My hometown is Nutley, a small 2 square mile town in northern New Jersey. My hometown is one that I did not think I would miss as much as I did when I went off to college.
It’s the type of town you grow up in, go to college, live somewhere else for a few years, but once you have a family, BOOM! Back to Nutley you go. It’s like a norm that everyone knows but doesn’t talk about. You’re born and you die in Nutley. It’s the kind of place where, even though there are 27,000 people, everybody somehow knows everybody.
Whether it’s because you were an athlete in Nutley, or because of who your parents are, or because you’re related to someone, everybody knows everybody. It’s not abnormal for a teacher in Nutley to say, “I had your parents!” because most of the teachers have been there forever. It’s the kind of place where your high school principal tells you he was in a band called the “Sticky Wickets” when he was in high school with your parents. It’s the kind of place that somehow everyone gets along.
It’s the town where the most fun thing to do is go down Vreeland Ave really, really fast because it’s like riding a roller coaster and makes your stomach flip, which makes you laugh hysterically (don’t even act like you haven’t done it).
It’s the kind of place where my Grandma's “mom and pop” sporting goods store, Killer Bees, was where I spent most of my time from when I was born until I was 13 years old. I remember being in pre-school and being the “rope walkers,” walking around town and having our teachers take us by my Grandma's store for candy then walking back to pre-school.
It’s the town where I can drive five minutes and be on the other side of town at my Grandma's house just to say hi. It’s the kind of place where five elementary schools go into one middle school and one high school, so you’re stuck with your grade for six years. You get to know everyone pretty well.
It’s the kind of town where one of my best friends lives up the street from me and another down the street from me. It’s the kind of place where you can find serenity by walking through the park right down the street from your house and sitting by the waterfall to clear your mind.
Most of the town consists of predominantly Italians, so it’s not surprising that one of our busier town events is the Italian Festival. What is surprising is that in a mostly Italian town, our St. Patrick’s Parade is also probably one of our busier town events. Who would think that a bunch of Italians could be so dang good at being Irish for a day?
As a student in Nutley, it’s not a normal lunch if you don’t go to one of the many restaurants around like The Diner, Bell Paese, Lil’ Burgers, Jim Dandy’s or Ralphs. It’s the kind of place where I can work at a café and a bar/restaurant and see the same people at both places.
The restaurants in Nutley are a little bit like the “Cheers” theme song, “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came, you want to be where you can see, our troubles are all the same, you want to be where everybody knows your name.” When you walk into a restaurant, you’re most likely going to see someone you know, and it reminds you that you are home and you’re safe.
It’s the kind of place where you can leave and go back 30 years later and everything still be exactly the same. It’s the place you can always go back to. It’s home.
