"It Happens Every Spring" -- the Mysterious Mad Sewer Lateral Clean-Out Pipe Terrorist

After  we  moved  into  our  Warwick  Road  house  here  in  Magnolia  in  1981,   a  strange  thing  began  to  occur:   For  years,  always  in  the  month  of  May,   always  late  in  the  afternoon  after  my  wife  Rise`  got  home  from  work,   I  would  get  a  call  from  her  at  my  law  office  in  Medford  that  our  sewer  line  was  clogged.   "And,"  she  would  add,  "Somebody  stole  the  iron  cap  from  the  curb  clean-out  pipe  again."   I'd  call   the  plumber,  who'd snake  our  line  from   either  the  front  lawn  clean-out  behind  our  Warwick  Road  property  line  (which  is  actually  just  inside  the  fence)  or  from  the  curbside  clean-out  right  next  to  Warwick  Road,  and  sell  us  a  new  iron  cap.

We  always  called  the  same  plumber.   Again  and  again  he  blamed  the  problem  on  roots  growing  through  the  seals  between  the  old  clay  pipe  sections  comprising  our  sewer  lateral  under  the  ground.   "Once  the  joints  between  those  old  clay  sewer  lateral  pipes   sections  break  down  and  tree  roots  find  the  joints,  every  year  they  grow  again  into  the  pipes   looking  for  nutrition  in  your  sewage."  

Reasonable  enough.  That  explained  why  the  problem  was  always  occurring  in  May.    But  why  was  the  problem  always  occurring   late  in  the  afternoon  on  a  day  in  May?

Then  the  problem  mutated.    The  plumber  began  delivering  heavy  plastic  clean-out  pipe  tops  to  us  when  he  would  come  out  in  may  to  unclog  our  lateral.   "It's  getting  harder  to  find  the  cast-iron  jobs,"  he  claimed.   Every  year  after  that,   it  seemed,  someone  would  break-up  the   plastic  cap  topping-off  the  clean-out  pipe,  and  shove  pieces  of  it  down  the  clean-out  pipe  into  the  lateral  --  as  usual,  always  late  in  the  afternoon.

"This  is  odd,"  the  plumber  would  say  when  he  finally  managed  to  snake-out  pieces  of  plastic    "I  think  somebody  has  it  in  for  you."

Finally,  in  the  early  1990s,  we  paid  to  dig   up  our  lateral  and  replace  it  with   new,  long,  well-sealed  sections  of  pipe,   with  new  on  the  lawn  and  at  the  curb.    Problems  over,  right?

Wrong.

Once  again,  the  mysterious  mad  sewer  lateral  clean-out  pipe  terrorist   began  to  strike  again,   every   May,   always  late  in  the  afternoon,   breaking-up  the  clean-up  pipe  cap  and  shoving  pieces  of  it  down  the  pipe  into  the  lateral   about  8  feet  below.

I  thought,  "Oh,  come  on!  This  is  silly!  Who's  got  the  time  to  attack  a  sewer  lateral?!"

And  then,    finally,   after  about  15  years,   I  caught  the  "terrorist"  in  the  act.

I  live  on  Warwick  Road,  across  the  street  from  the  driveway  that  leads  down  to  Babe  Ruth  Little  League  ball  field.    On  business  days,   rush  hour  traffic  begins  to  fill  Warwick  Road  at  about  3:00  p.m.   Tired,  impatient  people  anxious  to  get  home  to  their  families  fill  the  road.

Every  Spring,  after  the  start  of  baseball  season,  the  Little  League  begins  to  practice  down  at  Babe  Ruth  ball  field  during  rush  hour.    Coaches,  players  and  parents  coming  down  Warwick  Road  in  their  cars  on  our  side  of  the  street  during  rush  hour,  to  make  a  left  down  the  ball  field  driveway,   would  stop  traffic  on  Warwick  Road  behind  them,  while  they  waited  for  on-coming  traffic  to  clear.

Tempers  flared  in  the  rush  hour  traffic   behind  them.   Again  and  again,   someone  in  one  of  those  cars  "lost  it"  and  drove-up  onto  the  island  of  grass  where  the  curbside  clean-out  is  located,    and  roll-over  the  top,  snapping  it  and  flinging  it  away,   or  shoving  pieces  down  the  clean-out  pipe,    and  as  more  and  more  drivers  by-passed  cars  waiting  to  make  the  turn  into  the  ball  field,   dirt  began  to  be  plowed  by  the  tires  into  the  clean-out  pipe,  too.

