pt. 44 - the potato bake

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 44)

So it all went. Avenel was nothing to me except, 

in its manner, a big street-lamp. The nasty streets, 

wide and torn or narrow and old, were separated 

all by light  -  an artificial, neighborhood light, to the 

extent that, even, the old or at least 'older' parts of 

town had no contact with or awareness of, any of 

the newer parts of town. The situation was odd 

and hopeless  -  there were parts of older Avenel, 

the 1920's parts, with large-sized bungalows, 

houses of somewhat older and traditional looks, 

which never seemed to come out of themselves 

to join with or agree to  the newer parts  -  and 

since it was all a jumble anyway none of it 

mattered a bit. The streets there, as well, had

older, more traditional names, New York

oriented  -  there was Fifth Avenue, and Park

Avenue, and others. It bespoke, in its own little

ways, a deeper connection to something, the

past, a legacy, a traditional view. Nobody had

ever told us who this John Inman guy was that,

supposedly, our street was named after. The rest

of it, Clark Place and Monica Court, they might

as well have been Bob Street and Jimmy Avenue  -

named for people's kids, or the developer's family.

No one knew; it just sounded weak, by comparison.

The old parts, funny to see, had a real difference,

all older people in them  -  single elders, paired as 

husbands and wives with their homes emptied 

of the kids (there were, yes, some kids still

around too; I don't mean to say there weren't), 

who may have once lived within and grown up out

of these streets  -  onto other things  -  these were 

the great elders of the larger, tree'd quieter parts 

of town. Or no town. It was quiet and older, more 

staid and solid. Nothing ever happened  -  the 

old men died off and, usually, what was left were 

widows, single old women, living alone, living out 

their post-husband lives without being able to take 

out their garbage, rake their leaves, burn their leaves 

(it was still allowed), shovel their walks from  snow  -  

we'd do all that, knocking door to door, for a quarter 

or a dollar, some hot chocolate or candy, whatever. 

One time I recall a few of us raking the Autumn leaves 

from some elderly couple's vast yard  -  bringing them 

to the curb to burn (controlled open fire), and the old 

man coming out to us with a large handful of potatoes, 

wrapped, as I recall, perhaps, in foil. He proceeded to 

show us how to put them into the fire and thereby 

cook or roast them (whatever  it's called) in that fire 

as the leaves burned. He said that, in his youth, that 

was pretty much how they often ate. By God, by the 

time we were done that chilly long-late afternoon, 

those were the very best roasted potatoes of any 

sort I'd ever tasted, nay, feasted upon. (This was 

down towards the end of 'Fifth Avenue', a section 

where there were yet a few large houses which 

then petered out again in size to the end, where 

was located 'Avenel Park', back in the 1950's a 

run-down, afterthought, leftover spectacle of a 

town park, adjacent to swamps and meadows 

and bogs and, oddly enough, a cinder block

'Veteran's Hall' building, which just never 

seemed to get finished. Old, wiry men, walking 

around, entering and leaving, in their strange old 

cars). As I think back now, looking over the past, 

of those days  -  which was just as close to the 

First World War era and before (1910, say) than 

1960 is to now, as I write  -  these old folks that 

we knew, men in their late 70's and entering their 

80's, in 1960  -  were born in something like 1885, 

lived through a time when everything we know of 

now was inconceivable to them then, and were  

most probably veterans, if so, of World War I. On 

the whole of itself, perhaps that might not mean 

much, but in retrospect now it was, or I see as if 

it was, me looking through a porthole at a fading 

past which was quickly getting smaller as the 

contemporary ship I was riding (not theirs) was 

getting farther from the shore (theirs). It can be 

said, yes, to be confusing, but if you look at it 

clearly, it wasn't. It was just another time living 

over into our time  -  these were people who 

tendered yet their reservations about the 

automobile, had rickety, after-thought garages 

put up in the rear of their yards  -  utilized as 

well as tool-sheds, in which they kept a weird 

assortment of manual things  -  large scissor-like 

hedge trimmers, saws (I can recall, in fact, my 

father himself going on, in almost a reverie, about 

saws. He was a major Henry Disston saw fan  -  

a brand he swore by; all about saws), metal tools,

manual things  -  no plastic anywhere  -  boxes of 

nails (they each size and each use), one, old, 

fabric-insulated extension cord (again, nothing 

plastic, not even the cord coatings), hand drills 

and boxes of drill bits, canvas bags, push mowers, 

heavy potato sacks, steel garbage cans, power-cords 

with lights on the end  -  lights in protective cages. 

