While searching through my iCloud archives I found this old picture. It was probably taken by my Mom around 1979. I would have been 11, my brother 6, and my sister 2. That was 46 years ago. What a long, strange trip it's been.
The image shows us on the steps in our house in Millstone. My parents build that house in 1974 when Millstone was still old farms and there were no borders. It was a youth filled with fishing and motor and BMX bikes. From Millstone I would commute to Freehold for grammar school at St. Rose of Lima and then to Red Bank Catholic for high school. The later 45 mile one-way commute to school was a hum dinger, it basically sucked, and kept me out of loop of any circle of friends, at least for my first two years.
After my parents split my Mom moved to River Plaza which was good not only for my sleep but also for my social life. It was during the later part of my high school years that I developed a love of photography and got my first real job working at The Register, a daily newspaper, located in Shrewsbury.
After high school I headed off to Seton Hall to major in journalism. That lasted one semester, but not before I pledged Sigma Pi and met a Newark firefighter who invited me down to the firehouse. After about 10 minutes after walking in the front door I new what my calling was. I remember telling my Mom, and her reply was less than impressed because I had dreams of being a paleontologist when I was a kid, so this was just another career calling.
I moved back home and joined the Middletown Fire Department while taking classes at Brookdale Community College, for why I don't know. But the funny thing is those few credits actually helped me in my later years. I had always worked for my father's construction company starting during the summers in high school and in 1987 I got my ironworkers union book as I developed a plan to test for the Newark Fire Department.
Part of that would include having to move to Newark to meet the residency requirement. I moved to Warren Street in Newark sharing an apartment with a bunch of guys. I remember the rent was $156 a month, for all of us. Sadly, right as I was moving in, the landlords and owners of the building were murdered on the third floor. But it was a good spot, one we kept for years until the family sold the building. It was close to work for me as most of my father's projects were in North Jersey, I was in Newark which met the residency requirement, and close to the physical exam practice center which was down in the Ironbound.
I was lucky to get on the Newark Fire Department. I was ranked #41 and they hired to #42. After my class they threw out the list because the U.S Justice Department didn't like the racial make-up of it after #42. But I was on, and those were the best years of my life. In addition to working at the NFD I was also working at University Hospital EMS which sparked the medical side of me which exists today. After a few years I was burned out and needed to do something other then EMT and BLS work. It was either become a paramedic, PA, or an RN. So I went to Essex County College and the rest is history.
I left Newark and bought houses just about everywhere I landed. Verona, West Orange, Red Bank, Middletown, Ocean Township, back to Red Bank, and finally Titusville. After I retired from the fire department I went back to my original calling, chasing news as a photojournalist. I jumped back and forth working for the big papers spending most time putting in shifts for The New York Post doing everything I could to beat the other photographers, especially from The New York Daily News. I would go one to co-own a photo agency, Agency New Jersey, which supplied news images from around New Jersey. We even had an office on Press Row in the Statehouse.
When the newspaper industry went to shit in the last 2000's I made the move to my other passion, fly fishing. I started The Average Angler and soon thereafter got my NY State Guide license and Captain's license. But trying to be a full-time guide is hard, almost a delusion. Full-time meaning you don't have another source of income. No family fortune, no wife's income, no pension, just guiding 365 days a year. Well I can tell you giving talks to clubs for $150 a few times in January and February doesn't meet the monthly nut. Add to that the cost of doing business, and I realized I was just supporting a habit, not a family. People out there do it so maybe I just wasn't good enough.
Along the way there were three marriages and seven kids. For a guy who's goal in life was to never get divorced...well, there you go. Of course losing Ryan was a big hit. They say you never should have to bury a child. But really, that statement only is correct if you think only old folks die. While I cherish the memories of being a Dad when the kids were small, it's good to see them when they're rolling into adulthood. Now those kids are going on 21 through 34. To this point I'm not a Grandfather. That will be a first for me when and if it comes.
So during my mid-40's after realizing that guiding full-time was a pipe dream, I returned to nursing. Having that license, any license for that matter, is a life-long pass to earn a living. It's like having a trade, one thing I would recommend to most young folks out there today, both male and female. When I got back in my license was backed by my to-year degree from Essex County College. In order to grow I had to return to school. So between Felician, Monmouth, and a stint in Villanova Universities I made it through the start of my DNP.
I went from working as a psychiatric mental health nurse to a nurse practitioner and we opened up The Psychiatric Practitioner just before COVID hit. It was four years of a nightmare, not the helping people part, but trying to run a business. Let's just say we're not good at bookkeeping, and reports, and taxes.
Having a business in healthcare, to me, is like owning a boat. The happiest day is when you buy one, and the second is when you sell it. So I made the jump to teaching, and I returned to Essex County College, my home. For four years I did that commute. It killed me. Not only the commute but some kinky-flinky shit in the nursing department. So I made the jump down to Capital Health in Trenton. So far, so good, but it's no Essex.
So here I sit, nearly 58, in a big old house, with a big old truck, with a ... ... wife, kidding, and all the things that so many of us have. Too big a mortgage, school loans, car loans, the mounting monthly bills, and just going through the daily routines to remain "happy". I have seen my peers, from grammar school through the fire department and even nursing, make the move, retiring and moving, to enjoy the last years they have while they are viable. Waiting to retire and move is rolling the dice because you never know what your body or mind has in store for us. But it takes work, and guts, to make a big change. We tell our kids all the time, "Don't settle", but do we heed our own advice?
Imagine a life, somewhere, where you live at or beneath your means. No big bills. No need to have others prepare you food several times a week because it does more for your mind and ego than your stomach. No need to remain sucked into social media or the politics and the bullshit that comes along with it. No daily routines of going to job you no longer like, or with people that aren't in your inner circle. Now the grass is always greener, of course, and one would have to be totally honest with themselves, and their partner, to end the insanity. And that's where a lot of people get stuck. Their decades-long partner isn't their ride or die. The risk is making the move, setting up shop, and realizing that you can stand that person only in the context of what you've shared together for years, not in creating something new.
So what would I tell that goof on the stairs? I really don't know. "Be happy", yeah that's easy. All of the mistakes and things I would take back today were done because I thought they would make me happy at that time. Hindsight is 20/20. Buy a house in these times? I might caution them on that. Get the hell out of New Jersey? Yeah, maybe, this state is not the same state I grew up in. Travel? I was never a traveler and the kids these days jump on planes like I jumped on the Parkway. Marriage?
What I would like to tell them is to not get a cell phone, stay off of social media, don't pick a side in every aspect of life, and to just "Be happy". I would tell him to always remember family, first, even before spouses and friends. In the end they're usually the ones standing next to you when life's shit hits the fan. In the end, and after I'm dead, they'll have their own story to tell, and different advice they'd would tell their younger self if they could.
This year I think my siblings and I will be together for Christmas and I'm going to make it a point to re-create that photo, just for old times sake.