HOW I FOILED A MAGNOLIA AUTO THEFT IN JUST MY FRUIT OF THE LOOMS

For  many  years,  I  represented  a  ne'er-do-well  named  Joseph  Ferrara  in  the  New  Jersey  criminal  justice  system.   Joe  is  dead  now.    He  died  after  making  a  full,  careful,  confession  to  a  Catholic  priest.    Hopefully,  like  the  Good  Thief   Dismas  on  the  cross  next  to  that  of  Christ,  Joe  managed  to  steal  Heaven.

Joe  was  a  fascinating  mix  of  saint  and  sinner,  in  his  life.   Aren't  we  all,  right?   I  know  essentially  why  he  was  a  sinner.    I  won't  reveal  that,  here.      But  I  will  describe  an  incident  in  which   he  tried  without  success  to  have  my  Dodge  Aries  station  wagon  stolen,    years  ago,  at  my  home  in  Magnolia.

One  day,  I was  at  work  in  my  little  law  office  at  home,  pulling  together  evidence  I  would  need  for  night  court  in  the  municipal  court  one  town  over  from  Magnolia.  I  heard  a  knock  at  the  door.    Waiting  there  was  Joseph   Ferrara,  looking  very  "strung  out"  and  seriously  in  need  of  a  fix.

"Pete,"   he  said,  "I  need  $50  for  groceries,  right  now,  this  minute."

I  answered,  "No,  Joe.  I  know  the  look.     You're  in  need  of  a  'hit.'   The  instant  you  get  $50,  you're  going  to  make  a  call,  get  a  ride  to  Gloucester  City,     and  juice-up  on  drugs.   I  can  even  tell  you  what  the  $50's  for.  I  know  'H'  withdrawal  when  I  see  it.  Come  on,  Joe,  if  you're  this  bad,  you're  almost  maxed-out  of  your  withdrawal.  Let  me  call  Police,  and  maybe  they'll  lock  you  up  if  you  tell  them  that  you've  been  using."

"Hey,  Pete,  let  me  come  into  your  house,"  he  said.

"Nope!"  I  responded.  "You'll  case  my  place,  and  I'll  have  to  stay  up  a  week  just  to  keep  from  being  burglarized."

"Come  ON,   Pete,"    he  begged.

"No,"  I  calmly  insisted.  "I'll  buy  you  lunch  which  I  will  watch  you  eat,  Joe,  but  we're  walking  to  the  restaurant.  No  vehicle  for  you,  unless  it's  a  paddy  wagon.     You're  way  too  desperate   to  be  a  passenger  in  a  motor  vehicle."

"Hey,  Pete,"  Joe  responded,  "That  is  a  very  good  looking  station  wagon  you  have  there."

"Hey,  Joe,  thanks!,"  I  said,  with  feigned   naivete,  "I'm  glad  that  you  appreciate  that!"

"I'M  THREATENING  TO  STEAL  YOUR  CAR  WHEN  YOU'RE  NOT  LOOKING,  YOU  IDIOT!"    Joe  yelled  demonically,    annoyed  at  my  feigned  naivete.

I  answered,  "Come  on,  Joe.  Cut  the  crap.    Look  at  you.     Listen  to  what  you  are  saying  to  one  of  the  few  people  on  Earth  who  is  able  to  shake  your  hand  and  call  you  'friend.'  Don't  sell  your  last  friendship  to  the  Devil  for   a  drug  high,  Joe.   That's  the  express  train  to  Hell.  Shake  my  hand,  call  me  'friend,'  and  walk  away,  Joe."

Joe  spat  at  me,  voiced  an  obscenity,  and  left.

As  soon  as  he  was  gone,  I  drove  to  American  Battery   and  purchased  The  Club  for  the  steering  wheel  of  each  of  our  cars ...

...  and  locked-up  each  of  the  cars,  and  distributed  keys  to  family  members,  as  they  began   arriving  home  from  work,    and  then  I  left  for  court.   I  then  spent  the  next  7  hours  in  night  court  on  a  protracted  municipal-level  trial,     arriving  home  at  about  1:15  a.m.  on  a  hot  Summer  night.    I  stripped  down  to  my  Fruit-of-the-Looms   downstairs,  and  watched  television,  planning  to  don  my  PJs  when  I  went  upstairs  after  I  began  to  feel  sleepy.

