1. DATELINE : AVENEL 'TIMES IT IS TO SAY:ENOUGH!'

DATELINE : Avenel - 'Times It Is To Say - Enough!' - Everywhere I go I get depressed. Things are depleting, running down, being killed off. Having a dog allows you the unfettered - sort off - access and freedom to roam a bit more, people let you go, nod and just walk off. There's a park in Rahway, right on St. Georges Ave., after the big cemetery. Muncie's Hot Dog truck is always parked right there. He's had the authorized location for years, on his dime, I guess, but he does well. Over the years two maybe three new trucks, replacing the old ones as they go on. Always people stopping, pulling over, getting out. Wintertime, it's all football stuff. Radio, small-talk. Summertime, Yankees, Mets chatter. A bunch of gibberish, but no matter, at least it's got mustard and sauerkraut on it. Entering the park there, and proceeding all the way to the back, it gets a little wilder, trees and brush, a piece of the river. I posted once or twice some photos from it - fall scenes, big old hawks up in the trees. Anyway, Parks like that are sacred things. You'd think. Parks Departments, on the other hand, are tax-sponsored, municipal catch-basins for jerks in need of a job. Give 'em a hatchet, some instructions, and send 'em out to hack and saw, for 14 bucks an hour and benefits. Out to the rear of Rahway Park, I saw today, they've now taken probably five acres, just guessing, 1/30th of the park maybe, and they're turning it into still more sports courts, paved and netted, and a parking lot to go with it. In addition to all that was already there. Trickle by trickle, there goes the parkland, and the trees. A real shame, and only on the brightest of weekend afternoons are any of these courts in use anyway. Otherwise, it may as well be Needle Park. Losers and joggers, in that order, probably me included, on the fringes. There really ought'a be a law. Anyway, that's Rahway; nearby, but it's still elsewhere. In Avenel, nonetheless, the mayhem still goes on. On Avenel Street, now, next to the old Imbriaco house, there was always a nice, compact, leftover parcel of woods. Now, it too has been carved and cut, laid bare and is being built upon. The same thing happened, last year, down the other end of Avenel Street, by the old Butkiewicz land. I had figured this new property was bought and someone was putting up a house. Now I see it's on speculation, by Oak Tree Real Estate, in Edison. I know them because about a year and a half ago I complained about an old place they'd torn down in Edison, out by South Plainfield, for three new houses, and was shut down by the wife of this Frank Zappia guy who fronts for this stuff. Avenel people, I'm pretty sure, at least it was on the Avenel site. What I'm saying is, these people get all huffy over being criticized (they also did, at Avenel Street and Rahway Ave., that full parcel there) while they're stepping in and ruining even worse the town they live in, while fronting for a neighboring town's real estate company. No matter. Nothing I can do about it except shout out; but it ain't fair and it ain't right. And if that's so then at least 'he' should step forward and speak for himself while he traipses his crap through where I live. I think the time is ripe now, right now, for voices to be heard, and loudly. There really is a place in Hell set aside for Developers. But if we cannot stand up and say 'Enough!!' for ourselves, there may very well be a place there for us as well. And, going back to Rahway Park, take a look at Edison, and notice how Roosevelt Park is no different. Every new emplacement of something therein, buildings, pavings, groves, playhouse crap, is just more detraction from the dedicated park space that it was supposed to be, and dedicated for. Roosevelt Park, not Roosevelt Highway.

These people, the problem is, they have the establishment and the system on their sides. There's nothing we can do about it. Town meetings, and zoning and engineering department hearings and all that, it's all bullshit, comes down to nothing. If anyone wishes to go ahead thinking they have your best interests and your concerns in mind, go ahead, I won't stop you, but it's graft, and it's corruption, and it's old-boy network crap, the guys who sit around jawing at each other and trade the deals - my paving company contract for your lumber deal for your trucking-in, and for your excavating. At inflated prices, and with hand-outs, giveaways and paybacks too. if you don't believe me, I have a bridge I can sell you. At least Muncie drives in, parks his truck, cleans up his own crap, and drives away. These guys leave there shit around forever.

You know how they tell you, 'Turn off the lights, don't waste energy, cut down on trash, conserve water,' blah, blah. It's all put on us, endlessly. Look at the General Dynamics building site, and ask yourself how come. That's going to be, probably and conservatively, 3000 new lightbulbs in use, garbage needs, toilet facilities, sewerage, and the rest, let alone the parking lot ILLUMINATION and walkway lighting that's about to flood the area with new light. How come no one tells the Developers the stuff they tell us?  Like 'cut the shit, get outta' here.'  Secondly, way down on Rt. 27  -  headed out of South Brunswick, towards Princeton,  they took down a huge parcel of forested land  -  there for years  -  and now they're completing yet another massive and 'fucking-a-ugly'  strip mall. Rt. 27 is a huge, traffic-clogged maniacally over-developed nightmare.  You know what they're doing now, right now as I type? Putting in new drives and curbings, etc., so that this new traffic can dump out onto overly crowded and dead Rt. 27. AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE HIGHWAY SIGN SAYS?!!!! 'Your Highway Taxes At Work'. No kidding on this, for real.  MY taxes at work, killing me. What the fuck is going on? And why isn't the asshole Developer paying for it, and not us? I want to know who is smoking what shit in Trenton. And why are they patting themselves on their own freaking backs over it. This is real estate development taken to its rudest and most uncouth extreme. This is piped-in Frank Zappia crazy-man music over loudspeakers owned by the Devil. There! I've vented and said my piece. Thanks. gar