Joe's Sod Farm

Middletown, N.J. sits in what Jerseyans call “Central Jersey”, inland from shore towns, like Seabright and Long Branch. Middletown mostly serves as a bedroom community for bankers, admen, and fashion house executives who commute to the city via Amtrak and Coast City Coach buses. There is no real downtown, only a few small stores scattered about the place, and chain stores lining rt 35, the state highway that runs north/south, cleaving Middletown neatly in half.

In the late 1960s, the whole Central Jersey area still had a number of working farms. New Jersey is, after all, the “Garden State”. The growing, plant hardiness zone rating of 6 means that all fruits and vegetables, save for tropical varieties, grow well there.

The other crop widely grown in Jersey is sod. With all the housing developments going up, sod is always in demand. It’s so much easier to lay sod than it is to rototill, water, de-weed, sow seeds, re-water, and cover to get a lawn, a tedious process that sometimes doesn’t work. Far easier to call the sod farm, and have the farmer peel up sections of sod, using a kind of giant mechanized cheese grater, then drop it on your yard and water-easy peasy.

Today’s tale concerns one particular sod farm owned and run by Joe Gulick, sod farmer.

The Joe T Gulick Sod Farm was located along Red Hill Rd, on the outside of a slight left-hand bend. These days it seems odd to imagine a time when New Jersey had open farm land located on country roads. The state is, after all, the mostly densely populated of any state in the USA-1200 per square mile. By comparison, my State of Vermont has about 60 per square mile. 45 years ago the place had many acres of rich loam that supported, for instance, double sweet corn seasons.

The Gulick house stood up from the road, at the back of a horseshoe shaped driveway It had three stories, a wrap around porch supported by doric style columns, and was painted white, as was the custom of most farm houses. Elevated placement assured that rain water would flow away from rhe foundation, thus preventing flooding.

Behind the house, a short walk through the dirt yard past chicken coops and a goat pen, stood the main barn, large and red, with a weathervaned cupola atop. Most of the regular farm machinery resided in the lower part of the barn, along with the specialized sod-cutting tools. Upstairs the loft held enough hay to feed all the cows and goats, plus straw for bedding.

Joe was a lanky 74 year-old. He had the long craggy face of a farmer, with wire rimmed glasses perched high on his nose, and a flat topped buzz cut gray hair. Joe had run the farm since inheriting it from his father, Cyrus. When Joe took over, it was what’s called a “truck farm”, commonplace in New Jersey, a farm with a retail stand out by the road, and a wholesale operation selling produce and dairy products to local stores, and even chain supermarkets.

Joe and his wife Milly had no children. They spent almost all of their time together. Milly even accompanied Joe on his sod delivery runs. She just sat in the truck while Joe worked the sod-pallet moving machinery to place the loads on customers’ yards, later to be installed on the lawns by landscapers. Sometimes the landscapers waited for Joe to come and he would drop sod around the lawn for them as they arranged it-no extra charge. Joe was like that. All the time Millie would pour cups of coffee for Joe, and write in her notebook the details of the deliveries. She always brought her knitting along too. Millie had a genius color sense that she applied to her knitted items. Everyone loved her hand made presents of scarves, sweaters and blankets, which were partially fashioned in the passenger seat of Joe’s flat-bed truck.

Millie and Joe, I guess since they had no kids, maintained an open invitation to local families to come to the farm anytime they wanted; to picnic, play games, feed the animals. Parents allowed their kids to go to the farm by themselves, to play, swim, or even help with the farm chores. Kids all loved their home away from home.

At Christmastime their house was similarly open for visitors. People would pitch in to put up decorations. Millie kept the kitchen table piled high with cookies of all varieties, and all the side tables decorated with homemade candy filled jars. Unending coffee and hot chocolate completed the scene. Millie organized visitors into carolers, walking to nearby neighbors to serenade them with noel tunes.

They even extended the Christmas theme to the barn, where Joe set up a manger with two goats and a cow. Marty Holler’s parents always brought Jesus, Mary and Joseph statues, along with a light-up star to hang overhead.

To be sure, Joe and Millie were not religious people. I never remember them going to church. Millie (nee McGarrity) was Northern Irish Protestant, and Joe Gulick Polish Catholic, but they never pressed it. I think that they just liked the idea of Christmas, the sense of fellowship and giving. Their only belief system was each other, and they turned that joy outward to include other people in their happy, peaceful world.

I find myself thinking about Joe a lot lately. I’m his age now, and I have just realized that my main goal in life is to bring happiness to people, to be like Joe. He profoundly affected many people, back in the day in Middletown, NJ. I don’t know if I’ve been successful in reaching my goal, but I’m still having fun getting there.