November 19, 2020
Mr. Arnold was much shorter than my Dad of six feet four. He was more like the height of my maternal grandfather and uncles. His almost full head of hair was snow white and brushed to the back of his head, with no defined part. Brill Cream was a popular men’s grooming product years ago. For some reason, I remember him dressed in blue. I don’t know if he often dressed in blue, or it was just one significant visit, but in my mind’s eye, he has on a blue, almost denim like shirt and denim pants, although not popular for the era. His speech was quick and energetic with visits being friendly and welcomed. He was always handing me a quarter, sometimes encased by an egg shaped plastic, jelly like change purse. The process of squeezing the purse to open it’s lengthwise slit fascinated me at three years old. And, so did the chain of little silver balls attached to one another to form the key chain. I would wonder how it was made and how all those little balls were attached to a thin wire that allowed them to move and shrink back and forth. That gift was a huge treat for me. Treats weren’t received often.
I was outside most of the days that I spent time alone. I got used to the hum of the machinery running behind the house, trucks pulling in and out of the driveway and the sound of certain vehicles pulling up in front of our home. Excitement would ensue when a known visitor pulled up. I loved getting company, of any sort. As with Mr. Arnold. I would hear a vehicle pulling up in front of our house, stop and the motor cease to run. Turning and seeing Mr. Arnold’s huge, bright white Cadillac was exciting. I knew that my Dad would stop working so that he could talk to him. And, that would bring me close to my Dad during the conversation, something that didn’t often happen during the work day. I liked being close to Daddy. It comforted me, even in times when comfort wasn’t necessary. I just like being near him, feeling the warmth his body exuded. And, there was always that quarter slipped to me by the friendly hand of Mr. Arnold.
One discussion was of the brand new 1963, white Cadillac that Mr. Arnold had recently purchased. It was amazing, even to me, at just three years old. It was white inside and out. Although, I don’t remember the occasion, we got to ride in his brand new car. There may have been a purpose to it, or maybe just a ride to feel the new luxury. Whatever it entailed, it stuck in my mind. The smell of the new car was like nothing I had experienced before. My brother led the way into the back seat, Mr. Arnold was quickly to tell him to pull the middle arm rest down, so that I could sit on it as we drove. As something being greatly frowned upon today, car seats and seat belts were unheard of then. Allowing a child to sit on a center armrest was common practice. After all, if offered the child an opportunity to view the outside world during the drive, which was always good to extend their patience on long drives.
I remember the discussion between the two men to include many things about the new Cadillac, including the tail fin tail lights. The discussion also included the added luxury of having pull down arm rests in the front and back seat. I really liked that car and wondered why we couldn’t have one, too.
Other people were always a mystery to me. Even at a young age, I wondered what they were like, what their families were like, if they had a dog, kids, what was their home like.
On one occasion, my mother and I were with my father when he visited Mr. Arnold’s junk yard. He, also being a junkyard owner, did much better financially than we had ever dreamed.
If I remember correctly, he dealt more with the scrapping part of it, mainly breaking the vehicles down to be shipped off to sell as scrap metal. While sitting in our vehicle, in his parking area, I can clearly remember watching the large, round, dirt and grease encrusted magnet being raised by a thick cable running through a tall boom, attached to a smoke belching box of a crane. The straining motor spewed low growls as the magnet raised up with a sufficient amount of scrap to be dumped into the back of a truck. I never understood why my hand held magnets, that were one of my favorite past times, never let go of anything. While that extremely large magnet could just drop things upon command. And, I never understood who was running that thing, being the drivers were always well concealed by a metal covered cab. I thought it was on it’s own, having control over itself, only to be confirmed by the many times I was told to never go near anything like that, because I would never be seen or heard and may very well get hurt. There couldn’t be anyone in there driving it, controlling it and forcing those moans and crashes of broken metal parts.
So, with all those thoughts running wildly through my three year old mind, I realized, I had to pee-pee. Panic stricken, I knew I couldn’t hold it. I was never good at that. My mother spoke to my father. My father spoke to Mr. Arnold and I was led into his pink house that sat in front of his junk yard,to use their bathroom. We went up the few cement stairs with, what I thought, was a fancy, black iron railing and through the white, metal screened door and through the pretty, wood door.
