Joe ~ May 27

 

The Neighbors

 

I live in a lovely New Jersey town not far from the great metropolis, Manhattan. It’s nice to be close enough to the city so that before retirement I could have a reasonable commute and yet be able to park my car in a driveway and have a small but well kept lawn. Rutherford, my town, is called “The Borough of Trees”. Supposedly, there are more trees per capita in this suburb than any other borough in the U.S. That makes for a lovely All-American environment which I surely appreciate. All the homes on our street are detached from the others and everyone has ample acreage to enjoy their little fiefdoms. Neighbors are pleasant but usually keep their distance and practice safe privacy. Yet, I feel very safe and secure and believe I could approach the local folks if needed. Growing up, my neighbors were much closer. Both literally and figuratively. We lived in a row house shared walls on both sides. A policeman and his family on one side and an eclectic mix of sisters, nephew and nieces on the other. One sister sold tickets at one of the town’s movie palaces. The other worked in a bank. The nephew played in a folk band and drove sports cars while his sister was a Nun. They had a dachshund named Damit. However, Sister Mary Joan insisted her name was Damsel not Damit. Yeah, right!! It was fun to hear Gracie on the back porch calling for her poor dog to come in the house, Hear, Damit, Hear, Damit!!!”. Beansie Cannon lived at the other end of the row house. He was a firefighter, which was convenient for him seeing the Fire Station was directly across the street. Next to our row house was Mrs. Mundy….Biggest house in East End…her husband who passed before my time was a medical doctor and state senator and had a local street named after him. There were disabled vets, coal miners, contractors, ditch diggers, construction workers, school board members, tavern owners, local grocery stores and pharmacies and just plain poor people who lived just two minutes down the alley. So no matter how much you had or thought you had, there was always folks who lived seconds from your door who had a lot more and those who had a lot less. Some people would have chicken coops and gardens in their backyards because that was their major source of sustenance. Others would go up to the highway leading out of town and pick the anthracite coal from the cuts on the side of the road because they could not afford to buy coal to heat their homes. The neighborhood stores would always provide credit because they knew that most folks income fluctuated and there were times when they would not be able to afford the bread and milk needed to feed their families. Most of the folks went to the big Catholic Church on the hill. You could tell who were the lace-curtain Irish, who had more to show for their endeavors and the Shanty Irish who struggled for every bit of the necessities of life. The railroad lines that bisected the area and served the defunct collieries formed large barriered embankments which separated small caches of patch houses that looked like a good wind could knock them over. Most had outhouses and modern plumbing would never make it over that borderline separating them from the so-called normal folk. Surely, it was a different world back then….a whole panorama of society within a couple of blocks. Was it better? Yes, in many ways…but the hardships were there to be witnessed first hand. You didn’t have to rely on a radio or TV to tell you that some people had it very hard because you could see them from your back window.