The  offending  crazies  would  stop  damaging  the  clear-out  pipe  with  their  cars  after  May,  I  think  because  every  year  they  discovered  after  a  few  weeks  that  you  can  do  an  end-run  around  the daily  tie-up  on  our  section  of  Warwick  Road  by   making  a  right  down  one  of  the  streets  before  that  intersection.

I  thought,   "What  can  I  do?"  As  I  played  around  with  ideas  --  a  raised-bed  garden  there  with at  least   two  tiers  of  railroad  ties,  to  deter  angry  drivers  from  using  the  lawn  as  a  highway;  or  saw-horses  with  blinking  lights  every  Spring   to  scare  drivers  off  the  lawn  --  a  big  truck  pulling  around  someone  making  a  left   into  the  ball  field   snapped  the  plastic  clean-out  pipe  itself,  about  a  foot  below  the  surface.

I  managed  to  repair  that  one,  myself.  But  cars  and  trucks  kept  crushing  the  clean-out  top,  every  May,  year  after  year.

One  day,   while  watching  Tom  Hanks'  unit   blow-up  machine-gun  nests  and  bunkers  on  Omaha  Beach  in  Saving  Private  Ryan,    I  thought  of  the  solution  --  put  a  reinforced  concrete  "bunker"  around  the  top  of  the  pipe,  to  protect  it!

I  called  a  contractor,    who  poured   a   huge  donut   of  reinforced   concrete  around  and  slightly  higher  than  the  top  of  the  curb-side  clean-out  pipe,  to  protect  it.    He  made  fun  of  my  idea  as  he  was   working  on  the  collar,  until  a  car  whipping-around  Babe  Ruth  ball  field  traffic  jumped  the  curb  and   drove  up  onto  the  lawn,    forcing  him  to  dive  for  safety.  "Whoa!"  he  shouted  to  me,  "You're  right!  These  rush-hour  drivers  are  crazy!   You  really  do  need  a  reinforced  concrete  collar  here!"

We  placed  a  pile  of  cinder  blocks   on  the  lawn  blocking  cars  from  rolling-over  the  collar  until  it  hardened.

And  that's  how  we  dealt  with  the  mysterious  Mad  Sewer  Lateral  Clean-Out  Pipe  Terrorist   of  Magnolia!

White Water in Magnolia, New Jersey

Mayor  Betty-Anne  Cowling-Carson  will  like  this  one.  So  will  you  folks  in  the  Police  Department.

When  my  wife  Rise`  and  I  first  moved  to  Magnolia  in  1982,  somebody  --  Joe  Conway  on  our  street,  Jackson  Avenue ?  --  led  a  large  Otter  Branch  Creek / Alberston  Park  Clean-up  campaign.  Dozens  of  people  converged  on  Albertson  Park  with  heavy  gloves,  heavy-gauge  trash  bags,  and  car-powered winches.  I  never  forgot  that  effort.  I  thought,  "How  timely!  How  noble!"

Since  that  time,  I  and  my  family  have  loved  Albertson  Park  and  Otter  Branch  Creek.  We  had  a  birthday  party  there  once,   under  the  pavilion,   for  my  aunt,  the  nun,  who  was  the  President  of  the  Dominican  Order  of  Nuns  in  the  Western  Hemisphere.  Once  when  I  was  buying  milk  at  One  Stop  Shop  at  Evesham  and  East  Atlantic,  a  big  turtle   was  crossing  the   parking  lot  behind  my  car.    I  quickly  picked  it  up  and  took  it  to  Albertson  Park  to  keep  it  from  becoming  road  kill.

Recently,  Rise`  noticed  that  when  it  was  pouring  cats  'n'  dogs  during  a  terrifying  thunderstorm,  when  I  went  out  for  milk  to  Wawa,  I  was  gone  way  too  long.

"Where  were  you?"  she  asked  in  her  wifely  fashion  when  I  finally  returned.

