26
		Two Battles
		Somewhere in New Jersey
		03/29/2002
		A half hour of easy walking. Some very small hills.
		Let me tell you about a dream I had. It seemed so real—you know how dreams can sometimes be more real than reality itself. I suddenly felt so lost, so displaced. I could sense that something was missing, something precious and its memory was fading. Something in my dream led me to recapture that fond memory that has been lost since 1971. To do so, I was to begin in the parking lot, facing the Visitors’ Center entrance and take the Southern Path. So, let me finish telling you my dream. It’s all coming back to me now. Last night I took a walk after dark to a swinging place...that’s where the girls are. The girl I sat beside was awful cute, and when I could, I gave that girl a hug. We ate and ate at a hot dog stand and we danced around to a rockin’ band.... Come with me now. Pass the Gun Battery...the Soldiers’ Hut and Campsite and at FL-36, continue South. At the next Battery, climb through the third opening. The trail is straight ahead; follow it with the water on your left. And then the dream took an awful turn. A giant earth altering monster, Winston Cente.... oh I can't even bear to finish the name, came and stood his ground against Irving Rosenthal and contracted to mark this spot forever. The music and laughter and cries of joy were slowly fading into the hiss of rushing traffic. Now, I stood here at this convergence, this intersection of past and present, where my memories turned to stone,... The trail retreats to the North. Follow it and step over Wilbur, who was here last in 1975. Continue North East on the hardtop Before the familiar campsite, go Left at the fork, to the Slate and Wood Wall and behind it. Everything had been swept away in a torrent, memories flying about like dust, landing everywhere. In a surrealistic whoosh, I too was swept away from the not so distant past, to the present and this place that had witnessed the start of the famous retreat through New Jersey in November 1776. The hard top ends and you continue with the traffic below you on the left. You’ve come down almost to street level, but are climbing again. As the trail climbs, it turns East. With large rocks ahead, at the Y, take the path at 30 degrees. Thinking back, during my dream, other than their somewhat geographic proximity the connection between the two places escaped me,. Then I realized, they had both hosted battles; a battle of lives changing even as the land’s use changed, the other indicating a crucial location in the history of a people striving to be free. But, I wasn’t dreaming now. . . To confirm your location, at 14 paces observe the Big V at 115 degrees. Nearby, it looks like someone had a very big drill. At the next pit, you will have an angle as to where the memory you seek landed and you will make the connection between the two battlefields that I made in my dream. Victoriously, you will re-claim the name that was and always will be synonymous with the joy and thrills that had been lost. If you listen carefully for the bygone voices, through the awful traffic’s din, you’ll hear it again: Last night I took a walk after dark, . . .A swingin' place . . .To have some fun and see what I could see. You, too, will keep its memory alive in your Letterboxing stamp collection.

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