The River

Today I drove down to Rumson, NJ--where The Boss has a house--to tour a home on the Navesink River so I can write about it for an upscale real estate magazine. The place I saw was completely lovely, gracious, storybook. I filled pages and pages of my notebook with details. I'm pretty sure I will never live with 1/100th of that home's luxury, but that's okay. It's on the market for $29,900,000.

Bruce's Stomping Grounds
The man in charge of the magazine said Bruce lives right around the corner from the house I toured, and was ready to dial his realtor friend in the area so she could show me. But I was on a tight schedule, and also did not want to be too much of a prying fan.

Still, I would have been thrilled to run into him at the Java Stop, in the little nearby town of Fair Haven, which I drove through on my way back to the Parkway. Alas, the Stop was closed when I got there.

Down to the River
I kept hearing Bruce singing "The River" in my mind. I love that song. It's so honest, so urgent, so plain. And from the moment I arrived, at 3:09, to the moment I was back on the Parkway, at about 6:30, I saw the river. The Navesink River. It was a glory day, so blue-sky and vibrant. But the wind was whipping--it knocked over one of the chairs by the beautiful pool at the home I toured--and there were whitecaps on the water. The home was built right on the river.

I don't know what river Bruce was writing about, but I just kept thinking it might be the Navesink. At least I know he lives by that river now, with his family.

Sightseeing--Has Bruce Slept Here?
The summer before we married, H. and I drove across America for two weeks and saw all kinds of quirky landmarks on historic Route 66. Today, on Route 36 South on my way to Rumson, I saw lots of quirky Jersey Shore markers too. The traffic was slow, so I scrawled them down:

1. Dairy Queen
2. Lake Side Motors ["We buy cars"]
3. Holly Hill Motel
4. Stewart's Root Beer [since 1924; orange, with big orange arrow pointing to Picnic Area]
5. The Tackle Box
6. Boat supply store
7. Awning shop
8. Wicker furniture place
9. Dosil's Scuba & Surf
10. Gazebos for sale, including one that looked like a lighthouse
11. Leonardo Motel, complete with two women in sleeveless shirts sitting out front in lawn chairs, shooting the breeze at 2:59 P.M. on an April Thursday [I had never heard of Leonardo, NJ before today and have lived in the state my entire life]
12. Mini golf
13. Polar Bear, a cute ice cream shack with a giant custard cone on top
14. Alloco's Betsy Ross Farm Market [since 1919]

The big question is--have The Boss and family been to any of them? I imagine the answer is yes.