The house smelled like food. It was the smell of warm, belly loving food, but something I had never smelled before. It was good. I had wished that we would be invited to dinner. The living room had furniture like I had never seen. It was thick, plush and must have been expensive. The dining room was next, with the chandelier lit above the long dining table, Mr. Arnold’s wife and mother in law stood around a pulled out chair, the base for a child a little older than me to stand upon. She was pretty, with long, dark, thick wavy hair and she wore a brand new, pretty dress. Her mom patiently pinned her dress to the perfect length to be hemmed. Across from the pulled out chair, was the buffet and a long, fancy mirror hung above the buffet, reflecting the chandelier and family. My mother and I squeezed between the chair and buffet on our way to the bathroom, while pleasant commentaires were exchanged about young children and bathroom emergencies. The adults seemed so pleasant and welcoming. It was something different than what I was used to. I wished that I had a new dress and a nice mom and grandma to help hem my new dress. It was evident, even at that age, that their family had a bond between them, a strong family bond. I wanted that.
It was all too soon that my mother and I returned to our vehicle with the air being filled with the fragrance of discarded oil and grease, bled from the crushing of cars too dilapidated to repair. All too soon, the sun warmed my cheeks enhanced by the glass of the windshield, as my mom and I sat waiting for my Dad to return from his conversation. The moaning and groaning of the crane slowly diminished as we finally left the driveway and headed home. A few blocks down the road, I could finally hear silence, only to be broken by a few words spoken between my parents, the warm breeze blowing through the open windows and a few birds enjoying the beautiful weather as much as I did.
One of the most exciting things about living in Lakewood was our summers’ visits to Mr. Arnold’s Lake. I thought of it as a special place with that special name. It wasn’t just his lake, it was a resort of sorts in my young mind. Something had to be special if it had such a grand name.
After a long, hot summer day, my father and brother would emerge from the junkyard, tired and dirty. With the sun slowly slouching towards the egg processing plant across the street, I knew night was soon to arrive. I was only too happy to hear the words, Mr. Arnold’s Lake. Quickly removing the sticky clothes that suffered the lack of air conditioned privilege, we put on our bathing suits, grabbed a towel and ran towards the car. My father and mother never swam. I didn’t understand how they could have resisted the chance to wash away the summer’s heat. I don’t think they even owned a bathing suit.
The ride to the lake was always too long. I felt as if we were racing the sun, knowing that any moment it would slide behind the trees leaving us in the shadows of evening.
Down Brook Road we drove, winding around the curve, over the little bridge that hovered over a creek that lacked the ambition to be little more than a faint current of clear water, past the little house raised up high upon a corner of much less than 90 degrees and sitting so close to the road that I knew I would never want to live there. Across County Line Road, the busiest around, and up the slight incline, and finally, there it was, to our left, the large barn up on the hill. Across a winding street that gently separated large grassy fields, sat a beautiful, majestic weeping willow tree in a field that seemed endless to me at that time. Just a few yards from the willow was the inviting cool water calling to us. Finally, we had arrived. Making a left into the sandy area used for parking, the tires always made a crunching sound as stones and shells left from another era in time were mixed and crushed below the rubber. It was the height of excitement to have the car come to a halt. My mom got out, opened the back door and I could feel the warm breeze brush against the nakedness of my bare thighs that had, only minutes before, been suffocated with the sweat inducing cotton shorts of summer. It was freedom, freedom to be rid of clothing. Freedom to be clad in only a fraction of what I wore all day. It was freedom to walk barefoot as I felt the pebbles and sand stick to the bottom of my tender, young feet.
Patience is something learned. Patience is something earned at moments like that, as we had to walk to the other side of the lake, across a bridge of sorts. The parking lot mixture of sand and stone continued over a large pipe that connected the lake to some mysterious body of water hiding in the brush and continuing under the nearby street. It was frightening as a child, that pipe leading to darkness. I didn’t like to walk over it. But, it was the only way to go and the only way to enjoy that cool water surrounding my sun-tinted skin and to wash the heat away. .
My brother always took off running. He was always the first one in the water, no matter if it was just the four of us, or a party of more. He had no fear of the dark water. Running, as fast as he could, he would get thigh deep and jump and dive. As the lake absorbed his body, it was as if it just ate him up. I didn’t like when he went under the water. I didn’t like when he would suddenly pop up in the middle of the lake as it just spit him out due to the foul taste of hands and arms blackened with junk yard grease of the day, proving that at his young age of 12, he earned his share of fun for that day.
His fun didn’t end there, as he decided, one early evening, to bring Ivory soap to the lake. He must have been extraordinarily dirty that evening, or he finally realized that lake water did not wash off the grease. The white rectangular shaped bar of Ivory bobbed along the lake water that was darkened by the mud and dead foliage lining it’s bottom. The water was clear, but it was the darkened reflection of what was underneath that frightened me and kept me from wandering more than thigh deep.