At  1:30  a.m.  I  saw  the  headlights  of  cars  pulling  up  to  the  house  shining  through  the  curtains.  I  peeked  out  and  saw  a  group  of   young  men  standing  around  my  car,  shining  headlights  into  it.     I  listened  carefully  through  the  partially  opened  window  and  heard  one  guy  screaming  at  the  other  guy  that  there  just  wasn't  enough  time  to  "get  that  thing  off  the  steering  wheel."

I  jumped  up   and  dashed  to  the  main   door  of  the  house   and  jumped  from   the  porch  to  the  sidewalk,  dressed  only  in  my  Fruit-of-the-looms,  screaming  something  unearthly.   The  young  men  looked  up,  shocked,  frozen  in  place.

I  heard  Joe  Ferrara  screaming  like  a  madman  from  a  car  on   stopped  on  Warwick  Road,  in  front  of  my  house,  "STEAL  THE  CAR!   GET  THAT  CAR!"

I  yelled,  "JOE  FERRARA,  GET  THE  HELL  OUT  OF  HERE!"

Then  an  idea  jumped  into  my  head:  Thank  him  for  "setting-up"   the  guys  standing  around  my  car,  because  police  were  on  the  way.

But  it  occurred  to  me  that  they  would  respond  by  murdering  Joe,  if  I  shouted  that.

So,  instead,  I  just  turned  to  the  young  men,  and  yelled  as  loud  as  I  could,  "YOU  GET  THE  HELL  OUT  OF  HERE,  TOO!!!    THE  WHOLE  NEIGHBORHOOD  KNOWS  THAT  FERRARA  IS  IN  THAT  CAR,  NOW.  LEAVE  BEFORE  SOMEONE  CALLS  POLICE!!!"

And  they  all  left,  and  that  was  it.

How NOT to Do a Realtor a Favor

Years  ago,  after  the  Vietnamese  couple  living  in  the  house  next  to  ours  separated  and  then  divorced  and  abandoned  the  house,  the  bank  commenced  foreclosure,  and  rolled  the  house  over  to   a  realtor  for  marketing  with  refreshing  quickness.

The  realtor  in  charge  of  the  property  for  the  foreclosing  bank   knew  me,  from  my  law  work.  He  stopped  by  my  house  one  evening  and  asked  me  if  I  had  a  key  to  the  place,  and  I  did.  He  took  it  from  me  and  said,    "Pete,  I'll  return  your  key  to  you,  in  case  you  need  to  get  into  the  house  for  the  bank  if  our  listing  runs  out."

The  following  Saturday,    the  realtor  still  had  not  made   the  copies  or  installed  a  key  lock  box.   He  called  me  around  noon  and  said,  "Pete,  I  was  lazy  and  stupid.  I  was  walking  around  with  the  key  to  the  house  in  my  pocket  all  week  long,  without  making  copies   or  installing  a  lock  box.   When  I  showed  the  house  to  an  interested  party  two  days  ago,    I  accidentally  locked  your  key  on  the  inside  of  the  house.      I  noticed  that  the   latch  on  the window  in  the  back  bedroom  is  broken.  We  could  gain  access   through  there  and  recover  the  key  from  where  I  left  it  in  the  kitchen,  on  the  counter.  Do  you  have  a  ladder  you  could  use  to  go  into  that  window,  recover  the  key  for  me  and  lock  the  place  back  up?   I'll  be  there  very  shortly."

I  thought,  "What  a  harebrain!"  I  answered,  "I'll  do  it,  but  you  owe  my  law  practice  a  referral!"  He  agreed.

So,  I  went  and  got  one  of  my  ladders,    placed  it  against  the  rear  of  the  house,    and  start  climbing  up  the  ladder  to  get  in.

And,  of  course,  one  of  the  new  neighbors  on  the  other  side  of  the  block   looked  out  their  back  window  and  saw  a  "suspicious  male  climbing  into  a  house   with  a  ladder"  and  call ed  911.

And,  of  course,  this,  in  essence,  is  what  the  police  arriving  on  the  scene   got  to  see ...

  
"Ahem,"  one  of  the  police  went.

I  thought,  "Ah  [expletive  deleted]!"

