Clinton Township Newsletter

1 9 J a n u a r y 2 0 1 7 JOIN OUR HEALTHY FAMILY FUN FEST! Did you know that when your family exercises together you are creating healthy habits that will last a lifetime? Join us to move together, snack together and have some fun! BRIGHT HORIZONS AT LEBANON 1388 Route 22 West Lebanon, NJ 08833 908-236-0226 | www.brighthorizons.com/lebanon © 2016 Bright Horizons Family Solutions LLC Saturday, February, 11, 2017 from 10:00 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. Karate Demo with The USA Karate School beginning at 10:00 a.m. Parent & Child Yoga session beginning at 11:30 a.m. As a boy growing up in rural Hunterdon County, New Jersey in the 1940's 50's and 60's, I'm often asked by current residents of Hunterdon County what was life like, way back then? The truth be told, wonderful! Sure we still had polio as a major concern, especially when we were swimming in the local creeks like the Mulhocaway and Spruce Run, through which dairy cows still leisurely strolled to quench their thirst and, simultaneously, replenish the streams E. coli bacteria population as they went. There were no vaccines for the mumps, chicken pox or the measles either, so if you went to school, you were guaranteed to get all three, and I did. I still remember my mother shading all the windows in my bedroom when I lay there recuperating from the measles. There was some concern, perhaps an old wives tale, that exposure to sunlight would blind you. To this day I still don't know the reason why, but I can say I didn't go blind. When I got the Mumps, I apparently gave them to my father, although I still deny it. He wasn't too happy about it either. Not only was he throwing up with the same regularity as me, but his man sized retching was downright annoying. I later learned from my mother that getting the mumps at his age could affect his ability to have more children. I didn't find any relief from that guilt until my brother came along 12 years later. Some houses in towns like Hampton and Glen Gardner still relied on outhouses and cesspools. The only hospital, if you could call it that, I knew existed was in a residence located in Glen Gardner, otherwise you had to travel to far away Somerville. The first house we lived in was a small, two-story, uninsulated, bungalow, which my father rented from a farmer. Our only water came from a spring house, which was located in a topographic bowl at a juncture of three large agricultural fields that had alternating crops of alfalfa oats and corn, all recipients of generous doses of pesticides and herbicides that funneled directly into our water supply. This was decades before Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" warned us of the dangers of excessive applications of these chemicals. Our only saving grace, perhaps, was the fact that the spring retreated underground in the summer months, and my father was forced to seek an alternate water supply. That he found in the side of an embankment along the southbound side of now State Highway Route 31, then Route 30 in Glen Gardner. There, an icy cold spring spewed forth from an old two or three inch diameter iron pipe, nearly all year long. Locals and travelers alike would often stop to slake their thirst there. For several months, once a week, my father would load two shiny milk cans, and me, into the back of his restored Model A Ford pickup and off we would go to fill bucket after bucket of that delicious water. The school I attended had grade levels from kindergarten through high school. Most of the children were from blue collar iron and steel worker families and farmers. The hallways often smelled of cow manure laid down by work- booted boys and girls who had already been up since 4:30 am milking cows and mucking stalls. The farm we lived on still used real two-horse power to propel what limited mechanical equipment was available at the time. To a small boy those draft horses were enormous but beautiful creatures. On occasion, the farmer would ask me if I would like to feed them in their stalls at the end of the day – a task that I think provided him some sort of amusement. An amusement, I think, shared by those lunkering beasts as they often successfully pinned me to the side of the stall with their bellies as I tried to weave my way to their snorty front ends. Today, there are only scattered remnants left of what was truly a quilted landscape of bucolic farm fields, pastured herds of grazing cows and what I now call a paradise lost. n O N C E U P O N A T I M E I N A P L AC E CA LLED H U N T ER D O N b y Wi l l i a m H o n a c h e f s k y J r

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