My brother was always searching for more in life, more of life. That’s what led him to bringing one of his old bicycles to the lake. Or, maybe it was found in a junk car, as many other things were. He planned on riding the bike into the lake and across its bottom, although he claimed it to be bottomless as he would often plummet himself into the liquid darkness. So, out of the trunk, the bike was removed. He crossed over the sandy bridge and got into position, ready to ride across the bottom. With an excited yell, his pudgy little belly bounced as he struggled to peddle across the sand, down the slight incline of the shore and splash, into the water. Even at a preschool age, I tried to understand why he would take a bicycle and just throw it into the great abyss of the dark and “bottomless” lake. It will never come back. Surely, it could have been used for something, I thought as my conservative brain could not see wasting anything that may have some use left. It was natural for me to be conservative, not to waste anything. It was just how I was born and stand to this day.
My favorite place was sitting on the sandy shore, just arm’s reach from water, while building sand castles. Looking across the lake, the sun always hung low in the sky by the time we reached the lake. The reflections of the day’s last light would cause me to occasionally squint as it was reflected off of the waves my brother caused while swimming through the cooling liquid. I looked up the slight incline on the opposite side of the lake to see the grand willow tree darkened as it stood in the aura of the last few rays of the bright setting sun. Beyond the willow, across the winding road, up on a hill, I could see the shadowed side of the large red barn of the horse farm. It was a peaceful sight. It was a peaceful time of day. The calmness surrounded me with daddy, mommy and Tommy, just the four of us, a family forever. I had no concept of change at that age. I had no concept of growing up and things to come. We were just there, enjoying time together, enjoying the changing colors of the sky and the occasional whinnies that wafted from the horse farm when the breeze carried them towards us. We were a moment in time, frozen in my memory with a feeling that will never leave me.
While remembering a large gathering, I can’t remember the occasion. We had no summer birthdays in my house. Maybe it was Memorial Day, Labor Day or the Fourth of July. I do remember people, a lot of them. Other kids, too. We lined the shore of the lake where we entered the water along it’s sandy shore. There was barbecuing, alcohol drinking adults and maybe even some music played on a car radio with doors greatly spread open, allowing the sounds to flow and mingle among us.
My Uncle Jimmy attended the big picnic. Besides my parents and brother, he’s the only one that stood out in my memory among the cluster of other family members on that day. Ordinarily a soft spoken man, with the influence of alcohol, he became the life of the party.
“Where’s Jimmy?”, suddenly became the question of the afternoon. He seemed to have disappeared. With the lack of facilities, it was thought he may have wandered off into the woods to relieve himself. Suddenly, across the street, heading down the hill towards the lake was Jim, mounted upon the back of a horse. Exclamations pranced from mouth to mouth of the adults with a gait only the lone horse could equally produce. With the children’s oohs and aahs, most of the adults had much more to say than that. The children heard words that we shouldn’t have been exposed to on that day! I can still see him riding around the grand willow tree. The lack of communication between the horse and Uncle Jim was obvious. As the horse pranced to the left and to the right, even at my preschool age, I saw that they didn’t quite understand each other. My mother’s fear kept me far from the reach of the animal that I so desperately wanted to get close to. Looking back, I completely understand her wanting to keep me away from a drunk man on the back of an unfamiliar horse. I would have done the same with my children. But, that didn’t diminish my yearning to touch the horse.
Just as quick as he trotted here, galloped there, he headed up towards the big red barn to return the, no doubt, confused animal. Both of them unharmed, he walked alone, back to the lake. Decades later, I still wonder who rented that drunk man a horse.
Night always arrived too quickly, even with the extended hours that the sun remained in the sky during our beautiful summers. No sooner did we get to the lake, it seemed as if it was time to go home. Never, never once, did I ever want to leave earlier than we had to.
Even as the summer dwindled as the end of August brought a chill to the shore of lake with a few minutes less of sunshine, a breeze a degree or two cooler and goosebumps would rise upon my tanned arms, I still wanted to stay until the vision of our car was just a darken shadow and a promise of a warm ride home.
Home held the promise of a warm bath. Any form of more water was always welcomed. My mother would rinse off the sand of the evening’s castle making before I would submerge myself into the warm water of the large bathtub. This was more comfortable to me as opposed to the cool, dark water of the bottomless lake. I grew impatient as the water from the spout hit the bottom of the tub and made a low rumble, only to grow less as the tub filled. If I was lucky, we had Mr. Bubble on hand and the fragrant grains would be sprinkled under the tap. I still love bubble baths. Sliding into the water letting the bubbles surround me, hearing them lightly pop, I relaxed. The sand was never fully washed away from my bottom. Some of the lake came home with me with every visit. The gritty bottom was uncomfortable to sit on as the granules of sand rubbed against me with every movement. It was itchy. Sometimes it hurt my tender skin, but it was a welcomed memory of where I just came from. It was a memory I wish I could go back and enjoy, just one more time, again.
