Going back

Justin Mattes surprised my "niece" Georgia!! He has been visiting at Fusco's Market today!! We miss you!!
File this under a "Feel Good Post", where I'm not going to write aan opinion on current events nor insight some wisdom to the public.  Even t hough I LOVE Cape May with 90% of my heart, there's still 10% left in Woodcliff Lake, sorry living in a town for 38+ years can do that to anyone. Of course every  time we go up there it drops my "Cape May Cred" back a few points I hear my friends at the VFW jokingly say "Yeah, move back North ya Yankee". Truthfully parents still have doctors located in Northern NJ and so we need to go up there a few times a year for their check ups, especially my mom.  So we need to make the 168 mile trip up the Garden State Parkway! We did it once this summer when my  Uncle and Aunt visited from Texas! Then we did another trip up in late October for my license plate meet in Elmwood Park, I used  up a lot of brownie points for that one, but it was worth it to see my friends, since they won't come to Cape May (hint,hint).
So each of these treks north requires two mandatory stops, Golden Dynasty  in Franklin Lakes and FUSCO'S Market. I actually DIDN'T stop at Fusco's Market once and I think the family took it as an personal insult.  It's usually for my traditional "root beer and sour cream chips" which is affectionately labelled "The Justin Mattes   special" because I seldom get anything else, beside the occasional  hero!!  Also the last time I was up there I timed it so I had lunch there and got to chat with George. I had what I felt was "upgraded status" which meant I went behind the counter to sit down awhile!
The last couple of times I announced to the world i was going north, it was all over Facebook. This time it was a "stealth mission". Dad had doctor's appointments in Spring Valley, NY so I convinced him to drop me off at Fusco's on his way. Of course I had to convince him George would be there so it wasn't a total surprise!! However George was happy to see me even if he knew about it ahead of time. I walked in as if I never left Woodcliff Lake. All George could do was smile, we immediately got into a conversation! He *would never admit it but h e missed me like I missed him! His two older girls soon go off the bus from high school and went and got the youngest daughter. who's  in kindergarten, and came over. I've seen them all grow up but I remember when the youngest was born, I even wrote a poem for her. She was shy around me but her sisters always encouraged her to "give Justin a hug"/ When we met this time sh e didn't need any  coaching, as soon as she saw me she ran into my arms. George snapped the picture above and immediately posted it on Facebook~! Oh I just melted. I love all three of them as if they were my nieces.
I say this all the time I love Cape May with all my heart, but I go back to Woodcliff Lake any chance I get. I go back because of family and people like the Fuscos who always welcome me home no matter how far I have travelled
Location: Werimus Rd, Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One Contact - Five Lighthouses--W9C

Back in the summer I wrote an entry in here about my Lighthouse phone contact with Bill,N8ET , so now I had to top that with a five lighthouse PSK contact in Wisconsin! I was orginally going to wait until I got the card like my other contacts but I think at this stage of the game you can take my word for it. This contact was with a husband and wife team also known as "Team Cheese"--WI9TC (I love the callsign). Like the contact with Bill, they were in the line of sight of five lighthouses located on the Wisconsin shores of Lake Michigan. As soon as I saw them on the BeaconBot (the e-mail reflector used to notify people of lighthouse activations-) I knew I had to take my best shot. There were tons of stations dying to get a contact. Well after some monitoring of the waterfall and waiting for a break in the QSO's, I dropped my call. Unfortunately I was getting overpowered a lot so I actually wound up waiting for quite awhile. Although I have to admit it was also fun just ...
More Posts to Mattes's Madness

Bob Dylan blows into town

Image
       For a few months there has buzz around Cape May NJ that Bob Dylan was coming to America's Oldest Seaside Resort. No he wasn't playing a concert at Convention Hall. For most of this weeks parts of 2024 Cape May,NJ was transformed into 1965 Newport, RI. A Complete Unknown is a new film about Dylan's conversion from acoustic  to electric guitar starring Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan is in production and the location scouting team decided that  Cape May today looked like Newport back in '65. Bob Dylan debuted  his hit song Like a Rolling Stone   at t he Newport Folk Festival. They even transformed Perry Street  into Belevedere Avenue. Shops along the Washington Mall were temporarily renamed to match shops up in Newport.  The Victorian Motel was baptized then Viking Motel for the film  Days prior I started seeing filming equipment  being transported into town.       Like most o f the town I was hopi...
More Posts to Mattes's Madness

Remembering Grandma in Florida

My dad and I are in Florida for the month of March because the wnters in Cape May are horrible. I also can't stand dad complaining about the wind up there 24/7. So a few years ago my mom started looking at places to rent or even eventuall buy. We were down here during the very beginning of COVID so while we flew down, we drove back. Later it was  determined we would drive down, something my father always wanted to do. So this year my father was determined so with a lot of planning (not really) he mapped out a three  day road  trip fro, Cape May down to West Palm Beach. We took the ferry .over to Delaware and proceeded down to an overnight in North Carolina and another somewhere in Georgia. I managed to pick up seven new counties in Georgia and North Carolina. No bad if you ask me By now you're wondering what this has to do with my Grandma. Well when my grandparent got older they bought a house in Naples, Florida.   They beccame snow birds, just like most people ...
More Posts to Mattes's Madness