Betty Crocker hates me

When I work on construction projects around the house, I always take off my wedding ring.  My hands usually swell up, and taking it off early beats watching my ring finger turn purple.  Sometimes I don’t put it back on right away, because it takes a day or so for my hands to get back to their normal shape.  And it was sunny out, so my tan line went away.  

That’s the reason Betty Crocker hates me.

It was one of those Sunday afternoons when time doesn’t matter.  My wife and I (did I mention I got married?) stopped at a little country store on the way back to her sister’s place, hoping to find a housewarming gift for her.  We’d just pulled into the gravel parking lot when she got a call from her mom, so I made the whole silent “I’ll-go-in-and-meet-you-in-a-second” gesture while she took the call.  

I’ve been going to Wilbur’s Country Store since I was a kid, but hadn’t been back in over a year.  The creaking wood floor, the penny candy, the housecat in the window next to the space heater with a wire pet fence around it hadn’t changed, but there was one notable difference--Wilbur had been replaced by a woman.  

She was about my age, with long dark hair and an accent that definitely was more “old Jersey” than “New Jersey.”  In the few minutes of small talk as I browsed the well-dusted shelves, we established that she was Wilbur’s daughter, had just moved here, and that she’d been willed the store after his passing.  I offered condolences, she said thank you for my kindness, and told me she was considering staying stateside once her father’s affairs were settled.

It was about this time that I settled on a Betty Crocker cookbook for my sister in law and was walking it to the register.  To be polite, I introduced myself, extending my right hand, while placing the cookbook with my well tanned, non-ring bearing, still slightly swollen left hand on the counter.  

“Hi, I’m Scott.”

“Betty,” she replied.

“Like Betty Crocker?”  I joked, glancing at the cookbook.

“Yes, like Betty Crocker,” she laughed.

“Well then, I should have you autograph this!”

In all fairness, I really was just being polite, so I was surprised to see her open the cookbook and begin to write down her phone number and the words “I hope you...” on the dust jacket.

Just then, the little silver bell above the screen door chimed and my beautiful wife walked in, placing her hand on my shoulder on a familiar gesture while Betty’s face clouded over.  Betty quickly completed the note, closed the book, rang up my purchase, and gave my wife a cold glance as she wished us a “good afternoon.”

It turned out to be a strange housewarming gift.  Imagine my sister-in-law’s face when she opened the cookbook, only to read the inscription:

“I hope you... burn down your kitchen!” --Betty Crocker
908-362-8833

Swartswood: Moving Violations

Clutch in. Gas. Foot off break. Release clutch, increase pressure on gas pedal. Move forward. Increase speed. Punch the clutch, drop into second gear, wind out the engine. Hit third gear, burst forward, and launch all four wheels off the ground. Temporary weightlessness. Gravity held at bay for a fleeting moment before feeling the leaf springs collapse and the skid plate grind against the tar and chip road. You have just gotten your driver’s license, and life in North Jersey is good.

People say you learn by observing the world around you and studying the examples of your elders, but I didn’t see too many adults drift their cars onto two wheels or redline their engines before launching off the town jump. We learned to drive like the Lord of the Flies kids learned to negotiate–in packs and dangerously–then we buckled those self-destructive habits in and took them everywhere.

For years, at least one kid from every local graduating class was lost in a traffic related fatality. My cousin’s best friend was a kid named Shane whose Volkswagen met a gravel truck as he moved to pass another car.  Two of my classmates were obliterated a few years after graduating. We’d always rallied on our way to school; they just didn’t beat the odds that day. We never assumed it could happen to us, and each fatality was a new surprise. It never occurred to us that a car could be dangerous, or that driving safely was a social responsibility.

So, when we left the Swartswood State Park motor pool with a brand new Dodge pickup, the first model released with the premier Magnum engine, our first stop was the town jump.  We returned the truck with a grapefruit-sized dent between the cab and bed, and my vehicle was immediately downgraded to an S-10 with much less power. The little 4-cylinder still had a bubble light on top, so we switched out our safety orange dome with a spare Ranger red one and amused ourselves for an afternoon pulling people over. We’d drive by laughing, watching as nervous looks turned angry, then giving the finger back and continuing with our spree of moving violations.

