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Wednesday

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30
Aug 23

A good workout makes it all better

I spent all day frustrating myself with pagination and bullet points. No matter how old I may get, no matter how much wisdom I earn, I will never have the patience for this, or understand why simple text editors and CMS tools simply refuse to do the obvious thing.

Or, failing that, why my ideas and habits are always so fundamentally at odds with the people who designed these things. Designed these things, one imagines, with a notion of serving the broader audience. If so it begs an important question: am I out of step with popular ideas about indentation?

Other things, you grow fine with. Music, fashion, well, that’s just a byproduct of not caring as you get older. Certain elements of political ideologies, what are you gonna do? How the cookie crumbles, could have used a different emulsifier, but I’m sure that was a bottom-line decision. Stuff happens, yes, in fact, stuff does happen.

But, my goodness, people should all want to use bullets and other basic formatting traits in a sane, sensible, not-at-all-programmed-by-a-sociopath way.

After I’d spent hours doing this — that’ll teach me, until the next time — which included making up brand new utterances to utter, my lovely bride came in and suggested a way around this problem. It made sense. It was easy. But, by then, I had invested six hours on the thing and who wants to blow up that sort of progress?

I was flibbertygibberted.

A little while later I had a cause to be even more frustrated because I finally went outside and it was a stunningly beautiful evening. (Literally, all afternoon was spent on this ridiculous task I’d made for myself, rather than being outdoors.) So I went for a swim.

Jumped in, goggles on and started the freestyle technique. This was my view on the starting end of the pool.

Swam for an hour. Got in 2,650 yards. I do not know what is happening.

This is not fast, but it is a respectable distance. Also, I didn’t stop the first time during the whole thing, which is absolutely a record. This was my longest swim since October 17, 2015. That was my last lap swim until last month. A lot happened in between. A lot of nothing happened in between, too. But that’s the case for everyone. Anyway, 10th swim in after an almost eight year layoff, and I’m doing some real distance again.

My heart rate, immediately after my swim, was 101. I might not be working hard enough.

Swimming at dusk, though, was a lot of fun, and just what I needed after flabdabbering my computer all day. I’m going to feel it in my shoulders tomorrow, but I might also go for another swim Friday evening.

This is the fifth installment of my tracking down the local historical markers by bike. There’s an online database with 115 markers in the county. Counting today, we’re 11 down and making decent progress. What will we learn a bit about today? We have a few more war memorials.

I’ve read that 78 local men served during the Great War, by the time it was over, 124 people had enlisted. Some 3,300 people lived in the two communities represented on that marker. In a small town any enlistment is keenly felt. I haven’t, yet, found anything online that tells me about which locals shipped out, to where or with whom. I don’t know anything yet about casualties, but supreme sacrifice leaves you with more than a suggestion. All of it was keenly felt, I’m sure.

Some of those initial 78 would have likely been in the Guard. When the war began in Europe, the local national guard was under strength, under supplied and under prepared, but still somehow better equipped, trained and prepared than it had ever been. New Jersey was one of only four states that funded 75% of the expenses of its National Guard. Some of the Guard here went to the Mexican border. Some went to Fort Dix, and then Anniston, Alabama, before heading out to France. But where the men honored here, I don’t know.

Right next to that marker is this one.

Russell Garrison also has a memorial park in his name, just a few miles away. Garrison was killed at a place called Pleiku, a strategic crossroads town, in 1967. He wasn’t yet 22.

Marvin Watson was a PFC in the Marine Corps. He died in 1969 in Quang Nam, a town in central Vietnam by the East Sea. His high school yearbook says he was known for his sense of humor. He had just turned 20.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund says 28 people from this county died in Vietnam.

Two generations later, here we are.

Specialist Richard Emmons III probably got razzed for his baby face. He looked young even in his fatigues, even in his beret. And when you see the photos of him smiling, you can really see it. He was 22 years old, in a province in eastern Afghanistan he probably couldn’t have found without a detailed map before he deployed. A rocket-propelled grenade attack on his convoy. He’d been in the army for less than three years, and in-country for almost a year. It looks like the whole town came out when he was returned home.

