So I could bury you all with pics from the counties of Salem and Cumberland New Jersey. Went to school with the Virginia and Massachusetts snobs who thought they had it all going. They’re not all that. We, in fact, are. Why I’m leaving out everything but a very particular subset of New Jersey architecture hard to find anywhere else.

Why is it important? In every case a family statement, an assertion of individuality such as we are losing now. Memorialized in 18th century architecture, which, for you millennials, is considerably older than Bernie Sanders. It’s called patterned brick houses. Herewith a rotogravure printed in Jersey’s finest medium, bricks.

Ain’t life sweet?

Yeah. Personal history involved. I tried to expose a scandal about the Hancock House. The People’s Republic of NJ was already too strong. I got slapped down with sanctions. They covered the 18th century bloodstains of a British massacre of Quakers with an air-conditioning unit and lied about it. I exposed it and got fired.

One reason I hate governments in general. Next, why I hate our government in particular.

They hate the idea that people could make their homes an embodiment of person individuality and identity by means of enormous effort and pride. Old white people shit. Isn’t that what you call it?

Called patterned brick. Imagine it in your McMansion land, DC clowns.

First Tartan. Wasn’t ratified in Scotland till 1782. Kilts optional depending on local greenhead population. Why pants got so popular here.

R life are belong to us.

Outlanders destroyed my home. My father made it beautiful. Now it looks like a London Council flat.

My parents made it beautiful. Now it looks like a nouveau riche piece of crap.

My dad was right. Ask me about what and why. And I will tell you he died long ago, lips sealed. Though his last words to me were these. “Everything I fought for in the war is gone. Not my problem anymore. Yours now.”

Now for the poetic irony, unless it is poetic justice. I gave my father a Mercersburg pewter cup with this poem inside it at a time he was particularly unhappy with me in my youth. He thought I’d written it because he didn’t know who ee cummings was. I had to tell him I hadn’t written it.

We both went there. He insisted I be a gentleman.

MY FATHER MOVED THROUGH DOOMS OF LOVE

ee cummings

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely)stood my father’s dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

Septembering arms of year extend
Yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
Than he to foolish and to wise
Offered immeasurable is

Proudly and(by octobering flame
Beckoned)as earth will downward climb
So naked for immortal work
His shoulders marched against the dark

His sorrow was as true as bread:
No liar looked him in the head;
If every friend became his foe
He’d laugh and build a world with snow

My father moved through theys of we
Singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
Danced when she heard my father sing)

Then let men kill which cannot share
Let blood and flesh be mud and mire
Scheming imagine,passion willed
Freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

Giving to steal and cruel kind
A heart to fear,to doubt a mind
To differ a disease of same
Conform the pinnacle of am

Though dull were all we taste as bright
Bitter all utterly things sweet
Maggoty minus and dumb death
All we inherit,all bequeath

And nothing quite so least as truth
–i say though hate were why men breathe–
Because my Father lived his soul
Love is the whole and more than all

He never knew I could write better than that. A lot better and more to the point.

You passed beyond me. I was cold.
2 We had not spoken, I was cold.
3 Grey ladies came to make you old,
4 And I was angry you grew old.
5 But that was never what we do or did,
6 We never cared for what they did.
7 Our hatred and our love were not their ken,
8 Only seething awful fire of kin.
9 You died on me, last punch at love.
10 But die you couldn’t really, frightful love.
11 God eternal, beyond my sin.
12 My god, the truth, beyond my ken.
13 I hated you, you hated me.
14 You walked away, and I did too.

I walked away and you did too. You listening, Dad? They’re trying to subjugate us, Dad. We were always fighting the same fight. Please lend me your heart.

Maybe someday they’ll come for us. God knows, I’ve said some bad things about Obama. But I’ve only two points to make today.

First, you can see that we live in the saucy rump of the Garden State, in the least populated part of the least populated county in New Jersey. Also the Jersey county that saw the most action, apart from Trenton, in the Revolutionary War. We had Mad Anthony Wayne here, and the Queens Rangers, the Hancock Bridge Massacre, and a heroic stand at Quinton Bridge. We may be rural and a bit backward, but we’re America.

Hancock House. Brit bayonets in the night.

Right now the wind is howling, but it will come to nothing. It hardly ever does. The Delaware River perpetually covers our ass, exposed as it looks. Storms — thunder, snow, whatever — sweep through Delaware headed east and, voila, they find their furor blunted by the mighty river between them and us. We’re promised six inches of snow and we get one. We’ve lived here for ten years and nothing predicted has ever been as bad as promised. Not even hurricanes. Which just knock down a few branches. Eerie.

I know. If God wants to knock us for a loop, he will. Just saying, so far he hasn’t. People can laugh that we’re the ass end of New Jersey, but we’re — so far — the kind of booty everyone wishes they had.

Point number two. When the time comes, we’ll head south. Where you’ll find us. In a sanctuary at Cape May Point.

All the way at the bottom. All the way.

Why go there? Because church. Not to hide. But to profess faith. We were married in an Episcopal Church. We’d prefer to die there as well. There’s a haunting icon at Cape May Point called St. Peter’s by the Sea.

A few scant yards from the Delaware Bay.

MY wake at St. Peter’s. Hardly anybody will be there. Not Lake, not George, probably not even Monica. But there WILL be Stones and Mozart. And me in my boots and bone chains. I’m also guessing my Boudica will read some of my awfullest stuff.

You’ll find us there. When the time comes. Get ready. Won’t be here long. Writers are all screwups. If you can’t make it, think of this place before you nod along.