Catsup

Unemployment gives you time to do things you've never had time to do, whether you like it or not. I was laid off this spring for the first time in 25 years (thanks, W.) So my garden this year is the best I've ever had, because I had the time to prepare the soil, cultivate and weed like never before, and basically fuss over it. The result has been a tomato harvest that I can barely keep up with, having eaten and given away as many as I could. Sadly, you only get to taste a real tomato in July, the rest of the year we eat things that resemble a tomato, but lack that burst of aroma when you cut it and the explosion of flavor when you taste it. To have to throw them away was more than I could bear.

So yesterday, inspired by a reference to homemade catsup, I decided to make some. It took all day, though not all my attention. Starting with 10 pounds of tomatoes, I ended up with one pint of admittedly very delicious catsup, that is as different from the bottled variety as a July tomato is from a February one.

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The City of Salem,where I worked on the building I previously wrote about, was once a thriving little city of 9,000 happy people, thanks to catsup. That part of South Jersey was famous back in the day for two things; tomatoes and glass, and both enterpises thrived there because of the nature of the soil. Sandy soil being good for tomato growing, and the high silica content of the native sand being optimal for glassmaking.

Salem benefitted from this when Heinz built a catsup factory there, and Anchor glass built a bottle factory next door to make bottles for the catsup.

Then, the factories closed, about 20 years ago. The only remaining business of any size there is the nuclear plant, one of the oldest and cited as one of the most dangerous, for that reason, in the country.

Among some of the residents there is still a strong sense of civic pride, particularly pride in Salem's history. It is one of the oldest in the area, as old as Philadelphia. The Salem oak, which shades the graves of Quakers long gone at the Meeting House, is estimated to be 600 years old, with branches as big as regular trees.

The historic community and the city itself went to the trouble and expense to fund the job my company did, and there is no shortage of volunteers to staff the visitors' center they have in place there. And those volunteers will talk for as long as you want to listen about Salem's storied past. Like how, in 1820, Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson stood on the courthouse steps, and ate a tomato in front of an amazed crowd to prove that they were not poisonous, as had been the common belief.

But since the two plants closed, unemployment in Salem has hovered around 30%. For 20 years.

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When I was working in the attic of the municipal building one day, a siren started sounding, low and slow at first, and reaching a cresendo that had the rafters humming and vibrating to the point that I concluded that the siren must be on the roof above me. Holding my ears so they wouldn't start bleeding, I scampered downstairs and outside. Looking up to the roof, I could see nothing, but the noise was deafening. Looking at Main St., all I saw was the usual assortment of depressed, disheartened and disabled Salem residents, shuffling about on errands of no purpose other than to give them a feeling of purpose. None of them seemed to even hear the siren, much less be alarmed by it.

I hurried over to the nearby coffee shop, where I'd gotten on speaking terms with the woman who ran it. This is no easy feat in this part of Jersey, where people won't admit to recognizing you until the 4th or 5th time you've introduced yourself.

She told me the siren was at the nuclear plant, 3/4 of a mile away. I asked her what it meant, and she told me they test it every once in a while. It had to go off for a continuous 3 minutes for it to be an actual alert, and this one had only lasted...2minutes and 50 seconds, maybe?

So that explained why the people on the street had shown no reaction. But I was left with a disturbing question;

Would they do anything different after three minutes? Having stuck with Salem this long, where would they go?

Salem reminds me of a proud old woman, living in a hovel, eating crackers and cat food, who puts on her one remaining dress to go to church every Sunday. She takes a couple aspirin for her arthritis and takes her hat out of the hatbox she keeps it in to keep it pristine. Then she puts it on her high held head and walks out the door, to show the world she's just fine and dandy, thank you.