Pam’s Pictorama Post: In a sense this is a New Jersey post. We’re here and it is an object I purchased with this house in mind. It showed up in my feed and I instantly snapped it up. (Like yesterday’s postcard post, this also courtesy @Marsh.and.Meadow via Instagram.)
My mother was devoted to swans – the real ones that lived in the river on our property when I was growing up. She loved them and she started feeding them and they got to know her. She also began to help injured ones. People began bringing them from all over and would call for her help and advice. Along with the geese they were generally despised and over time she fought to keep them from being rounded up and gassed along with the geese. (There were resources, such as chasing dogs, that could be used to rid your yard of geese – the Geese Police.) It was a complicated issue but she was firmly on one side of it.
Swan planter awaiting plants out back.
This passion played out over the background of my sister’s illness and treatment for cancer. It kept mom out as a part of the world beyond care taking in the house. She picked up a long unused camera and began taking pictures of them.
During that period I can remember coming to visit and sharing a bathroom (not really because swans don’t share) with an injured swan spending the night inside. There was one she called Sweetheart in particular that did a lot of time in the house. Frequently swans and other water birds swallow fishline or “sinkers” which, in turn twist in their gut or give them lead poisoning. Those that recovered would be released either into our river or given to someone with a protected pond on their property. Some of the swans were pinioned (wings clipped) to keep them in a small waterbody on a property but often without enough food. They were moved to where they could be supervised as flying is their only real defence.
Sadly my sister eventually died. Not too long after my parents left their house by the river after Hurricane Sandy. Mom herself moved from a walker to being largely immobile. Throughout it all she continued to take calls about swans and other injured or endangered waterfowl. Pictorama readers know that she was also clearly a sucker for cats and adopted four of the Jersey five I have today in those last years. (Yes, this means I inherited four very young cats out of five. I sometimes say I have cats for life.)
A bit of stained glass with a swan that was a gift to mom years ago. Next to a chair with a view of the yard she favored. She’d be pleased with how much it has grown in and been added to.
While mom was never one to pick up bits and pieces (I inherited that from my father and his family – a post about their collecting can be found here) there are a few bits of evidence of her love for swans in the house. Some cards made from her photos and of course some prints. There are a few swans either in the yard or tucked away in the house. I am looking at a piece of stained glass someone gave her.
Yet, as soon as I saw this door knocker, green with age and patina, clearly weighing a ton, I had to have it for the house here. Someone may have tried to clean it a long ago mistaken day, at least that is what I think the white bits in places represent. The knocker is largely the long neck of the swan.
Swan door knocker. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
He is a beady eyed fellow. No cartoon cuteness to him. The bottom is sort of decorative feathers and even abstracted feet. It ends in a sort of blossom, water reed design.
It weighs a ton! Realistically I would not be surprised if I am unable to install it here although I will try. My metal fireproof door may be able to hold it (although my current knocker is hung with one bolt rather than two) and I will have to let you know! If not, I will find somewhere else to put it here. It seems like mom would have liked it very much.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s postcard, celebrating a local summer spot where I grew up in New Jersey, seems like a fitting Memorial Day holiday kick-off card. I purchased it at the postcard show bonanza of a few months ago with the intention of framing it for the house in NJ where I am gathering a few early cards of local spots I love.
This one was mailed on August 8, 1923 from Atlantic Highlands at 11 AM. It was mailed to Mr. Robert Del Paso, 44 Est 98th Street, New York. Written on the back is a brief note, Best regards to you and your sister from Dorothy and Eugene.
The view shown here is the one that you now see from the ferry when it pulls in. It looks nothing like this now, a small public beach is at the landing and some low condos not far beyond. Boats dock nearby and restaurants and small businesses dot the edge of the water along with some houses, although you don’t see those right in this spot either, as it is largely in the shadow of a much larger bridge.
The approach to Atlantic Highlands via ferry from 2021.
The first time I took the ferry into Atlantic Highlands, the sense memory of that spot was amazing. On the occasions I would go sailing with my dad or on the creaking wooden fishing boat of my grandfather, the Imp, we would head first under one bridge and then the other and to the bay or ocean. The sense of history smacked me hard being on that spot of the water again.
I have touched on this Jersey shore enclave before, not long ago in a post about Bahr’s Restaurant which can be found here. I opined on the thoughts I had about living there at one time, and the history of that restaurant where I had what turned out to be a last birthday dinner with my sister, a few decades past now.
Atlantic Highlands, and it’s kissin’ cousin Highlands, abut the area of the shore I grew up in. (Highlands is the hamlet slightly further into the river side, Atlantic Highlands faces out toward the ocean and beyond.) However, while Sea Bright, a spit of land that adjoins it, was an almost daily destination, the Highlands while hard by, somehow were the route less taken. I believe that this was probably largely due to beach traffic and while being almost within shouting distance as the crow flies it was rarely the shortest way to go anywhere from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
The parking lot for the ferry, next to the small public beach and some condos.
