August 16, 2008.

It wasn’t Naples’ best day. Trash collectors had been on strike for obviously too long. At this point there was just nowhere to go with it all. Heaping piles of trash reflected poorly on an otherwise proud and beautiful town.

A Naples taxi driver was stopped at a light. Embarrassingly, his passengers looked out the window and spied rats atop a pile of garbage, contentedly rooting through leftover spaghetti. Yes, it was flat out disgusting.

In broken English, the cabbie explained to his American passengers that Naples wasn’t normally like this. Broken English? No, this wasn’t Naples, Florida. This was Naples, Italy.

In fact, Judy and I were the American passengers. Silently we were happy that this wasn’t happening in the Naples we know and love. For as much as we were enjoying Italy, it would be good to be back home.

It started with the weather, as it so often does in southwest Florida. Full sun, an occasional puffy cloud, 84 degrees. Call it the gift that keeps on giving.

The view from the 8th floor lanai deserves that same description . The subtle rolling whisper of the waves should somehow be a trademark of the gulf. It , too, never stops giving. Their hushed tone complement the morning coffee as sunlight reveals another splendid day.

Breakfast also has its flare, albeit leftovers from last night. Steak and eggs are justly defined by bits of beef tenderloin. Raise the bar by another notch. The day is shaping up !

We wile away morning moments immersed in whatever compels our interest. It could be the day’s schedule, if whatever we wind up doing can be called such. Indeed, there is the overriding compulsion to relax. That begets the prolonged silence of reading, Or in my case, indulgence of an entrancing habit, a game known as Words With Friends.

Our conversation leads to re-living last night’s Lights Out basketball romp : Rutgers Scarlet Knights 93 – Nebraska Cornhuskers 65. The win ranked Rutgers to 5th in the Big 10. Finally, gaining a foothold in a very tough conference.

This old farm boy tends not to enthuse about a downtown anywhere, but today’s visit to downtown Naples was pleasing, as usual. Automotive traffic is extraordinary. A passing Mercedes is about as common as a passing Ford or Toyota. A Maserati, Rolls or Bentley garners notice, commonly.

Real estate offices post listings in their street windows, the prices of which most definitely garner notice. One is given to musing…”Only in America.”

Adding to the amenities of downtown Naples is a veritable host of restaurants. Top quality is all but guaranteed simply by the function of the market and your appetite. Who says free enterprise doesn’t work ?

And so it is… just a taste of the perfect day in Naples. What’s that you say? It’s cloudy here today? REALLY ? Have you seen the forecast for the next half hour?

One never knows what your tomorrow has on the schedule, even if there’s been all sorts of indications that a day of reckoning is near.

At Judy’s insistence, we paid a visit yesterday to the Emergency Room in the hospital here in Naples (Florida). For well too long, I had ignored swelling in my lower right leg.

The Ultra-Sound procedure itself didn’t consume much time, but 7 1/2 hours later we exited the hospital in a frazzled state and a blood clot diagnosis. Woe is me for waiting so long, but as you are aware, guys do this sort of thing.

My leg will get better with time and blood-thinning medication and a tongue- lashing or two which I admittedly deserve.

In the meantime, the writer in me will not allow me to ignore something else. A day’s worth of optics and audio in the emergency room provides sufficient material for a stand-up comedian’s field day !

One guy sits there and ushers an unending series of moans and groans , each varied from the next. How he did this, all unintelligible, had to elicit wonderment in the minds of all in the room.

Much of the space is divided by curtains which when drawn, form little “private” squares where doctors talk with new patients about their maladies. These squares give the appearance of privacy, but all that is spoken in whole room can be heard in the whole room. Thus, the poor fellow’s painful undescended testicle is a matter of public record in this whole room and, Lord knows, how far beyond ?

So, how is it that it takes this place 7 1/2 hours to render a blood clot diagnosis ? Is that their standard procedure? Is there anything in that procedure that cries out for a fresh look at their efficiency rating.

Hey, who am I to ponder these questions? I’m only the patient.

The game was on the line. The shot will live in infamy.

Rutgers was inbounding the ball from behind Purdue’s end of the court . Purdue, that is, #1 in the nation and winning this game by one point. Three seconds remained on the clock.