Corporal Derek Kerns was killed in a training accident in Morocco. Helicopter crash. The Marines concluded it was pilot error. The two Osprey pilots survived, but Kerns and another, a Marine from Los Angeles, were killed. Kerns joined the Corps right after high school, and his family said he really took to the life. He’d just gotten married, and they had just had a baby. He was only 21.

And somehow, despite that, it’s the blank space beneath those two names, the air below those stories, that is really striking.

All three of those markers are next to one another, overlooking Memorial Lake, which is right beside Main Street. A pair of bald eagles live around the lake, and there’s a nice little neighborhood just across the street. The locals fish for bass and crappie there.

So we’ve learned a fair amount this week, but there’s a lot more to go. If you’ve missed some of the early markers, look under the blog category We Learn Wednesdays. And be sure you come back next week for what is a historical pre-footnote and something else, which isn’t even in place anymore.

It doesn’t sound like much, but that installment is going to be great.

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23
Aug 23

We don’t talk only about the weather

Much of the country is under a heat dome, because heat wave just doesn’t focus group well. One of the local broadcast meteorologists here pointed out that we were at seasonal averages, and a change was in the air. I called him many, many names for the implication, but he’s used to that, being a broadcast meteorologist.

I’ve admired those people, worked with some of them, taught some more of them, and I feel for all of them. They make models and they’re sometimes wrong. It happens so much they are common jokes. You’re doing the punchlines right now. They work at all hours. And when the weather is really bad, it’s all hands on deck, and the greats stay on until the weather has moved on. Most stations will send out their reporters on days like that for the cliched stand up, but it’s the meteorologist who has to help find a place their friends and colleagues can get the story, but stay safe. That’s a huge responsibility, to say nothing of the way they all mentally take on that role for their community. But pity the poor meteorologist who sees something on the radar that justifies breaking into the soap operas or the big game.

I try to be understanding and appreciative of meteorologists, especially the really good ones, in most every thing they do on air. If you can name every small county road across the DMA, I’ll talk about you with the reverent tones a legend deserves. There’s just two things you can’t do. One of them is this: you can’t, in the summer, talk about the change of seasons.

Longtime readers will be able to figure out the second thing easily enough.

Anyway, the high today was 82 degrees.

My cycling computer is a Garmin 705, which is now pushing 15 years old. I bought it, used, a few years back, because it did all of the things I wanted at the time and it has basic maps, which could be useful. That could be a very useful feature just now since so many of the roads are new to me.

I tried to get to the maps part of the device a few days ago, mid-ride, but couldn’t remember how. Another day, I figured. I’ll only think of it when I’m well and truly lost. But, he said with confidence, there’s always the map on my phone. Problem with that is, I’d have to hold my phone. And the computer is right there, attached to the headset.

Anyway, something I noticed for the first time a ride or two ago is that while the unit of measure is tenths of a mile, the first tenth of a mile is displayed as feet. It ticks up 10 feet at a time, through the first 520 feet.

So it was that on today’s ride, while I was watching those numbers tick up 280, 290, 300, 310, that I knew right away that my legs didn’t have “it.” So little “it” did my legs have that I chased my lovely bride the whole time. So little “it” that she sat up and waited for me once. So little “it” that I decided to add on more miles to the ride, because I keep saying I need more rides, but I also need more miles. I will get my legs out of this unproductive funk.

So little “it” that I didn’t even take any photos or videos of the whole ride, but I did get a shot of the Garmin during those extra miles.

I’d just passed the grocery store and was about to go through the roundabout, just plodding along.

Somehow, despite having dead legs, I set PRs on two Strava segments. They were on roads I’ve only been on twice, and they only shaved a few seconds off the first ride.

I had a nice long Zoom chat with a new colleague this evening. The goal was to help get me up to speed on a class I’ll be teaching this fall. She was very kind to share the time, and generous with her thoughts and materials. Answered a bunch of questions, helped put me at ease and offered to help me throughout the semester. She invited me to come visit her classes, which was especially considerate.

The class will be even better because of that conversation, and I was grateful for the help.