Once I hit high school we made it part of our route when traffic died down late in the evening. We ate lobster rolls and drank beer at shacks at the edge of the river at the junction where the bay joins the river and the ocean. Also on our route was a movie theater that showed films recently fallen out of circulation for an admission of $1.00. Beyond that, expensive restaurants that hugged the shore and gave a view as far as Manhattan on a clear day and those were beyond our means.
Atlantic Highlands, as shown in this postcard, attaches to Sandy Hook beach (and now state park) via the bay. Not only has this quaint wooden bridge been replaced, but the concrete one of my childhood (which seemed plenty big at the time, bigger than its Sea Bright counterpart which required a draw bridge function for the passing parade of boats) was replaced very recently by a true behemoth of a bridge.
Moby’s lobster shack on the water.
The one in Sea Bright is also under reconstruction and I gather will no longer be the draw bridge of my childhood – it’s opening hourly in the summer was how we timed our days in the summer in order to avoid it and the traffic back-up it would cause. I had a boyfriend in high school who had a summer job working the bridge which was a great gig and the retirement job of numerous fishermen. I don’t know how, in retrospect, Ed got that job but many envied him it. I am sorry to say I never visited the tiny shack mid-bridge that was the man cave you stayed in if you worked the bridge.
The theater is evidently still there.
I’m also sorry to have to say that one of the people I spent the most hours with in Atlantic Highlands is gone now. A long former boyfriend, I had fallen out of touch with Sam Lutz, and found out via local connections that he died a few years ago.
I suspect I will eventually return to writing about this area. For some reason it lives in my memory in a way other places do not. However, for now, this rosy sun setting over the Highlands hills is a good place to leave Pictorama for the holiday weekend as I head out there shortly.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: The suitcases are largely packed, art supplies for weighing in massively in a Fresh Direct bag – what did we do before Fresh Direct bags? I have moved everything imaginable in them. For those of you who don’t have Fresh Direct, they are super large reusable bags with handles which our food is delivered in. The company will take them back or you can stockpile them for moves to you summer house, move your office and more.
Kim’s bag of art supplies, carefully prepacked.
The cats are looking at us suspiciously. They duly noted that the suitcase after last week’s trip to San Diego never went back down to the basement. Something is clearly afoot! No one has gone near the carriers but we will need to grab them fast in the morning if we don’t want to have to dig them out from under our bed. I will them to become used to this twice a year ritual now but they are resisting it. Cookie will undoubtedly spend the entire vacation under a chair again, hissing at us. (We continue to try to deploy new ways of dealing with it and I will report back on those efforts.)
It looked like so much in NYC and seems like next to nothing here in NJ!
This year things are different than last. I have less vacation time earned at my new job so I will spend more of my time commuting, some remote days and then some vacation at the end. I am reminded of how different work is, having a new job is an adjustment still in month six.
Much of my staff is new and haven’t accrued much vacation and I worry that when the busy season of fall hits we will all get exhausted. We are all still getting used to each other and the team is still emerging and finding itself. We are told our offices will move, maybe as early as October. We are somewhat camped out in our current space (leaks! mice!) so we are looking forward to it, despite the fact it will come at a busy time.
The bounty of cherry tomatoes and a couple of tiny strawberries.
My new commute takes me way over to the East side of Manhattan – handy for a girl who lives on York Avenue most of the year, but adding time onto the commute from New Jersey. I am eyeing the ferry which would leave me on First and 35th just to shoot up to 62nd and York and cuts the trip to 50 minutes. On the other side the commute is a bit longer home and I have to decide if it is worth it. The ferry is, without question, a more pleasant way to travel!
Oh the cucumbers…
I am looking most forward to time in my garden however, and evenings out on the deck. That has become real summer for me. Reports of my cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers come from a friend daily. Cucumbers in particular seem very happy, with their prickly strange nascent bounty – pickle size bits! My cucumbers have grown lavishly and would cheerfully take over the world given time. I gave them small trellises to climb which they covered immediately and kept going. We eat a lot of cucumbers so I am good with this, at least in theory.
First year this dahlia bloomed – was given to me in memory of my mom.
The cherry tomatoes had spit out a few specimens on my last trip but are quite laden now. The larger tomatoes had not yet yielded fruit. The strawberries in their pots appear happy, but a bit slow. Perhaps they too need a trellis and a spot in the yard next year. There is a tiny grapevine which has taken hold and I am hoping that it will winter and return for further growth next year.
This grapevine is rather impressive. Has grown a lot in the few weeks since I was last here.
Mom always had grapes and strawberries growing wild across fences in the backyard growing up – we never harvested them much and they were really there for the wildlife. I take that attitude with my blueberry bushes which are laden with berries and disappear in the twinkling of an eye. These days the birds, bunnies and chipmunks and I are locked in a race to see who gets what. of the other produce I am sorry to say I am less generous than my mother was.
The deck last summer.
Few things restore me better than an evening on my deck with twinkling fairy lights and some music playing. It makes all the effort of moving us there worthwhile. Time slows which these days is magical.
However, as I write this, the front door area in this small apartment is laden with packages and cats are giving us a sideways look. They know! Shortly I will do a final clearing of the fridge and throughout and we will hit the road. With any luck I will send a sign off from the other side!
