Hello New Jersey

The Riverton Yacht Club circa 1850

The distance from Kansas City to Philadelphia is 1,125 miles.  On Halloween night we only made it to St. Louis after not getting started until shortly after dark.  That left 885 miles to travel the next day as it would be horrendous if we had to stay in another motel according to Dennis.  After all someone might steal the unfinished race car and trailer we were towing behind us from the parking lot in the middle of the night. Nothing like getting up at 3:00 o'clock in the morning and heading out.

I have to admit that the scenery was rather spectacular.  It was the first of November and the fall foliage was rather spectacular as were all the farms along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Even with all my negative thoughts about having to move to this area there was the thought that there would be a lot of places to explore.

First things first.  Dennis was positive since we were moving to a high crime area that the race car would be stolen while we camped out in a motel for a couple of nights once we arrived in New Jersey.  The moving company was not relishing the thought of us parking the trailer at their establishment for a few days.  The only option was to locate the Oldsmobile dealership that our new next door neighbor was said to work at.  Of course I was the one who had to go in and ask for a man named Danny Mento who we had never met.

Danny Mento was a gentleman in his sixties, very Italian, who grabbed me an hugged me the moment I told him who I was.  That made it a little easier to pop the question as to where we could park the race car so it would be safe even though I was not accustomed to being hugged by a total stranger. Of course there was no problem in leaving the car at the dealership for a couple of days.  It took nearly an hour to get away as Danny had to meet the boys and introduce us to everyone.  That was the beginning of a friendship with one of the kindest and most interesting gentleman I had ever met.

The next two days before closing on the house gave me time to learn a little about this place we were going to live in.  New Jersey has a lot of interesting aspects that were unknown me.  They have what are called "jug handles" which cause you to turn right if you want to go left. You sort of go around in a half circle and end up turning left.  They were about as confusing as the many traffic circles that appeared.  The other rather fascinating thing was that there is a "Diner" on every corner.  They are some of those places where you can get pretty much any kind of food you want especially pie.  The funny thing is that they all have the same menu and I decided there actually must be a giant kitchen somewhere that sends the food to every diner in under ground tunnels.
How else could hundreds of Diners all taste the same?

Riverton where our new home was had quite a history.  As far back as the 1850's it was the place where wealthy Philadelphians built summer homes to escape the heat of the city. It sits on the Delaware River which is a mile wide and is tide water and only ten minutes from downtown Philly.  Many of the homes along the river had from six to ten bedrooms. I had always heard stories how during the summer on the East coast families escaped cities either to the beach or the mountains and I guess to places along the river.  Riverton does have the oldest yacht club on the Delaware River built in the 1850's.

The Riverton Free Library circa 1853

The township of Riverton was one square mile in area and bordered by the Delaware River, Palymra. Cinnaminson and Riverside.  By saying it was bordered by I mean to say that you had to know which side of certain streets were different townships. The average age of the population was 65 with roughly 3,000 residents and they had one school that was K through 8 with about three hundred kids. There were a few shops especially the best bakery in the history of the world and a deli that made meatballs subs to die for. The fire department was volunteer and they had a Library named the Riverton Free Library with the "Free" meaning no public entity had any control over it.  It was also the location of the origin of the PTA.

If everything seemed strange and different to me it was a little overwhelming for Wes and Wally.  Both had been used to a newly constructed houses and schools, neighborhoods with kids out on their bikes and it always looked like they wanted to cry when people with a real Jersey accent would talk to them. If you drew a line halfway through the state and divided it into north and south it would seem you were in two different worlds.  Riverton sat on the northern edge of southern New Jersey.  We would learn that southern New Jersey actually thought of themselves as separate from the other half of the state for many reasons and the accent was not as bad.  The kids still managed to learn to use the terms "youse, yo and wadder". On Monday I enrolled the boys in school without much trouble then we went off to close on the house.

Mr. and Mrs. Adams who had lived in the house for forty-five years were no happier at the closing than we were. They were in their late seventies or early eighties.  Mr. Adams was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's and they had made their decision to move permanently to their winter home in Fort Meyers, Florida. I would learn later that they left Riverton every October for Florida and returned in April after he had retired.  

The big surprise at closing was that even though the actual price of the house was the same as the one in Kansas City the house payment doubled. This was not good news!  Due to a 10.5% loan interest rate, $6,000 a year property taxes and $500 a year flood insurance our house payment was now going to be $1,200.00 a month instead of $600.00.  Good old Dennis hated New Jersey before closing on the house but now - from day one - he hated the house.

After the closing and all the bad news we took the boys to see the house.  Needless to say I was the only one who appreciated the really neat older home.  The Adam's had left the house immaculate but it had been years since they had redecorated.  I can remember Mrs. Adams telling me when we looked at the house the first time that her motto had always been if you wanted to paint it had to be a pale Wedgewood blue and she had stuck by that.  There was beautiful grass cloth on the living room walls but you could see where pictures had hung for forty-five years.  The kitchen had a 1932 Chambers gas stove and dark green linoleum flooring.  There was a space off the kitchen for a washer and a laundry sink but who needs a dryer when you could hang your clothes out on the clothes line in the backyard.  Wally did not even want to go up into the completely floored attic easily accessible from the dressing room off the master bedroom which I thought would make a great playroom. 

Then there was the basement.  Actually it was a pretty nice basement.  One large room was finished in Knotty Pine paneling and the other was a work room with the heating system.  The heating system consisted of a monster sized boiler covered in asbestos with pipes jutting out from different places.  It had originally been a coal fired boiler system but now used oil.  A huge oil tank sat in one corner which could be filled from outside.  Needless to say Wally did not want to go in the basement either.

So here we were inspecting a house everyone but me could not see anything positive about.  Dennis was constantly cursing about this or that, Wally is scared that ghosts are going to pop out at any moment, Wes knows he will never be happy here and French Fry, the cat, will probably instantly head back to Kansas City never to be seen again.

It was very funny but as I tried to assure the family that everything would be okay I got a very strange feeling.  It was indeed the house I had always wanted from the time I was fourteen and my family had looked at the old Bower house in Muskogee but didn't buy.  The house instantly felt like it was wrapping itself around me and telling me I was "home"  as if it could actually talk. 

The next day was moving in day was moving in day with the arrival of the van.  Easy day to remember since it was the day Ronald Reagan was elected President.

French Fry, The Cat