Travelling on the New Jersey Turnpike at any time of year is a gruelling and scary experience. Travelling in January when you aren't used to snow and ice is downright terrifying. Here we are, looking like the Clampetts, whizzing along in Delaware in freezing rain and icy roads with what I'm sure, were hurricane force winds. (We later learned to call that a "Nor'easter." )The kids were loving the snow! I was biting my fingernails to the quick, stomping the floor where there should have been breaks, and screaming "watch out!" It was not pretty.
Somewhere along the way, we decided that maybe we might do like the Yankee's do, and get ourselves some snow chains. We stopped at some little town along the way, got those ugly things put on our tires, and off we go again, just like we belonged there and knew what we were doing. When we arrived at our motel in Parsippany, we were beat, but the kids were wired. I sat in the Howard Johnson's Restaurant watching the millions of people and thought to myself, "what in the world have we done?" I just knew every one of those cars carried Mafia bosses and we were in big trouble living in a place way out of our comfort zone.
Sollie and I had found a four bedroom apartment in the Borough of Mendham when we went up for his interview. It was in a beautiful old home on the Main Street, with a couple of acres of ground with a barn, a wrap around porch, and huge trees. Our apartment was located on the second and third floors. It was plenty big enough for us, clean, and the owners, Honey and Rog Belton, were wonderfully cordial. Their family would become our family, away from home. We remain our friends to this day. They retired many years ago to Naples, FL.
I enrolled the boys in school at Hilltop School, a large old brick school building within walking distance for all the town kids. Teresa would start Kindergarten the next fall there. In the meantime, we settled down in our new home and waited for spring.
Sollie got himself all dressed up in his fancy suit and tie and his nice leather brief case, which we had purchased for him, and set out to learn to be a "commuter." He had to drive to Morristown, get on the Erie Lackawanna train to Hoboken, change trains, get on a subway, and then walk to his office on 42nd Street. He was picked up for a week or so by his boss who lived in Chester, a few miles up the road, so he didn't really have to worry about getting lost. Then came the day when he had to go alone.
That night, it got dark, the peas had turned to bullets, (something that happened for many years to come) and I finally put the kids to bed. I had no way of finding out where he was and I was getting mighty worried. I stood at the window and watched the snowy street below, worried that he'd had an accident or gotten mugged. Finally, I saw him pull into our driveway and I've never been so glad to see him in all my life! He'd had a few problems finding the right subway, a few problems finding the right trains, and yep, he'd missed the station call for Morristown and had to ride the train to the end of the line and back. His new shoes were stiff as boards, and his toes were actually bleeding! I don't think he ever missed another train or station again.
On Easter Sunday, I had all our spring clothes and my new straw hat laid out for Church and the kids Easter baskets filled with candy. I guess I figured some magic weather man would change the weather overnight to spring. It was late March, but it was Easter, for goodness sakes. We got up to find 10" of snow had fallen overnight. Have you ever tried to hide Easter eggs in a four bedroom apartment on the second and third floors of anywhere? Well, we did. We were bona fide Yankee's now!
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