by Jack
follow me on twitter @jacklhalsey

My dear aunt, a lifelong resident of Perth Amboy, New Jersey passed away earlier this summer. Instead of the traditional funeral, a memorial was organized at her favorite restaurant. Situated on the shank of a bluff overlooking the Raritan Bay, the large picture windows showcased the pastoral shore of Staten Island, just across the water. As the room filled with family and friends and I gazed out over the refurbished waterfront I was struck by the dramatic physical change to the town I had spent my early childhood in.

The bayfront of Perth Amboy was a favorite haunt of mine as a young boy. I often had a few hours after school or on a Saturday to roam the city at will and almost always seemed to wind up here. The sailboats moored offshore, the grand structure of the Goethals Bridge, the mysterious line of trees and sand on the distant shore all sparked romantic schemes of travel and adventure. Added to the intrigue were the nautical ruins that brooded on the near shoreline.

A great old ferry berth, like some outsized clapboard barn, was gracelessly shedding its shingles and planks. Slowly sagging its surrender, it seemed at the mercy of Perth Amboy’s famous low tide ooze. Just a bit east along the Kill was Booz’s Dock, my shrine and my grail. A once trim and handsome cupola, in the fashion of the turret of a lighthouse, perched at the end of a now dilapidated pier. Indeed whole sections from the shore to that elegant shelter were missing.

At high tide it was hopelessly out of reach, at low tide only someone who could brave the dark oily of Amboy muck could hope to get near. I ended up covered head to toe in that infamous ooze one day after an ill-fated attempt to reach it.

Our family moved when I was not much older, but I would never shake that craving for roaming city streets and planning expeditions to distant shores.

So began a lifelong passion for travel. When I first began to travel on my own the independence and adventure were intoxicating. It was the delivery of all the promise of adulthood, moving through the world as I wished, not asking of (until I ran out of money) or answering to anyone. As I got older I mined each trip a little more urgently, realizing the irretrievable character of each moment.

Always in my mind were the people I loved at home, bright and happy as I had left them, keeping the home place proper. And for a while that luxurious illusion was rich and alive like some minor sun in whose rays I could warm myself on the odd holiday.

Rudely, I was put on notice that I was, during all this fine period of exploration and self-discovery, getting older: the travel we so wish to diminish, the travel we all engage in, no interest or consent required. I came to realize the home places I had always assumed would remain as I left them were on their own journeys. The places I left had moved on as well.

So that day I came home to pay my respects to she who kept our home fire burning longest, and drove through my small bustling hometown, still vibrant, with a new language on the store signs downtown, a new community of strivers bustling along the streets, I sat with the old family friends, some of whom might even remember it that way, and looked out and saw the beaming beacon atop a newly restored cupola on Booz’s Dock, a short walk down a fine wooden pier from shore.