******
We arrived, relatively without incident. Cash, my favorite car dog friend, was displeased with cats in his car, but he remained at a reasonable distance in the front seat. Just looking at Jeff occasionally and asking Why? (I have written previously about Jeff and Cash here.)
Cash looking at Jeff and asking, Why are these cats in our car?
Cookie and Blackie have disappeared into the house, under something somewhere. B will likely come out when he hears us in the bedroom later, not sure about C. We are trying something different and giving her a room to herself, Kim’s studio, upstairs.
Rainy day here so I only have rainy pictures of the garden. Alas, hoping it clears for us this evening!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: One of my favorite new hobbies is purchasing bits of local memorabilia to decorate the New Jersey house. Having grown up in the area I have always found local history interesting and I am having fun finding ways to celebrate and embrace it as well as my own history there. Along those lines I picked up this postcard recently with the intention of framing it for the house there. This is a bit of a long summer and childhood post so settle in if it appeals. I guess I am kicking off summer officially today.
In a parallel universe I think I bought a tiny wooden house in Highlands on the water and live there. In that world I either live with and/or disregard the constant flooding of the area and I have no idea what I do for a living. There was a moment in this world where I gave serious consideration to such a purchase for a weekend house (affordably due to the aforementioned flooding), but my ever practical minded mother talked me out of it. I lived through enough flooding to hear her talking sense about it. Nonetheless, my heart does remain with the idea of a few rooms in a wooden house, just a few minutes walk from the river and ten or so minutes over the bridge to Sandy Hook beach.
Back in the early days when Bahr’s was still a rooming house and bait and tackle shop.
When I was very young, we had a house – one sold by Sears and Roebuck – on the nearby spit of land in Sea Bright we call the North Beach. I adored that house and did consider making it my home when my parents sold it in my early 20’s. My earliest summer memories are there, with beach access across the (incredibly busy) street and clubs with pools where I would ultimately learn to swim. In recent years, the bridge between the two, Sea Bright and Highlands, has been remade from a simple old fashioned one (up from the glorified foot bridge that would have existed at the time of this postcard) to a very high, super highway version which I guess you can walk over, but seems a bit threatening.
Anyway, Highlands and its kissin’ cousin tucked nearby, Atlantic Highlands, were always there as part of my childhood. It has an interesting mix of real estate, multimillion dollar homes on the steep hilly incline overlooking the water (mom and dad would speculate on how terrible winter driveways and roads they must have) and down to the small, wooden homes near the shoreline. For those of you who followed my nascent ferry adventures to and fro Manhattan, this is where the ferry leaves you, or conversely picks you up. As a child we mostly drove through it as a way of avoiding round trip beach traffic to Sea Bright or a to get out on the highway.
Nearby ferry landing.
One of the fixtures of Highlands is Bahr’s Landing restaurant. It is currently billed as the oldest restaurant in New Jersey, dating back to its earliest incarnation as a seasonal houseboat chowder and boarding house for those working the waterfront in 1917. Boats were rented and on the off season the family went back to their necktie business in Newark.
Eventually the business took off sufficiently in the 40’s to become year round and, according to the article I found, the original houseboat established the existing building today. Oddly, I only learned recently that the family is one I know – I went all through school (kindergarten through high school) with the current generation owner, Jay Cosgrove. Yay Jay!
Undated photo from their site but maybe not too far off from when this postcard was made.
In an unconscious way, Bahr’s played out through my childhood, young adulthood and has come back for me in middle age. As a small child I remember off-season celebratory birthdays there – as year round residents my parents preferred it in any season but summer when the local traffic would increase ten fold overnight. I could be wrong, but they may have introduced oyster crackers into my life which I adored as a child.
Postcard not in my collection shows rickety original bridge between Highlands and Sea Bright to Sandy Hook beach.
As teenagers and on summers home from college we didn’t care and braved the traffic cheerfully. The restaurant proper was too expensive however and we were instead content (very content indeed) to sit next door on benches near the water for services outside until late in the evening, eating lobster rolls and juicy fried clams. There was a movie theater a few blocks away which showed second run and old films for 99 cents and so a reasonably affordable date night was established.
I had not been inside the restaurant for many years when my sister Loren suggested it for a birthday lunch one year, shortly before she died and we celebrated our childhood there. Bittersweet, it was my first and last time there for a number of years as I thought going back would make me sad.
Bars from the water side in an undated photo.
However, in my mother’s final year or so we ordered in food a fair amount and I figured out Doordash from there on a few occasions which we enjoyed. I did it weekly or so until they could no longer find drivers. Mom was a vegan, but there were a few vegetable dishes she liked and everything we ordered from there was delicious and a wonderful change of pace.
In the subsequent year since mom died, a good friend and I have taken it up again as our occasional treat. We generally go at lunchtime during the week, occasionally dinner, when even the summer traffic is more bearable, taking an inland route which spares us some tussle.
Yup, the mug I purchased full of the chowder and some of those oyster crackers from my childhood shown here.
