Maplewood NJ My Hometowns PT 1

Maplewood NJ My Hometowns Part 1…

I grew up in three towns over the years I went to school in Maplewood and many days after school and weekends were spent in Newark or Kearny and I am very grateful for my Sicilian/Irish upbringing and would not change it one bit. But this post I will be talking about Maplewood and taking you back.

I was born October 1971 at St Barnabas in Livingston to a Sicilian Mother and Irish Teamster Father. My whole family was born in Newark but in 1970 my parents moved from the 4th ave and Roseville northward section of Newark to a nice sized bigger than average apartment in Maplewood with my sister who was born in 1965 so yes I am the youngest.

Maplewood has been compared to a Norman Rockwell kind of town and yes I can attest to that. With the larger than life beautiful colonial-style houses, even the author of the Nancy Drew series Carolyn Keene lived there, and one Holloween she autographed a book for my sister truly a very nice lady who really loved her fans.

Maplewood was really diverse a very large Jewish Community with a few versions from the Hasidic to the Orthodox, Many Irish, German, Italian Sicilian, Greek and I could go on many black and Spanish families were moving in Maplewood was one huge melting pot. We even had a small gay population.

Now no town is perfect you will have your asshats especially in the 70s and 80s did I see racism? yes, Did is experience racism yes?, did I hold it against anyone? no. Now this not a contest on who experienced the most and the worst racism but yes it was there.

But my generation of kids we were the ones that hung out with whoever we wanted to. If we saw someone getting picked on for anything we stuck up for them we did what we felt was right. But we also told them to stand their ground as well because we were not going to be there all the time.

We are jerseyans we don’t take shit from nobody but at times we need to be taught that as well. I was bullied because I was fat and wore braces and if it wasn’t that I was called that fat white boy or you’re Sicilian/Irish and my parents say you are just a Puerto Rican that takes a shower. And that was in the 5th grade lol.

But again out of a huge town that was only a few that actually felt like that like I said every place has those douchebags. But some eventually changed by the end of middle school and High School but still at times there were some tensions in the classroom you just had so many cultures and nationalities in one area each with their own kind of beefs no place is perfect. I surrounded myself with people like me who get along with everyone and it’s all good.

And if you messed with one of us, you messed with all of us you had to have a reason to pick on one of us. If one of us started it well then they finished it, but if you started with one of us because you don’t like them for some reason well then we had a problem and we solved it.

Maplewood had one Burger King and one Baskin Robbins all the other stores were Mom and Pop from Ralphs Luncheonette to many other diners and pizzerias. There was no Hope Depot or Walmart’s. If the local Tru Value didn’t have it then you went to Rickels or some other local family-owned hardware store. If all else failed you would try the Livingston Mall for the last resort.

Maplewood has three awesome parks and very huge, one even has a duck pond and when it freezes over you could ice skate on it. We used to have parades down Valley Street and even summer movies in the park. Maplewood was that kind of friendly town, if you didn’t know someone then either you met them at a mutual friends house or you just started talking to them in passing.

Mapelwood was a place where it takes 3 hours to go down the street to the store. Because either you see 5 people you know and you stop to talk to them or someone is driving by you and asks you if you need a ride and even that turns into a half and hour conversation heh heh.

If my parents were at work the locals would discipline me, I could not get away with anything lol. The older kids looked out for the younger and would even beat our asses if they caught us fucking up. I had the Connors Brothers Jimmy Boy and Timmy looking out for me I looked up to them but also knew not to fuck up too bad.

I went to Our Lady of Sorrows in the 70s from Kindergarten to 4th grade and yes they still would give us the ruler or pull our ears. Then in Middle School and High School we had teachers that said the most outrageous shit at times that if said today they would be fired in a heartbeat I shit you not.

Again was Maplewood the perfect town? No and I am sure there are many others with their own stories on how they grew up in Maplewood the same time I did and that is fine but this story is about me and what I saw and experienced. I love that town but I love the way it was…

Sadly…

Since I moved in 1994 like Bob Dylan sang the times are a changin and boy did they. They have torn down the buildings that gave the town its charm. The mom and pop businesses are getting killed they are adding more and more condos and townhouses. The taxes have been going up year after year, pretty soon they will have to call it the City of Maplewood because they are destroying the things that made it a town.

I am one year shy of 50 years old so my opinion does not matter, but I will say this. I am very glad, lucky and fortunate to have grown up there when I did and they will never take those memories from me.