Now,  the  problem  with  my  situation  that  day  was  that  day    --   it  was  a  Saturday,  when  the  "weekenders,"  the  police  from  out-of-town,    were  on  patrol  in  Magnolia  to  supplement  their  regular  incomes.   They  didn't  know  me.

For  all  they  knew,  they  had  caught  a  daylight  burglar,  well,  not  "red-handed,"  but  red-somethinged.

I  said,    "My  name  is  Pete  Dawson.  I  am  the  lawyer  who  lives  next  door.  The  realtor   on  the  'For  Sale'  sign  on  the  front  lawn  is  on  his  way  here  now.    Here  is  my  cell  phone.  Call  him  and  he  will   ID  me   and  tell  you  that  in  fact  he  gave  me  authorization  to  go  into  the  back  window  to  recover  the  house  key  he  accidentally  left  on  the  kitchen  counter."

And,  of  course,  when  the  police  tried  the  realtor's  number,  nobody  answered.

And,  of  course,  the  realtor  never  arrived  as  he  had  promised.

Damn!

I  said,  "Look,  guys,    before  you  cuff  me  and  take  me  in,  get  Dispatch  to  connect  you  with  the  Police  Chief,  Rob  Doyle."

Luckily,  they  agreed.    Rob  had  them  ask  me  two  questions  only  I  would  know  the  answers  to,  and  told  them  what  the  answers  had  to  be.  I  gave  the  correct  answers,  and  I  was  in  the  clear.

The  "weekenders"  crankily  instructed  me  to  "please  call  the  Police  in  advance  before  you  pull  a  stunt  like  that  again."

The  realtor  finally  called  on  my  cell  phone,  just  before  the  police  left,  and  the  "weekenders"  yelled  at  him,  too,  for  being  really  stupid.

The  realtor  asked  me  for  the  name  of  my  favorite  alcoholic   beverage,  to  "make  it  up  to  you."

I  said,   "Ouzo."

And,  of  course,  he  never  brought  me  a  bottle.

And  that   is  the  true  story  of  how  I  was  literally  left   with  my  ass  hanging  out  the  window,  in  Magnolia.

REPUBLICAN VEGGIE PIZZA

I'm  liable  to  get  in  some  trouble  for  telling  this  story.    Please  don't  judge  me  negatively   for  what  I  report  here,  until  you  ask  yourself,  "What  would  I  have  done  in  the  same  circumstances?"

Years  ago  I  was  one  of  the  Republican  councilmen  in  Magnolia.    Then  I  was  the  Republican  Municipal  Chairman.   Then   I  ran  for  Mayor,  very  briefly,  until  my  involvement as  an  attorney  in  a  complex  case  in  Superior  Court  in  Camden  forced  me  out.

Though  I  regard  myself  as  a  conservative  Republican,   I  never  got  along  well   with  the  other  folks  on  our  side.  Politics  was  filled  with  way  too  much  pettiness  and  self-aggrandizing.     I  was  falsely  accused  by  the  Magnolia  Rumor  Mill  of  bedding  a  Republican  Mayor's  daughter.  (Several  Republicans  were.)    The  Republicans  who  got  me  involved  just  wanted  me  to  keep  my  mouth  shut  and  obey  orders  --  something  I  never  did.    When  I  discovered   a  very  subtle  and  non-prosecutable  form  of  indirect  theft   by  our  side,    and  disclosed  it  instantly  to  the  Mayor,     someone  went  and   changed  the  written  record  of  the  vote  I  had  cast  to  block  such  theft  so  that  it  looked  like  I  had  cast  a  vote  in  favor  of  such  theft.  Disgusted,   I  secretly  had   the  Borough  Clerk,  who  was  also  offended  at  the  record  alteration,  let  me  make  a  copy  of  the  TAPE  RECORDING   of  that  session  of  Council,  so  that  I  could  prove  that   the  official  record  had  been  altered.   Someone  --  I  don't  know  who,   but  I  wouldn't  be  surprised   if  it  was  one  of  the  hate-filled  lunatics  on  our  side  of  the  aisle   --   called  my  name  in  to  the  IRS  three  years  in  a  row,  to  use  the  IRS  as  a  tool  of  terror.    I  was   audited  three  years  in  a  row.    After  the  first  year,  I  OVERPAID  MY  TAXES  and  UNDER-REPORTED  MY  DEDUCTIONS  on  purpose,    so  that  the  IRS  would  lose  money  if  I  was  audited  again.    When  that  happened  in  the  second  year,  when  I  was  called-in  for  an  audit  for  the  third  year,    the  auditor  said,  "Are  we  going  to  be  returning  money  to  you  again?"   I  said,  "Yup!"   and  they  shook  my  hand  and  told  me  to  go  home.  "Somebody  hates  you,"  the  auditor  said.

