Leaving Jersey

I'm about to call it a night on my last full day as a resident of New Jersey. Those who are following the story know that I decamped for Las Vegas at the beginning of September, but though I have my Nevada driver's license and what not, all my stuff was still in Jersey. Today the movers came and took it all away, what little of it was left after I disposed of most of it. Tonight I'm at a friend's house, and tomorrow I fly back to Vegas for good.

I don't think of New Jersey as my home state--I was born in Michigan, moved around a bit, and then back to Michigan to spend my formative years of 12-16. But I have lived in New Jersey 37 of my 53 years, a statistically significant number. Yet it's always seemed temporary. When I was in high school and college I always thought I'd live in New York City, but that phase has passed--I've never made enough money to do that. My roots never really grew here, but I can't say that it's been a bad 37 years.

I've lived in four places in the state. I started in Ringwood, in the upper north, where I went to high school. It has a suburban feel, even though it's miles from any city. It's almost entirely white, and only one kid in my graduating class was Jewish. It was a safe place, where you could leave your doors unlocked, even when you went out. There are plenty of parks and lakes and beautiful vistas.

From there I went to college on Long Island for four years (and met a lot of Jews), but I still spent holidays and summers in New Jersey. After college I moved with my friend Bob (whom I' m a guest of tonight) and lived in an apartment in Kearny, a bit of a rundown city outside of Newark. I commuted to New York City at my first job, didn't own a car, and had to walk everywhere, including up three flights of stairs. Bob and I were like the odd couple, except we were both Oscar. An exterminator used to make monthly visits (the place was overrun with roaches) and shook his head and said we needed a woman to take care of us.

I moved on to Jersey City, where I lived eight years. It was a studio apartment, with a huge kitchen, a pretty good sized bedroom, but no living room. It was convenient to the city--I could walk a block or two and see the NYC skyline--but after being burglarized twice I wanted to get out of the urban jungle. That's when I moved to where I left today, Plainsboro, just outside of Princeton.

I enjoyed the 18 years I lived there. It's a real nice location, being near Princeton yet not too far from New York. It's green and has plenty of places for hiking. New Jersey has a horrible reputation mostly based on the view from it's major artery--the New Jersey Turnpike. It is true that a stretch of that road, from Newark Airport or thereabouts into New York City, is a nightmare of industrial squalor. But most of New Jersey is wilderness. About a third of the state is covered by the Pine Barrens, a place where hardly anyone lives. The beaches are beautiful, if frequented by knuckleheads from Staten Island, and places like Cape May, Lambertville, and Bordentown are really nice.

I don't know if it's still published, but there was a magazine called New Jersey Back Roads, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that's the reality of New Jersey. It's a beautiful state, with a diverse population. There are some parts you wouldn't want to be caught dead in, and in the end it didn't have enough jobs to keep me. But I'm not embarrassed or ashamed to have spent three-quarters of my life here. In many ways I will miss you, New Jersey.