Getting Adjusted to New Jersey

First View of an Ocean 

Every cloud has a silver lining, or so they say.  I have to admit that the move to New Jersey actually had two.  One was the house and the other was my one new friend, Sis.  It might have been as easy adjustment to the area had we been able to afford a new house in a another suburb with other transients, as we were called.  But Sis helped me learn all the fine points and code of conduct that made Riverton the wonderful little community it was.

Sis, whose real name was Lenore, was one amazing woman.  She had been born in the house a few doors down the street with several brothers and sisters.  When she married Gus they lived in the third floor apartment in the house across from us.  Gus bought the family home when Sis' parents became ill and they moved in and took care of them until they passed away.  I always found it interesting that Gus would not live in the house until he officially purchased it from her parents.  Not too many people I had ever met were born and lived on the same street their entire life. Most important she knew the history of the town as well as everyone in who had lived there in the past sixty some odd years.

The Christmas Candlelight House Tour we had been given tickets for was a fundraising event for the Riverton Free Library.  Libraries were designated as free because they had no public funding.  The finances came from fundraising and private donations.  The house tour, which was held every other year, raised over ten thousand dollars in one night.  Donations from individuals amount to ten of thousands of dollars every year. Of course Sis, who did story time for toddlers and craft sessions for everyone at the library, insisted we go.

It was a eye opening, mid-blowing evening.  I had pretty well scoped out all the town and admired the huge houses along the Delaware River and the Golf Course but had no idea about the true size of them until the tour.  Many of the century old carriage houses had been turned into beautiful private homes,  there were really houses with nine bedrooms, silver sinks in the butler's pantry, third floor ballrooms and all beautifully decorated for the holidays and completely lighted by candlelight.  Besides the houses you also had to stop by what was called the Porch Club for refreshments and the Episcopal Church for Christmas carols.  It was really a good thing that Wes and Wally did not go one the tour but stayed with Mary Jane and Danny next door.  Wally really would have thought for sure that our house belonged on Worser Homes and Gardens.

Sis had filled me in on the Adams family that had lived in our house for forty five years.  A builder had built our house and the house next door about the turn of the century and lived in our house until the Adam's purchased it in 1935.  Mr. Adams owned a company in Philadelphia that made items like birdbaths, park benches and tables, laundry sinks, sundials and much more out of concrete.  He had been the State of New Jersey President of the Rotary for many years.  They had one daughter and Mrs Adams rode the bus to Philadelphia everyday for work after Mr. Adams retired, she gardened in a denim skirt, hat and gloves, never wore slacks and was a member of the Porch Club.  They owned a home in Ft. Meyers Florida where she would spend the summer with their daughter.  When Mr. Adams retired they would leave Riverton every October and return in April. Pretty typical east coast lifestyle - if one could afford it. Oh and by the way, the kitchen in the house was still the talk of the town as it was the first updated kitchen in the 1950's. Would you believe cabinets custom built by the Murphy Door Bed Company of New York City?

So here we were in this town where all my neighbors were well into their sixties and very set in the way things should be done.  We had managed to whack down the shrubbery, put Christmas lights on the house, put up an artificial tree a month too early and had a driveway full of a strange trailer and an old car.  We were also living in a house that had belonged to pillars of the community, that would always be known as the "Adams' House" for as long as we lived there and that needed to be totally redecorated.  The Christmas house tour made the decorator in me want to gut the house and start over.  I remember the idiot real estate woman who showed us the house telling me that I would probably want to get rid of the old gas stove, install a dishwasher, replace the 1950' venetian blinds with metal mini blinds and a long list of other improvements.  I tried to think about redecorating but I, who could walk into any one's home and tell them what to do, could not make a decision to do anything.

Actually there was more to think about as it was Christmas and it was important that the boys first Christmas in the new, old house was a happy one.  They both had their long lists for Santa of the things they wanted to see under the tree.  That was easy but then Dennis came up with the idea that they should get a dog. Oh, please!  In the fourteen years we had been married there had been eight dogs, all ones Dennis wanted, only to be given away for one reason or another by him. Plus we had no fence, it was winter and not the nicest time to walk or house train a dog.  I protested while he went looking.

Three days before Christmas Dennis came home from work and announced we were going that evening into Philadelphia to look at some puppies.  No one goes to LOOK at puppies and kittens - you are pretty well assured that you are going to bring one home.  So off we go to look at some English Springer Spaniel puppies.  The puppies were born on the day that the Phillies won the World Series and the lady had named them for some of the baseball players on the team.  They were all adorable but the cutest was Tug McGraw.  Wes and Wally were ecstatic as we drove home and although I was not in favor of getting a puppy I have to admit it was an instant love affair.  The boys decided we needed to keep the name Tug not only because of the baseball player but also for the tugboats that escorted the barges up the Delaware River to unload foreign cars across the river.