Also, the chat gave me my first look at how my home office will play as a Zoom background. I’ve got nice evening light and a great depth of field. I just need to fix a few things in the background. But I’ve got ideas about that.

While I was considering those, after the chat, I noticed the last light falling on the door.

It stayed like that just long enough for me to turn around, grab my phone, pull up the camera app and compose a quick shot. Seconds later, the clouds rolled in front of the sun, and, disheartened, the sun slipped behind the trees. The meteorologist was off tonight. A different guy was on, and I couldn’t bear to hear it again. I’ll also pretend not to notice that the time stamp on the photo said 6:27 p.m.

This is the fourth installment in my tracking down the local historical markers. There’s an online database with 115 markers in the county, so we’ll be at this for a good while.

You can find them all under the blog category, We Learn Wednesdays. What will we learn about today?

The first stop is the Friends Cemetery, which is a few blocks up the road from the Friends Meeting House. The marker says …

Three African Americans are interred in this Friends cemetery.
From the records:

“Rachel Mintiss (Colored), wife of Andrew Mintiss was buried 5th mo. 8th 1846 on the hillside, near the 1st Row of the 2nd purchase.

Andrew Mintiss was buried 28th of 8th mo. 18?? on the left of his wife. Aged about 82 years.

Abigail Mintiss, widow of Andrew Mintiss was buried 31st of 1st month 1850 next to her husband.”

Andrew Mintiss and Abigail Atlee were married 16 September 1846. He died between then and late January 1850. The location of these unmarked graves remains unknown.

Find A Grave thinks Andrew Mintiss died somewhere between 1846 and 1852.

Some 2,500 others are buried there, including at least one Civil War veteran, a militia captain. In his portrait, he’s seated, bearded, holding a sheathed sword.

The Bassetts came over on the ship right after the Mayflower, and a few hundred years later, there was Howard. He studied dentistry, but became a farmer. He married Clemence not too long after the war. They had seven children.

The oldest recorded grave was a Quaker who lived and died a British subject. He was interred in 1773. It’s still an active cemetery.

Not too far away is the Russell G. Garrison Memorial Park. It was rededicated as a memorial and environmental park in 2017.

All of those men were locals who died in Vietnam.

One of the town’s busier thoroughfares runs right by the park, but there’s something tranquil about the place despite the road noise. There’s a large rain garden that features hundreds of native plants helping collect storm water and prevent run off. The parking lot has a porous asphalt and the whole place has an underground filtering system to deal with chronic flooding. There are signs explaining all of this, the rain garden and the owl houses.

The mayor says the park is part of a growing greenbelt around the town. I kinda want to see the rain garden in action. I guess I’ll have to pay closer attention to the meteorologist.

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16
Aug 23

An office-kind-of-day

I have been working, today, on 23 pages of syllabi. That will cover two classes. Most of it makes sense, but I’ll revisit it on Friday and look for any errors or obvious landmines. That was the biggest part of the day, trying to make sense of schedules that will drive things through mid-December.

No big deal.

Also, I brought in some peaches. Just one basket worth today. We have about three baskets to do something with, plus an abundance of fruit still on the tree. It’s an incredibly bountiful crop.

Speaking of, I had to upgrade the bowl I’ve been using to harvest tomatoes, because the smaller bowl was obviously not up to the task today.

The only thing better than a peach still-warm from the sun might be a tomato you just twisted from the vine. Just sitting here, writing about it, I am counting the steps from my desk to the kitchen counter. Should I go back for more, at this late hour?

These are the questions of my day, and also “Is this too many reading assignments?”

This is the third installment in my tracking down the local historical markers. New county, new goals and all of that. I found a database with 115 markers in the county, so we’ll be at this for a good while.

You can find them all under the blog category, We Learn Wednesdays. What will we learn about today?

Here’s the local high school, which has a fine infographic-style marker out front. Their graduating class of 2012, who are all ancient now, sponsored the display, which was presented by the local historic commission. And there’s a lot of information because of it.

In May of 1922, President Warren Harding was passing through the area, on his way to Atlantic City. He stopped off briefly at the school and spoke briefly. The road that passes in front of the school had been named the Harding Highway, and part of the road was even paved. Big doings in 1922.