It wasn’t just kids that disrespected the motor pool. My first week at Swartswood, a middle-aged crew leader left a truck in neutral with both doors open so she could hear the radio while she worked, only to witness the doors get  ripped off as it rolled away backwards hitting trees. A full time maintenance chief began every morning driving wildly across the main lawn, laying on his horn to prevent the Canada geese from settling in. Rangers used their Crown Vics as rolling nap wagons, and every full timer kept either a beer or a bong which they’d “just found in the park” behind their seats. In that respect, we did learn by seeing.  All state vehicles were rolling playgrounds.

Before claiming the keys to my S-10, I claimed the park speed record in the new Dodge. There were other titles to be earned, too: most donuts without hitting another car, best electrical fire caused by rewiring a stereo, and most winch truck rescues required in a given week.  We played hide-a-dent, pinging a truck somewhere and seeing if the fleet manager would notice. Touching a door handle without gloves was never wise.  A dirty windshield was a sign your wiper blades had been removed, and every windshield had deeply grooved arcs scratched in before we learned to check them.  We were kids with no sense of accountability, and it only really hurt when a personal vehicle ghost rolled downhill from the employee parking lot and destroyed tables in the picnic grove.

Our only motivation was not getting caught, so we maintained safety zones where our antics were forbidden. I kept a 5-mile radius around the home of an old farmer who hated me, so I was surprised when I opened and read a letter from Park Superintendent Big Stan stating I was no longer welcome to return for a fifth year at Swartswood.  I wouldn’t debate most of the unproven accusations—before leaving, I’d hidden a large, leaky bag of goose scat in the park office, and had posted a mean-spirited cartoon “summer recap” on the October section of the lunchroom calendar.  There were literally dozens of valid reasons to not rehire me, but the letter claimed that I’d been witnessed driving recklessly past the old farmer’s home on several occasions, and therefore posed a risk to public safety.  I found out shortly after receiving the letter that Big Stan was a close friend of the old farmer’s, and I’d been outmatched by a couple of seasoned North Jersey cronies. 

Big Stan still works for the state in a high ranking position, but the farmer passed away a few summers ago.  He’d been repairing a gate in one of the fields just two miles from his home, when a pair of kids from the next town collided with his old Jeep Cherokee, killing all three instantly.  I still drive past his place from time to time, but now I drive slowly because I want to, not for fear of repercussions.  I’m no longer a reckless kid found guilty of unproven allegations, but realize that even as a careful adult, I can still receive his sentence at any moment.  

Swartswood: Little Green Men

The Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) is a voracious eater. It is a grazing animal which brazenly gathers en masse to do three things: eat, complain, and relieve itself. The Canada Goose is paranoid, convinced there are hungry predators lurking in the tall grass waiting to devour it. Thus, it primarily restricts its movements to manicured lawns and wide open spaces. They honk at each other incessantly, spend the entire day eating and leave prolific amounts of filth in their wake … sort of like the patrons of Swartswood State Park.

Unlike park patrons, the geese leave behind only their scat. These are small, green pellets about the size and shape of a packing peanut. They’re whitish on the ends, consist mostly of digested grass, and change from sticky to dry and brittle as they age. Prior to being a teenage garbage man, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you any of that, but time working for the state has a way of providing interesting life skills.

For each of the four summers spent working at Swartswood, the first day was always the same. We’d gather in the maintenance building lunchroom for an orientation from Doug, the aging park superintendent. Sounding like Bob Newhart, he’d slowly review rules and regulations, procedures and policies, then hand out copies of the State Park Seasonal Employee Handbook, or "Trash-Picker’s Bible." The TPB was our list of do’s and don’t-get-caughts, and contained a special appendix listing hazardous items we were never to touch. Among these were body parts, dead animals, and most importantly, fecal matter. We were never supposed to touch fecal matter, even if it offered us a quarter to rub its feet.

Scat was off-limits to us garbage pickers, and was only to be handled by the maintenance crews. They had fancy latex gloves and carried bleach, and we were glad to let them do it. We watched the maintenance crews pick up after little kids who couldn’t make it from the beach to the bathhouse, and bigger kids who just didn’t want to walk that far. We watched maintenance crews clean unspeakable things out of water fountains after disgruntled campers were told they couldn’t park six Camaros in one camp site. We even watched them repeatedly scrape clean the pit toilet lids after my friend Carl began a "Phantom Dumper" campaign while on daily litter patrol.

