Alright, here we are… back in Horseheads, NY. Now, Ronnie and Rocinante were supposed to be in New Jersey. Writing about New Jersey from the Jersey Shore, no less… from the Boardwalk… gnoshing on saltwater taffy.
But plans, you know. They’re like little paper boats you set sailing in a bathtub, and then the dog jumps in… C’est la.
We aimed for the Atlantic, for the roar of the ocean and the smell of fries, and we landed in Clinton. Clinton, New Jersey. Which, naturally, kicked off a little ditty in Ronnie’s head, a bastardization of something that was definitely better in its original form:
Well I’ve never been to Jersey…
It’s charms are kinda hidden…
Well we headed for the boardwalk…
Only made it out to Clinton…
Can ya dig it…?
Ya just can’t rig it…
Go on and swig it.
And I’ve never been to Heaven…
But I’ve been to Kanorado…
Well they tell me i was born there…
But i really don’t remember…
In Kanorado… not Eldorado…
What does it matter…?
What does it matter indeed? You try to make sense of things, write a nice little blog dispatch, and your brain starts howling like three lonely dogs.
Now, New Jersey. It gets a bad rap. A real thumping from the wits over in New York, the titans of 30 Rock, who probably only ever see the bits that look like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag – all that industry flanking the Jersey Turnpike. “Garden State,” they call it. And you drive past refineries that look like metallic dinosaurs coughing up their last, and you wonder about the gardener.
But listen: Jersey. It’s small. Fifth smallest, a little postage stamp of a place. But it’s packed. Like a can of articulate sardines. Most densely populated state in the whole damn Union. And these aren’t just any sardines, mind you. They’re educated. They’re rolling in it – ten percent are millionaires. Millionaires! Probably from inventing some new kind of concrete or a better way to subdivide themselves. They’re healthy, too, second healthiest. And diverse? You betcha. Religion, ethnicity, the whole shebang. They’re practically a miniature, well-funded, surprisingly fit United Nations. Human Development Index, both the American kind and the regular kind? Near the top. So there.
And the noise they make, these New Jerseyites. You’ve got Frank Sinatra, Ol’ Blue Eyes, serenading the Meadowlands. Then there’s Springsteen, The Boss, sounding like he swallowed a gravel road and a book of working-class poetry. Whitney Houston, voice like a goddamn angel, soaring over Newark. Queen Latifah, hip hop royalty. And Tony Soprano, figuring out life’s little and bada-bing tragedies, usually involving gabagool. Even Snooki, bless her heart, contributing to the general, unscripted, leopard-print chaos. Moxie, Jersey’s got it.
So, Ronnie and Rocinante, they’re trundling along, aiming for the shore, and they hit Clinton. No beach, no boardwalk. But Clinton, it turns out, has ghosts (a prominent HSoB Tour objective). Every October, the Red Mill there gets dressed up as a Haunted Village. They even had Ghost Hunters poke around in 2008. Ghosts, by gawd. We were supposed to be looking for the soul of the Jersey Shore, and we found a place that specializes in things that ain’t there anymore. Or maybe never were.
Excuses, excuses. They’re like armpits, Ronnie always said; most people have two and they usually stink. One excuse for falling short of the salty air was a detour. A holy pilgrimage, almost. Rocinante, with a mind of her own, or maybe just following the subtle magnetic pull of craftsmanship, wandered off to Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Nazareth, PA. Where they made Ronnie’s guitar. Martin, the kind of guitar that made Robbie Robertson want to sing about feeling about half-past dead. Which, of course, set off another little ear-worm:
Pulled into Nazareth, feelin’ ’bout half-past dead…
Don’t need to find a place where i can lay my head…
Cos’ Rocinante was smart ’bout thinkin’ ahead…
Allowing Ronnie to skip the part ’bout askin’ for a bed.
It’s a funny old world. You aim for the ocean, you find a guitar factory and Jersey Mike’s for lunch. You expect one thing, you get something else.
And speaking of something else, New Jersey. Blue state. Thoroughly blue. But even in the bluest of states, you’ll find some folks trying to repaint the town red. Some genius, some absolute card-carrying comedian without an audience, tried to change the name of little Clinton to “Reagan.” Reagan, New Jersey. You can’t make this stuff up. The universe just hands it to you on a slightly greasy, very confusing platter. Who needs The Onion when you’ve got municipal politics?
So, the report on the day trip to New Jersey got written, not from the boardwalk, but from the quiet, and ever-friendly Horseheads Free Library. About a trip that missed its target but hit a few other things along the way. Ghosts, guitars, sandwiches, and the perplexing, often hilarious, business of being human. Turn, turn, turn.
Onward through the fog… RH
You don’t need beach towels…
On a Clinton hike…
But if you’re hungry…
There’s Jersey Mikes…
And if you’re lucky…
You’ll stop in Nazareth…
And pick out a brand new Martin ax.
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