The school was still new at the time, having just opened in 1916. (The earliest local school house was nearby, and built in 1750.) A few years ago they opened a 1915 time capsule.

Inside the capsule included names of teachers and pupils in the school district; lead pencils; names of mayor and members of borough council; and a 1915 and 1905 Woodstown National Bank Almanac, to name a few.

No one told Harding about that in ’22. Seven years later it wasn’t forgotten, but it wasn’t top-of-mind.

Harding had a big May that year. There was a fire in the Treasury Building, he got the Soldier’s Bonus Bill — and vetoed it. He took that trip to Atlantic City, where he vacationed and spoke to the Women’s Club. He waded in on coal field prices, sat down with Big Steel over the matter of 12-hour workdays and haggled with the rail bosses. He also signed an important narcotics bill into law. At the end of the month he dedicated the Lincoln Memorial. May 1922.

His August 1923 wasn’t as good. He died, in office, 100 years ago this month.

I wonder how many schools there are in America that had that one visit by a president, and the story got passed down until it didn’t matter anymore. Harding probably barely shows up in the modern curriculum, right? Teapot Dome Scandal, his early death and, lately, his illegitimate daughter. Two of those might not even figure in to a high school class. It was a century ago and he was only in office for two-and-a-half years, after all. But, still.

Anyway, the school expanded in the 1930s, more floor space and a gymnasium. By the late-1950s the elementary school kids and the middle schoolers were in new, separate buildings. Another gym was built in the 1980s, the old one was turned into a library and additional classrooms. The last major renovations took place just a few years ago.

All of this modernity replaced eight one-room schoolhouses around the area. One of them still stands, as a period schoolhouse museum.

Here’s the next marker, which is also in front of the modern high school.

This bell, then, would have been in a school building that came to life in 1852, the second public school in the community. The first high school class graduated from there in 1885.

You wonder what other happy and sad news that belt might have rang about in its day. Maybe a few of the current students are interested in that bell. If their families have been here a long time, and they did the math, some student this year might realize that perhaps one of their a great-great-great-grandparents heard that bell.

You wonder what it sounded like.

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9
Aug 23

Is August too soon for ghost stories?

One of my former students, I learned yesterday, is beginning her new job as a reporter in Savannah. Great city, of course. The Yankee and I were married there. We visit often. And I’m excited for my young journalist friend. It should be a great market for her to start polishing her skills.

The day before yesterday I learned another former student has just begun a job reporting at NBC in Chicago. Her third stop in the business is number three in the Nielsen rankings. Only New York and Los Angeles are bigger markets, of course. In the media, the dues paying a young employee does sometimes means starting in smaller newsrooms, or in smaller markets, or both. Over time the successful worker bee moves up the ladder. Courtney, who is now in Chicago, started in market 138, moved to 35 and is now in market number three. To make it that high, that early in her career is a testament ~~to my innate ability~~ to her incredible talent and superior networking skills. Success stories are successful for a reason, and I’m always so proud to see my friends continue their success.

I keep a map of where my former students are. They’ve spread out across the country, of course. But I know, from my map, that four of them are working in Chicago. A few are working abroad. The problem is that I’ve been doing this long enough that inevitability some people fall off my radar. I only catch so much on LinkedIn. (I updated four of those map locations last night, for example.) So please keep me updated with your success stories, my friends.

Someone I met 15 years ago in my first year on campus went out into the world, and then law school, and is now teaching classes at a law school. That’s the one that aged me.

Today’s errands put a few new lines on my face too, I’m sure of it. I took the garbage to the garbage taking place, because, again, no one picks up garbage in this neighborhood. Despite two companies which pick up garbage in the neighborhood. I have witnessed it and taken photographic proof. Monday, a truck stopped at the house across the street. A gentleman stepped off and grabbed our neighbors’ discarded materials and drove off to … wherever garbage trucks go when they’re through on your street.

We had a little chat with our neighbor yesterday. A wonderfully pleasant and cheerful man. The sort that knows everyone, and talks about them like they’re all old friends, and you are too. I should have asked him about the garbage truck. Probably he owned the company, or the person that does owes him some not insubstantial favor.

