The Oddfather

I’ve come to the realization that absolutely nobody in north Jersey knows how to drive.  I’ve determined that every single person behind the wheel is on drugs.  The speed limit seems to be just a suggestion, the police are the worst offenders, and I’ve now gotten the finger five times from people so old they should be decaying by now.

I got up early this morning because I had had a particularly odd dream in which Ed had been mauled by a bear, and upon confirmation that this hadn’t, in fact, happened, set off for my first destination of the day--Clinton Road in Passaic County.  I was excited about this because a whole slew of terrible and shady things allegedly happen on it, not the least of which was a regular assembly of Satan worshippers, KKK meetings, and more than a few murders.  There were also rumors of witches covens, roaming packs of wild animals, mysterious chanting, Voodoo symbols carved into the rocks, and the ghost of a floating dog.  There are also some rumors that if you turn your car off on the road, it won’t start again, and that driving down the road will make you supernaturally nauseas.  Oh, boy!

Clinton Road is right off of Route 23, and it started being a problem right away in that the ramp was closed.  Of course, the GPS didn’t know the ramp was closed and kept trying to make me go there anyway.  Almost in tears, I drove around a residential area for 20 minutes until I saw an old biddy walking her dog.  I pulled over; old biddies know everything.

The old biddy told me that I was actually only a few miles from Clinton Road and that it was “that way.”  I thanked her and told her that I was on an Odyssey of Weirdness.

BIDDY:  Oh, there’s lots of scary stuff about Clinton Road!  There are a lot of murders!

ME:  A lot?  How many is “a lot?”

BIDDY:  Oh, I don’t know…dozens.  There are also some haunted rocks and a haunted stone fence.  Beautiful scenery, though.

ME:  Did you ever hear any chanting?  Or see any Satan worshippers or KKK members?

BIDDY:  I’ve heard funny noises near the bridge.

ME:  Cool!

I drove off to where she had directed—there it was!  All excited, I slowed down and got the camera ready to see some weird (possibly evil!) things.  The very first thing I spotted appeared to be…the suspicious Voodoo carvings!

So, it's..."8/18/64" and what appears to be the name “NED.”  Well, if it was supposed to be Voodoo, it was very boring Voodoo, and I doubt it seriously jeopardized the soul of Ned, whoever he is.  However, right by the carvings was a very pretty creek (which my mom always pronounced “crick,” sending me into fits of apoplexy):

 I spotted some other obviously non-Voodoo-related graffiti about fifty feet later, commemorating the eternal burning love of Jim and Steph, who (I like to think with my cynical mind) have probably broken up by now anyway:

  

A bit further on, I saw what had to be the haunted stone fence:

 Nothing scary or even unusual was happening near it, but it was pretty. 

Just as I was about to give up on experiencing any weirdness on Clinton Road, I saw this sign, tacked onto a tree on the side of the road:

Really?  Is that really a big problem in the woods of Passaic County?  Is there a secret Al-Qaeda cabal or home-grown terrorist cell located somewhere among the Satanists and the Klansmen that I don't know about?  Is this something I should worry about?  I would have certainly reported any terrorism if I had suspected it, but in the half an hour I spent on the road I didn't even see any other human beings.

 Obviously, I had turned off my car at all of these places, and it had no problem starting up again (I would think that if that particular rumor were true, it would be very inconvenient for the people who actually live on the road).  However, I could easily see how people would be nauseas, though it was hardly supernatural—if you’re prone to carsickness, you don’t want to be driving on any mountain road.

I stopped several times with the window open to listen for the chanting (whether of the Satan worshippers or the KKK wasn’t made clear), but the only thing I could hear was the sound of the creek and what sounded like an owl.  Bummer.

  

So, again, something supposedly ridiculously haunted proved to be a disappointment on the supernatural end, but a satisfying photographic experience.  Not a bad morning, all considered.

 As I tooled my way back down Route 23, I was treated to this amusing roadside sign at a self-storage facility:

Isn’t that cute?  With the little play on the word “space” and the rocket?  I thought so, too.

