Another World

Ted feeding me in our kitchen at 95 Kearney Street (1957)

The place where I was born is so foreign to me, it may as well have been in another country. My parents left not long after I had completed my first year of life, packed our belongings and moved the family to Colorado.

In late spring of 1982, I ventured to the east coast to visit New Jersey for the first time. Well, not really the first time, but at least the first time that is part of my consciousness. One goal of the trip was to visit my New Jersey relatives in their native state. In the years since we moved away, many of the Thompsons had come to Colorado, one family at a time, to see how we were holding up in the Wild, Wild West. Oddly different from my parents, yet remarkably similar in many ways, they were a boisterous, busy, animated lot. Once I set foot in their home environment, those characteristics seemed even more amplified.

My cousin Sharon--who must have drawn the short straw and was consigned to serving as the living history tour guide for her innocent, naive, wide-eyed country cousin--took me to see where we lived, where I was born, the graves of recent ancestors, and places that I previously considered as nothing more than the subject of my father's embellished stories. The cemetery was beautiful and peaceful, even though it was situated near a busy highway. The Great Falls on the Passaic River were as majestic as I'd always heard, and dad's school (PS#5) was stately and shabby, all at once.

Image courtesy of PatersonHistory.com

I was disappointed to learn that the hospital where I was born, Paterson General, had been razed many years ago. As we whizzed by in her fast, sleek car, Sharon pointed out the hospital's former location to me. On the corner where this lovely old building once stood there was either a gas station or a fast food restaurant (I can't recall now).

Off we went to 95 Kearney Street. Mom would tell everyone that we didn't really live in Paterson, we lived in Totowa Borough, as if that meant anything to outsiders, yet somehow that made our living arrangements sound better to her. Mom hated New Jersey, loved her birthplace - Connecticut - and grew to love her adopted state of Colorado even more.

95 Kearney Street (1982)

The area where we lived had deteriorated since the days when my parents held residence on Kearney Street, where we occupied the top floor of Mr. and Mrs. McNab's home. Sharon pointed out the building, hoping that would be the end of our tour in this particular section of the old neighborhood. But I insisted on having photographic evidence of my visit.

Standing on the sidewalk across from this place--a previously mythical, unseen edifice about which so many stories had been told--I was mesmerized by the notion of ever having lived here. Wanting to capture it on film so mom and dad could see how it looked now, I shuffled to the left, then to the right, in a quest for the perfect angle.

My picture-taking adventure was taking a while and cousin Sharon, perhaps noticing some threat undetected by me, leaned over to the passenger window and issued a calm yet stern order: "Debbie, get in the car. Get...in...the car." I finished my last shot, climbed in the car and off we sped, down the street and 'round the corner to another part of this foreign land.

95 Kearney Street (2012)
Image courtesy of Google Maps: street view

People often ask if I'm a Colorado native. I feel as though I am, but always admit that I was born in New Jersey. Recently one person asked, what possessed me to make such a leap, in location, in altitude, in attitude, in culture? I told her that it happened long before I knew a single thing about where we lived.

How blessed I am for the choice my parents made long ago. Colorado is part of my soul; I never tire of its magnificence and grandeur. And as for New Jersey, I'm so happy to have seen all these places for myself. But to me it will always be another world...