My Life and Dreams

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Another Nice Daydream-2012

Mike mentioned that Kelly sometimes would come over to our house and have breakfast like Pillsbury biscuits before we went to school. This really wasn’t bringing such a memory back to my mind. I wish that it had.

I do remember her and her mom coming over for pizza of Friday night’s sometimes. We would always order it from Venice in Linden.

I’m almost positive that this pizza place is still on Wood Ave. I didn’t notice this the last time that I took the bus to the train station which was only 8 days ago. It seems like even longer ago than this though.

I was having a little daydream about the Wood Avenue of our childhood. I was on a bus ride to downtown Linden in the alien holodeck. I got off by the municipal building and walked around town.

I went into some of the stores that are no longer there like BZ Fashions (where I worked for 4 or 5 months), the Hallmark store (where 2 of Mike’s classmates moms worked), Shor’s Drugstore (where we’d sometimes buy Russell Stover candies at Christmas and Easter time), and CVS in its old location. It might be a $1.00 store now. I also looked in Woolworths (now CVS); both of our grandmothers loved this store.

I had lunch in Gus’s, the small diner next to the theater. I saw a couple of movies for free when my brother worked there in the mid-1980s. They knocked these 2 places down 2 or 3 years ago, maybe even longer. Our former eye doctor’s office was on the same block; it might still even be there.

Further down the avenue is Pulaski’s Deli which has been around for a very long time. I love the smells in there. It was smaller back then. We will actually be going to this place in a couple of weeks to purchase kielbasa, babka, and farmer’s cheese for our Easter meal.

I’m pretty sure that there was an A&P in the spot that CVS once was. Mike would know for sure. There was a children’s clothing store called Raiffe’s (misspell?) and a ladies clothing shop (or was it just nightgowns, undergarments, and housecoats) called Mae Moons. Grandma was an occasional customer there. She might have also been an employee. I should ask my cousin Tony about this.

Mom told me that she had worked in Grants. I thought that it was just Grandma at-the-Farm that did so. They were employed at different locations. I think that Mom said the former was in the Elizabeth store and the latter in the Roselle Shopping Center one, not in Clark as I had always thought had been the case. Maybe my recollection of it being there before Bradlees was is incorrect.

I got to spend a few hours in this holodeck program which was so nice. Well, I don’t really have dreams at night anymore that I remember so I’m letting my imagination take control during the day occasionally to make up for that.