julierichmond

I live in Massachusetts and I grew up, mostly, in Jersey. 

But Facebook means that even though it’s been years, I know that Jim is a doctor and just got divorced. Laurie just had a grandchild, Emma is a professor and Allan is killing it in real estate.

Facebook means there is a place where everyone from Mountain Lakes shares memories, obits, updates and asks for help- tracking down an old friend, prayers during a battle with cancer, supporting a business, a page, or a cause. 

This is the thing, and I’m being careful because the reunion is next week, and I love my hometown. I have connected with people on social media who I didn’t know when I saw them every damn day in the hallways at the high school or in the parking lot at Del’s Village.

When people reminisce about Mountain Lakes, many talk about  the town, and their youth, as if it was a spectacular aberration.

Yes, we had parties, and people played guitar. Yes, the parties were really good parties, and the Stanfield’s were the coolest family in the world, they had a fire pit, an open door policy, and their kids were and are some of the best, smartest, funniest, and most amazing people I know, as well as you can know someone years after you shared a beer with them in their backyard.

The football team won all their games. We skated all winter and swam all summer. We went to the Market for sandwiches and Roma for pizza, and the pizza was better than any pizza I’ve had since, including New York. Well, maybe NY pizza was a little bit better, I’m in Massachusetts. I’m deprived.

Mr. Fox was a magical art teacher. I remember what Mrs. Smith taught me in freshman English. Mr. Hoke recited Shakespeare in a baritone that I can still hear. There were bluegrass festivals two towns over, New York City was a bus ride away, I wrote poems on scraps of paper and people read them and said nice things, even though I don’t think they were that good.

I have pictures of me smiling in a black tuxedo and fishnets during something called GAA. a competition between two teams, Blue and the Orange, that happened each spring after months of preparation. Each team would pick a story, and perform it, like a musical with the songs being used as vehicles for different dances and gymnastics. I was excited when I made the the modern dance team, even though I was picked as second substitute. There’s a photo in the yearbook, I had thick thighs and a huge smile. (I didn’t smile between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, or so I’m told, but in that picture, I’m grinning.

Yes, it was a magical wonderful time. But it wasn’t all bonfires and pancake breakfasts.

It was being picked last at gym. Starting to drink beer because it made me a little less shy. Getting crappy grades because I always forgot my textbooks in my rush to be on time to watch General Hospital, bumming cigarettes during lunch, people getting sick of me bumming cigarettes during lunch, getting pinkeye every summer from swimming at Island Beach, not eating much and lying on the floor to put on my jeans because I’d had cereal for breakfast. Smoking pot and feeling dumb. Taking up beer and Marlboro lights with the enthusiasm some reserved for field hockey and making the honor roll. Not ever having a clue about what was coming next or where I wanted to land.

These memories aren’t specific to being a young person in Mountain Lakes. They aren’t specific to being young in the 80’s, young and privileged, young and female.

They are just some of the things I think of when I look back.

For many people, in Mountain Lakes, NJ, and Milton, Massachusetts, our memories are where we like to linger because now is so damned hard.

We tell ourselves and our children about life back then, and it all sounds glorious.

But I’m pretty sure we leave stuff out, or forget the worst. I do.

Because the now, with the sore hip and the Covid, the retirement looming and the dental bills mounting- it’s nice to look back to anything other than what I see in the mirror before I’m ready to look.

I just wanted to say Mountain Lakes was a great place to grow up. So is Milton. So are a million other places.

But, it was’t perfect. For me anyway. I still can’t wait to go back.

It will be nice to walk down the Boulevard and stand on the beach by Birchwood Lake.

It will be good to see people in three dimensions, especially after this past year. It will be nice to look back on all of the hard parts, the stuff I’d never talk about on Facebook, or with anyone. For me, growing up was one quarter bliss and Bruce Springsteen and three quarters braces and diets, wondering what to say next and wishing I’d said something else or nothing at all.

I’m grown, and I’m in pretty good place right now.

It’ll be nice to take a weekend to remember how I got here.