There was that kid who lost eight fingers from the first knuckle up by riding his sled while gripping the runners. And the kid who let go of the landlocked rope swing at the peak of the arc. And that kid who was only in school through September. Got sent home by the nurse one day and went home to die. Actually die. Took him all year.If a tenth of the stories were true, it would be sufficient reason to come up with another one.
I remember one by name and the general direction in which she lived. Jet Wood. Grew up on the far side of that same rope swing. One day Jet Wood was riding her little red bike just a little too close to the busy traffic down that way. A car swerved to avoid her, but you know how cars are. Jet Wood became one with her bike metal.
Now how could the story not be true if it came complete with a name? And what a name! I pictured her for years, tomboyish, black hair, bangs, kind of reckless. A little like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved that little dead girl. Never had a chance. Jet Wood.
16 comments:
Jet Wood? Is that true? Seems to ring a bell somewhere.
I don't reckon I remember a lot anymore.... but I hear a lot of bells.
It was at least as true as the one about teenage brainwaves. Meaning it was told to me by 'the older kids' - therefore naturally suspect. You, being one of the older kids, might be in a better position to verify the facts, but it sounds like distant bells are all you've got for me.
There is the name, though. Made up stories rarely came with names. And I think Jet Wood is too original a name to be made up.
I did make up the color of her bike.
Jet Wood was the daughter of Lea and Harron Wood, intrepid husband-and-wife explorers credited with the grueling climbing and identification of Garrett Mountain in northern New Jersey. She did indeed meet her demise while riding to meet them as they descended that table; her explosive ebullience was never a thing to be contained. Turning from the Islington Pike onto the still-deadly Route 22,she failed to notice the DeCamp bus that came up behind her. The driver of that bus, one Warrington Smit, had recently regained his driving priveleges after a similar incident in which he ran down another black-banged child on another red bicycle. He was later transferred to a desk job, where he choked to death after lunching on his penil sharpener shavings. Another version of the story has Jet Wood as a victim of the Unfamous Baltimore Weedwacker, but I tend to doubt this tale, as the Weedwacker wasn't even invented until after the Johnson Administration. All I know is that the whole thing is slated to be released as a TV movie next month, though the names have been changed to immerse the godless. It's a cruel world.
Smidgie, I think you're missing the point that these true stories are True Stories, and are, as the name implies, true. Or reasonably so anyway. I detect by your smarmy tone that you do not believe in their authenticity and offer your own outlandish profile of what can only be described as blatently ficticious characters in response. How dare you impugn the integrity of this blog's author, who happens to be me, by insinuating by association that these true stories are not in fact true. I'll have you know they are the only thing to be found here that are in fact, or even in fiction, true. Or reasonably so anyway. Furthermore, you besmirch the memory of Jet Wood and I'll not stand for that. So begone you teller of tales, you blog vandal. Get thee hence and darken my doorstep no longer.
(What gave you away was the DeCamp bus on Route 22. I googled it and found, just as I had suspected, that DeCamp Bus Lines never dispatched charter buses along Route 22. Their founder, Oliver DeCamp, had an innate fear of Route 22 and advised all drivers to avoid it. Nice try, Smidgie. I'll bet that's not even your real name.)
Garrett Mountain? Is that a real place? It seems to ring another bell as well.
Go north on Valley Road about 5 or 6 miles from Bradford, beyond Montclair State, almost as far as Paterson. It looms up on the left. Biggest mountain for miles around. You may not recall the name, but I'll bet you remember seeing it.
I do remember the name, I don't remember seeing it. Was it snowcapped?
Uh, no, it wasn't snowcapped. It was just a really big hunk of granite.
Oh.
Hmmmm. Garrett Mountain, no snow..... sure rings a bell.
Was there an old trading post up there?
That would be Junky Dan's. There was also a one room schoolhouse. Every morning they'd ring a big bell. Hey, maybe what you keep hearing.