"To  tell  the  truth,"  I  answered,    "I  drove  down  to  Albertson  Avenue  just  past  the  borough  hall  and  parked  on  the  little  bridge  over  the  conduit   comprising  the  source  of  Otter  Branch  Creek  in  Albertson  Park,  walked  down  the  embankment,  and  enjoyed  the  torrential  flow  into  the  park,  cleaning  every  molecule  of  pollution  out  of  Albertson  Park.  It  was  really,  really  neat.   Who  ever  thinks  of  Magnolia  as  having  'white  water'?   Magnolia  has  it  now,  at  this  moment."

Contrary  to  my  expectations,  Rise`  appreciated  what  I  did,  rather  than  just  laugh.    And  so,  since  that  time,  every  day  it's  raining  like  holy  hell  in   Magnolia,  I  run  to  my  car,  and  drive  down  to  Albertson  Park,   and  watch  --  and  enjoy  --  Magnolia's  "white  water."

Otter  Branch  Creek

In  Albertson  Park?

Dealing with the Witnesses

OR,  "HOW  I  GOT  TO  BE  BOYCOTTED  BY  THE  JEHOVAH’S  WITNESSES"

Though  I  am  a  devout  Roman  Catholic,    I  happen  to  admire   the  Jehovah’s  Witnesses  as  a  group.   Their  door-to-door  proselytizing  is  so  courageous!     They  do  what  Christ  recommended,  but  what   we  Catholics  don’t  really  do  much  of.   And  so,  I  was  very  ashamed  when  our  Pastor  told  a  group  of  us  that  when  the  Witnesses  knock  on  the  Rectory  door  to  proselytize,  he  tells  them  to  “go  away.”   I  always  invite  them  in,  to  talk.

A  lot  of  the  Witnesses  are  former  Catholics.     I  heard  one  source  suggest  that  60%  of  them  are   former  Catholics.    We  can’t  blame  the  ex-Catholics  for  leaving  the  Church,  what  with  the  sex  scandals  throughout  the  Catholic  Church,  right?

One  day,   two  Jehovah’s  Witnesses  ladies  came  to  the  door   to  proselytize   to  me.    They  were  both  in  their  late  40s  or  early  50s.   I  invited  them  in  to  “talk  Bible.”  They  both  looked  very   Italian,  so   I  guessed,  “Are  you  two  both  former   Catholics?”     They  were  both  delighted  at  my  guess,  and  answered  in  the  affirmative.    The  subject  of  the  discussion  was   the  Christian  Trinity  concept,  which  the  Witnesses  reject.  I  argued  as  follows.

“All  here  agree  that  there  is  a  God;    and  that  He  is  perfect;    and   that  He  is  in  some  very  fundamental  way  an  Altruistic  Lover  --  a  lover  of  others.

“But  if  you  think  about  it,  that  creates  a  bad  problem.     If  before  any  creative  activity  God  is  a  unity  --  one,  in  all  senses,   and  not  a  trinity  --  a  fundamentally  altruistically-loving  God,  before  any  creative  activity,  is  a  God  Who  lacks  a  love  object,  and   Who  therefore  has  a  need  to  create  a  love  object.

“But  a  God  with  a  need  is  imperfect.

“The  Trinity   answers  the  dilemma.      A  one  God  with   co-eternal  ‘parts’  inside  of  Him  comprising  ‘Persons’   in  some  mystical  way   provides  an  eternally  altruistically  loving  God  with  co-eternal  love  objects,    eliminating  any  ‘need’   to  create,  so  that  there  is  no  imperfection.”

The  ladies  were  deeply  struck  by  this  argument.   I  was  told,  later,  that  they   repeated  it  to  their  Witness   Bible  study  group,  declared  the  Witness  doctrine  of  a  non-Trinitarian  God  to  be  wrong,     and  announced  that  they  were  returning  to  the   Roman  Catholic  Church.

The  Elders  in  their   congregation  were  deeply  shocked  by  their  public  defection.   One  sunny  Saturday  morning,  as  my  wife  and  I  were  packing  for  a  trip  to  Colorado,     a  black  Cadillac  showed  up  at  our  house.   Four  grim  black-suited  Elders   stepped  out,  and  asked,  “Are  you  Mr.  Dawson?”

“Sure,”  I  answered,  as  I  jokingly  thought  to  myself,  “Men  in  Black?”