I could list more, for it all just went on, and went back 

as well into the recesses, truly, of another world right 

then ceasing slowly to exist. Everything was changing 

focus, speeding up or being sped up into a more 

accelerated time and all the accelerated meanings 

and definitions of things which went with it : they did 

not take part in that change, though they were not, 

at the same time, cognizant of resisting it. It just 

never entered their thoughts; it was how things 

were. That guy who showed us the potato-bake 

thing used wooden-strike-anywhere matches, 

and just talked right through everything. He'd 

not know anything about a discourse on safety 

matches, or even the reverse-positioning of the 

strike-panel on regular matchbooks that took 

place in the late 60's - it used to be on the other 

side, the same side as the flipped-up open 

match top, exposing the matches, all, to the 

danger of flaring up when the strike panel was 

struck and perhaps produced a spark (sometimes 

happened, the spark, but I'd never seen matches 

flare up in anyone's hand). Yet, that was perhaps 

the first or one of the first of those endless 

alleviate-for-safety things which began happening 

around that time; it soon got much worse. I'm sure 

those folks must have just scratched their heads. 

I think what it is that is so different, between these

times now and theirs, is the idea of 'efficiency.' 

It's a new and more modern concept  -  the idea 

of streamlining for cost and efficiency, perhaps 

once used for industrial purposes initially. Over 

time, and as it was 'professionalized' into some 

form of business acumen, efficiency spread its 

ugly glove and began seeping into the national 

fabric. More and more was 'Modernism' praised 

for its efficiency. These people, on the other hand, 

were leftovers from an era when none of that really 

mattered  -  what mattered more was the presence 

of being, the location of the experience, the slow, 

plodding work of developing a Life. My boyhood

friends, Al Zinze and Robert Stewart, they both 

lived down there, right at the edge of the park and that

every-slowly-going-up, or not, VFW (Veterans Foreign

Wars) Hall, which was, essentially then, just a grey pile 

of cemented cinder-blocks, a wall or two connected to

nothing at all, and it stayed that way for many years.

Robert Stewart had a nose that was constantly running,

even in school, sniffles and liquid nose drip, and just

a general what-must-have-been-really-annoying nasal

situation for him. Nice guy though. Al Zinze, his neighbor

close by, was a more-sensitive type, a bit deeper and

darker, with whom I could feel a little more close, 

friendlier. I didn't know anything about their families,

there may have been sisters or whatever -   they were

just the kind of crossings you get from being mixed at

school. It was always a funny feeling  -  knowing kids

and not knowing them at the same time. One of the

secrets of Avenel was that  -  no matter what you 

knew  -  everyone also had another side of family 

and home that you probably didn't know at all  - 

everyone from somewhere else  -  the complete 

opposite of all that 'traditional' greeting card bogus

American home and hearth stuff. We were kids, pliable,

courageous, and partially stupid too. We just accepted

what was forced down our throats. I always felt that

growing up entailed reaching the point when you

knew that it all had to stop. That was my view  -  for

most others, as it turned out  - their view was that

reaching adulthood just meant continuing and carrying

on with all that crud  -  with the additional benefit of

having a job, a bit of money, and 'vacations.'

-

Looking back at things now, like a hundred million 

other things, there are changes and there are none. 

The left side yard of that potato guy at 39 Park Ave., it

seems way diminished now, maybe built upon, can't

remember that little neighboring house, but who knows.

Houses never change as much as we do -  or they get

taken down, rebuilt, added to, and all that. I had my 

own ways of getting to the park  -  which is, I think,

the Avenel secret of having named it Park Avenue -

pure efficiency and utility  -  sounds like NYC, but

really just gets you to the park, that's all. The VFW

Hall now is always all a hubbub -  karaoke night,

rib-fests, polka dances, poker nights  - even biker 

runs. You name it now, the fancy will always turn 

their tricks for love. Real love. Like the love I have
for all the things that once passed through my heart.
----
PHOTOS: 1. the Potato Bake house at 39 Park Ave.; 2. the hideous bunker-like professional building that was once the new, gleaming Avenel Shop-Rite; The 'VFW Hall'; 4. the once-formidable seeming wall at School 4&5, where the hot-rodders used to hang (see previous chapter reference).