The darkness of the lake did not have all loving lasting memories etched upon my mind. My brother got the brilliant idea that he was going to teach me how to swim. That entailed being taken out to water deep enough to have sight of the sandy bottom of the lake disappear into a dark abyss. Clinging on to his slippery upper body as my legs clung desperately around his waist, I squeezed as tightly as I could to avoid the darkness, the coolness that lurked just a toe’s length away. I didn’t feel safe. I was scared to fall into the darkness, the pit of the unknown, the place that he dove into without fear. I didn’t understand his lack of fear. I couldn’t imagine diving into the dark brown unknown. I didn’t want to be taken away from my safe sandy spot on the shoreline. And, yet, here I was, clinging to him for dear life and only voices telling me that it’s okay. No, it wasn’t okay. Till this day, I don’t understand why they didn’t understand. I was scared. No one respected that. No matter how much I whimpered, how much I cried, he headed out further than I could have ever imagined being. I felt as if I was out in the middle of nowhere, about to be dumped.
This is the young boy that kicked me off the ladder to his treehouse. This is the one that would grab things from me, ignore me and push me away. How was I to trust him now. All of that betrayal was supposed to be dismissed as he dangled me above the dark abyss. No, I wouldn’t accept that. My whimpers turned into screams of fright. And, finally, someone came to their senses and convinced him to bring me back to shore. I was about three. The lake was huge to me. The darkness was endless to me. It was a place of no return. In reality, to an adult, or an adult sized person, the lake was small and we were only a few feet from shore. But, I wasn’t adult sized. I was a child who realized at that moment, I was powerless over my own fate. I learned well, and learned young, that powerless, leaving someone else in control of my fate would never be an option I would agree to, no matter what. For many years later, that incident was played over and over again in multiple dreams. My mother and father would be sitting in the car and Tommy would be pulling me out into the water as I screamed and no one, no one at all, came to rescue me. Then I would wake up suddenly and sad, very sad. I shy away from swimming in anything where I cannot see the bottom. Just a few moments in time took part in making what I am today. What little trust I had developed at that time, with just three short years on Earth, had dwindled on that day. I quickly learned never to trust anyone, for the ones that should have protected me the most, did not respond to my cries for help.
Decades later, during one of my few trips to New Jersey, I felt the urge to drive to Lakewood. I like to confirm my memories, to make sure they were real, being it was such a long time ago, After visiting the house that I lived in on Brook Road, I proceeded to head to Mr. Arnold’s Lake. Down Brook Road, around the slight bend, over the little brook and I arrived at the corner of Brook and County Line Road. The house that stood too close to the less than ninety degree corner was still there. Continuing on Brook Road, the area was filled with homes, buildings and traffic lights that didn’t exist before the decades I lived elsewhere. I came to an area filled with large homes that took up the space where grassy fields and trees once flourished. It was an area where the topography of the land matched my memory of the lake sitting before the hill with the big red horse barn. But the barn was gone, the majestic willow tree missing and the grassy fields had been replaced with homes. My eyes searched for a lake, any signs of a lake. Was it filled in? Did someone decide that Mr. Arnold’s lake took up too much space and could make more money as a backyard? In my memories’ confusion, my eyes searched. It all looked so familiar, but it was so long ago. Then I spotted a spark of promise. Peaking through some wild brush and skinny trees, there was a reflection of water. My heart sank. Could it be? Nothing but a larger puddle surrounded by a swamp like muddy field, down among the small tree growth, there it was. I was on a small bridge that hovered over somewhat of a stream, as with Mr. Arnold’s Lake. There was a home covered hill beyond the curved road that would have separated the horse farm from the field with the majestic willow, just beyond the lake. It all could have been. It all may have been. I wondered if there were remnants of a bicycle at the bottom of that mud puddle. A decade has passed since my disappointment in what I thought could have still been Mr. Arnold’s Lake. Once obtained by his accidentally hitting a spring as he tried to move some dirt around on his property, the only remains I think that I may have found was a swampy, large, nothing more than a puddle of what once could have been our summer’s treat. It touched my heart, this strange feeling of loss. I wanted to experience it, just one more time. To feel its energy, the memories that lived there, to prove to me, it was all real.
My disappointment of not finding the lake and majestic willow has not diminished my strong, vivid memories. Things change and so do people, places and the earth. Change is endless. And, so is what I hold in my heart and soul.
Mr. Arnold, wherever you are, I hope you realize your accidentally forming a lake with your backhoe brought me many joy filled moments with my family on hot summer days. Thank You.
