Newark


by Dave Hosseini

 

My grandparents, Harry and Madeline Roelke, lived in Newark when they were first married, but then made their way to Kearny and then North Arlington - both though worked in Newark, and as a kid growing up in the early sixties they made Newark sound like a wonderful place and sometimes I even got to go there with one of them.

After working at Bambergers and Swift Meat , Grandpa worked for Ballantine as a driver; we all looked forward to the Turkey he was given each Thanksgiving, but I looked forward more to the times he would bring the big blue truck with the golden rings onto tiny Shields Place in North Arlington. I was the envy of the neighborhood as he lifted me into the truck and I waved merrily to all as we drove away. I can't remember where we went those few times, but at each stop I was perched at the bar and given a Shirley Temple while grandpa made his delivery - sometimes the bartender gave me boiled eggs and sausage as well.

Grandma worked at Firemen's Insurance as a filer and she really was a lover of Newark. On special days we would catch the bus together on River Road and she would take me to all the places she always talked about 'Bams' , Kresge's , Woolworth's ,Chock Full of Nuts and we would come home with bags of treasures.

When I was about 12 my grandparents took me on a trip to Maryland where Grandpa was from; on the way home for miles and miles away we saw dark black clouds rising form the direction of Newark and found out later the fires were the result of the riots after Martin Luther King died.

The year before, 1967, I had been awakened in the middle of the night because I heard noises coming from our front yard on Northfield Road in Livingston. I looked out the window, it was about three in the morning, and there were what seemed liked hundreds of army troops and equipment all around-they were on their way to the Newark Riots and were taking a break before they got there. I have never forgotten that or how scary it was then -- it seemed like everything was coming apart, and I guess in some ways it was.

Grandpa managed to retire from Ballantine just before they went out of business in 1964 or thereabouts I think, but Grandma kept on working and even after she loved top take the bus `downtown' until one by one all the stores closed down and finally there was not a reason to go.

 


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