Anyway, in and out at the convenience center, as it is locally called. And, except for the location, it is convenient. Of course, if that isn’t too convenient, or at least upwind, that’s OK, too.

From there I went to the Tractor Supply to inquire about peach baskets. They have no tractors, a thin selection of supplies, and no peach baskets. The woman I spoke with there suggested I go to the Coal and Ice, which is a local hardware store that has kept it’s name, if not it’s original products. The Coal and Ice does not carry peach baskets. (I wonder if I can make a gag of renaming that store everything they don’t have. This would be unfair, it’s a small store. And it would become a long gag pretty quickly. For example, so far it would be the Coal and Ice, and Digital Deadbolt, Sliding Glass Door Lock and Peach Basket. They do carry, however, weather stripping for basement doors. I have to be fair about this inventory gag I won’t pursue.)

A nice lady at the Coal and Ice suggested a farm market. Produce stands on the side of the road. That was, actually, my next option. They’re ubiquitous, and that’s lovely. But most of them are all stocked and sold on an honor system, which is charming. I needed to talk with someone, but no dice.

So I set out for a distant grocery store to buy Milo’s. They did not have Milo’s. So I visited a sister store to try my luck again. I think maybe the delivery guy has been under the weather or something, because I went oh-for-two. I need that driver to get back on the road, quickly.

My next stop was a Lowe’s, but on the way there I ran across a place called Bloomer’s Garden Center. A big, sprawling, someone-has-to-water-all-of-these-plants-daily place. A place with a water garden wing, and another bird sanctuary wing. Everything smelled of rich nitrogen soil. These people are in the business of selling things to people who want to grow things. The woman there had no idea about peach baskets. I think they must appear from the very air.

So I went to Lowe’s. I looked there for peach baskets. No luck, of course, because that’s a pretty small, and obviously obscure, item for a box store. I did get two garbage cans, because see above, and a spool of weed eater string. You could purchase this in spools of one or three. I had the three-spool pack in my hand, considered my traditional weed eater habits and opted for the smaller, less expensive version. Rolled my two garbage cans to the self-checkout, and then out to the car.

Next to the Lowe’s there was a Dollar Tree. I walked in there. No peach baskets. But I did find small plastic baskets that are about the proper size, have a big breathable basket type pattern and a convenient handle. I got six of them. Paid eight bucks, which is probably close to how much gas I’ve spent on that search today.

Picked up some Chick-fil-A for a very late lunch and then drove it the 20-some minutes back to the house. Whereupon I learned that one of the two garbage cans I picked up … doesn’t have a lid.

So I’ll go back there tomorrow.

We went on a bike ride early this evening and it was obvious almost right away that I had no legs. My lovely bride waited on me twice, but finally I waved her on. No need for her to slow down if I can’t speed up. This is a training ride for her, anyway.

I just turned mine into a scenic experience. Here’s today’s barn by bike.

The last four miles on this route are uphill, which is to say, have a gentle, gradual slow ascent. There’s nothing bigger than a roller, but you gain the same 70 feet a few times over and over. Also, I was developing a soft rear wheel. I titled the ride “Slow leak, Slower legs.”

Tomorrow’s ride will be a bit better. But I have to allow for a few minutes to swap out that tube. Some first world problems feel insulting even to the concept of the first world problems meme.

For dinner, we took some of these tomatoes from the backyard …

And some of these peaches from the front yard …

And mixed them with some things we purchased at a nearby grocery store to make a tasty little peach salsa.

It complimented everything nicely, but the cilantro and the onion muted the peaches just a bit. Anyway, we’ll have plenty more opportunities to try this concept. We might also soon be eating peaches as an entree. I mean, aside from breakfast and midday snacks.

And I have those baskets now, so we’re now important produce power players, locally speaking.

I have started tracking down the local historical markers. New county, new goals and all of that. I found a site that lists 115 markers in this county, so there’s a ton of easy content!

This is the second installment. You can find them all under this brand new blog category, We Learn Wednesdays. What will we learn about today?

