia  -  it was one

of those family-deals where the kids names began with a 'P'.

They disappeared early on too. A lot of stuff I just lost

touch with. That older side of Avenel  -  closer to the 

origins  -  also had a number of places, in the middle of the

blocks, that were local stores  -  foodstuffs, cakes and

bread, milk and eggs, stuff like that. They're all gone now,

but one or two of the buildings remain. This was all the stuff

which pre-dated 'supermarkets' -  which eventually wiped

out all these very neighborly and local stores, in one fell

swoop, they came in, got everything consolidated, and

closed up all the little guys  -  because people always went

with the new, the latest, the largest. Go figure, yep, go figure.