All of that changed when the old park super retired at the beginning of my fourth summer, and Big Stan arrived. Noble, honest, physically fit, clever and likeable, fashionable in a well-fitting uniform—none of these terms accurately described the new superintendent. The only thing he was super at was straining the buttons on his brown state-issue uniform. To our horror, his first act of duty was to wage war on the geese, enlisting our garbage picker crews as his foot soldiers.

Big Stan’s war on the geese began after putting himself in the shoes of the average park visitor, and finding the soles of those shoes covered in poo. He knew that when a guest arrived for a day at the beach, that patron would first pay an entry fee at the gate house, then drive their IROC-Z through a large open lawn often filled with geese. They would park on the acres of hot asphalt, and upon approaching the bathhouse, realize their way was blocked by an army of little green men. Lot, lawn, and beach–even the concrete area under the bathhouse breezeway–it was all occupied territory.

We quickly learned that while our handbook specifically forbid our crews from coming into contact with fecal matter, in Big Stan’s eyes, the geese were chronic litterbugs and not just poorly housetrained. "Stay out of this, kid," he said, pushing me and my copy of the handbook aside, "You’ll pick it up, or you’ll be out of a job." So we picked it up. We used snow shovels and filled garbage bags. We used little brooms and tip-over dust pans. We used long aluminum pickers, and we used our imaginations to make games out of it.

"Hey! These little green men are having a picnic..." as we stacked them in neat piles on each long wooden picnic table. "Check out how many little green men are on the roof of the bathhouse..." as we launched them by the dozen onto the brand-new facility. "Little green men sure like the beach..." as we buried them in shallow graves. With our snow shovels, we excavated quick holes where footpaths ended at the beach, then backfilled them with poo before covering them with a thin layer of sand. It wasn’t really fair to those who got green ankles, but Big Stan had said "pick it up" and never specified where to put it down.

Little green men began to appear everywhere. They liked to play in the water fountains, hide in park vehicle glove boxes, and even in the lunchroom microwave. We played spirited games of lacrosse using our little brooms as sticks. We played baseball, using our pickers as bats. Bags of them made fabulous parting gifts, as Big Stan would learn later that year.

Big Stan’s thank you note arrived on October 7^th, exactly 5 days after discovering my other going away present. I had returned to Meraki College at the end of August, but before leaving, had posted a small pencil drawing commemorating him as the new park superintendent. It depicted a balding man with bulging buttons and a name tag that read "S. EMMETS" storming the beach, ordering his troops to "Pick up those feces...er...I mean, that LITTER!" while trash pickers threw gobs of the stuff in the background, and it had been carefully glued to the October section of the lunchroom calendar by a pair of little green men.
　
　

　
　
　
　
　

Swartswood: The Inappropriate Name Tag

Nicknames have always been a part of my world, and I’ve long been fascinated by the way they are ascribed to a person.  By age 12, the funniest nickname I knew was for an older kid named Thomas, whom my cousin had dubbed “Scro-Tom,” thus ruining the name for me from that day on.  By 13, I was aware that some friends no longer expected to hear their given names from anyone but parents and teachers.  Spaz.  Helmet.  Spock.  Moo.  Whether you had a nervous twitch, anchorman hair, anchorman hair with big ears, or were a developing girl raised on a dairy farm, there was little a person could do to reclaim their given name.  They had been labeled, and like it or not, labels are sticky and sometimes take years to wear off.  To this day I still answer “fine, and yours?” when someone asks, “Hey, Orphan, how was your weekend?”

At Swartswood, my favorite nickname was a sleeper, assigned to Craig Litts at birth, and awakening the first day I saw his name tag.  The thick plastic name tags distributed by the Park Service were a signal to the public that if they had a question, you could help.  They were bright red with engraved white letters, and displayed the first letter of a person’s first name followed by the full last name of the wearer. 

Mine would have read “S. WHEELING,” but only employees who were expected to interact with the public were required to display theirs above their left breast pocket.  Since I was expected to interact with the public’s discarded picnic leftovers, I was exempt, but Craig Litts was a Junior Ranger.  He spoke to the public every day, which is why every day he pinned a piece of thick plastic with “that word” on his shirt and hoped no one would notice. 