This is a place called Seven Stars. Built in 1762 by a man named Peter Lauterbach, it is architecturally significant, and there are important bits of social and military history inside those brick walls as well. The side features Flemish patterned brickwork, which was once a common thing here, and will come up again in a later post. In this case, the pattern carries the initials “P-L-E” for Peter and Elizabeth Lauterbach.

Their son John Louderback changed his name and lived in the tavern during the Revolutionary War. The British came through and raided the tavern, looking for him. He had a price on his head because he was thought to be giving food to the Americans. Louderback and his family hid in the woods. And, a few years later, he marched with a unit out of Pennsylvania. Earlier he’d served under Casimir Pulaski.

Peter, the father, died in 1780. John lived to see the country independent, and died in 1802. His mother lived until at least 1806, which is where historians find her name on a church roll. She also voted in 1800, presumably because of the property she held, inherited from her husband or otherwise. During that period, depending on where you were, it is estimated that between seven and 25 percent of the tallied votes were cast by women. (A state law that was billed as progressive at the time disenfranchised women and Blacks in 1807.)

Seven Stars has a lot of ghost stories attached to it, as well. In the early 20th century, the residents claimed seeing figures on horseback riding up to the tavern window, that small one to the left of the door, which was where people got their orders. Someone is said to have seen a ghostly figure checking on a baby. Supposedly Peter roams the ground looking for valuables he buried during the Revolution. Another spirit is said to be a spy for the British who found his end at the end of a rope in the attic. A Halloween-type site says loud footsteps and scuffle sounds can sometimes be heard in the attic. A pirate is thought to be a frequent haunter, as well. Be as skeptical as you like, but someone also needs to go camp out and see if the ghostly ghosts and their ghostly horses trot up to the tavern window.

It is now a private residence.

In the center of town you’ll find this wonderful bit of signage. There’s a lot going on there, because, for a small town, a lot has gone on there.

I’m sure we’ll pick up on some of those themes again in future installments. For now, here’s the door to that bank, which is still standing, sturdy and beautiful as ever.

Some day, I’ll go back and photograph the whole of the building. When I was there for this, it was small-town rush hour, and people have to get where people want to go.

(Update: A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to improve on the shot. Here’s the First National Bank.)

Which is what you should do, right now. Go to the next place. But come back here tomorrow. There’s going to be a lot more fun to discuss here tomorrow.

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2
Aug 23

A new Wednesday feature? A new Wednesday feature

Out bright and early this morning running errands. I got stuck in traffic, but I did not get lost a single time. It’s still a little unsettling to not know where you’re going most of the time, but that will pass with time and driving around.

There are two creature-of-habit things I’m dealing with driving around here. Going into the city, requires a mental adjustment. Fortunately, high-speed highway driving is as second nature a feeling as I can have in a car. Growing up around amateur hour at Talladega will do that for you. But the ebbs and flows, the changing of lanes and the many distracted drivers, it reminds you to take a deep breath and re-grip. The other thing are the intersections around us. Owing, I am sure, to historical property lines and what not, there are a great many intersections that don’t meet at neat right angles. It just requires a weird craning of the neck, is all. And, like any new input, it is new.

But, errands safely run. All things achieved. The maps app was 100 percent successful. I didn’t even break a sweat, owing to the milder, seasonally appropriate temperatures.

I forgot to share these photos yesterday, just glimpses of the season. We have some tomato vines out back. And these are delicious.

In fact, I’m behind on eating tomatoes. Hang on one sec.

…

OK, five small, delicious, tomatoes eaten as a late night snack. I’ll have more to pull out of the miniature garden tomorrow, I’m sure. (And they are so, so, good.)

We have a wonderful array of black-eyed Susans.

And this hydrangea, I decided this afternoon, just looks more impressively beautiful by the day.

How hydrangeas didn’t get some mystic lore attached to them is an enduring mystery. This one is tall and fairly glows.

Less beautiful, in a traditional sense, but no less attractive for it, is this water tower I found today. The way this was situated, I think it might have been in service to a private business rather than a community. And, as water towers go, it is fairly small one. It is in the of a small, closed down ice cream facility.

