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UNEARTHING NEW JERSEY'S PAST by Derek Holcomb In November, while seated comfortably in my club in New York, I was approached by a wet man. I note that he was wet because of the odd appearance he made. His shabby garment was so sodden and stretched, as though gravity were twice what it is, that I could not guess what design was originally intended, except that It was certainly not that which I now saw. His dark hair was darkened still further with moisture, and rivulets ran down his cheek through a week's growth of stubble. I noticed the wet man almost immediately when he began dripping on me, and looked up, fully expecting to ask him to desist. There was a rare glint in the eyes that met mine from that pale, puffy countenance. He had the general air of a wet man who has seen things no dry man has. He smiled, or, rather, his cracked lips slowly stretched out laterally. He drew a fisted hand from one pocket and, not taking his eyes from mine, opened it slowly, palm upward, like an insect reviving from a fright. But an insect like none I knew, for there In his palm lay shimmering fabulous pieces of amber and emerald glass, each with it's own unique irregular shape, and none larger than a sovereign. Now, I am something of an archaeologist, and recognized an arcane past in these jewels' beauty, but suppressed my excitement and expressed a casual interest in their story. Soon, I had done my wet friend out of the crystal as well as a small hand-scrawled map and a tale of discovery in New Jersey following a mudslide that had exposed for the first time in countless years a battered wall near a scrub oak where the shards had been found. Would I, I asked myself, lead an expedition to fully explore this find and, perhaps, begin digs? Would I not! I need only have asked twice. This, then, is the chronicle of that subsequent weekend in May.
DAY I I rounded up my team members as they got off work in my Ford Bronco. I had already stored what gear and supplies we would need in the back. There were four of us in all: Dave McNeil, our mechanic and driver; Dave Burroughs, our explosives expert and cook; Dave Indense, a young assistant and part-time student; and myself. As we headed toward the George Washington Bridge, the men began to sing. I felt nervous in anticipation, but knew things would go well when my feisty little Bronco took our first obstacle, an orange and white striped board suspended in our path, in stride. Toward the middle of the bridge, a light drizzle beaded up on the windscreen and fogged us in. I switched on my wipers, and counted us wise for having waited out the rainy season, as the blades squealed monotonously in front of me. As we reached the Jersey coast, the men stopped singing. I followed our crude map for over an hour but was sure we were disoriented when I saw it -the scrub oak, the ruined wall, and, in the half-light of the storm, glints of green and gold I knew to be priceless. I was exalted. We set up camp right where the Bronco mired down.
DAY II A glorious morning. I awoke early only to look out my tent flap to see Cook pouring the dew out of his pots and going to look for water. The sun was glowing through the mist, but by midday would be a pale wafer set in a featureless bank of gray clouds. We broke our fast on Stella Doro breadsticks, an easily ported, highly nutritious dehydrated meal. We spent the rest of the morning exploring the base of the wall. The men were afraid of cutting themselves on the angular shards, so we adopted the unorthodox method of sifting through the rubble with the toes of our boots. At lunch, we assessed the morning's finds. Aside from a wealth of green and gold crystal, we found nothing but rusty beer cans that must have been deposited on the site during the mudslides the previous fall. We decided to move to higher ground. Several hundred yards north of Base camp, we came upon a shallow impression some fifty feet across. The men set to excavating the area, painstakingly removing layer after layer of dead leaves and silt. Then our student let out a cry. Dave had a faded paper packet in his raised hand. We examined it closely and were able to make out the cryptogram "Frito", and then, further down, "Burpee". It was logged. By now our driver was calling to us. He had what appeared to be the predecessor of what we now call a television set. Brilliant engineer that he is, he soon had the contraption running off our generator. We held our breath as he switched it on. We were disappointed at first with the crackle of the antiquated sound circuitry, being used to modern improvements, but thrilled together as the picture screen slowly illuminated and developed into an image of two men seated across a table. We watched for some time, though little happened. We concluded that our ancestors' programming was much the same as that of our own today, but that the climate In New Jersey must have changed for the temperate since the familiar rain of today had then been ubiquitous snow. Just before dusk, we made our last important find of the day. Turning over a pile of crusted leaves, the men found a calendar showing an eight month year starting In March and ending with November, skipping September altogether. It had "1961" printed on it, but carbon-dating proved it to have actually been made sometime In late 1963.
We set out again from Base Camp, this time heading south. Soon we came upon a brick wall that had survived the onslaught of time remarkably well. Seeing no way around it, we called on our explosives expert. In no time, the dust was settling around a circular opening four feet in diameter. We passed through it singly and stood silent inside, unable to believe that to which we were suddenly privy. We were in what had obviously once been a rich family's dwelling, perhaps a king's, still almost completely intact. We stood on a beige carpet before an ecru divan in a honey-colored parlor, looking at wall paintings of sorrowful men with pale faces and red noses wearing odd and exotic garb. We judged our theory of a climate swing correct when we saw these sunless souls with headcolds. Even transfigured with mold and moisture stains, they were transfixing. Hearing a noise from beyond a door, we investigated, only to find a tiny room in which were huddled a family of gypsies. They did not respond to our questions in Romany. We were fortunate to discover them before they had a chance to pilfer more than sleepwear. They were easily routed. The wonders of that place are far too great to enumerate here. So much to learn about the past from whence we all have come. Some things the same: a loaf of bread in the oven, still fresh inside its plastic bag. Some things mysterious and unexpected: a small box with a viewing hole labeled "Roach Motel" had fallen on the floor. Apparently, the early Jerseyites prized these vermin in the manner of the Chinese house cricket or Egyptian scarab.
On a chest of drawers in a bed chamber we discovered a small vial of men's cologne, still sealed. After much jocularity among the men, we opened the bottle. It had obviously gone bad. As nightfall, Day III, approached, we left our trove with as many artifacts as we could carry. Exiting through the hole as we had entered, we found the rainy season had resumed. The men discovered mud. It is difficult for me, now, sitting in the warmth and comfort of my club to convey all the emotions, frustrations and triumphs of that historic journey to our communal crib. Perhaps the greatest question posed will be answered on our next expedition or by others in times to come: "New Jersey, where have you been?" |
DAY III
The box was empty, but the progeny of the absent pet roamed the walls in some force.
©1977 DEREK HOLCOMB |
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