The Morgantowner: Camden County, New Jersey

I had planned to leave town for four days after the election to visit Camden County, New Jersey, almost three hundred miles from Morgantown on old Mapquest, where you could choose between "shortest" and "fastest" routes. The short way was under 300 miles; the fast way, 311 miles. Old Mapquest is gone now, so, under new rules, it's too far for me to visit.

The news Wednesday morning was awful, especially that in all counties in West Virginia, including Monongalia, the majority voted for the Republican candidate for President. My visit out-of-state seemed more important than before. I was afraid of what I might say to people around here.

I booked a cheap motel, part of my usual chain, in Bellmawr, a suburb right off the New Jersey Turnpike, at exit 3. If you look for motels in Camden, they will first show you downtown Philadelphia, just across the Delaware River from downtown Camden. I spent less for four nights in the 'burbs than I would have on one night in downtown Philadelphia.

I usually look for ten historic places per day, so twenty on this trip. But since many of them were within a few blocks in downtown Camden, I thought I would up the ante and look for a total of thirty places. There are 93 historic places on the National Register in Camden County.

I arrived late afternoon Wednesday, checked in and napped, then went out to a diner just up the road from the motel. It had been raining and cold most of the day. I was not sure this whole thing was going to work out. But the diner was one of those aluminum and faux wood paneling places with dinner specials for $10.99 including soup or salad, and dessert. The waitress, skinny, blonde and tattooed, asked me how I was doing. I could barely speak, but I finally said "I'm not doing that well." She was sympathetic. The food was plentiful, but just okay. Still, I started to feel at home. The diner was crowded and noisy, and just seemed so...urban, I guess. I started to relax.

And I guess that is the theme of this trip- being more relaxed. There are more than two hundred thousand people in a relatively small area, with Camden city, and boroughs and townships ranging from poor to well-off. There are synagogues of all stripes in Cherry Hill, a vibrant Puerto Rican commercial district on the east side of Camden, malls, restaurants, friendly people. Many of the people are Jewish, Italian, African-American, Puerto Rican. There is a gay community. The county mostly voted Democratic in the election Tuesday.

The City of Camden is in the northwestern part of the county, which has an oblong shape running northwest to southeast to close to the ocean near Atlantic City. I spent Thursday moving from the south end of the county to the north, running through my list of historic places. Unlike Philadelphia, which was a big city at the time of the American Revolution, southern New Jersey was rural. There weren't major places like Independence Hall or the Liberty Bell. There were some nineteenth century towns in the south, with a few older farmhouses mixed in. In the farther-out towns (boroughs in New Jersey) I saw a few Trump signs around. The weather both days was sunny and breezy, with a high in the 50s Thursday to about 60 Friday. The autumn leaves were near their peak.

Haddonfield is the one late 18th century town in the county. I saw an independent bookstore , and a little café, and thought about stopping. I took one picture, and went on. It all looked a little too precious for my taste.

Just north of there is Cherry Hill township, a giant mid-century suburb, like where I grew up in northwest Baltimore County, only much bigger and better. I stopped for lunch at Wegman's, the best grocery store in the country, jammed with people eating from the $9.99 per pound buffet. I had finally gone native. From there, I headed to Collingswood, an early twentieth century borough, close in to Camden, with row houses, larger frame houses, and an old-fashioned shopping street now filled with trendy stores (gourmet pastries, anyone?). At that point, it was three P.M., and I headed back to the motel for a nap. Unfortunately the hotel is on a major truck route connecting the New Jersey Turnpike to parallel Interstate 295, I didn't get a lot of sleep.

Once I was fully awake, I went looking for a mall I had seen in the morning, figuring to eat at the food court. I managed to get to Voorhees Town Center, south of the turnpike, not too far from where I stayed. This was one of those slowly dying malls, with lots of empty space. They have a Macy's and Boscovs, a more local department store. I walked around the mall; I can't remember what I ate there. I found a Camden County office, still open, with people waiting for some kind of interview, and the person in charge gave me a detailed street map of the county. This should have helped me more than it did. I got out of the mall on the wrong street, and wandered around for about an hour before finding my way back to my motel. Since the hotel had a minimal continental breakfast, I stopped at a supermarket, and bought two cartons of yogurt, two pieces of fruit and two bagels, real northeastern bagels, one of each for a late snack and one for breakfast Friday.

I told someone in my OLLI class about going to Camden after the election. The woman was from Philadelphia, and told me not to get out of my car in Camden because it was so dangerous. Having lived in downtown Baltimore, in central Los Angeles, in Miami and New Orleans, I brushed her off.

South Broadway in Camden, where there was once a commercial district, does look terrible. There are some great old buildings, but empty lots and vacant houses and storefronts are ubiquitous. The population is mostly African-American. I wondered about all the coming coddling of white working class people due to the Republican victory, and wondered why the people here have been neglected, and I wonder still who will look out for them in the next four years. Farther downtown, Market Street runs about a mile from City Hall to the Delaware River, directly across from booming downtown Philadelphia. At the waterfront is an aquarium, mobbed with people on this Veteran's Day holiday, with kids out of school. There is also a campus of Rutgers University. I found the Walt Whitman House, a museum, closed for the holiday. There are some streets where trees have been planted and houses fixed up- modest row houses like one might see in Baltimore. I drove to the north end of town, where there was supposed to be a historic ship, which I couldn't find, and to the east end of town, predominantly Puerto Rican, with more people and little shops.

