The Changing Landscape
This town has changed in subtle ways
Not to imply it’s lost its charm
Still I recall that faithful horse
Who stately walked about Stults Farm
When word escaped of a gas station
Angered diehards came opposing
And then one day I had to face
The Lapidus Deli closing
Two-seater airplanes soaring low
Dusting crops and killing pest
Endless flowing fabled fields
Long before stood Ravens Crest
Small quarters then for renting books
A room not meant for brawn but brains Though its larger digs are just as well
Since Jinny Baeckler still remains
I insist somebody out there
Plainly on this thought agrees
Don’t you miss that long-gone storefront Where one bought records, not CDs
I’d like to take you back yet further
Back to the point it all did start
But I would be of little help
You’d really have to ask Bill Hart
Forced to move out from this place
Just ask me and I’ll give you proof
For when I chose to buy a home
The prices soared straight through the roof
— Barry Grossman ##M:[more]##
Barry Grossman lived in a studio apartment in Plainsboro’s Quail Ridge when he was single back in the mid-1980s. After marrying his wife, Iris, they lived in Plainsboro’s Princeton Crossing, Ashford, and Ravens Crest until his family relocated to Monroe Township two years ago. He has seen the landscape change dramatically and recently wrote a poem on the subject (at left.) Copies of the poem are hanging in Stults Farm and Plainsboro Public Library.
The family’s Plainsboro roots continue with their son Jeremy, 13, celebrating his Bar Mitzvah this week with ceremonies at Congregation Beth Chaim in West Windsor, followed by a reception at Doral Forrestal in Plainsboro.
His fiction piece, “Limitless Undying Love,” was published in the U.S.1 Summer Fiction Issue on July 27. Grossman and his wife, Iris, attended the writer’s reception at Tre Piani on August 11.
Other published authors in the U.S. 1 Fiction issue included W. Eugene Claburn of West Windsor for his poem “Our Woods”; E.E. Whiting of Plainsboro for her poem “Commuters’ Garden”; Mary Mallery of West Windsor for her story “Pirate School”; and Corey Langer of West Windsor for his poem “Vegan Cannibal(ist)”.
Copies of the fiction issue are available at the U.S. 1 offices at 12 Roszel Road, Suite C-205.
