When did I have my very first association with Hackettstown, N.J.?

That’s right. Football. Playing football.

It was 1967, freshman year at Delaware Valley Regional H.S. That’s when we first played Hackettstown High School. For the record, they kicked our collective ass !

My goodness! The calculator indicates that was 46 years ago. Whew, where did that go ?

I have since had an occasional nexus with Hackettstown for one reason or another, but it’s been a while. There used to be a livestock auction there. In the old dairy days, the newborn bull calves were trucked to Hackettstown. In the cattle world, being born a bull on a dairy farm was lousy luck.

Separately . when in the advertising business, Tucker Publishing Co. circulated a piece in Warren County, of which Hackettstown is a part. Consequently, I made sales calls there regularly. Also, for the record, the town was bleak to me. No wonder. It was sort of a depressed town.

A good buddy of mine once quipped, “So how are things in ‘I can’t Hackettstown’? Damn, pretty clever ! All those years of walking Main Street and I never thought of that !

Changing gears, I was just recently vaccinated at a CVS store on the outskirts of Hackettstown. Afterward, I suggested to Judy that, for old time’s sake, we pay a visit to Main St. We did.

Wow ! Talk about suspended in time. Yes, surely there were changes. I recognized only two retailers whose names were there 46 years ago when I pulled up stakes.

Otherwise, Hackettstown looked quite the same, a town suspended in time and forgotten by the ages. I suspect it has been that way for a long time and will remain so. Maybe some day they’ll make a movie there. I hope the producers will refrain from calling it I CAN’T HACKETTSTOWN.