  

Due to some last-minute Odyssey flight plan re-arranging, I found myself with some extra time to kill in Passaic County, so I decided to try to find the supposedly palatial estate of Richie “The Boot” Boiardo, one of New Jersey’s lesser-known Mafia dons.  Richie had risen to the higher ranks of the mob during Prohibition, and had palled around with such reputable characters as Lucky Luciano and Abner Zwillman.  Although Richie passed away years ago at age 93, the estate still remains.

The grounds, which are located in the upscale Rainbow Ridge section of Livingston, is rumored to not only have statues on the graves of various people who…um…”disagreed” with Richie, but in fact has its own crematorium.  Well, I wasn’t about to miss this.

The Rainbow Ridge development was very easy to find, and the Boiardo home was very prominently displayed.  Here are the front gates, with his name right on them and everything:

 However, as I was putting the car in reverse to go through the gates and trespass on a Mafia kingpin’s property, a…”landscaper” in a white 4x4 appeared, seemingly out of nowhere:

THUG:  What are you doing?

ME:  (Oh, God, please don’t let him break my legs)  I’m…lost.

THUG:  What are you looking for?

ME:  (Or dislocate my shoulders)  I…er…Route 287.

THUG:  (points)  That way.

ME:  (Or shatter my kneecaps)  Uh…okay…thanks.

As Ed would say, I left a vapor trail out of the place.  The truly ironic thing was that at the precise moment this was going on, I was actually engaged in a lively and informative conversation with Ed on the phone about the process of putting someone under arrest.  Still, if I was going to be whacked, I would rather it be while I was on the phone with a former policeman than anyone else.

As I was speeding away from the Boiardo compound, I suddenly saw…this:

 Now, the Rainbow Ridge area is very clearly an Italian neighborhood, as pretty much all of the mailboxes have names on them which end with vowels (not to mention capo di tutti capi over there), so I couldn’t understand why on earth any of them would want lawn statues of a Mexican boy with his burro.  There were absolutely no other decorations on the lawn, and the fact that the supposedly “Mexican” child is in such bad need of a paint job that he looks only slightly darker than the alleged albino cannibals from last night makes the whole thing even stupider.

I checked the map and discovered I was only half a mile away from The Brau Kettle in Sandyston in Sussex County.  The Brau (German for “brew”) Kettle is…well, it’s a hole. 

The main reason I went to see the hole is because of a joke my father and I have.  When he was serving in the Navy from 1950-1954, he was stationed in, consecutively, Bermuda, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Casablanca.  My mom and I used to refer to his tour of duty as his “four-year pleasure cruise,” since people now spend thousands of dollars to go to places that the Navy paid him to go.  Because he was in the Seabees (construction and engineering), all he did was build things, and often had to wait for weeks for the building supplies to come—which he spend messing around on the beach with his best friend, Jack.  In any case, whenever Mom and I would mention this, Dad would just say, “It’s a hole.”  Eventually, we all began to refer to every supposedly beautiful and exotic location as “a hole,” and, in fact, whenever I go on vacation I send postcards back home saying nothing but, “You were right.  It’s a hole.”

In any case, this particular hole was supposedly the site of many mysterious disappearances.  No one had been murdered or had died there—people just disappeared.  No one knows whether they were pulled into the sucking vortex of the hole or were set upon by albino cannibals or what, but apparently, several people had journeyed there who had never come back!  *Ominous music*

The hole was on Old Mine Road, which is so steep that I had the gas pedal floored and was still only going about 30, and it felt like I was dragging a body.  I managed to find the hole relatively easily, though in the process I found out that my Saturn isn’t really, made for off-roading.  Here is the hole in question:

I stared at it a few minutes…nothing happened.  The longer I stared at it, the longer nothing happened.  Sort of let down, I took pictures of this waterfall and this stream which were on the other side of the road from the hole:

So, aside from almost ending up in cement shoes at the Boiardo family home, it was actually a pretty uneventful day for weirdness.  However, as Scarlett said, tomorrow is another day.

Also, this:

I would walk by the Stop & Shop,

Then I'd drive by the Stop & Shop

And I liked that much better than walking by the Stop & Shop

I had the radio on.

Odyssey out.