Life on the Whippany River
The banks of the Whippany River in early 1950s led to the muddiest, laziest, but most sanguine water-river water. I lived a few hundred yards from where it crossed Abbott Avenue under a dingy, white, steel bridge. An ominous huge siren stood high above the street corner on a utility pole at a corner adjacent to the bridge. We always knew when it was noon and five o’clock each day. The siren also told us when and where there were any fire emergencies.
Mepco, a large chemical company, the Green Paper Company, Pearl’s Upholstery, and the back acres of Evergreen Cemetery, where we poached fir branches at Christmas to decorate our doorways, shared the north bank of the river. Dragging over-sized boughs up the bank, across the bridge, and back to the house to be trimmed and nailed up into place, was a holiday ritual that us little kids, those being my cousin Georgie, Boomer, Sammy and me, relished and aalways wanted to be included.
On the south side- our side, were Eastburn Chemicals, the White Feed Company, and a big oil storage site, which was off-limits to us by decree of our older cousins—the big kids. The big kids were my cousins, Genie, Davie and Billie and their friends.
Following the river west bought us to the Consumer Coal Company, one of our favorite travel destinations. Eventually the river flowed past to the esteemed Morristown-Erie railroad roundhouse that housed a powerful, red diesel-electric engine that made its run between Morristown and Whippany with various freight cars attached. Paper, steel piping, coal, and finished goods were among the many products hauled back and forth to loading docks between Morristown and Whippany. It was a very profitable twelve-mile rail stretch in its day.
“Don’t swim in that river, it’s too dirty,” parents warned.
So naturally, every kid made a beeline to it when the weather was with us and proceeded to jump, swim, and wade in the muddy brown water. The heat of summer produced a particular swampy aroma from the water and bugs of every scary shape and species- mosquitoes, dragonflies, horse flies, bees, tormented us!
“OW!” Some bitten kid shrieked. “Rub some mud on it!” Davey yelled. The big kids knew everything.
“Mom wants us home by twelve. We’re gonna go to the pool!” my sister, Mary Ann reminded us. Nobody had a watch. We didn’t need one. The deafening siren soon told us it was noon.
One hot, summer afternoon, my cousins and a neighborhood friend lugged a raft we constructed out of a four-by-eight foot, three-quarter inch thick piece of plywood the day before. The big kids were confident it would be kept buoyant by two automobile inner tubes tied to the bottom of the platform. Engineering and physics may not have been on our side, but God was, and had to be!
“Okay, let’s bring ‘er down!” Davey ordered.
Me, Georgie, Davey, and Frankie, Davie’s best friend, each grabbed a side of the raft and after a little teetering and re-balancing, we were off down the driveway and onto the sidewalk headed to the river.
The trip down the bank to the river was an adventure in itself. Inverted, tube-side up, the raft slid quickly over the brush, down the bank, and into the river followed by four screaming kids yelling at it to stop before it reached the river. With help from a large stubborn sumac tree stump, the runaway raft was halted two feet before the water could take ownership.
“Geez! We almost lost it!” Davy shouted. “We need to put a tow rope on one end so we can pull it back up,” he continued. The big kids knew everything!
Frankie got ‘volunteered’ to pilot our raft on its maiden voyage. Carefully creeping onto the center of the deck, he knelt down then hand paddled out to the center of the river. All looked good! Then, the raft started to rock and sent Frankie, arms flailing, over the side into the water hollering and cussing the whole time.
“Hey! Get me outta here!” Frankie shrieked after regaining his balance.
Davey took off his sneakers, rolled up his pant legs, and waded out to the middle of the river and grabbed Frankie’s arm.
“My mom’s gonna kill me! These are my school pants!”
After Frankie dried himself off as best that he could, he put on his dank, swampy-smelling clothes. We all picked up our stuff and headed home carrying our now river-christened raft with us. We were all making mental notes about improving the raft.
The whole matter was forgotten by dinnertime. Later that summer, our raft made a couple more trips in the river with someone always deliberately trying capsizing it! The plywood eventually ceded to the dankness of the river and I imagine, still lies at the bottom as testament to the brave river raft crew from Abbott Avenue!
