Greed

Locust Ave dead-ended at the chain link fence which separated Eatontown, New Jersey from the sprawling Ft. Monmouth, home of the Signal Corps, and temporary abode of one Joe Valachi, whom the US government thought it prudent to protect while he “spilled his guts” about organized crime.

I grew up on Locust Ave. across the street from my childhood friend, Ted Lewis. We attended school together, played on the church Little League team together, and flew model airplanes together.

Ted had gotten his model plane by saving hundreds of stickers from cigarette packs. His father and , I guess all his father's friends smoked cigarettes-who didn't? They gave the prize stickers from their packs to Ted, who eventually had enough to send for the flying model.

The best place to fly a model plane happened to be on the other side of that chain link fence, where the fort's athletic fields stood. Neither Ted nor I felt like walking several miles to the nearest gate to try and talk our way into the fort property, so we did the next best thing. We dug a tunnel under the fence, crawled through it, and spent many an afternoon flying planes around and around in circles, until the Military Police came by to roust us out of the place. They just drove up and glared at us til we packed up the planes and equipment and then crawled back through the tunnel to Locust Ave. Funny that they never filled in the tunnel. We just kept coming back to fly, and get rousted by the MPs for the entire summer, till we had to go back to school. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about greed.

Eatontown in those days was a backwater town with 1 police car, and hardly any crime. A few little stores stood downtown. Nothing much happened. If you wanted to do any “shopping”, that is, beyond picking up a few items, then you drove to either Long Branch or Red Bank, comparative thriving shopping hubs. If I wanted to go see a movie, I had to take the bus to the Strand or Paramount movie theatres in Long Branch. The only model car store, Bob Peru's Hobby Headquarters, was in Red Bank.

You get the idea. Eatontown had nothing, except soldiers who always walked in step-habit no doubt, and went to the dry cleaner or smoke shop, or sub shop, for rhe 50 cent submarine sandwich. Then one day...

The Atlantic Superama opened, on a piece of land next to the railroad tracks in New Shrewsbury, just on the Northern border of Eatontown, within walking distance.

The Superama had everything from food, to clothing, to records, to toys, to guns. I mean EVERYTHING!

To celebrate the opening of this Garden of Commercial Eden, the Superama folks sponsored a day of festivities, with rides, circus acts, a battle of the bands, free food, and prize drawings. Ted's father, Ted Senior, drove us there in his 50 Lincoln, a tank of a car. We got in the free food line for burgers and fries and coke. We walked around the giant store, looking at the bow-and-arrow sets. We met all our school friends. What a great day!

The culmination of this orgy of consumption involved small planes flying low overhead, dropping thousands of coupons for free stuff and discounts. Among the coupons were a few with expensive prizes; kitchen ranges, fridges, TV sets, stereos, and other big ticket items.

Of course, being 10 years old, all us kids thought it was a kids' event. We waited in the huge parking lot, eagerly listening for the planes carrying who-knew-what wonderful treasures we could grab as the coupons came fluttering down. The wait seemed interminable, until...

There They Were!-Planes buzzing overhead like giant hornets in the twilight-Swoopng back and forth, dropping their confetti. We all started running around, grabbing coupons for 10 cents off a Hershey Bar, or a free 45 rpm record of Dean Martin singing “That's Amore”. It was wild! I was great! I was in Heaven! Then I saw them.

Right in the middle of the superama parking lot, right under the planes dropping manna from Heaven, was a couple. They looked to my 10 year old eyes to be in their 30s or 40s-both dressed in chino slacks, and wearing sort of matching wind breakers. I watched as they climbed out of their car, unsmiling, reached into the trunk, and pulled out two large fishing nets on poles. The pair then climbed onto the roof of the car, and started waving the netted poles around, so as to catch as many coupons as possible, before those coupons could get down to the innocently grabby little hands of us kids. Some of the coupons failed to separate, falling in blocks of 50 or more. The net couple especially went after these, almost falling off the car roof to capture as many coupons as they could.

When I saw the spectacle of this troll couple exhibiting what I would later come to consider the worst of human behavior, I lost interest, and walked away, taking with me a valuable lesson.

I'm sure other people in that crowd thought “Damn, I should have thought of that”. My hope is that most people regarded the spectacle with disdain.

As you know from the horse racing story, my father imbued me with an apathy toward money and accumulation that I carry to this day.

Don't be greedy, kids. Greed isn't good. Greed leads you to standing on a car roof, in chinos, looking like a moron.