My Mother’s brother Teddy built a house with lots of help from family for my grandmother, Jennie, and grandfather, Stephen in Hopatcong, New Jersey. The house was a great gathering place for the family when it was completed. It was also difficult to get to before Interstate 80 was finished. Being a youngster, it took forever, maybe 90 minutes or longer especially on holiday weekends. Until that time, U.S. Route 46 was the main road off the George Washington Bridge to the Lake Hopatcong area. It went through every small Jersey town west of the bridge, with traffic lights and traffic circles. It was a long haul. Then began the back roads around the lake.
After winding your way around the lake, on your right, there was a small park and beach, The Crescent Cove Beach Club now. Soon began your ascent. The road up the hill had a trajectory NASA would appreciate. My Uncle Teddy wanted a house on the top of the hill and so we floored it. That first hill and the rest of the road up Dupont Avenue were another difficulty to get to Grandma’s house.
Now imagine all that in the winter, IN THE SNOW! They were hearty souls who traveled to Grandma’s in those days. Since the community around Hopatcong and especially up Dupont was a summer community, there were very few permanent residents. So in the winter, the snow was plowed by the city of Hopatcong up to Grandma’s and no further. There was a HUGE wall of snow at the end of Grandma’s driveway.
Christmas Eve, don’t ask me when, probably in the early (19)60’s my mom, dad, and sister made the trek to Hopatcong and stopped when we met the wall of snow. And soon fresh snow began to fall again.
Luckily, Uncle Teddy had a contract to plow the smaller streets in the town. He had a small dump truck (featured above) and a snowplow and had some extra work each winter. He asked if I wanted to ride with him that Christmas Eve night and I was excited to be his shotgun. We were out for an hour or so, (who knows, I was just a kid) when I noticed a strange red glow in the snow bank on the right side of the truck. And it was following us. It stopped when we did and moved forward when we did. I told Uncle Teddy about it and he stopped the truck. We got out to inspect where the red glow was coming from. The outside of the truck looked fine, but beyond the right front wheel, under the fender, the engine was on fire. Holy smokes!
Gratefully, there was plenty of water in the frozen form and we were throwing snow at the blaze until it went out. We probably smothered it rather than douse it. Anyway, it went out. How exciting!! Uncle Teddy decided then we would go directly home and the job for shotgun was to watch out for any more red glows. What an exciting Christmas!!
