RUDIMENTS 1095.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,095

(no joke, but it was funny)

Some people said Pine Barrens,

some said Pinelands, some said

Jersey Pines; some even said

'The lungs of New Jersey.'

Whatever they said, I always

knew what they meant. It was

a grand expanse of open-air

space: Water, streams, lakes,

camping areas, old roads, the

factories and encampments

(most fascinating) - seasonal

encampments. Bog factories.

Cranberry-workers' settlements.

I found at least 3. Lines of 10

or 12 cabins, weedy and almost

wrecked, with communal outdoor

water-troughs with soap and

shaving mirrors, all that stuff

just left there, as if the guys

just departed; except it was

dried out and caked. Fungus.

Bugs. Mold. Slapping screens

and doorways, and old funky

cars left, down on their springs.

Here and there, old houses, or

remnants of old houses, homes,

small farms, and recreational

camps were still left around.

By the 1980's, apparently from

what was seen, the informalness

of the earlier era's (1930's or so)

was gone, and Government had

taken over park areas, campgrounds

larger lakes and such. Park Service

police and rangers, camp-stores,

for supplies, canoe rentals, maps

and guidebooks. And of course,

the rental format, for access to the

waterways, gave one's name and

group away to the authorities and

their darned 'timing' systems of

closed at sunset and all that. No

longer did the 'adventurous' linger

or stay out all night on sand or

water. (Of course, the really

adventurous, such as we were,

made it a point to stay away

from such organized sites. No

one was ever to know where

we were....and we had no 'when.'

People seem always so willing

to dilute everything away to

controls and systems, all for the

sake of one organized place where

they could buy their damned chips

and soda. I never figured that out).

-

It wasn't always easy to find, but

at the 'place' called Indian Mills,

which I found a way of getting to

by turning off 206 by the Columbus

Market (a sort of 150 acre highway

horde of flea market, junk shop,

vegetable and food stands, and a

million outdoor sheds with tables

selling everything from holsters

to motorcycle parts, comic books

to flavored condoms, musty, old

issue magazines, of cars, hobbies,

motorcycles, or women, and the

attendant 'sellers' of all these goods

loitering about, just to be making a

riotous array of fat, skinny, toothless

or over-toothed, cowboy or hillbilly,

farmer-anger-girl or slut); once I'd

make a left there, at a fine, old, brick

house, now long gone, the road would

sled out, after a few miles, over and

into a more rolling greenscape. There

was an ancient old house - wood,

turned almost black by the weather,

slats and broken slats, windows,

etc. - which house had claim to

being the home, a hundred years

back, then, of someone called

Indian Mary, as I recall, who'd

been an original, tribal, Indian,

local, until she died, quite old.

The house had since then just

been left. It was pretty weird,

almost ghostly, to look at. The

fence slats were everywhere fallen,

the foundation was of rock, very

shallow, short to the ground. And,

off to one side, amazingly, was a

small oval of racetrack, from the

way, old days - a horse-track

oval, like something painted by

Albert Pinkham Ryder, in a

painting he's got called 'Death

Rides a Pale Horse.' Pretty

spooky, and caught me every

time. Last time down there,

doing something else, I tried

to find it, but couldn't. Not was

I ever able to figure out any

import for that race oval, though

I, yes, did find a reference to it,

and her, and her racetrack, in a

history-book-guide. Hers was

but one of the old, rather

mysterious, houses I kept

somehow running across.

You need to imagine, really,

an entire network of roads,

paths, and sandy lanes, just

things never paved - in the

same manner we now have

highways, cross-streets, and

main boulevards. In some

older American ways of life,

whether by horse, or wagon,

or horse cart, the Pine Barrens

had a life of their own wherein

people traveled by just those,

on just those, small but solid

roads. It's quite fascinating to

still see most of it intact. One

can drive out, or along, almost

any sort of odd lane or pathway,

being careful of course first

about seeing car tracks and

not just ruts and soft-spots. My

rule of thumb mostly, though I

admit not 'always,' was that if

I saw no evidences of previous

car tracks, I ventured not.

The danger of getting stranded

in some of these places was too

real. Lakes and waters abounded,

as did swamps and bogs. Here

and there, maybe, a fishing hut,

hunting club, or rifle-range,

perhaps. But you'd not find any

foodstuffs, nor refreshments, nor

amenities. One pee'd on trees,

if that 'one' was a male anyway.

Once again, my wife was strafed

one day while in her girl-pee crouch

in secluded weeds, by fighter jets.

No joke. But it was funny.

-

The center of all of this, if there

has to be a center, a sort of

'place' anyhow, from which I took

my bearings, mainly because from

that point at, in each direction, ran

the sand roads, the center of the little

area was called Chatsworth, and, back

in the 198's anyway, the center of

Chatsworth was Buzby's General

Store. There's something still there,

but owners have changed, the place

has been totally re-done, and all the

charm of the original sense of 1920

has disappeared under the toilet-paper

facade of new charm, 'Chatsworth'

mugs and towels and spoons for

sale, and a sort of new and genial,

chamber-of-commerce type BS

charm. The original Buzby's was,

for me, the real McCoy - hardware,

hardtack, a furnace fire in the center,

during cold days, a service counter,

sandwiches, coffee, and any sort of

sundry barrel and crate loose goods

needed. Shovels. Hammers. Dog food,

ground corn, syrups, chips, sodas and

most anything else. A few benches

inside, and a table or two, often had

old-timers and locals jawing about,

over coffee and cake, or whatever.

They did have a great sandwich and

salad counter, and, along with the

long wooden bench out front, when

all that was, suddenly, one day, on

a return visit after a while, gone, all

the air just left me. It was like killing

a town by, yes, killing a town! Ripping

a heart from something living. By

contrast now it's just a dead lump with

not much around it. The old Gulf

gas pumps, along across the street,

are gone. The Cranberry Co-Op has

moved on. Ocean Spray Cranberry

Company used to even keep a presence

there. All gone. On time I found myself

in Chatsworth in a terrible-mileage

Land Cruiser, way low on gas, like

'E' and under, in a most troublesome

fashion, and the Gulf guy whose door

I knocked on, refused me gasoline.

'Infernal outsider, late on a Saturday,

NO! Be gone!' I did fortunately make

it along to the next, larger road, where

I did find a normal, corner gas station.

Damn I do miss Buzby's.