I wish I had copies of the old photos the interior of Bahr’s is decorated with – some go back to the days of it as a houseboat, renting rooms. Others show fishing in the immediate area – I always take time to study them. There was also a time when it had an early life as a ferry stop for cruise ships that would head down to the South from New York City. Ancient majolica oyster plates fill another vitrine. A small gift shop is at the front, near the bar and the oldest part of the building. I recently purchased chowder size mugs, one for the house in NJ and one for 86 Street.
This is the bar area where for some reason I have never eaten. I think we favor the water views. I always like to go and look at the photos and art in it though when I can.
The fare at Bahr’s is the absolute top shelf of what you expect and want from a local seafood restaurant, perched right over the water. Plates groan with ultra fresh local scallops, clams, oysters, lobster and various other kinds of fish. I remain partial to a warm lobster roll which has come to define this item to me, simply lobster chunks with butter on a traditional roll, served with homemade potato chips if I feel decadent. Homemade biscuits are served for starters – this is not diet dining. My friend Suzanne remains largely devoted to a plate of scallops and vegetables. We both occasionally go off script however and in this way I discovered their “original recipe” spicy clam chowder which is stupendous! I am a fan and have begun buying a container for the freezer in NJ each time I go and it makes for a very happy meal subsequently.
Recent image from the parking lot at Bahr’s.
The postcard I have acquired appears to most likely be from the 40’s given what I know and that it is a linen postcard – those were produced in the 30’s and 40’s. As you can see from my recent photo, not much as changed, down to the neon sign which must flash to boats like a beacon. That is Sandy Hook, now a state park, across from it on a tiny spit of land with the ocean beyond. Seen today the immediate surrounding area is a busy dock, as shown in my photos, and Moby’s, the affordably cousin they also own, next door. If you sit outside near the water and the docks, fat seagulls rule while ducks and geese placidly come and go. There is a parking lot where it is just sand here.
Verso of card.
On the back in very neat pencil print it says, The air is wonderful here on river. There are five children here & they have such a good time. Hope everything is well with you. Love Marg. It is addressed to: Mrs. M. Martin, PO Box #137, Gibbstown, New Jersey without a stamp so maybe it went in an envelope or just was never sent. On the back of the card, printed at the top it says, Bahr’s Seafood Restaurant Highlands NJ. Lobster and Fish Dinners. The “Half Moon” Bar and Cocktail Lounge, Charter and Deep Sea Boats for Hire. Est. 1917 – Highland 3-1245.
So Bahr’s has earned its place to be enshrined at our New Jersey residence. With any luck, some old photos will show up to join it and I look forward to treating you to a bit more of that local lore.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: An extra day off last week enabled a nice few days in New Jersey. I was shocked that autumn had overtaken there so fully already. In many ways fall is my favorite season, although I guess spring is special too. Kim and I got married in the fall and in part that was because I thought it would be nice to have something to celebrate in October. (That would actually be today – our 23rd anniversary of marriage! Yay us!) I am one of those people for whom fall is a reenergizing and recharging time, cool air permitting jackets, leaves changing.
Dahlia continues to bravely bloom. The jalapeno pepper continues to produce as well.
This year I find the season a bit tainted with missing my mom and a nagging sense having forgotten something has chased me throughout the post-summer months. A five day return to office at work, combined with the start of the season there, has been an ongoing adjustment complete with disgruntled staff. Meanwhile, I balk at the exponentially greater need for office clothes and figuring that out. We have had record rains which have curtailed my running. A tough start to season. I feel restless and not entirely myself.
Autumn on the deck. There is a hibiscus someone just gave me which I planted while I was there.
The few days in Jersey provided some balm. Although more rain prevented running I did get a bit of an eyeful of the Halloween decorations there. That neighborhood, chock a block with kids, outdoes itself for Halloween and thereby commencing the fall and winter outdoor decoration cycle which I love.
I am not a large scale outdoor holiday decorator (although if I was Halloween would be a bit of a go to I think), but I do like the outside of the house to look nice and seasonal. This involved a trip to the local farmer’s market “Pumpkin Patch” where I paid too much money for an especially warty, green and orange number which I paired with a traditional orange and an interesting green one. I added a mum and felt content.
Purple mum didn’t make it into the photo but am happy with the seasonal aspect of the front steps.
In the backyard and on the porch the lettuces are in their glory and some excellent fresh salad was made. (I brought some back for Kim so the salads continue!) I managed to harvest a beefsteak tomato while another dozen were still green on the branches. Weather permitting I will get a late season harvest on my next trip. The cucumbers grew with enthusiasm, but were evidently too late in the season. They have flowered and have tiny cukes but unlikely to come to fruition. (We wondered – will we get gherkins?) Next year I will do better. A random yellow pepper showed up as well.
Lettuces are very happy and producing merrily although the bushy cucumbers are not actually spewing out produce.
To salve the seasonal wound of it being too cold to sit out on the deck I grown to so dearly love, I added a fire pit in the backyard at the end of the summer. It had its inaugural lighting this week. I chose a traditional fire one, although my grill is propane. It is smokey – goodness! But that seems appropriate and I enjoy the smell of the wood. My friend Suzanne and I attempted s’mores, and comical although it was I am not sure I will try it again soon. (Think sticky marshmallow everywhere – even my phone – and chocolate not melting and graham crackers too hard!) I will perhaps stick to hot chocolate with marshmallows drinking by said fire going forward.
