The early to mid-sixties was a time of transition. From the solid Eisenhower era when the average middle class family looked forward to buying their first home and a new car, to a time of racial unrest, an unpopular war, and increasing influence of rock music. My generation of baby boomers started to assert their independence and their opinions. The space race and the red scare continued. Polio, one of the greatest fears of all families, was eradicated. I lived in Pennington from ages eight through eighteen. The small borough with a population of about 2,000 is located right at New Jersey’s waist, between the urban capital city of Trenton and the upscale college town of Princeton Borough in Mercer County. It is located inside beautiful and rural Hopewell Township, which is famous for being the location along the Delaware River where George Washington and his troops crossed in the early morning hours of December 25, 1776 and where Charles Lindberg lived when his son was kidnapped and murdered in March, 1932. It is located forty miles from Philadelphia, sixty miles to New York City, and fifty miles to Point Pleasant Beach at the Jersey Shore. At the time, unbeknownst to either of us, the future love of my life was only six years old and living only six miles away in Titusville, N.J. When I first laid eyes on downtown Pennington I was puzzled and frankly a little disappointed. Coming from New England, I was looking for a town green, a park-like area that was usually surrounded by churches and a town hall. There was nothing like that there. Just a few small stores, a bank, a post-office, and a church at a cross street. It did however, have a neat trolly that went through town linked to bustling Trenton.

NEXT UP – Kizmet