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8) The Towns Around Asbury Closing Notes
Anyone from Asbury Park can be said to also be from the towns around Asbury. Likewise, anyone from Allenhurst, Interlaken, Deal, Wanamassa, or the other neighboring places, can claim "spiritual citizenship" in each of these locales. Truly, each is a like different (and differently furnished) room of a single house.
Allenhurst (Colies Avenue) Bridge. I always find it amusing when I go to mail a letter at the Allenhurst Post Office and see the letterbox that is labeled "Out of Town." I have to think twice before I drop my local mail in, because to me "out of town" means distant, far away. Actually, what it means is that this box is for all mail not going to Allenhurst. It's funny to think of Loch Arbour or Interlaken or Deal as "out of town."
Monmouth Road, West Allenhurst
Our towns have the small precision of a Japanese miniature, say, a netsuke bottle or a bonsai tree. There's an intimacy about them and the arrangement of their elements. These places (this place) have (has) always haunted me poetically (though you wouldn't know it from this sentence). Did I ever tell you that fairies and sprites live in certain coves of Deal Lake? Yes, indeed! I have seen them, in fact. Nymphs, Naiads and Sirens too! People don't believe me but I swear that it's true.
On the banks of Edgemere Drive, West Allenhurst There are other towns I could have mentioned (though they are not on Deal Lake). Someday I might cover Elberon, a wonderfully old-fashioned locale that borders Deal on the north (were President Garfield spent his final days, looking out to sea). Several old mansions in a rustic setting, a fantastic church and a quaint little town square with firehouse library and train station typify Elberon. A walk through the town square on a hot summer day always makes me feel like Gary Cooper in High Noon because of its sparse "Old West" feeling.
Elberon President Garfield died in Elberon. A special temporary train track was laid from the RR Station to president's house on the shore so that the ailing Garfield could be comfortably transported.
The last days of Garfield, in Elberon.
And there is West Long Branch, of course, with Monmouth University, an institution that showcases the great summer mansion of President Woodrew Wilson (rebuilt in 1929) and the Murry Guggenheim "cottage." Long Branch proper, of course, could be the subject on an entire book, having been the Summer White House for at least seven presidents (and hangout for Diamond Jim Brady). Spring Lake, a few miles south of Asbury Park, is one of the most beautiful, charming and well-kept towns in New Jersey. This is another town on my list. One of the great things about our area of the Jersey Shore is that most of our little towns have natural boundaries. Little lakes separate them. Fletcher Lake divides Ocean Grove from Bradley Beach. Sylvan Lake separates Bradley Beach from Avon-By-The-Sea. The Shark River Inlet splits Avon from Belmar; Lake Como from the town of Spring Lake... These are delightful, jewel-like bodies of water that define where you are. When visiting other places, away from our area, I often find myself disoriented by the lack of obvious or natural definitions between places. A basic existential fact is missing from the world and I don't quite believe I am where they say I am. This is what I call profane. The Profane flattens definitions, makes no distinction between time and place. There are no "bathrooms" in a profane world. Just "go" where you like; do what you like whenever and wherever you want. The Sacred, on the other hand, builds towers, defines worlds and you always know just where you stand. This is my idea of home.
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