The inaugural fire pit launch last week. Gourmet graham crackers to the right – too think for good s’mores.Fig tree is happily trying to take over the world, and the tomato plant could supply us with a dozen more tomatoes. Not in view is my jasmine plant which wound itself around all sorts of things in an urge to acquire territory which I will have to curtail when taking it inside over the coldest of winter.
The New Jersey cats welcomed me unconditionally and I slept with Beau and Gus draped around me. Gus brought me his favorite stuffed rat and placed it ceremoniously on the bed where I woke to it one night.
Hobo at the end of the summer having a snack. Turns out, not surprisingly, he’s a mighty hunter.
Speaking of rats, Hobo (our outside denizen) brought a gift in the form of a mouse the other morning and was later found munching on a rat. I guess he is looking for a little extra protein these days, but I thought it was considerate that he was thanking us for all his meals even if it was in dead rodent form which needed disposing of.
I woke to Gus, Beau and the rat toy late one night.
I hope to make another trip out there before Thanksgiving and look forward to the morphing of the fall decorations. Meanwhile, tomorrow (hopefully a sunny day) Kim and I are taking off for a day trip to Cold Spring for a somewhat belated anniversary celebration. More to come on that and an in the can post (and a rather special one I think) will appear in your inbox on schedule.
The Pumpkin Patch at Sickles Farm in Little Silver, NJ.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: As I start this I sit in a train tunnel to NYC from NJ with an absurdly loud snoring generating from the seat in front of me. This man needs help I think.
The great summer experiment of 2023 got off to a rocky start (see the cats not eating post here) and although it has improved (cats have resumed eating and now are focused on fighting with the NJ cats) we are still in somewhat dubious turf, especially when it comes to developing my commuter chops.
Local honey. I run past here frequently and am tempted but how to get the honey home?
Last week, after a debilitating trip in for a breakfast appointment which was stymied by an express train that went local, I made it to Penn station in the nick of time to hop on. My commuter skills have been acquired painfully. I hopped on a train one evening in the nick of time only to discover that you cannot buy a ticket with a credit card on the train.
Anya and her double decker cat stroller.
To pay cash you pay a hefty fee so the conductor left me to try to put the app on my phone but it went into a repeating ring of spinney ball Hell, perhaps because the internet signal was coming and going. Much to my surprise, a very nice gentleman who was sitting next to me spontaneously bought my ticket for me which was lovely of him.
Then there was that Friday when the line I take stopped working and I hopped the ferry instead. A nice ride for me but miserable traffic for the friend who picked me up.
Historic house in Red Bank turned restaurant.
I am slowly returning to running here in Jersey. I lost the habit here toward the end of my mom’s illness when mornings were busy times. I got out and turned toward Red Bank the other day. I had a look at the summer set up – the main drag is closed to car traffic and created a pedestrian path and eating area.
Fig tree awaiting trnasplanting.
Post pandemic the town has suffered a loss of retail like many other places. Restaurants have done best in the rebirth thus far. There is a Tiffany – it is a wealthy area after all. I think of how we used to say that Tiffany set up in the beach communities to salve the conscience of the guilty husbands coming from Manhattan for the weekend, leaving their summer seasonal mistresses in New York. This year I have a taste of being the husband but I can assure Kim (and cats) that they have nothing to fear from my evenings alone in Manhattan – hence no trips to Tiffany.
Local Tiffany’s for those last minute gifts…
For all of the trouble settling in and getting settled, we are now and we are having good days here. The cats are eating on their own. Blackie has annexed a bedroom next to ours and now has two rooms firmly in paw. (Approximately the size of our apartment in Manhattan ironically.) He is finally appearing to enjoy himself some. Cookie has decided that most of her days will be spent behind Kim’s chair, less pioneering spirit in her. Thus far the New Jersey cats seem to take them with a grain of salt.
Lunch and dinner is mostly consumed on our deck off the kitchen where we can survey the beauty of the garden. A fig tree is the most recent acquisition, purchased with two figs on it and several more already peeking out. Tomato and pepper plants are producing now and the herbs are in full cry. A jasmine plant acquired a few months back has its first bloom although my vision of evenings heady with the smell of jasmine may have to wait for another year.
Ferry was crowded last Friday when train went down.
I have strung fairy lights around the deck and added solar ones in both the front and back which also pop on as it gets dark. A portable speaker and my phone are all we need to play some music. Hummingbirds make a sunset appearance at some flowering trees. As dark falls and the lights twinkle on, tiny bats swoop in to feast on the mosquitoes – which have been feasting on me. Fireflies blink (do the bats eat them too?) and I think that yes, this is summer at its best and at last.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: The last of the Mom posts today, for now anyway.
It is Thursday night and I am back in New Jersey. I worked remotely today and will spend tomorrow preparing for a repast for mom on Saturday – 40-50 people over several hours stopping by to chat and have a nosh. The resident cats are surrounding and circling me endlessly since my arrival last night.
The cat family greeting.
