The Way it was Then - Part #6

 

April 13, 1983

They’re Still the “Girls.”

The Girls’ Club.

Sounds like something from a junior high class, doesn’t it?

Maybe it’s peculiar to women, since I seldom hear of men who think of themselves as “boys” (except for the famous “night out with the…”)

But The Girls’ Club is a pleasant memory of mine that dates back to my early teen years, when Mom and a group of her women friends started meeting at one another’s homes for “Club” once a month.

There were eight of them… and their gatherings were strictly for them. Men and children pursued other interests and got out of the way so they could have their social time.

Club night wasn’t anything fancy. Just snacks, maybe a special dessert, a drink or two and coffee. No one really fussed over it.

What they ate didn’t really matter.

It was the chance to get together, away from the pressures of home, husband, kids, work, all the mundane things that went on for twenty-nine or thirty other days of the month.

That one day belonged to them.

My mother was an ardent member of The Girls’ Club. So was her sister, my aunt Mary. All the other women were dear friends, all from the same town, all in the same basic age category … a kind of early support group, before the term was even used.

After Mom died, the group didn’t meet for a long time.

Understandably there was a void there with Mom gone that they would have to overcome before they could get on with their own lives.

But something else may have happened too.

As they grew older, perhaps the pressures lessened somewhat. As their children gained independence, as their husbands’ careers became steadier and more predictable, as they gradually moved from the bottom of their own professions to positions of stability, perhaps they didn‘t need each other as much.

Whatever the reason, the Girls’ Club didn’t meet for many years until two years ago, when one of them remembered the warmth of an evening together and called the others with the “I’ll have Club this Thursday” that usually kicked off the reminder that this was the week.

Something jogged Jean’s memory last week.

Jean Thoms was probably my mother’s closest friend and she is now one of mine. When I talked with her last weekend, she happily announced that she was “having Club” at her house on Thursday.

She said how pleased the girls had been when she called with her invitation. One, she said, cried with happiness at the idea of seeing everyone again.

I was flattered that she had entertained the idea of inviting me to the get-together, but I hastened to agree with her decision not to.

After all, no kids were ever included in the Club nights in the old days.

And my presence, looking for all the world like my mother did when they were all my age, might possibly have made the evening more of a trip down memory lane than it should have been.

So, I sat this Thursday’s Club night out, some twenty miles from the girls, sort of like I had twenty-five years ago when I stayed in my room and listened to the laughter coming from the kitchen.

I sat it out with most of them not even aware that I knew they were together.

They also didn’t know I was remembering the other night so long ago … the way Mom hurried through her workday with a lighter heart than usual because “the girls” were coming over … the way the house had a spit and polish shine on it that was definitely unusual, because “the girls” were coming over … the way Dad and I were on our own for supper so Mom could get ready to go to Rita’s, or Mina’s or Sis’s or Lois’s or Mary Emma’s or Jean’s or Mary’s … the way they thought of each other at the right times, always there to lend a hand when they were needed or to call just when a friendly word counted for a lot.

It was always a big night for Mom … that once a month treat of theirs.

No doubt this meeting was the same for those who stayed behind.

The Way it was then - Part #5

 

April 8, 1983

 One’s born but one dies …

 The thing that struck me most about him was his acute discomfort.

He approached the door of the newspaper office timidly, walked in and stood on the threshold as if uncertain about the kinds of creatures he would face inside.

He wore regular work clothes. There was nothing extraordinarily distinguishing about him. He just looked nervous and uncomfortable.

He’d never done anything like this in his life, he told me as he timidly neared my desk.

He didn’t even know how to go about it … but if I would just bear with him, maybe he could get his story out.

He was just so embarrassed.

He was a driver for the Arnold Baking Company, he said. His truck had broken down up the highway, filled with his day’s delivery of breadstuffs. He’d gladly give our office staff a few loaves for our favorite bread if only someone could lend him eight dollars to catch a bus back to his company to get a substitute truck.

Oh, this was just so embarrassing.

Seeing what might have been a slightly skeptical look on my face, he produced a wad of credit and identification cards. One in particular, an Arnold I.D. card, has his picture on it. He was who he said he was. And he really did need help.

H stood there looking woebegone while I pondered whether or not to help my fellow man in distress and overjoyed when I pulled out my wallet, scrounged out the eight bucks and handed it to him.

He was so grateful.

After all, this had been so embarrassing.

He scurried out the door, promising English muffins as a thank-you when he returned before our office closed at five.

I never saw him again.

In fact, when I called the Arnol Company the next day to inquire about their poor driver with all the truck trouble I found they had never heard of him.

Indeed, someone from Arnold’s called back to warn me that this same man had pulled the same scam on someone in Cherry Hill …  the same story … the same ID cards … the same eight bucks.

Everyone ribbed me about being too trusting.

I got kind advice from the Berlin Police Department clerk when I reported the flim-flam so others could be alerted to the perpetrators’ method.

But no one taught me as valuable a lesson as the con artist himself.

And. Thanks to him, someday, some person who is really in need to will find a deaf ear when he or she approaches me for help. At least when it comes to money, anyway.

That’s really very sad.

We were brought up to believe in the virtue of helping one’s neighbor. One of the greatest commandments given by the Almighty involves the way we should treat our fellow man.

Just try it.

After the incident, I pondered what is was about the whole thing that really stuck in my craw. Was it the money? Or was it the lie? … the deceit … the con?