Ultimately,  I  was  glad  to  get  out  of  politics.    Like  my  Dad  always  said,  "Pete,  politics  is  evil  in  motion."     He  was  right.

While  I  was  the  Republican  Chairman,  my  wife  would  help  me  throw  pre-election  events   by  making  one  of  everyone's  favorite  treats,  veggie  pizza.

My  wife  Rise`  would  spread  crescent  roll  dough  flat  on  a  cookie  sheet,  bake  it,  spread   a  cream  cheese  concoction  over  it,    and  then  spread  a  variety   of  nutritious  cut-up  vegetables  across  the  cream  cheese.

On  one  occasion,   Rise`  had   just  spread   the  cream   cheese  over  the  baked  dough.  The  uncovered   cream-cheese-covered  pizza    and  the   uncovered  cream-cheese-mix   mixing  bowl  were  next  to  each  other,  when  the  mail  came  and  Rise`  and  I  were  distracted  by  sorting  through  the  mail  on  the  other  side  of  the  kitchen.

Now  we  had  a  cat  in  those  days  --  an  extremely  intelligent  black-and-white  cat  named  Inky.

Inky  simply  NEVER  misbehaved,  except  on  this  one  particular  day.  When  we  turned  from  the  mail  and  looked  back  toward  the  veggie  pizza,  there  was  Inky  on  the  counter,     next  to  the  veggie  pizza  and  cream  cheese  bowl,  with  cream  cheese  on  her  mouth.

Rise`  and  I  both  thought  exactly  the  same  thing:  "Oh,  no!    Where  did  Inky  lick   cream  cheese?     In  the  bowl,  or  on  the  cheese  pizza  itself?"  We  looked  hard,  but  we  couldn't  see  a  distinct  point  of  disturbance  on  either  the  pizza  or  bowl.  "What  should  we  do?"  we  wondered.

Then  Rise  and  I   looked  at  each  other,  and  each  burst  out  laughing  at  the  other's  thoughts.

Bad Luck Turtle

My  wife  and  I  babysat  the  little  girl  of  the  Vietnamese  couple  who  lived  next  to  us,   from  mid  2004  to  mid  2009.   The  little  girl's  name  was  Lesle  Nhu  Kieu.    I  really  did  come  to  view  that  kid  as  a  kind  of  adopted  daughter.  I  loved  her  like  crazy,   and  genuinely  would  have  given  my  life  for  her's,  as  much  as  I  would  give  my  life  for  my  sons'  lives.

One  Friday  afternoon  in  early  2008,  I  picked   little  Nhu  up  at  Magnolia  Public  School   in  my  car,  even  though  I  live  a  block  away  from  the  school,   because  I  was  taking  her  to  Camden  County  Library.

As  we  drove  down  Warwick  Road  past  our  house,   little  Nhu  shouted,  "MR.  PETER!  MR.  PETER!   THERE'S  A  TURTLE  WALKING  ON  THE  SIDEWALK  IN  FRONT  OF  YOUR  WARWICK  ROAD  DOOR!"

I  drove  around  the  block  and  parked  next  to  my  house,  and  ran  around  to  the  front  door  of  my  house  with  little  Nhu.  Sure  enough,  there  on  the  sidewalk  between  my  front  door  and  the  Warwick  Road  sidewalk  was  a  great,  big,  bright   Eastern  Box  Turtle,  Terrapene carolina carolina   under  the  binomial  nomenclature  system  of  genus,  species  and  subspecies  classification ...

"Mr.  Peter,"  little  Nhu  said  to  me  with  a  serious  face,    "This  is  very  bad!    The  turtle  is  walking  away  from  your  house!  In  Vietnam  that  means  that  you  are  about  to  have  very  bad  luck!"