TUG

We spent our first Christmas in the house with no company as none of the Oklahoma relatives seemed to want to venture off to the east coast.
Dennis and the boys were both off school and work for three weeks and
we spent a lot of time exploring the area.  Wally had gotten twenty dollars from Dennis' parents for Christmas and when we decided to go skiing he spent his money on a little blue snow suit.  Wes spent his on art supplies as the art teacher at the Riverton school was very inspiring to him.

Going skiing meant that we had to drive about an hour and a half to the Poconos in Pennsylvania.  They were not huge mountains but nice enough for beginner skiers.  Wally went to ski school for half of the day while Wes, who had never skied before, flew down the trails at his usual head long speed and did very well.  When Wally got out of ski school he had learned a lot but definitely needed some practical experience.  I will never forget him, at six years old, starting down the trail and hitting a mogul.  He flew up into the air and spun around in a circle several times with his little arms and poles stuck straight out much like a helicopter before crashing into the snow. Naturally we thought he would be dead or injured but he got right up and continued on down the hill. Both of the boys became addicted to skiing that day although it took me more than one day to fall in love with the sport.

In all the moving and trying to get settled in the two months we had been in New Jersey we had not ventured to see the ocean.  Being only forty-five miles from Atlantic City we made the drive on cloudy, cold day. That was a first for all of us.  To get there we drove through miles of what is termed the Pine Barrens.  Hundred foot pine trees grow along the highway in the sand. Atlantic City and most of the little communities that are filled with summer homes sit across the bay on Long Island. I had only been once to the Gulf coast of Texas and there was no comparison with the Atlantic Ocean.  The boys ran on the beach with Tug and we walked on the Boardwalk of Atlantic City. 

This was 1980 and casino gambling had only been legal for a couple of years.  There several huge casino/hotels along the boardwalk but there also were all the quaint little shops that catered to tourists in the summer, The Planters Peanut shop, lots of salt water taffy and of course, the Convention Center where the Miss America Pageant was held every year. Sis had told me that back in the day before the casinos and decent roads there was a train that took people from Philadelphia to Atlantic City and that after five o'clock in the evening men had to wear coats and ties and women had to wear dresses.  Even without the casinos back then there were also sorts of venues for singers and comedians plus very fine restaurants. I never could decide whether the change was a good one or bad one.

I have to admit that New Jersey was a little colder than Dallas.  The river did freeze often in the winter time and you could hear the ice breakers plowing through the ice to keep the shipping channel open.  I found the radiators worked quite well but Dennis never thought they worked at all since there was never that noise of central heat kicking on and off.  There was a great fireplace in the living room but the first time we tried it the house filled with smoke.  Not a good thing and neither was the cursing by Dennis about the lousy old house, the lousy weather etc. etc.  Sis suggested we call a chimney sweep and they arrived dressed in top hats and tails.  Come to find out the fireplace had never been used and was filled with the original old brick mortar.  A roaring fire in the fireplace really did get the house a lot warmer but then to the extent you could sweat in the living room with it burning.

When the rest of the family went back to work and school I needed to start working on the house. After going on the house tour I had sort of said to myself that it would be fun to be on the next one in two years.  Always good to have a goal but the more I thought about the redecorating the more hesitant I became.  I was some one who could walk into any one's home and develop a decorating plan that suited them and their home.  Before I married Dennis Mother had dragged me to writer's conference in Talequah as she thought she wanted to write.  I probably write more words in one of my stories than she ever wrote but I had a book I purchased from an author called If Walls Could Talk.  The book was written from the perspective of the house and told the story of all the events and people who had lived there. 

Was I so confused and hesitant about redoing the house because the walls were talking to me?  Maybe the house did not want to have the 1930's Chambers gas stove replaced with a slick new one or granite counter tops instead of the quirky little 1950's formica with it's little triangles and metal edge.  It is really hard to explain and will sound a little silly but with all the not wanting to live in New Jersey, the less than pleasant move, Dennis hating everything he could think of and all the blunders we had managed to do against what was the norm in Riverton when the house was quiet there was this very strange feeling that came over me. It was almost like the walls were wrapping themselves around me and creating a sense of calmness that everything would be alright.