RUDIMENTS 1096.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,096

(when lawlessness becomes the law)

One thing I always noticed in the

Pine Barrens - which is a large

area - was the lack of any real

police patrol or presence. It's

been said, of the many supposed

issues of dumped bodies and

hasty burials, that the mob boys,

over from Philly, in one direction,

or New Gretna and Atlantic City

from the other, that the gangs

and mob boys loved the sandy

soils and the isolated roads and

paths, for just that reason. An

easy dig, and an easy dumping.

Maybe so, and I read numerous

accounts of whores and call

girls being found dead along

the Atlantic City Expressway

and roads leading in and out

of the Pine Barrens. Always

unidentified, and always a

'mysterious,' unsolved slaying.

Perhaps. And only perhaps:

'Jimmy Hoffa, meet Jasmine

Lilyflower.'

-

The only times I saw police

activity were when a passing

State Trooper whizzed along a

paved road. One episode I had did

involve a parked State Trooper,

just sitting by observing what

passed, and then, eventually,

stopping and asking me of our

reasons for being there and

driving out of the sandy-road

woods as we did. It was all OK,

and nothing came of it. I never

ran across any citations or

traffic violations being written,

nor any patrolling. Perhaps the

settled anarchy of place and

tradition there ruled itself and

kept settled its own turf. The

abandoned cranberry bogs and

camps seemed never touched or

violated, and there was none of

that weird urban graffiti and

messiness that we so much see

elsewhere. It almost seemed

like a long, exaggerated, 1950's

that had never left.

-

Out along Rt. 206, I could always

find excitement at a place called,

for whatever the name meant, the

'Pick-A-Lilly Inn,' at Shamong, NJ.

It masqueraded as a dining place,

but in actuality was, for the most

part, a down and dirty Biker bar,

frequented late and frequented

often. And not always by the

most upstanding of characters.

Club guys, (I'm too weary to mention

names) out of Philadelphia, and

the local branch-office club types

around the area. You kind of had

to keep a watch on things, lest

'ye getteth your headed handed

to ye.' For all sorts of reasons.

Perhaps that kept the cops busy?

In any case, they never were in

the woods. A few times I'd run

across cast-off individuals, walking.

I guessed they were local enough,

never very amenable to talk, nor

friendly. I either just kept going,

nodded, or, if stopped, found a

way to jump-start a conversation,

just to get a read on the person. I

found a way to talk about anything.

There were fishing spots, hunting

spots, even piles of firewood, I

guessed gathered over time and

constantly as a stash to be picked

from by those in the know. And,

occasionally, there'd be someone

at one of them. Never a problem.

In fact, the biggest problem at

times were the one-lane sand roads,

for which, should another vehicle

be coming, in the other direction,

immediate decisions had to be

made. I always ceded the territory,

immediately, and pulled as much

over as possible to let what I

always figured was a more local

inhabitant, pass. No challenge.

No beef. I don't know what the

local protocol was, between

two local fellows in that same

situation, but I guessed it was

always worked out.

-

I think it was 1977, maybe '78,

when I first discovered-by-entering

the Pine Barrens. It was, in any

case, the Summer before the

election that granted 'casinos

and gambling' to Atlantic City,

which at the time was just a

run-down rump of a place; a

black ghetto rezoned from an

older, mobster-elite ring of

clubs, bars, hotels and third-rate

entertainers running down their

own skids of a career. It was shot.

We got there at probably its very

nadir (lowest point) before the

'supposed' but quite temporary

renaissance of the gambling and

casino constructions and rebirth.

The stories were legion, and even

Springsteen has a song about

that one. I never for a minute

believed that anything good would

come from it. What most interested

me, to tell the truth, was how the

Pine Barrens just sort of emptied

themselves out, at New Gretna, and

all that sand and stuff began to be

little, old, strips of towns running

towards Atlantic City, which once

really did have a big presence.

If the Pine Barrens were the 'lungs'

of New Jersey, old Atlantic City

had been the lungs of Philadelphia;

the Atlantic City Expressway, running

a cool straight east and west, had

seamlessly connected to two. Places

like New Gretna seemed all mixed up;

neither sandy Pine Barren towns, nor

Atlantic City show and club glamor.

Every once in a while, along that area,

you'd run into some great and glamorous

looking building or old lodge or club

or hotel, just out in the middle of

not much - looking seedy and dirty,

but still there, and proudly so. The

reality was, instead, all a lost, old

America eating with its own bent

spoon and fork. That's called Legacy,

good or bad. Nowadays they don't

let that stuff exist.

-

The Pine Barrens burned often enough

too; great big portions of it would get

set off, lightning or some other natural

and localized calamity. You see, the

amazing thing was, with all the dwarf

pine, or pitch pine, or whatever it is,

I learned, that those trees depended

upon fire to propagate. That's how

they reseeded themselves, and how

new trees got started. It was pretty

amazing to learn that, in the heat of

fire, the trees explode their seed pods

and send them flying, everywhere.

Of those that land, some decent

percentage of them then take, in the

burned sands and soils underfoot.

Not a good deal, I grant you, for

ground animals and small critters,

but it seemed that they usually did

manage to stay ahead of the flames.

Back in those days, on another point,

as I think of it, there were a lot fewer

animals around; nothing like today,

when we have plentiful deer, hawks,

scavenger birds, herons, egrets, and all

else. Take it from me, 30/40 years ago

it was NOT like that. Nature was a

quieter place. People now get all la-la

and fired up if they see a red fox, or

a coyote, hell, or even a raccoon. Like

it was some foreign object. That's the

kind of thinking that nearly wiped

them all out during the 1950's and

60's. A weird, tired, sicker world, if

you can figure for that - DDT,

exterminations, wholesale plowing

over and building, no regard for

waterways, swamps, or fens and bogs.

All the sorts of things the Pinelands

thrived on and were filled with.

At least some things got done

right. The funny thing is, now, that

the average Joe no longer does that

stuff, so much anyway, but the towns

and road departments - all the ones

who make the restrictions and laws

about what other can NOT do, are

now the ones doing it! Toxins and

defoliants spread at will along

roadways, sidings, and turn-offs.

When lawlessness becomes the

law, then there is no law. Just

like they did to Atlantic City.

Killed it.