There is a bridge over a creek at theeast end of town, and suddenly I was in Merchantville, a beautiful leafy suburb with grand old houses, and a small commercial district. It was lunchtime, so I stopped at a little Japanese restaurant, and had a yummy plate of hibachi chicken, rice and vegetables. Four people worked there: the sushi chef, who was Chinese, as was the woman out front. I suppose there was a cook, and a burly, bearded guy doing deliveries. An HYM sat at the counter near me (Handsome Young Man, not that I noticed). The workers knew him, as well as some of the people who came in for carry-out. They included me in the conversation, which surprised me. People in West Virginia often won't talk to you unless your grandmother and theirs went to school together.

I found one last historic place in Pennsauken, the township on the Delaware at the north end of the county. It was only 2:30. I couldn't get on the road I wanted because of a complicated interchange, but I stopped for gas, looked at the map, and figured it all out. The guy at the gas station was a Sikh. He pumped the gas for me, as self-service is illegal in New Jersey.

I needed to replace the corduroy sport coat I brought with me for Friday night services, because, after five, maybe six years, it looked shabby. I headed to Cherry Hill Mall. I was with the people of the area. What does everyone do on a sunny warm (for November) holiday afternoon, a national holiday in commemoration of the sacrifices of our veterans? Right. They go shopping. Mobs of people looking for bargains in the first sale day of the holiday season. It's a lovely mall, anchored by J.C. Penney, Macy's and Nordstrom. The crowd was wildly eclectic, from tattooed gangsters to thin stylish matrons, hip-hop types, kids, bunches of teens, all races and ethnicities, everyone out for a good time. I tried to find a jacket at Penney's, at Macy's, at Nordstrom, Hugo Boss, Armani Exchange. I felt rich at Nordstrom, but not rich enough to buy their on-sale store brand plain blazer for $295.00. Nothing fir me at Armani and Hugo Boss- they design for tall skinny men- I knew that going in. I finally bought a $200 corduroy jacket, similar to the one i have, on sale for $49.99 at Penney's.

It was already 4 P.M., so I hurried back about ten miles to the motel to sleep a little. It was my intent to go to the 7:30 "Kristallnacht" shabbat service at Temple Emanuel in Cherry Hill. I skipped dinner and found the temple at about 7, giving me time to rush out for "dinner." That turned out to be a bagel with light cream cheese from Dunkin' Donuts, which I ate in the car just before services started.

They have a beautiful 1960ish modern sanctuary, not fancy, but well done. Maybe seventy-five people, mostly older, came. They have two rabbis, a cantor and an accompanist. Only one rabbi was there, and the accompanist played an electric keyboard and sang. Most of the service was English. The rabbi opened with something non-partisan about the frustration of the election and how some were happy some not (mostly not, from what I could see there) and how we all need to come together. They called up all the veterans for a special blessing. The youngest was probably 70, a Viet Nam veteran, most were older. Young Jewish men do not go in the Armed Forces since the draft ended.
In remembrance of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when Jewish businesses were attacked throughout Germany, a local Holocaust survivor, Ernest Kaufman, spoke. Although he is 96 years old, he spoke clearly and stood straight, as he told us a piece of his story. It is humbling to hear what people like him saw and lived through, how they were the only ones to survive, the great strength, luck and optimistic attitude needed to pick up, start over and not be bitter. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought about the Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klanners who have been emboldened by the Republican presidential campaign and the election. results I was thinking about how bad things might get here, how Germans in the early 1930s could not imagine the horrors that later occurred. Looking back, we can see how things happened, and how it could happen here after all.

A woman greeted me when I came in to the synagogue, and handed me a program and some flyers, but before and after services no one spoke to me. That wouldn't happen at our Tree of Life Congregation.After services I ate a chocolate rugallah and some fruit at the oneg, had a cup of decaf and took my evening meal pills. I chatted up the accompanist, complimenting him on his singing. He's a tall skinny guy, sixty-one, he said. He is bald with a shaved head and lives in Philadelphia, in Society Hill, the good downtown neighborhood. The rabbi saw us talking and came over to greet me. I told him I was the "rebbitzin" (rabbi's wife) in Morgantown, and how I came to be in Cherry Hill, and at that congregation. I also spoke to the Mr. Kaufman, who told me about joining the US Armed Forces and working as a translator for political prisoners during World War II. He was a poultry farmer in southern New Jersey after the war.

I got back to the hotel about 10 and crashed. Saturday I was back on the road, this time starting from downtown Camden about 10 A.M., paying the $21 toll on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, arriving home about 4 P.M.

I loved being in an ethnically diverse, urban-suburban, friendly community. If I sound like Morgantown is not that, well, it's not. I'm bitter and sorrowful about the election, worried about being gay and Jewish in this outpost. Strategically, there are people here who want to make at least Morgantown a progressive place, if not the rest of West Virginia. For the short term, that is a goal worth fighting for.