The Goodness of Gary Grubb

Ah... this choice organic mango tea smells fruity and leafy. Perhaps it will help me to concentrate as I write my second blog entry.

So, where did I get this teabag? I got it from the Murray Dodge basement on Princeton University campus. It's a hangout with organic tea, cookies straight from the oven, chocolate fondue, etc. provided for students from 10:30pm-12:30am. I am not a student, but I have a friend named Christel who is a student.

On Saturday night, I took a detour into Princeton due to downed power lines blocking 571 and Alexander Road. They were the result of a high-powered windstorm. A little after 9pm I met Christel at Starbucks on Nassau Street. We drank green tea and talked for an hour before heading over to a "study break" with free food and games. During midterms Princeton provides ample stress-relieving nourishment in the form of these "study breaks". Gettysburg College supplied us with similar nourishment when I was at school. The study break was pretty much a bunch of wigged out college kids eating fast food while standing up. Food wasn't allowed into the game area (I think it was their gym), so not very many people were playing games. The food choices were White Castle and Taco Bell. Having never tried White Castle and having had a desire to try it ever since Harold & Kumar famously decided to eat there (they actually visit Princeton in the movie), I took the leap and ate a tiny burger morsel. The meat was cold and tasted fake. Later on, when the Taco Bell arrived, Christel somehow conjured up four tacos pretty much instantaneously. When she handed them to me, I didn't know what to do with them--I wasn't hungry. The quartet of tacos ended up alone on a table untouched, uneaten, completely ignored by the charge of dorks attending the Glutton Bowl.

This is when Christel took me by the arm and brought me to Murray Dodge, a much more low-key place. It was quieter, darker, had chocolate fondue with sliced fruit and marshmellows for dipping, and a shelf full of table games like scrabble, boggle, taboo, and the Sex in the City trivia game. Christel and I filled our plates with chocolate and played dominoes. We played three games, splitting the first two and tying the last, so I guess overall we tied.

Then Christel showed me her dorm room. She hooked up her laptop to the TV monitor to show me some Youtube videos and then I showed her some videos. It was a good night.

Tuesday night is when I got the teabag for this choice organic mango tea, half of which is left. But, first, let me tell you about my three-hour tour of Hightstown Borough with a swell man by the name of Gary Grubb.

For AmeriCorps, I am organizing stream cleanups for nine townships in the watershed: Cranbury, East Windsor, Franklin, Hightstown, Lawrence, Millstone, Monroe, Princeton, and West Windsor. And I am doing cleanup site visits to familiarize myself so that things will run smoother on the days of the events. I agreed to meet Gary Grubb on Tuesday at 1pm at the Rocky Brook Environmental Resource Area on Bank Street in Hightstown for a walkthrough. I didn't quite know what I was signing up for.

I turned into the Resource Area parking lot, which was potholed and inhabited by about a hundred old plastic garbage cans (apparently quite a few people had recently converted to communal dumpsters). While I had my head in the backseat rummaging for my clipboard and pencil, Gary Grubb had already parked his car, gotten out, and extended his hand.

Gary is in alright shape for a 68 year old. His hair still has some dark color to it and it looks rather kempt. He speaks with a slight Long Island slur that's overcome by a kind of bounciness akin to Simpsons' character, Mayor Quimby. He always starts his sentences with "Now I'll tell you [insert first name]." He seems like a very here-and-now type of person. He loves to talk.

The modestly-sized area was swampy with pools of standing water, but thankfully there was a plastic boardwalk for us to walk along and keep our pants dry. Or so I thought! Actually, there were little aeration holes in the plastic so little pellets of water would shoot up from underneath us with every step. Gary told me about the time his niece screamed when he took her out on the boardwalk--she was wearing a skirt.

Gary proceeded to show me the "Greenway", a town encompassing path that was in the works. He pointed out a labelling company that used to be a grocery store that he worked at. He pointed out a hump in the road where the railroad tracks used to be. He pointed out the spot where the town had a rubber duck race under the town's main bridge. He pointed out Hightstown's new town monument with dual copper horseheads spitting out fountain water into bowls in the center of Main Street. He introduced me to the municipal clerk, a business owner, the gas station/car repair owner, the town landscapers, the diner hostess, the man behind the bar at Theo's Tavern ( it smelled like a pizza place from a Ninja Turtles movie). Gary talked for at least 5 minutes with every person we came across. He knew everyone in town and they all knew him. They were all a lot like him, too! All personable, funny, and happy to be talking to you on a Tuesday afternoon. It was Gary's town. And later when he drove me around town, he could tell me the name of the person living in every house and something about them. "Now I'll tell you Andy, you see that young man across the street painting the outside of that store? He's the son of the man you met earlier today working at the car repair shop. Smart kid, went to Cornell and got a degree, but decided he likes it here in Hightstown with his dad." It was truly amazing.

Later, Gary Grubb took me to the Hightstown Apollo Lodge. He asked me if I was thirsty and opened a refridgerator stocked with Coors Light. When I opted for an iced tea, I think he may have been disappointed. He pounced on a cold one unflinchingly. He told me stories about how he went to school with Carl Yastremski of the Boston Red Sox and his summer trips to Cape May with his wife, Dale and the many failed marriages of his two brothers. Before we parted ways, Gary vowed that after the cleanup on April 5th, we would eat homemade hickory-smoked venison jerky together and drink beer at Theo's Tavern. I think every town needs a Gary Grubb.

The cup of choice tea is long gone. My level of awakeness is long gone, too. So, in short, on Tuesday night I met Rob at Triumph Brewery where we had a round of Abbey Trippel's and a round of Irish Dry Stouts. I chatted with two British girls who were "on holiday in the states." This made me lose track of time and I was late to Murray Dodge where I was supposed to meet Christel. She was forgiving and could only stay for a short while anyway. Rob and I ate lots of cookies and picked up organic teabags on our way out.

I'm on my way out.
Cheers,

Andy