I  did  not  even  know  that  we  had  turtles,  there  on  busy  Warwick  Road.  Where  had  the  animal  come  from?   In  any  event,  little  Nhu  and  I  took  the  turtle  around  to  the  other  side  of  the  house  and  released  it  into  my  wife  Rise`'s  garden.     To  my  surprise,  the  turtle  immediately  began  to   dig  into  the  ground,  as  though  to  construct  a  new  dwelling  for  itself.

Eminently  satisfied  that  we  had  done  our  good  deed  for  Nature,  little  Nhu  asked  if  I  could  let  her  into  her  house  so  that  she  could  change  into  more  comfortable  clothes   for  our  anticipated  trip  to  the  library.   So,  we   went  next  door,  and  while  I  waited  in  the  living  room,  little  Nhu  went  back  to  her  bedroom  and  changed.  Nhu  yelled  to  me  from  her  bedroom,  as  she  changed,  "I  WONDER  WHAT  BAD  LUCK  YOU'RE  GOING  TO  HAVE,  BECAUSE  THAT  TURTLE  WAS  WALKING  AWAY  FROM  YOUR  HOUSE,  MR.  PETER!"

At  that  moment,  as  though  on  cue,    there  was  a  knock  at  little  Nhu's  front  door.     It  was  my  oldest  son  Josh.

"Dad,"   Josh  asked,  "Didn't  you  feel   the  ground  shaking  or  hear  the  big  bang?"

"No,  Josh,"  I  said,    "I  heard  nothing."

"Where's  Lesle,  Dad?   You  two  have  to  come  to  our  house  immediately!"

"She's  in  her  bedroom  changing  her  clothes,  Josh.  What's  up?"  I  asked,  getting  worried.

"Dad,"  Josh  explained,  "The  giant  oak  tree  in  front  of  our  house  just  split  in  half,  and  the  half  closest  to  our  house  just  fell  and  slammed  against  the  front  of  the  house  and  damaged  it,  all  over  the  place.   It's  really  bad!   Lesle!  Hurry  up  and  change  so  that  Dad  can  come  home!"

Little  Nhu  came  out,  her  clothes  changed,  but  carrying  her  socks  and  sneakers.  "Well,"  little  Nhu  said,  "There  it  is,  Mr.  Peter!     Your  bad  luck!"   She  pulled  on  her  socks  and  sneakers   and  we  ran  over  to  my  house. 

The  tree  had  split  down  the  center,  vertically,    and  the  half  which  had  fallen  had  smashed  the  front  of  our  house  at  several  places.   The  half  which  had  not  yet  fallen  was  leaning  precariously over  the  rancher  of  our  neighbor  on  Warwick  Road,  Barbara  Cheeseman,    and  would  clearly  crush  her  house  in  short  order.

I  went  over  to  Mrs.  Cheeseman's  house,  and  discovered  that  she  already  had  a  argument  in  her  holster  to  avoid  paying  for  half  of  the  cost  of  tree  removal.  "You'd  better   pay  to  have  your  tree  removed,  Peter  Dawson,    before  it  crushes  my  house,  or  I'll  have  a  lawyer  sue  you!"

I  answered,  "Barbara,  how  are  you  doing?  Listen,  Barbara,    the  trunk  of  that  tree   lies  dead  center  on  the  border  between  our  properties.  The  half  of  it  which  had  been   on  our  side  of  the  border  is  now  leaning  against  the  front  of  my  house.    The  half  of  it  which  is  on  your  side  of  the  property   hasn't  moved,    but  it's  obviously  going  to  fall  onto  your  house  and  crush  it  very  shortly.  A  little  breeze,  or  a  light  rain  adding  a  few  thousand  pounds  of  water  weight  to  the  tree,  will  bring  it  down."

"NO!"   Barbara  insisted  angrily,  "THE  TREE  IS  100%   ON  YOUR  SIDE  OF  THE  BORDER  LINE  BETWEEN  OUR  PROPERTIES!  IT'S  YOUR  RESPONSIBILITY!"

I  answered,  with  kindness,  "Listen  Barbara,  I'll  tell  you  what.  Of  course,  since  I  am  a  lawyer,  I  have  several  friends   who  are  lawyers.    Since  you  say  that  the  tree  is  100%   on  my  side  of  the  boundary   line  between  our  properties,  if  I  have  one  of  those  lawyers  draw  up  new  deeds  to  your  property  and  my  property   with  a  boundary  line   100%  on  your  side  of  the  tree  trunk,    you'll  sign  it  then,  right?    If  you  are  correct,    and  the  tree,  right  now,  is  100%  of  my  side  of  the  boundary  line,    you  won't  lose  anything,  right?  But  if  I'm  right,  I'm  about  to  become  the  owner  of  additional  several  hundred  square  feet  of  your  property,  right?"