“We’re  the  Elders  at  Jehovah’s  Witness   Hall  on  da-di-da-da   Road    in   da-di-da-da   Township.      You  convinced  two  of  our  members  to  return  to  Catholicism.  We’re  here  to  tell  you  why  you  are  wrong.”     And  they  launched  into  a  very  angry  Scripture  quoting  spree.    I  invited  them  in,  but  they  rather  nastily  declined.       I  noticed  that  the  girl  who  drove  them  to  my  house,  who  stayed  in  the  Cadillac,  was  roaring  with  laughter  as  she   sat  behind  the  wheel  of  the  car.

They  never  let  me  get  a  word  in,  edge-wise.     After  they  finished  yelling  Scripture  at  me,     they  re-entered  their  car  and  the  car  disappeared  down  the  street.

For  the  next  ten  years,   Witnesses  moving  from  house-to-house,  proselytizing   to  neighbors,  carefully  walked  around  my  “place  of  sin.”      I  missed  them.  I  really  did.

The Frightening Magnolia UFO

The  following  occurred  on  July  1,  1985  at  10:00  p.m.,  perhaps  while  I  and  my  wife  were  away  on  a  trip,  so  that  we  weren't  around  to  see  the  following ...

The  reporting  individual   lived  on  Camden  Avenue  across  the  street  from  Magnolia  Public  School  school  yard.  I've  cleaned-up  the  diction  a  little  for  the  sake  of  clarity ...

[At]  approximately 10 p.m.  I was sitting watching TV with my parents. when the TV   [suddenly]  got fuzzy.

We heard some people making noise outside a few minutes later.  When my dad looked outside to see what was going on, he called us all outside.  Directly across the street from my house is  [Magnolia  Public  School]  school yard.

Approximately  100 yards away. hovering approximately 200 feet above the school, was a huge, bright, white, completely illuminated, egg-like sphere with a band of changing colored lights along the perimeter of this craft.

We are located about 20 miles from Philadelphia  International  Airport.   We were outside, along with all of our neighbors, looking up at this object.   It was about the size of a football field.

When airport traffic patterns  [i.e.,  passenger  jets  making  their  final  approach  to  International  Airport] came in our direction,  the object would black-out [so  that  it  was] almost invisible, but because of our close distance we could still see it.

We tried to call the local news stations but all outgoing calls  [were  met  with  a  busy  signal]  --   even [calls]  to other phones in our house, as if  [the  UFO] was jamming the phone lines!   The cable was messy, too.

The object hovered silently  for approximately 20 to 25 minutes.

Then  [it]  “ramped-up”  -- I  guess is the best way to describe it  --   It started speeding up the color changing lights as if it were  building-up  power  [somehow], and it took off straight-up in the air at a speed unimaginable,  so fast it left a visual trail of light in the air --almost like, if you span a picture of a moving [flash]light,  it trails.  Everyone stayed out side for a while and talked about what it might [have] been.  We never saw it again.

You  can  see  the  original   of  the  report,  from  the  files  of  the  National  UFO  Reporting  Center,  here ...

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/034/S34568.html#sthash.ZCOJZtA3.dpuf

The  "PD"  in  the  last  line  of  the  report  isn't  me.

The Running Toilet

I  won't  name  names  in  this  story,  but  it's  a  interesting  lesson  in  the  things  that  occur  when  "the  kids"   are  left  in  charge  of  the  house.

A  divorced  lady  lived  in  one  of  the  ranchers  in  Magnolia  with  3  of  her  4  daughters,  all  over  18  years  of  age.    Finally  a  portion  of  the  lady's  anatomy  became  cancerous.   Her  battle  with  the  deadly  disease  was  unsuccessful.    After  she  passed  away,  the  oldest,  non-resident  daughter  called  me  in  to  assist  with  the  estate.

Mostly,  there  was  no  estate.  Just  a  big  pile  of  unpaid  bills  on  the  dining  room  table,  left  unpaid  by  the  daughters  while  their  mom  lay  in  her  hospital  bed.  As  I  sorted  through  the  bills  --  $20  for  this,   $90  for  that,  $50  for  this,   $75  for  that  --  I  came  upon  the  New  Jersey  Water  bill.   It  was  for  $6,700 !!!