Ahh, the memories. Junky Dan's Garbage Can! Where a little brother could rummage through an older brother's cast-off crap in return for a favor that usually involved some subterfuge against the older sister, the Mom or the Dad (though he wasn't usually referred to as that, sorry for the dangling preposition). I'm sure the older brothers have read the story "The Reservoir", though I'd better send it anew to the eldest, as his memory seems to be a bit cloudy. Garrett Mountain was indeed snowcapped, but only after snow fell. Duh. And, as are all the cliffs that run from south of the Raritan River to the Catskill Mountains, Garrett Mountain is composed of basalt. The reason we were all able to climb the cliff at The Quarry is that basalt has a columnar structure. As liquid magma, basalt was thrust up through older strata until it reached the cooler rock near the earth's surface, where it cooled relatively quickly. This caused vertical fractures in the rock that also makes basalt one of the most valuable minerals for road metal and riprap, as it breaks easily along the fracture lines. The circular conrete structure at the top of the smaller cliff at The Quarry had, in its working days, a rock crusher atop it. That quarry, by the way, was operated by a division of the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, upon which we all walked at some time or another. Remember the dark gray rock upon which the ties and rails were laid? It was basalt riprap from that (and other) traprock quarries in the area. The columnar structure also makes basalt relatively easy to climb, hence our adventures at The Quarry. First Mountain, upon which 41 Bradford Avenue was built, runs for hundreds of miles as a vertical bench from which Manhattan Island can be viewed in all it's grandeur. The same basalt bench runs through Franklin, New Jersey, location of the single most varied rare mineral deposit on Earth (Magnet Cove Arkansas, has 150 different mineral species within its bowl while the famous quarries at Franklin have had over three hundred different species identified, including many specific to that location, and found nowhere else on Earth), as well as up the Hudson River. The Palisades, which stretch from Yonkers to the Catskills, are also composed of this rock. The most famous example of basalt is undoubtedly Devil's Tower, Wyoming, whose columnar structure is obvious from twenty miles away. The Giant's Causeway on the Irish coast is a fine example of columnar basalt, and, unlike Devil's Tower, can be easily viewed in cross section, highlighting each column's hexagonal structure. Garrett Mountain and the rest of the north Jersey/Southern New York bench of First Mountain/Palisades do not show this hexagonal structure, but the vertical lines exist nonetheless. I hope this clears things up, and yes, there will be a quiz at the end of the period. No notes allowed.
Thanks for the geological lowdown, Smidge. I stand corrected.
Speaking of the Palisades, do you remember the theme song to Palisades Amusement Park? I get old Jean Shepherd shows as podcasts and a lot of them lately have the dadburned jingle embedded in them and now I can't get it out of my head. If you guys want to have it embedded in yours, go to: http://www.palisadespark.com/sounds.htm
and click on 'Come On Over.' You'll be sorry.
A one room schoolhouse huh? That rings a bell too. I think that I was thinking of.... Schooly's Mountain.
It was a little further away than Garrett Mountain....
hey what ever happened to that weird girl that used to live up there, what was her name?
That tune has never left my head. Whether it was on WABC radio, WPIX, WNEW or WOR teevee....on The Winchell-Mahoney show or Captain Jack ("Hut to peen!"). "Palisades amusment park, swing all day and after dark"..... "Ride the coaster, get cool in the waves at the pool, you'll have fun! So come on over!" The other I remember is Bosco, which claimed to put a rocket in your pocket and whee in your knee, which seem lofty claims for a simple milk additive that tasted somewhat almost nearly like chocolate. And who can forget "Don't cross in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle of the street." Gems all, and still rattling around my brain like a set of ball bearings.
1. Incoorect lyric recall. It's don't cross (6X) in the middle of the block.
2. I wouldn't mind a rocket in my pocket, but I don't want no whee in my knee.
3. I don't know anything about Schoolies Mountain or weird girls who lived there. I know of a few weird girls elsewhere. In fact, there's one in the next room.
Don't cross in the middle of the BLOCK??? Sheesh. No wonder I never got anywhere. Apparently two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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