We noticed.  EVERYONE noticed.  With most nicknames, once we got over the initial laughter, life would go on and we’d go on with it.  But Craig’s name was a gift, because while WE had long since gotten used to it, HE met new people every day.  Each day while roaming the park with our garbage bags, we might see the eyes of another sweaty patron widen a little before stifling a laugh and nudging his wife, who would blush and pretend to cough.

The next summer, Craig didn’t return to his seasonal post as a Junior Ranger.  One of my friends heard a rumor that he’d taken a job at the Shop-Rite, where people called him Litts-terine.  The name tags at Shop Rite only displayed the employee’s first name, so Craig accepted the new title cheerfully enough.  He had started the mouthwash habit while working closely with the public at Swartswood, so nobody would have an excuse to pick on him for having bad breath.

Swartswood: Roadside

People in North Jersey will throw anything out their car windows. As a teenage garbage man, I’d pick up empty Snapple bottles and their "clicker caps," sandwich wrappers, potato chip bags, and a remarkable number of domestic beer cans. Sober driving was viewed a little like celibacy in our neck of the woods—one way to get you to your destination, but certainly not the only way.

Once a week, I’d don an orange safety vest and start walking. If I didn’t want to wear the vest, I could choose from several clothing options abandoned along the shoulder. Socks and shoes, farm and feed hats, dirty black t-shirts with heavy metal silkscreening–on roadside day, I could usually find enough stray clothing be considered well-dressed at any North Jersey social, as long as I took off the orange vest first. If it wasn’t food, it was clothes, if it wasn’t clothes, it was porn, if it wasn’t porn, it had been used to wipe a body part. Everything got thrown out the window next to Swartswood.

Then there was the day we found the baby.

My second year at Swartswood, my childhood friend Carl and I were assigned to the same crew, which lasted for exactly one week. Compared to me, Carl was an inch shorter, 10 pounds lighter, and five times smarter. He only looked and sounded like an idiot, which always left people surprised after he’d taken advantage of them. I could only look smart, so the two of us made a pretty good team keeping people on their toes.

Our supervisor that year was a domineering first year coed who’d done her part perpetuating the stereotype of the "freshman 15." Carl immediately dubbed her "Fat Jen," and we were officially off on the wrong foot. We mocked her openly, unmindful we were perpetuating stereotypes of our own, until she’d snap, making us laugh even harder.

The morning we found the baby, Fat Jen had already had enough. After being locked inside our truck with one of Carl’s "silent but deadlies," she’d taken the keys and walked north, while we took her dignity and headed south. It was a humid morning, already topping 85 degrees as we approached our 10 o’clock state-sanctioned break. As we walked along, I picked up a dirty diaper, and we threw it back and forth every few steps until bagging it. Carl found a pair of women’s sunglasses and asked if I wanted to give them to my (dead) mother on her next birthday. I found an empty fifth of Wild Turkey, and said his alcoholic and abusive father must be passed out nearby. Life was good, a literal walk in the park.

I’m not sure about a few things in life.  I don't know why people willingly smoke, don't know why people can't put down their smartphones in restaurants, and I don’t know why someone would toss a perfectly good Butterball turkey out their car window. Had it been mouthing off, or had it threatened to vote Democratic in the next election? I’m also not sure what made us think that what we did next was a good idea. I am sure of one thing, though—when life gives you a frozen turkey, you take the filthy diaper out of your garbage bag and pretend it’s a baby to make your boss cry.

Tucked down low in the roadside weeds and freed from its plastic wrapping, the little diapered Butterball really did look like a baby. We worked up some fake tears, and the next moments confirmed two of life’s irrevocable truths: if something is said sincerely enough, people will believe anything, and some offenses are really hard to forgive. I also know now what I suspected then–that I should have stopped the joke before the Rangers arrived. Sometimes a joke goes too far and can’t be taken back.

Carl and I weren’t allowed to work together after that, but that didn’t stop us from being a nuisance, or switching crews when the opportunity allowed. The turkey-baby was given a proper burial in the sand of the public beach. Fat Jen even delivered part of the eulogy, displaying a surprising degree of self-depricating humor I hadn’t expected. Soon after, she became "Big Jen," and we traded insults every day. She even set me up with a friend of hers who was way out of my league, then laughed when I tried to get a second date.

By the time "just plain" Jen gave me a mothers day card which said "HA HA HA" inside it at the end of the summer, I knew our friendship had arrived.