Into You Like A Train

Laurel Lake is in the pinelands of South Jersey, in Cumberland County, New Jersey, close to Millville, and beside the scenic Maurice River. The lake is man-made, as are all lakes in Southern New Jersey, usually created by damming for the purpose of running mills back in the early days. Originally, it was a summer resort area, but now, and when I lived there, it was more of a low-income housing area, summer cottages adapted for year round use by attaching trailers and adding small wood-frame rooms, garages, sheds and other simple structures. Commercial Township also allows trailers to be placed on lots that are not designated mobile-home parks. There are nice houses on the north side of the lake, but we lived in a green and white trailer on Dandelion Road near Doris Drive, on the southern, poorer side of  Laurel Lake. Still, there were cottages and trailers that served as summer retreats, which when vacant were frequently burglarized. I was guilty of this myself, breaking into...

Sunrise Gardens was the rundown apartment complex where my Dad lived…and died. Click on the link (blue text, which turns red when hovering) below to watch a little music video I made, in honor of my Father. Sunrise Gardens.

My Dad's Buick Roadmaster in front of his apartment. Hard to fathom the darkness into which I have descended. the accumulated grief of years, pent up, your heart implodes. Never letting the tears come. suppressing the sentiments with alcohol. Living numbly, when I used to feel so much. I am still crushed by the death of my father  who expired on the dirty floor of a grease splattered kitchen. in that dusty apartment, the sink and counter filled with dirty dishes, that was more then enough to look at, I couldn't look at the body  which was at the funeral home  almost a week before we could get out there and make the necessary arrangements. then realizing I knew his loneliness and desperation well, all the feelings of loss and grief.  he lost everyone: his father, mother, brother,  then his wife of twenty-some years, that slow smoking suicide, the emphysema, the murder of her son, the slow overdose on her pr...

My Dad. Probably mid to late 1970s. Looks like he's been drinking.  I am quite certain that my Father would still be with us if he hadn't drank as much as he did, given his health issues. He was diabetic, type 2 I believe. He was on medication for it. When I was there going through his personal effects, I noticed an unopened test kit on his dresser. I seemed he had stopped testing his blood sugar levels, while still drinking around twelve Milwaukee's Best Lights a night. When he could afford it. His bank account was usually in the negative at the end of each month. While his wife, my stepmother, Geri was still around she used to remind him to test himself. She died in 2006. I don't know how much he kept up with it after that. Not to mention that he was pretty depressed after that. I remember him speaking of his brother, my Uncle John. He told me that he would sometimes drink a case of beer or so at night, and call my Dad, weeping, talking about his (and their) un...