It really wasn’t the money.

Had the guy come into the office, poured out his heart about being out of work, with sick kids and nowhere else to turn, I probably would have given him the money to help out. At least day before yesterday I might have.

It was the lie … the deliberate resort to fraud to weasel me out of money that is as important to me as to him that really angers me.

It’s probably true that there’s a sucker born every minute.

But yesterday, one sucker died.

And a wiser, more cynical person emerged.

There’s the pity of it all.

The Way it was Then Part #4

 

March 18, 1983

The proverbial silk purse

 The place was an eyesore.

About two city blocks’ worth of crumbling, broken-windowed, dismal, dark and forbidding abandoned structures.

Hardly what you would call an inviting downtown.

Not exactly inspiring to the local citizenry.

Certainly nothing to raise one’s spirits on a drive on Rte. 561, lake or no lake.

In fact, on a moonlit night, with shadows dancing on the waters of Gibbsboro’s Silver Lake, the ghost of a once-prosperous industry on its shores loomed dusky and spookily at the far end.

Local officials nearly despaired of anything coming of it. Some even said … almost hopefully … it might burn down someday.

Enter Roert K. Scarborough.

In a room full of people, Scarborough doesn’t stand out as an extraordinarily commanding personage. He is somewhat slight, distinguishedly gray, dressed well but not so far above everyone else that his station is flaunted.

It’s his eyes that give him away as someone unusual … someone whose imagination is limitless … someone who grasps life and ideas with the kind of dynamism that marks the movers and shakers of the world.

He doesn’t just view the world … he seems literally to pull it in through his eyes, assimilating what he seeks and seeking further.

Scarborough was just what Gibbsboro desperately needed at the time.

And Gibbsboro gave Scarborough another opportunity to leave this mark.

It was a perfect match, yielding the much-heralded Paint Works Corporate Center where once stood a scarred and unsightly ruin.

On Wednesday, the Camden County Economic Development Committee held a small luncheon to salute Robert Scarborough, to publicly recognize what he has done for this end of the county.

Freeholder-Director Joe Roberts point out that Scarborough’s vision will eventually employ far more than the old paint factory and is serving as a much-needed spur to the economic health of the county as a whole.

Gibbsboro Mayor John E. White, one of those who hoped against hope that someone, somehow would rescue his town from the spectre of the Sherwin-Williams plant, was almost speechless with pleasure as he pointed to the rebirth Scarborough’s project has given the tiny municipality.

It was Scarborough’s project manager, Joe Whittaker, who told the story of The Paint Works. Whittaker, taken with the history of John Lucas’s paint factory, has carefully researched the background of the site and has had a hand in its preservation whenever possible. He spoke of the project (as it is casually called by those responsible for it) with warmth and affection. His pride in the product is evident. Rightly so.

The Pain Works is proof positive that something good and productive and worthwhile can be generated from apparent blight.

All it takes is know-how, money and, above all, vision.

Robert Scarborough has all three. Thus, he could embark on so ambitious a project in the midst of what many termed a depression economy. His reputation already established as a brilliant developer whose work is distinctive and classy, Scarborough could afford a project like The Paint Works probably more than just about anyone else.

That he did it … that he looked at that pitiful blight in beautiful, downtown Gibbsboro and saw potential … that is what set Scarborough apart from the usual.

And he isn’t finished yet.

Although the existing buildings are 70% leased and new companies are being signed for the remainder of the space, Scarborough is already envisioning expansion. He has drawings for a bank on the boards … at the corner entrance of his extraordinarily beautiful complex.

He has plans to construct an outstanding restaurant on the shores of Silver Lake … right next to the distinctive red brick chimneys that were part of the original Lucas factory.

He has an option to buy the remaining land from the chimneys to Rte. 561 and he and Whittaker talk with quiet excitement about bringing in more class corporate development along that stretch of quiet, wooded land.

All around us are pieces of evidence that point to the business acumen and foresight of Bob Scarborough.

The Paint Works, though, is especially dramatic.

It is the epitome of the American Dream. It is also the final proof that not all of our proverbs are true.

Thanks to Bob Scarborough, we now know it is possible to make that silk purse out of the sow’s ear.

In the case of The Paint Works, it is also possible to witness the rebirth of an entire town through the vision of one person.

For Gibbsboro, watching its center turn from ugly duckling to gorgeous swan, can hardly lag behind. It must take another look at the stately and beautiful Victorian structures on its streets and make very effort to preserve that quaint charm it possesses. It will play host to people from many walks of life once The Paint Works is fully constructed and employed. The town has already put out the welcome mat for Scarborough and his project … seeing, wisely, that The Paint Works would revitalize the community.

Possibly, there is one ingredient that Gibbsboro had no way of calculating as it speculated on the result of Scarborough’s project.

Pride.

It was there in the voice of Mayor White. It shines on the faces of residents who talk about the new complex in their midst.

It shows in the attitude of the young, who, according to Scarborough, “must hear the right things talked about over the dinner table” because of the enthusiasm they show to the people at the center.

Not every town can have a Robert Scarborough. But every town can do something in its own way to generate the kind of pride Gibbsboro demonstrates.

You know, in some cases, especially with someone like Scarborough, a rapid advancement in cloning would be welcome.

Think what two of him … or three of him … or more would be able to accomplish.

For now, Camden County is grateful for the one it already has.

And Gibbsboro will bear his stamp for the rest of its history.