Photograph from the Borough of Watchung, New Jersey official website.
“The Borough of Watchung was organized on April 20, 1926 and covers an area of approximately 6.2 square miles. Watchung was settled in the early eighteenth century and grew slowly until recent years. In 1960 the population was 3,312 and in 2000 it was 5,613.”
Trips to New Jersey from Brooklyn, NY were frequent. Occasionally the trips were to Watchung. More fequently they were to Paramus, where we watched the Bergen Mall, as it was known then, evolve. We ate French-fried onion rings for the first time at a restaurant there. Sometimes we went to Parsippany, which was pretty undeveloped then. In fact, when we first started going to Paramus, it was mostly unpaved. Each place was wonderful, but for sheer beauty and peace, Watchung was best.
I wonder if that old Watchung home still stands
Or has it been demolished by developers
Building rows on rows of barracks-like housing where
Big maples used to rise to line the roadway
Driving up the hill in a rickety second-hand V-8 Woody
A kalidacope of colors would greet us
The burnished bronze of our uncle’s skin and the
Brown-black of his doe eyes and curly oriental hair
The azure sky and snowy clouds tumbling down to
Top the perfect juicy purple of ripe Italian plums
And the brisk reds of beefstakes and plum tomatoes
The true-green of the too-long grass feathering the rich
Chocolaty shades of the well-mulched earth
That antique home was pristine white with forest-green trim
And a busy, welcoming, wrap-around porch
Often with bushels of fruit and vegetables standing
In the company of freshly-cut flowers piled and tossed
All waiting, for what and for whom?
The airy rooms were waiting too with windows
And doors thrown open to children like me
Breezing in from the big city with our pallid skin and
Eyes burning to see our uncle and some untouched nature
Worn rugs, Persian and Middle Eastern, brushed bare feet
As searching room-to-room for hidden treasures and history
I marveled at the accoutrements of other decades
The kitchen pump, the dumb waiter, the pull-chain water closet
Each room was a marvel of furnishings, fine wood and hand-turned
Dresser drawers lined with newspapers, yellowed and disolving with age
Advertising snake-oil cures and corsettes and the ephemera of this
Same place in times mostly forgotten except for stale news
Telling its stories to the silence in chests mostly empty and untouched
The enormous tables in the large, white, high-ceilinged kitchen and
The regal dining room with it’s chandelier and heavy drapes
Spoke proudly of multi-generational dinners before TV replaced talk
The great, sturdy safe-haven of that white Watchung home
Matched the steady embrace of its woods and orchards
Where a child like me could lie on the hardy ground
Sun blinding bright, browning spindly arms and legs, little body
Soaking in fecund earth, mind yawning, stretching, awakening
Imagination rising in mists of violet-grey shot with silvery
Short stories and golden poems finding their way into
The pages of a black-and-white marbled composition book
Such plum-sweet visions set free by that dear place
I wonder if it still stands in Watchung, if it remembers me
And how I loved it
I still do
Leave a Reply