I  said,  "$6,700 !!!  HOW  DID  YOU  LADIES  RUN  UP  A  WATER  BILL  LIKE  THAT   WHILE  YOUR  MOM  WAS  IN  THE  HOSPITAL ???!!!  YOU  HAVE  NO  SWIMMING  POOL !!!"

The  ladies  were  crying,  because  they  knew  the  consequences  --  after  the  Surrogate's  fees,  lawyer's  fees  and  administrator's  commission,  bills  get  paid  before  heirs  get  anything.  "WE  DON'T  KNOW  WHAT  HAPPENED,  PETER !!!"  they  exclaimed.

I  said,  "Let  me  go  to  the  bathroom  and  then  I'll   try  to  figure  this  out."

I  walked  down  the  hall  to  the  bathroom,  opened  the  door  --  and  found  the  toilet  running,  running,  running.  "Well,"  I  thought,  "There's  the  answer !   $6,700  went  down  the  hopper  while  mom  was  in  the  hospital !"

I  took  the  top  off  the  water  box  portion  of  the  toilet,   flushed  the  toilet,  and  saw  that   the  chain  to  the  flush  valve  seat  got  hung-up  every  time.

"How  long  has  the  toilet  been  running  like  that ?"  I  asked  as  I  came  out  of  the  bathroom.

"Oh,"  one  of  the  girls  said  casually,  "It  started  that  as  soon  as  mom  went  into  the  hospital.    That's  alright,  isn't  it?  The  water  just  goes  in  a  big  circle,  right ?"

The Purpose of This Blog

My  wife  Rise`  and  I  have  been  living  in  Magnolia  since  March  of  1982.     I've  already  recorded  the  funny  and  strange  things  in  my  life  "BME"  --  "Before  the  Magnolia  Era"  --  in  a  series  of  stories  for  a  Northeast  Philadelphia  rag  called  The  Frankford  Gazette.  In  this  blog  I'll  preoccupy  myself  with  every  crazy  memory  and  story  that  comes  flying  into  my  head  related  to  my  life  "AM"  --  "Anno  Magnolii."

Saying Goodbye to Rise`

I  posted  this  one  more  than  a  year  ago.   I  think  that  most  looked  at  it  because  they  thought  that  the  title  indicated  that  I  was  leaving  Rise`.   Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  It's  just  about  leaving  the  house  for  the  day  to  go  to  work  or  some  other  place.   It's  about  the  funny  ways  we  sometimes  say  goodbye  to  each  other.


(1)  Sometimes  when  I  leave  the  house,  I'll  shout  out  to  Rise`,    "BRING  UNDERWEAR !!!"

What  that  refers  to  is  if  I  get  raptured  --  taken  up  to  God  in  Heaven  --  while  I  am  out,   so  that  all  the  police  can  find,  when  they  finally  come  to  look  for  me,  is  my  clothes  lying  on  top  of  my  shoes,   Rise`  should  rush  over  with  clean  underwear  and  switch  them  in  for  the  worn  underwear  in  the  pile.


(2)  Peter  to  Rise`,  as  he  is  leaving  the  house  for  the  day:  "YOU'RE  REALLY  SOMETHING !!!"

Rise`  in  response:  "BUT  YOU  DON'T  KNOW  WHA-A-A-AT !!!" 

"Wha-a-a-at"  has  to  be  pronounced  in  a  Jewish  way,  the  way  Richard  Lewis,  the  "Prince  John"   character  in  "Robin  Hood,  Men  in  Tights"   would  pronounce  it.


(3)  Peter  to  Rise`,  as  he  is  leaving  the  house  for  the  day:  "YOU'RE  SUCH  A  TREASURE !!!"

Rise`  in  response:  "JUST  DON'T  BURY  ME !!!"


(4)  Peter  to  Rise`  as  Rise`  is  leaving  to  go  somewhere  by  herself:   "DON'T  FORGET,  IF  SOMEONE  TRIES  TO  GRAB  YOU  AND  DO  THINGS  TO  YOU,   KEEP  REPEATING,   'STOP!   DON'T!'  AGAIN  AND  AGAIN  AND  AGAIN."

A Joke Rise` Liked

If  a  man  is  talking  in  the  forest,  and  there's  no  woman  around  to  hear  him,  is  he  still  wrong?