I saw a store, just yesterday, advertising this ice cream brand. Having put these things together, I might stay away from that altogether. I would not want any water that comes from that tower today, but I hope it stands there blazed in deep rich tones of rust, for a long time.

Anyway, I saw that water tower after a left turn on today’s bike ride. I rode 36 miles this afternoon, because my mileage needs to make some big jumps. But the weather was good, the roads were generally in great condition and I saw only two regrettable drivers, despite finding myself on two different busy roads.

Mostly, it was just beautiful agricultural countryside.

I also found myself on a lot of empty roads. On quite a few, in fact, I didn’t encounter any cars at all. Like this one. There’s marsh to the left, a canal on the right, and the river a little farther off. And for the entire seven minutes I was on this road, I was entirely alone.

Later, I found myself on a sleepy road that was covered by a dense tree canopy. That particular bit of road was riddled with potholes. It was just warm enough, and the katydids were singing their late afternoon chorus and some boggy water somewhere nearby was giving off just a hint of a fragrance. It felt almost like being in some of my favorite places back home.

There was another point to today’s ride. I figure I may as well start tracking down the markers. New county, new goals and all of that. I found a site that lists 115 markers in this county, so we will likely be at this for a while. Easy content!

The last two times I did this, I used a separate microsite. It was extra work and never drew a lot of traffic, so I’ll just put them here. And we’ll use a slightly different premise. Previously, it was just the photos. But, as I find interesting information that compliments the markers, I’ll add them here.

So, let’s look at the first two, and perhaps we’ll learn something interesting as we do.

There’s nothing in this patch of grass, nestled in a fork in the road, except this marker and a flagpole that, today, was flying no flag.

I haven’t found a lot, on my first pass, about how many local boys joined the AEF for the Great War, but I did just learn that the home front was mightily changed during that era.

Industry boomed at the DuPont Powder Works once World War I broke out, and Salem County changed forever. DuPont opened the Powder Works at Carneys Point just south of Penns Grove in 1893 to create smokeless gunpowder for the Spanish-American War, but World War I dramatically increased the need for munitions. Workers from around the United States, as well as immigrants from Italy, Russia, Poland, Ireland, Germany, and other countries, flooded into Carneys Point, Penns Grove, and Pennsville to work at DuPont. Between 1910 and 1920, Salem County’s population increased by about ten thousand, compared to a typical increase of one thousand in prior decades. Carneys Point’s population jumped from 744 to 6,259, while neighboring Penns Grove’s population increased from 2,118 to 6,060. During World War I, the plant employed a high of over twenty thousand people. To accommodate the influx of workers, DuPont built temporary housing, barracks, and bungalows, and even put up tents to house the workers. With dramatic increases of students, Penns Grove and Carneys Point expanded and built new schools.

In 1917, DuPont started the Dye Works (renamed Chambers Works in 1945) at Deepwater in Pennsville Township, initially focusing on creating dyes, an industry previously dominated by war-torn Germany. The Chambers Works became a worldwide leader in organic chemicals by discovering and creating materials such as Teflon, nylon, and Freon. DuPont remained a major employer for the rest of the century, with high wages that continued to draw both locals and new residents to Salem County.

I found a museum site that listed 19 men who served in the Army Air Corps in World War II. Perhaps there were more. Surely the other services had local boys amidst their ranks, too. And, owing to the proximity of the coast, and the river, I’m sure I’ll eventually run across some home front defense force mentions, as well.

On the other end of the same road, there was this marker.

In the background, the local high school. This marker is on the high school’s front lawn. I imagine that’s both boring and horrifying to the kids going to school there, if they ever notice it at all. But, perhaps it is also an appropriate place for such a marker.

There’s at least one other Vietnam memorial nearby (at a middle school, which … ) and from that I gather that 11 local soldiers were killed in that country. There’s a Facebook group for that particular display, and someone has uploaded photos of some of those men. But they’re boys. Even in fatigues they look young.

As we go along, and as we discover markers devoted to more specific people and places, our details here will no doubt improve. Possibly as early as next Wednesday! I have already mapped a route for the next dozen or so markers. At this rate I can wrap them all up by sometime in 2025. Unless something else historic happens around here.