Since my mom died almost three weeks ago I seem to live in a state that is strangely and endlessly anxious. I think it is a constant unconscious feeling that I am forgetting to check on her nagging at the back of my mind. Also a terrible sense of always feeling like I am in the wrong place, a perpetual fish out of water. Being back at the house has eased this slightly, perhaps because I am here with the specific mission of getting ready to receive people on Saturday. Or maybe it is being here and forcing my brain and subconscious to accept that mom is no longer here to be cared for.
Stormy, dubbed Cat of Mystery by me, is starting to get a bit more social. She also likes to sit in the window.
Friday and a day of cleaning, shopping and cooking. I thought the house had been deep cleaned right after mom died, but friends showed up today and cleaned some more in preparation for tomorrow. Many hands did make for lighter work and the care of all these women surrounds me in a way that makes me feel like a kid again. In the process of the many cleanings and work that has been done the house is slowly becoming more of a home again, the bed no longer in the kitchen, the roar of the oxygen tank with the cord I was always afraid of tripping over gone.
Peaches.
A certain Pam-ness is starting to exert itself undeniably. Paintings brought up from the basement where they were in exile for some reason. A litany of small repairs are being made. I am having the black front door painted red, just for fun. Circus lights now festoon the back deck. Making it my own was what mom wanted and I believe she approves.
The garden is blooming early this year. Although mom never was able to set foot in it she enjoyed greatly it from the windows and via a series of recordings made for her to celebrate each phase of each season. She’d watch these again and again and share them with friends and family. (Here is a video from last spring that is still up.) Everyone remarks on the beauty of the backyard.
The peonies
The peonies I gave her several years ago are already bursting as are her roses. Mom was good with roses in an effortless way. Did she just know good spots for them? I never remember her fussing over them especially. My nascent herb garden and tomato plants are slowly gaining traction. A dahlia is shooting up in a planter. Unclear though if I have inherited the green thumb or just having some beginners luck as well as guidance from gifted gardening friends.
The roses in the backyard.
Tomorrow some family and a number of her friends will raise a glass to her and nibble on vast piles of fruit salad, cheese sandwiches and cupcakes we purchased and assembled today.
Sunday. Well, it rained hard all day. I said it was because mom was looking on and was worried about the cats getting out with people coming and going. Kim showed up early and was introduced to Hobo who received his third meal of the day from him. That cat must have a hollow leg.
Hobo on meal number one of three yesterday, at about 6:30 AM.
The plant people were all pleased about the rain as we haven’t had much and being plant people we walked out in the garden despite the rain. The animal folks were in a group talking about the rescue of a fawn that was unfolding and some left to go help with that. (Mom’s obit with information about her work in animal rescue and welfare can be found here.)
Family, caregivers and one of our neighbors all discovered people in common and mingled and marveled over the few degrees of separation that were unfolding as I guess they do in smallish towns. Like a wedding I don’t spend enough time with any one person while trying to get to all.
I woke up, exhausted this morning, back here in Manhattan, with Kim and cats. (It is Kim’s birthday – shout out to him! We sang a sloppy Happy Birthday over cupcakes to him at the end of the party yesterday.)
The eggshell this layer of protection I felt during mom’s last months has been broken and my time in that liminal space has ended. It’s a hard finding myself back out in the world again with new responsibilities as well as the old ones rushing back in. It is lonely without her, but she left me with new friends and renewed connections. I am so grateful for their ongoing ministrations. The page turns and the next chapter starts now.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Yesterday, the first part of this tale was devoted largely to the downtown commercial area near the town I grew up in, Red Bank, New Jersey. Now close enough to mom’s house that I can run there, I toured it a bit the other morning, noting the changes since I lived there and also its nascent resurgence since the pandemic. (That post can be found here.)
Today I pick up my story on Friday morning, having been promised a trip to Edie’s Luncheonette for a breakfast post-run. A friend from high school was visiting from the west coast and staying with a friend. The three of us made a plan to have a late breakfast there.
The exterior of Edie’s in a photo found online.
Edie’s is notable to me because it was one of my father’s regular haunts post-retirement. (I touched on Edie’s in a previous post which can be found here.) For some reason Dad staked out Edie’s as his own and for years would eat there, usually breakfast sometimes lunch, several times a week. Weirdly, I had never set foot inside before this Friday morning. Timing was always wrong when I visited my parents back when Dad was still driving and also it seemed like his own hangout. It is close enough to Mom’s house now that I could run there, but that would mean walking home after eating and as someone who is always looking to maximize my running miles, running to breakfast generally doesn’t work for me. (It would be a short run or a long-ish walk.)
A favorite photo of Dad on Mom’s wall.
However, this little sliver of an establishment which has always piqued my interest is perched on an equally tiny smidge of property, hovering at the edge of a ferociously busy street. The tiny triangle of property it sits on merges with an equally busy street just below. It has three impossibly small parking spots in front which you may not use – there are multiple, dire towing declarations. As a result, cars tuck themselves creatively in all manners of illegal spots all around and can be found there all day most days. We parked in front of someone’s house a block away and made our way across the treacherous street.