Three seconds. Don’t blink your eyes too many times ! The inbound pass was fielded by Ron Harper Jr. He dribbled to mid-court and deftly wove between two defenders who surely we’re not looking to foul. There was scant time left to get the shot off.

Harper shot, still at half court. The trajectory of such a shot, accompanied by an extra dose of anticipation, seems to suspend in mid-air longer than it has to. As the ball sailed through the air, one could see the shot clock at 0 seconds.

But finally…. Swish. Nothing but net. Rutgers 70 Purdue 68. Sweet bedlam at the RAC !

Having lived my entire life here in Hunterdon County, I am privy to a trace of perspective about the place. Safe to say things have surely changed in 68 years.

I am recalling what I’ll call the Dairy Era. Sounds remarkably like derrière, doesn’t it ? Anyway, newcomers to these gorgeous surrounds will have to believe me when I note that Hunterdon’s agriculture used to be dominated by dairy farms. They were everywhere.

Eventually dairymen, and women, arrived at a stark reality. At best, they were making subsistence money. At length, it required untold toil and heartache only to ultimately call the auctioneer to sell the whole “shootin’ match”.

Weekend after weekend in the 70’s, the gavel’s impact completed another sale. Cow after cow, acre after acre. Over time, dairy farming all but evaporated in Hunterdon, including ours. On the day of our sale, I was both melancholy and ecstatic.

Fast forward to present day. Does another sort of agricultural pursuit dominate in Hunterdon soils? Not yet, but vineyards are coming on strong. I don’t wish to sound ‘hoitie toitie’ but let’s face it. Aesthetically vineyards are a helluva lot nicer to look at than dairy farms, even well kept ones. And, yes, grape arbors offer a far preferable aroma.

Vineyards are a good fit for Hunterdon’s changing complexion. Indeed the old order evolves.

A long morning it’s been. On the road from daughter Vanessa’s house in Sutton, MA. to home. Pittstown, N.J., that is. Hunger overtook us before we completed the journey. Breakfast was at the Morristown Diner. Yes, New Jersey that is.

Our conversation touched on what a unique slice of Americana that diners are. They’re all a little retro, seemingly regardless of where you might dine at one. Morristown was no exception.

Our waitress, it may reasonably be presumed, was a seasoned veteran. She’d obviously been doing this for untold years. Ours was yet another table in the progression of this decade of customers. How was this place still in business?

My Eggs Benedict were, how you say, quizzical. Sure, they tasted as they were supposed to, but the Hollandaise Sauce was sort of a lurid, garish orangey-yellow color that gave the appearance of, perhaps, a Halloween decoration. Safe to say, this was NOT your grandma’s Hollandaise.

To accent our discussion, Jude reminded me of my stomach of steel, Years ago, we’d been on the long journey from Tuckaway South back to Tuckaway Pittstown. Daylight was waning on this Mother’s Day, one of the busiest restaurant days of the year.

We stopped to eat at the only restaurant that was still open, a place called Johnnie Appleseed’s. This was in Luray, Virginia. We learned from a waitress that this was the last of what used to be a chain of Johnnie Appleseed locations. Perhaps my Eggs Benedict were this location’s last gasp !

When it comes to eating, I am admittedly of the old school, that is the “Eat what’s in front of you” protocol. Given my parents, how could I not be? I wolfed down those eggs, even though their appearance may have suggested a name change for the dish : Eggs Misbegotten

FREEZER BURNED

I should know better. No, wait a minute, I do know better. Before pushing the “Publish” button on these occasional missives, Jude should first have a read. The chance that I’ve forgotten something is real.

She reminded me of a key epicurean detail of our lunch at the restaurant in Luray, Virginia. But before that, a note about the statue. Outside on the lawn of Johnnie Appleseed’s is a monstrous, plastic statue of the man himself. My best guess? 16 feet tall and hokey beyond description. Assuredly it has often been said, however, “you can’t miss it”.

But, there we were, dining with a stellar view of his likeness out the window. We should have put it together before entering, but it wasn’t until the waiter told us of this place’s impending demise that the fare might be a tad suspect.

