RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,094
(dreaming once my dreams of sand)
Deep into the Jersey pine barrens,
once I got a decent vehicle, we'd
often enough go. It was like exit
6 or 7a, I forget, on the Turnpike to
Rt. 206, if we went that way. We'd
get off the Turnpike at the exit and
it dumped out at the old Sandman
Truck Stop. It was cool. All these
trucker guys from like Tennessee
and Georgia, deep south accents,
sitting at each table, and each table
had a telephone, next to the juke box
music thing. They'd be calling their
home base (this was in the 1980's),
reporting on where they were, on the
way to whatever, small talk, reports
on the roads and freight and mileage
and all. There was a Go Go Bar
attached, and, of course, a motel,
low, and with strips of rooms. I
imagine too that they had a fine
stable of girls for service. Food
showers, rest, etc. for the truck
guys. I used to love that place.
The food was cheap and good
enough for the kinds of crap I
ate. Charles Sandman was a big
name down there - old-line family,
state senator or something. He even
ran for Governor once or twice, as
I recall, against Jim Florio; losing
each time. This whole truck-stop
empire thing was his family's heritage,
selling of big landholdings and all.
Probably, like anywhere else in
Joisey, mob-infested, paved with
dead bodies, and crooked as sin.
But the living was good, the girls
were nice, and dead men can't talk,
as the saying goes. Or doesn't go, if
they can't talk. It was a perfect spot
for a turn-off, refreshments, a break,
gas and food, etc. I'd sit there just
listening to the phone guys, all
those wall-bound truckers on the
phone - to whom and to wherever.
The itineraries were cool. The
others in the place, the non-trucker
folks, were travelers, locals, or
any of the assorted stage-hands
who kept the place going.
-
Big trucks, little trucks; station wagons,
and cars. Solitary folk, families with
kids (less often than most). The
Sandman Truck Stop was quite the
place, and upon exiting the Jersey
Turnpike right there you were put
on Rt. 206, N/S, the road that then
directly got you to other places -
straight south, the shoot through,
past Chatsworth and all that, right
down, headed leftward (east) to
the back-end haunts of Atlantic City.
A quick turn, a little after Sandman,
would get you to McGuire Air Force
Base, and Fort Dix, at Wrightstown.
Along the way there, you'd turn at the
huge car-auction field of the NADA
(National Auto Dealers Association),
which basically meant 30 acres plus
of clean, used, cars for auction - at
auction for car dealers, not regular
people. The cars were mostly brought
up from the south, or maybe west by
Tennessee, Missouri, etc., for resale
here; NJ cars, mostly, after clean-up
(and probably falsification too, of
things like mileage and history and
paperwork), were, in turn, sent there.
For the same sort of deal. Pretty
weird how all that worked. They'd
tell you to look under the trunk
mats and floor carpeting for flood
traces, mud, search for dings and dents
hidden over, and to tap around too
for plastic, body-filler panels, and
all the rest.
-
Once into the Pine Barrens, let me
add, down 206, as longways as you
wished, there existed and endless series
of barren sand-roads, lined with pines,
traces of abandoned villages, cranberry
bog collection locations, campsites, old
homes, old cars, and the rest. Abandoned
villages abounded - Ong's Hat, Indian
Mills, Martha, etc. It was the most
fascinating and secluded place ever.
One could fornicate in the woods, at
will, and for hours, ride the sand roads,
walk around, find weird things, and
generally just walk streams and creeks.
Every so often - which was quite
amazing - overhead and quite low
would pass an air force training flight.
Huge cargo planes, lumbering along
almost at treetop. One time my wife
was skinny dipping (Yes, it happens!)
along in one of those streams, on a
fine Saturday afternoon (at the site
of old 'Martha' town), and she was
swooped low by a fighter-jet training
mission. Freaked her out, but was
cool fun! And the water itself, fresh
and cool, sometimes has a reddish
look, due to iron content. Which is
where colonial era America made
its 'bog-iron' from, Allaire, etc. (A
process and a use I'm no longer
sure of, but will try to refresh
myself on. As for the abandoned
town of Martha, for which we'd
been searching and walking, the
few remnants we found told us
little, except, a book we'd been
using as a guide, brought us to the
clusters of catalpa trees, and their
long seed pods, that had once been
at the village center. It was amazing
how so much had simply disappeared
into the zany Jersey pine-past. There
was one other time, traipsing through,
stupidly, in a plain old Dodge vehicle,
the sandy roads and off-ways, when I
bogged down, deep in sand, and only
getting deeper. We were alone, probably
miles from nowhere, and there seemed
no extrication. It was already a late
Saturday afternoon, and looked
helpless. In frustration, I did find a
way of collecting limbs, branches,
tree parts, logs, and any old crap
around that I was able to find, and -
fortunately - construct almost a
drive ramp up out of the trouble,
and back onto a heartier path. At
the time, it all seemed ratherremarkable. (pt. 2 follows)....