Old cemetery in a small churchyard next to Edie’s.
The little one-room cottage restaurant has houses to one side and behind it, but on the other side is a church and a very old cemetery. A brick wall protects it from the traffic pounding around it – the cemetery is the tip of the V where traffic merges. It is all a very strange intersection of many things, which I have considered as I drove by over many decades. It would seem that the Edie’s building, one of the oldest in the town of Little Silver, dates back to 1849, starting life as a housing for a tenant farmer, but it is better known for its stint as a general store and post office starting in 1889. In 1928 it begins to morph into a grocery store and then a sandwich counter, and found its true calling as a restaurant in 1970 when it more or less arrived in its current incarnation. (An interesting detailed history of the building and restaurant can be read on their website here.)
Some original details can be found inside, such as a built in craftsman style sideboard in front of the kitchen which fascinated me. Edie’s has a long menu, mostly many variations on omelets, burgers and sandwiches – you can get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich there, or a cup or bowl of daily soup. The fact that you can order Pop-tarts made me laugh. Nothing fancy folks, just the basics.
Pop-tarts and cold cereal! Edie’s will make up a school lunch for you according to their menu.
Mom reminded me that Dad’s order included two eggs over medium and rye toast. I’m sure it also included bacon and knowing the man I suspect he wasn’t entirely a stranger to the french fries. I settled on the eggs, rye toast and cottage fries in his honor. I left the bacon to my friend Suzanne, despite sentiment I am a vegetarian. She had bacon with a “small” stack of three enormous pancakes that looked righteous indeed. Randy split the fries with me and ordered the same eggs. I will say, the simple order of eggs was done to perfection.
My breakfast!
We jammed ourselves into the small room and made our way to seats at the counter. There are only a few tables that can accommodate more than two people and since it was a holiday weekday the place was at close to full tilt. Our perch was a good one though and I got to view the action behind the counter and there was plenty of hustle. I worked a counter like this back in high school and it was a hard job that I remember fondly.
The full counter on display, tables tucked everywhere.
All too soon, breakfast had come to an end and Edie’s had emptied out until the lunch rush. I snapped a final picture and out the door to we went, to wind our way back across Rumson Road.
Mirrored sideboard way to the back. Edie’s ready for the next shift, lunch.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is a Joy of Jersey post. This week I headed down for my regular visit with mom a bit off schedule as we hosted a large dinner at the hall on Friday. We have Election Day off and, as Kim and I had discharged our civic duty over the weekend, I headed down to her on Tuesday afternoon.
Got my fall leaf fix while running in Jersey this week.
It was my last shot at seeing some beautiful changing leaves as I made my daily morning run. I was running shorter distances last year, and I realized I had also missed much of the changing leaves as mom was in the hospital this time last year. (A post about that time can be found here.) That was about the time I changed to a regular schedule of being in Jersey, generally every other week for several days. Anyway, the foliage did not disappoint and I had pretty runs each of the days I was there.
Preparing for our dinner at the hall Monday night.
A good friend, fellow Jersey-ite of my youth, was also going to be visiting while I was there this week. In honor of and in advance of Randy’s visit, I turned my first run to the south to and through the small downtown area nearby called Red Bank. A lovely small commercial area, it was where we kids went to feel grown up. It wasn’t really where we went to get into trouble – there is a beach town in the other direction called Sea Bright which was full of bars which was designated for that (posts about that town can be found here and here), Red Bank, on the other hand, is where you shopped and ate out.
Diner which I frequented, usually in the middle of the night, but occasionally in the morning. It is in a slightly new guise but is otherwise the same.
The bones of Red Bank have remained the same while the denizens have come and gone. Jack’s Record Shop lived on the opposite side of the street in my youth and had a head shop in back – in the days before I knew what that was. It now occupies a spot near where a huge hardware store called Prown’s was. I can still smell the specific dust and fertilizer odor of that store. (They are still in business, but have moved to another location. In fact, they just installed a new backdoor for our garage at Mom’s.) The Woolworth’s is gone as is the Newberry’s, and the Steinbach’s department store, but there is still a coffee shop on the edge of town which is either the most recent incarnation of one of my youth, or a newer version. (It sported wax fruit in the window and my mother used to say, Never eat in a place with wax fruit in the window. It was a good point, but I have frequently eaten in such establishments and lived to tell the tale.)
Another coffee shop – sans wax fruit – where I used to pick up breakfast on my way to see my dad in the hospital nearby.
There was a large photography shop called Dorn’s which lasted into my adulthood, but eventually fell prey to digital photography. I did find this new photo store below which is good news if I eventually start making early process photos again at mom’s. I wrote recently about another family business in time gone-by called Kislan’s – it took care of all of our athletic needs, which were admittedly less diverse in those days. (That post is here if you are interested in the full NJ roundup.) Randy and I spent many hours of our youth, together and separately, in the town of Red Bank. Whether it was pancakes at the diner in the middle of the night, running errands or wandering the small shops on the side streets.
I’d like to have a chance to make friends at this new camera and film shop!
