Letters to Riverkeeper

 

Dear Hackensack Riverkeeper:

While going through an old back issue of National Geographic, that I missed reading, I came upon the article on the Meadowlands. Having been raised in Secaucus, on Meadow Lane, with the “meadows” as my literal backyard I read the article with much personal interest. It was through the website listed in the article that I found Hackensack Riverkeepers.

 

Although I haven’t seen the river in a long, long time I am grateful that you exist and are bringing the river back. I remember as a small boy in the ‘40’s crabbing with my Father and Grandfather at the end of Farm Road. At that time crabs were still plentiful and a good afternoon’s adventure for a small boy could produce a basket full of blue crabs. The only fish I remember were the killies that were in all the mosquito ditches that crisscrossed the meadows behind our yard. They were the first fish I ever tried to catch with a stick, string and bent pin.

 

The meadows were my playground growing up and I remember hearing from an old man who lived next door that he remembered when the meadows were pastures for cows. In fact our garage was a former barn complete with what had obviously been a hay loft. My Grandfather (born in 1889) told me about picking huckleberries in the meadowlands and climbing a tree to get his bearings to find his way out of the “swamp.” I remember seeing huge tree stumps whenever the meadows burned, which was about every year or so. We lived in a land of sluice boxes and dykes and when either malfunctioned or were breached we had 3-4 feet of water in the back yard. Our own home had a septic system that ran directly into a ditch at the back of our property and thus into the river. We never thought much about it as everyone handled their domestic sewage the same way. The riverbanks were littered with old barges, boats, and anything else that you could throw away. The dumps, which I remember as being at the south end of town not too far from Snake Hill burned incessantly...I can still recall the acrid smell even today. One of my friends family owned a pig farm in town and you could not stand next to Dave without knowing how close he lived to the pigs. The pigs however provided huge piles of manure that were dumped every spring on the “truck farm” across the street from my house - it grew great lettuce and cauliflower. My life long goal, as a kid, was to grow up and work on the farm. When I was 13 in 1953 it was sold and turned into one of the first housing developments in Secaucus. That was the year we moved to the shore and I moved away from the Hackensack River and then away from New Jersey.

 

Anyway, if you took the time to read this - thanks for listening to my remembrances. And thanks for the work you are doing.

 

–      Ron White, Brentwood, TN

 

P.S. The river had its influence on me as I spend most of my working life in the field of conservation so I know the hard work you are doing and appreciate it from both a personal and professional point of view - thanks.