(dreaming once my dreams of sand)
Deep into the Jersey pine barrens,
once I got a decent vehicle, we'd
often enough go. It was like exit
6 or 7a, I forget, on the Turnpike to
Rt. 206, if we went that way. We'd
get off the Turnpike at the exit and
it dumped out at the old Sandman
Truck Stop. It was cool. All these
trucker guys from like Tennessee
and Georgia, deep south accents,
sitting at each table, and each table
had a telephone, next to the juke box
music thing. They'd be calling their
home base (this was in the 1980's),
reporting on where they were, on the
way to whatever, small talk, reports
on the roads and freight and mileage
and all. There was a Go Go Bar
attached, and, of course, a motel,
low, and with strips of rooms. I
imagine too that they had a fine
stable of girls for service. Food
showers, rest, etc. for the truck
guys. I used to love that place.
The food was cheap and good
enough for the kinds of crap I
ate. Charles Sandman was a big
name down there - old-line family,
state senator or something. He even
ran for Governor once or twice, as
I recall, against Jim Florio; losing
each time. This whole truck-stop
empire thing was his family's heritage,
selling of big landholdings and all.
Probably, like anywhere else in
Joisey, mob-infested, paved with
dead bodies, and crooked as sin.
But the living was good, the girls
were nice, and dead men can't talk,
as the saying goes. Or doesn't go, if
they can't talk. It was a perfect spot
for a turn-off, refreshments, a break,
gas and food, etc. I'd sit there just
listening to the phone guys, all
those wall-bound truckers on the
phone - to whom and to wherever.
The itineraries were cool. The
others in the place, the non-trucker
folks, were travelers, locals, or
any of the assorted stage-hands
who kept the place going.
-
Big trucks, little trucks; station wagons,
and cars. Solitary folk, families with
kids (less often than most). The
Sandman Truck Stop was quite the
place, and upon exiting the Jersey
Turnpike right there you were put
on Rt. 206, N/S, the road that then
directly got you to other places -
straight south, the shoot through,
past Chatsworth and all that, right
down, headed leftward (east) to
the back-end haunts of Atlantic City.
A quick turn, a little after Sandman,
would get you to McGuire Air Force
Base, and Fort Dix, at Wrightstown.
Along the way there, you'd turn at the
huge car-auction field of the NADA
(National Auto Dealers Association),
which basically meant 30 acres plus
of clean, used, cars for auction - at
auction for car dealers, not regular
people. The cars were mostly brought
up from the south, or maybe west by
Tennessee, Missouri, etc., for resale
here; NJ cars, mostly, after clean-up
(and probably falsification too, of
things like mileage and history and
paperwork), were, in turn, sent there.
For the same sort of deal. Pretty
weird how all that worked. They'd
tell you to look under the trunk
mats and floor carpeting for flood
traces, mud, search for dings and dents
hidden over, and to tap around too
for plastic, body-filler panels, and
all the rest.
-
Once into the Pine Barrens, let me
add, down 206, as longways as you
wished, there existed and endless series
of barren sand-roads, lined with pines,
traces of abandoned villages, cranberry
bog collection locations, campsites, old
homes, old cars, and the rest. Abandoned
villages abounded - Ong's Hat, Indian
Mills, Martha, etc. It was the most
fascinating and secluded place ever.
One could fornicate in the woods, at
will, and for hours, ride the sand roads,
walk around, find weird things, and
generally just walk streams and creeks.
Every so often - which was quite
amazing - overhead and quite low
would pass an air force training flight.
Huge cargo planes, lumbering along
almost at treetop. One time my wife
was skinny dipping (Yes, it happens!)
along in one of those streams, on a
fine Saturday afternoon (at the site
of old 'Martha' town), and she was
swooped low by a fighter-jet training
mission. Freaked her out, but was
cool fun! And the water itself, fresh
and cool, sometimes has a reddish
look, due to iron content. Which is
where colonial era America made
its 'bog-iron' from, Allaire, etc. (A
process and a use I'm no longer
sure of, but will try to refresh
myself on. As for the abandoned
town of Martha, for which we'd
been searching and walking, the
few remnants we found told us
little, except, a book we'd been
using as a guide, brought us to the
clusters of catalpa trees, and their
long seed pods, that had once been
at the village center. It was amazing
how so much had simply disappeared
into the zany Jersey pine-past. There
was one other time, traipsing through,
stupidly, in a plain old Dodge vehicle,
the sandy roads and off-ways, when I
bogged down, deep in sand, and only
getting deeper. We were alone, probably
miles from nowhere, and there seemed
no extrication. It was already a late
Saturday afternoon, and looked
helpless. In frustration, I did find a
way of collecting limbs, branches,
tree parts, logs, and any old crap
around that I was able to find, and -
fortunately - construct almost a
drive ramp up out of the trouble,
and back onto a heartier path. At
the time, it all seemed ratherremarkable. (pt. 2 follows)....
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