Wednesday and Thursday passed in a blur of work this week, cramming five days of work into three. I staked out time to spend with mom over morning coffee, lunch and tried to end the work day at a reasonable time. Randy showed up in the evening on Thursday and mom got a kick out of seeing him for the first time in decades. Despite sporting a mask for her benefit, mom declared him unchanged.
Along with our friend Suzanne, we had dinner at a restaurant which probably deserves its own post, Tavolo Pronto. This epic establishment is, in my opinion, one of the best things to hit Monmouth County in years. Their sandwiches have carried my through long dark days spent in the hospital and hospice with dad, and now it is my favorite lunch spot during my stints there. Their singular fare will stay linked in my mind with these years of my life, the adult years spent visiting Jersey, and it has comforted me during some bleak times.
Tavolo’s in Fair Haven, NJ.
Friday, Veteran’s Day, was another day off and a plan was cooked up to have breakfast at Edie’s, another local eatery that morning. Suzanne and I are early risers, but Randy hoped to sleep in a bit. This meant I could get a run in, have a coffee with mom and head over for a rare treat. Edie’s was my dad’s territory and favorite breakfast locale. He adopted it late in life and somehow he and I never ate there. The plan was set! Tomorrow, in the second part of this Jersey tribute, I will take you to that surprisingly historic spot which also has great personal significance.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: By the time you read this I will be heading to Denver for a conference having left at the crack of dawn. However, I leave this summery post in my place. Today’s ice cream post is a bookend of sorts to last week’s running in the heat. One advantage of running through the summer is it allows for the consumption of a certain amount of ice cream.
Long time Pictorama readers (and well, anyone who knows me) are aware that I have a serious soft spot for ice cream. In my world ice cream has no calories and if ice cream is available it should be eaten. Therefore, I generally do not keep it in the house, although this seems to have only a marginal impact on my consumption.
Ryan’s homemade ice cream. Hard to beat!
My taste preferences are eclective – I am not an ice cream snob in the least – however, if you say salted caramel my ears will perk up. But I like a soft serve cone, a bowl of strawberry from a local creamery or something more exotic at a restaurant making their own all equally.
I appear to have inherited my love of ice cream from my father and his affection for it was documented in a very popular post which can be found here. Dad was always up for a trip to the local Dairy Queen and usually had a container or two tucked into the freezer, especially in his advancing years. He went from being a plain chocolate guy to having a distinct preference for exotic flavors with bits of candy bar or cookie. I started as a vanilla girl and now like, well, more or less all of it.
The New Jersey version of my habit is largely centered around trips to Ryan’s whose homemade ice cream I only discovered several years ago. Their strawberry is epic and when the peaches ripen the peach is just heaven. Although if time does not permit a trip out to Ryan’s I might talk my friend Suzanne into a much closer trip to Carvel. When dad was alive Father’s Day and his birthday were often celebrated with a Carvel, Fudgie the Whale of a Cake. Jolly blue icing bits in the one I remember and yummy chocolate crumbly bits.
Fudgie the Whale. I remember some of the piping as blue though…
For many years there was a Carvel near me here in Manhattan, on the corner of 85th and First Avenue, although sadly there is a Starbucks there now. I would stop in for the occasional cone, but they were too far from the office to grab a party cake there. (I did used to bring ice cream to the office at the Met sometimes, but needed to buy it closer – ice cream sandwiches did surprisingly well for delivery, re-freezing and consumption. I would also occasionally grab one or two other people and go across the street where a Mr. Softee is resident for the summer and buy dripping ice cream treats for whoever was knocking around the office on a summer afternoon.)
Mr. Softee on the corner of 86th and Lex.
Unlike people who might find the Mr. Softee tune (generally Pop Goes the Weasel) or tinkling bells annoying, it fills me only with joy. Having grown up in a wealthy suburb it was unusual for him to make his way to us and we generally drove to the Dairy Queen for ice cream, but I hear it not infrequently in the city.
Lots of interesting options although I seem to be pretty stuck on my usual these days. I used to occasionally like the ice cream bars with a coating of chocolate and nutty bits and a chocolate core.
Soft serve ice cream is still sold in the Rumson spot where Dairy Queen (DQ) was, although it has been renamed Crazees. I have not had the pleasure of trying them. In high school I yearned for a job at Dairy Queen which seemed like the pinnacle of cool. Sadly it was a much sought after job and I lacked the connections it seemed. Instead I had to settle for working at a pizza place serving my second favorite food – and consuming large quantities of it.
Still the same barn shaped building but no longer the telltale red and white. Rumson, NJ.
However, this summer has been the summer of Mr. Softee. The extreme heat and humidity and a calorie margin of error that 7 miles of running 4-5 times a week gives me has allowed me to develop the habit of grabbing Kim on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in search of the ice cream man. A classic vanilla wafer cone with chocolate sprinkles is just right for each of us although on the hottest days you need to eat it with a certain alacrity.
Colorful and somewhat whacky options on the side of the truck.
I understand the while Mr. Softee isn’t suffering from a lack of consumer interest, the rising prices of ice cream and condiments as well as gasoline has made it a difficult living. I can only offer each one I encounter my enthusiastic summer support.
Pam's Pictorama 