THIS  "smoked-out"  Barbara  from   her   initial  position  immediately.

"But  I  can't  AFFORD  to  pay   for  my  half  of  the  tree,  Pete!"  she  pleaded,  "I  just  don't  have  the  money!  Won't  your  insurance  company  cover  it?"

I  responded,  "Insurance  companies  are  hair-splitters,  Barbara,  especially  since   9/11,   the  Enron  Scandal,  the  Dot  Com  Scandal,    Hurricane  Katrina  and  losses  on  those  things  called  'derivatives.'   The  companies  are  going  broke  and  looking  for  ways  to  avoid  liability.  Odds  are  that  my  insurance  company  is  going  to  pay  for  only  half  of  the  cost  of  tree  removal.  And  since  no  'accident'  has  occurred  involving  your  half  of  the  tree,  yet,  your  insurance  company  will  probably  respond  by  denying  liability   for  any  loss  which  you  might  have  to  suffer  on  collapse  of  your  half  of  the  tree,    due  to  'improper  maintenance'  --  NOT  removing  a  damaged  tree  --  by  you.     Let  me  talk  to  Rise`  and  I'll  get  back  to  you."

My  wife  Rise`  and  I  talked  about  it,  and  we  decided  to  promise  to  Mrs.  Cheeseman  that  we  would  cover   the  cost  of  removal  of  Mrs.  Cheeseman's  half  of  the  tree,  too,  out-of-pocket.

No  good  deed  goes  unpunished.    Our  "reward"  for  our  charity  to  Mrs.  Cheeseman  was  that  she  stopped  talking  to  us,  so  long  as  she  lived  next  to  us,  I  guessed  because  of  anger  that  I  called  her  bluff   about  not  actually  owning  half  of  the  tree.  Bad  luck  from  the  turtle   had  struck  again!

Was  the  turtle  done  with  us,  yet?

I  told  my  family  about  the  amazing  coincidence  of  little  Nhu's  interpretation  of  the  turtle's  direction  of  walk,  and  the  collapse  of  the  tree  a  half  hour  later.     "Probably,"  I  suggested,  "The  turtle  was  living  beneath  the  tree,  and  heard  the  tree  begin  to  split  in  half,  and  was  making  his  escape.  But,  still,  little  Nhu's  guess  was  pretty  amazing!"

We  went  out  to  the  garden  and  looked  for  the  turtle,   as  we  waited  outside  for  the  tree  surgeon,  Cameron  Lyon  of  Lyon  &  Son  Tree  Service,  to  come  and  give  us  an  estimate  for  tree  removal  the  next  day.  

The  turtle  was  already  hopelessly  out  of  reach,  having  buried  itself  deep  in  our  garden  on  the  side  of  the  house  --  or  so  we  thought.

That  night,    as  we  sat  in  our  family  room  talking  about  the  collapse,    we  heard  a  "klunk"  in  the  dining  room  wall  next  to  the  garden  where  the  turtle  had  dug  in.  Apparently,    it  was  getting  close  to  turtle  hibernation  time,  and  the  turtle  had  somehow  worked  its  way   through  an  open  section  of  the  foundation   underground  up  into  the  warmth  of  our  dining  room  wall,  near  the  forced-air  heating  conduit  in  the  wall!   We  heard  the  damnable  thing  "klunking"  in  the  wall  a  few  times  each  day,  all  Winter  long,  as  it  changed  position!

That  was  it;  the  turtle  was  through  with  us,  right?

We  aren't  sure.     The  next  day,  Cameron  Lyon  came  with  his  trucks  to  take  down  and  haul  away  both  sides  of  the  giant  oak  tree ...

A  few  years  later,  in  2013,  poor  Cameron  Lyon  died  in  a  fall  from  a  tall  tree  being  trimmed  by   his  business  in  Haddonfield.

Our  turtle  "friend"  returns  to  the  wall  every  Winter,  now,    clunking   its  way  up  through  the  wall  to  hibernate.

"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.