{"id":173,"date":"2000-01-19T22:39:59","date_gmt":"2000-01-20T02:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/History\/?p=173"},"modified":"2013-09-15T23:38:49","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T03:38:49","slug":"173","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/History\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"Outlaw Maggy"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 19, 2000
\nWednesday<\/strong><\/p>\n

The day I left for New Jersey there was a cartoon in the newspaper that showed a woman sitting in front of her television set. She looked annoyed, and she was saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you know it. The first time I watch the Travel Channel, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re showing a program about New Jersey!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I cut it out for my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Year in the Life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d scrapbook pages, although as I did so I wondered if I really would use it, since I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t particularly like negative stereotypes like that.<\/p>\n

In my experience anyway. New Jersey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so bad. I grew up spending part of every summer at Margate City, the second beach town south of Atlantic City, because my uncle had a house there. In recent years my sister and I took our kids there. Margate has a certain, well, conservative<\/em> quality, but the kids were young and interested mostly in swimming and eating ice cream at every meal. And jazzier Ocean City was just twenty minutes away for typical boardwalk fun.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the beaches necessarily that earned New Jersey its bad joke status. Northern New Jersey is regarded by some as the mud room for New York City and Philadelphia, although in college I knew many cultured young men whose Fortune 500 executive fathers had built impressive estates in the newer suburbs. And, of course, there is Princeton.<\/p>\n

I arrived in Cape May via Mapquest\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0turn-by-turn directions. As I noted yesterday, after the challenge of central Philadelphia, driving through New Jersey was a pleasant task along well-maintained state routes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 42 to 55 to 47 to 9 to 109, all in a straight line south. You know when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve reach the end when you get to the water.<\/p>\n

It would have been possible for me not to move my car the whole weekend, as all of my needs were met within the conference facility. After lunch on Saturday, however, I decided to do some exploring .\u00c2\u00a0I needed one postcard and a few toiletries (I always forget something), and I wanted to find the bed and breakfast where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d stayed one weekend in 1974.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen a shopping center when I turned onto Route 9, so I headed for the little inland town of Rio Grande. Just past the marina at the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Welcome to Cape May\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sign the road splits. I was either not paying attention, or it was poorly marked. I soon found myself not on Route 9 but on a divided highway, the two halves separated by a wide strip planted with (a sign informed me) the lovely sounding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153weeping love grass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As I moved from the access road onto the main thoroughfare, a large billboard proclaimed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Welcome to New Jersey \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Garden State Parkway.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I knew this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Route 9, but I also knew that I was at least going north, and a glance at the map told me that there was an exit up ahead that would connect me with Route 9. And so I drove along, enjoying the weeping love grass and the satisfaction of actually having completed a poem during my morning\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work. At the exit for Route 9 I got off, and found myself approaching a toll booth.<\/p>\n

It should be noted here that I had undertaken this trip directly from lunch, without returning to my room. I was not carrying my regular wallet — only a small case with my hotel key card, my debit card, and a folded twenty dollar bill. In my change tray were a ten dollar bill (set aside for the return trip tolls on the Walt Whitman Bridge and the Pennsylvania Turnpike), two pennies, and a Japanese coin found under the seat of my old car, the gift of a missionary who visited Lynn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Sunday School class and which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d kept as a sort of talisman.<\/p>\n

The charge for my eight miles or so on the Garden State Parkway, WHICH HAD NOT BEEN MARKED \u00e2\u20ac\u0153TOLL ROAD\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/strong> (I cannot stress this enough) was 25 cents. You were supposed to throw a coin (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153EXACT CHANGE ONLY!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/strong>) into a basket, and then wait for the green \u00e2\u20ac\u0153toll paid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d light to signal you through. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If coin misses basket, blow horn,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a sign advised.<\/p>\n

I did not have a quarter. So I blew the horn. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I noticed that the toll booth was shut up tight and deserted, looking not unlike the one Sonny Corleone approaches in The Godfather<\/em>. This, I realized, was an unattended toll booth.<\/p>\n

I thought for a moment that perhaps the toll was not charged in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153off season.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d After all, the traffic lights were on blink in Cape May and the heads of all the parking meters had been removed. As I pondered what to do, a car pulled up behind me. I moved out of the way, and saw the motorist fling his required quarter into the basket. The toll light changed from red to green and flashed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thank you\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he moved through.<\/p>\n

I felt there was no recourse but to proceed through to the other side (there was no gate, nor any other obstruction). The light, of course, stayed red for me. I turned left, onto what I thought was Route 9. Once again, either the road was not marked well, or I was not paying attention (or I was so befuddled and concerned about breaking the law that I was driving blind). And so I found myself again on the Garden State Parkway, still going north.<\/p>\n

I thought perhaps there would be an attendant at the next toll booth. But the scene there was the same. This time I did notice a rack of envelopes beside a lock box. I took one. On the front it was addressed to the New Jersey Highway Authority. The back flap read, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This return envelope is furnished as a convenience to motorists not having change to pay toll. Kindly enclose amount shown at right. Deposit envelopes with payment in receptacle, give to any parkway toll collector, or mail payment within 15 days. Failure to return envelope with proper payment may subject you to a fine of up to $200.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Now you must understand that I am already a scofflaw in New Jersey. I have an unpaid parking fine in Ocean City from August of 1998. I was NOT GUILTY<\/strong> in this instance, but for reasons I shall probably relate at another time, this matter is unresolved. I had entered the state on Friday with some trepidation. Even though I have a different car now, it does bear my vanity plate \u00e2\u20ac\u0153MAGY-MA.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

At this point I had only enough time to get back to the hotel for the start of my afternoon tutorial. So I had no choice but to get off the Parkway at the Burleigh-Whitesboro exit, reenter, and retrace my unpaid-for route back to Cape May. At the last exit I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even slow down. I just drove on through, and heard an alarm sound as I passed the red light.<\/p>\n

I related this tale in my group meeting.\u00c2\u00a0 I found myself sounding just like a regular New Jersey-basher, comparing the place unfavorably with my native Pennsylvania, where you pull a ticket at a toll gate when you get ON<\/strong> the turnpike, which is clearly marked TOLL ROAD<\/strong>, and then at the conclusion of your journey you give your fare to an actual person who can make change, twenty-four hours a day. Some native New Jersians told me that the whole issue of the envelopes and the unattended toll booths is the stuff of many letters to the editor.<\/p>\n

So the task before me now is to square up my 75 cents with the New Jersey Highway authority, and do a search through my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amazing clutter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (what the New Jersey boyfriend who was the subject of a promising poem now in draft termed all my stuff) for that Ocean City material. After all, I want to return for the Eighth Annual Getaway in 2001 with a clear record.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/em>
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\nmargaretdeangelis [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the bracketed parts with @ and a period)<\/em><\/p>\n


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