Nonetheless, I ordered the dish that posed the greatest chance of post-traumatic freezer burn: Seafood Medley ! Yes, it was marginal. Yes, I finished it. No, I’ve never been allowed to forget my choice!

Mother Earth bestows on her floor this morning an ample filament of her chosen russets, her leafy scarlets and auburns that annually defy the poet’s best effort. Surely they will suffice ‘til the morrow’s breeze stirs again and adds to the phantasm that is Fall, the apparition that is Autumn.

Indeed, I wondered. How many leaves fell from that tree until it was totally baron ? How many trees were on the farm ? Do kids really need those fractious video games when nature already provides the challenge ?

The leaves, dancing in their descent, effortlessly remind us of carefree childhood days. Should I say, the dubious extent to which my childhood was carefree ? Funny how the dalliance of descending leaves made that illusion easier to believe. The world was a wonderment, after all.

— I have never found the companion as companionable as solitude.

Henry David Thoreau

I had dinner last evening with a gentleman who mentioned that he would be deer hunting this morning. He certainly chose a glorious Fall morning to do so. He might well be drawing his bow right now or, perhaps, just sitting patiently in a tree as I write these words.

Although Hunterdon County born and raised, I am not a hunter. I have no conviction against it. In fact, I have butchered more deer than most twenty deer hunters combined, but that was by occupation. In the meantime, there is one aspect of hunting that I’m all about.

I relish what the hunter does for most of his/her time while sitting in the tree, that being the quiet contemplation of the immediate surrounds. Thoreau probably would have called it ‘drinking in the soft influences of the canopy’.

And yes, I say “his/her” to expel any notion that deer hunters are male only. Regardless, if one sits ever so still, the entertainment is not always what was expected. Not long ago I was down in the woods sitting on my farm wheelchair (John Deere Gator).

Presently, along came two Possums, if nothing else on a morning stroll. They seemed to just be hanging out there in the woods, silently. Do Possums have conversations with each other? I suppose so, but I don’t speak Possumese . They sauntered by, not but five feet from the Gator, as though it had been there for a hundred years. Even up that close, not a word of Possumese was spoken.

How close, dear reader, have you ever gotten to a Possum ? You might well agree that few creatures are as ugly as your average Possum. And there’s nothing they can do about it. They can comb their spindley hair as much as they want. A coiffed Possum is still butt ugly !

Damn. Now I’m unsure where I was going with this. Distractions will occur with Possums. Interesting how an iPad will pick up on how the writer has spelled a word , even if misspelled or not in the dictionary.

Possumese is now a word, as rendered by my iPad. I’m not sure if that will make it any easier to learn. Joel Chandler Harris would have had a field day !

It has stricken my dear wife with a vengeance, even rendered her to the hospital for a brief visit. An inflammation of the outer lining of the lungs, it has visited her with an egregious, hacking cough. She describes it as an Elephant resting on her chest.

There is medication, but none that weaves magic. The most welcome words that the Doctor offers are: “It will go away , eventually.”

The cough subsides briefly, then there it is back again, sounding more sickly than before. If I didn’t know better, the cough evokes the prose of Poe’s ANNABEL LEE. It is not pleasing to hear, even more discomforting.

What brings it on? Judy was battling Pneumonia in the hospital. Apparently Pleurisy is the second cousin. I’m not sure which is worse. Neither are good, but no match for a good woman. Jude is hanging in there.

My wife, Judy, is amused sometimes when we pass someone’s house and I mention that it is So & So’s old place.

Judy inquires who So & So is. Often my reply is “Grade School”, meaning that I was talking about someone whose path I crossed as much as 60 years ago in the classroom.

It then occurs to me just how dated that seems. It’s one thing to live in the old neighborhood, but I live in the only neighborhood I’ve ever had, excepting brief stints of vagrancy. My farm is my old neighborhood . I guess that credential separates me a little from most others. They flew the coop long ago.

It is very grounding to still have the names of folks from that long ago still at the tip of my tongue, even though many are not around anymore. A sense of belonging and permanence remains, if only in my fermenting mind.

The Pilot Truck Stop on I78 will always be Johnny’s to me. It always will be. Memory is a remarkable human property.

Yes, as a matter of fact, that is still So and So’s old place and I can still see him getting on the school bus every morning. Life is good.