I was sad to leave State College so soon, but I was still glad for being there. It reminds me of Boulder in many ways, just greener and more humid (though not quite as humid as I was expecting!). And seeing cousin again felt good to me.
The bus back to PHL was an Express, meaning it was not stopping in all the smaller towns, but then I learned why it takes the same amount of time. It took just over an hour to travel the last 14 miles into the city as the freeway becomes a parking lot. I just had to adjust my 'hurry up let's get there' attitude and let the bus driver deal with the traffic. Ahhh, not so bad then. Once in the city I was off to the airport to pick up my rental car so that I could then join the Friday afternoon traffic! Still in all, I made it to Flemington around 9 p.m. with Uncle George talking me around the rural roads of Flemington, NJ by cell phone (I discovered sadly that the GPS outlet in rental cars is disabled so you will have to rent the GPS unit from them!). To greet me in the driveway was cousin Jeanne who had come down from Maine to surprise her dad for Father's Day. Even though Jeanne was leaving the next morning, it was an unexpected delight to see her. I somehow felt that in that one day, (Friday, June 25) the female eldests of our generation in the Schaefer family had connected (of the 3 Schaefer brothers, each brother's family was blessed with a female as their first-born). I'm not sure why that felt noticable to me but it did.
So there was Uncle George, nearly 80, looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as some might say. We stayed up until nearly midnight chatting. Jeanne mentioned as we were going to bed that a truck delivery was expected in the morning. What she didn't say was that the time would be 6 a.m. and the truck would be a 18-wheel deisel as long as the driveway - pulling itself INTO the driveway, unloading its bobcat which would then be unloading barrels of sugar water for an hour - all right under my bedroom window. It was a startling way to start the day, for sure. But there I was standing at the window looking out at Uncle George who was out there dressed and working as I come to realize happens often (i.e. he gets up around or even before dawn to work on the family bee business). The barrels of sugar water are to take to his hives which sometimes run out of enough to eat during the pollinating season. Uncle George and his son George left with their own truck (big sign on the side that says Jean's Honey, Inc.) to deliver the barrels to the hundreds of hives that they have on various farms all over New Jersey. Basically what happens is that George makes deals with farmers to install his bees on their farms. The farmers want and need the bees to pollinate their crops (otherwise no apples, cherries, pumpkins or any number of other crops would not happen without the bees). The bees are then busy generating honey which George is then able to collect and sell. No processing. Honey from the hives to the table. The farmers also sell the honey and after 40+ years, there are customers all over NJ expecting their deliveries of Jean's Honey. It's all quite amazing. There's more to the story about how Uncle George got into the bee business at all, but I think I'll save that part to add to the family tree.
Uncle George and I then went to St. Magdalena Cemetery in Flemington to visit the graves of Nana and Poppa, and Sarah Crown (Nana's sister). I had been to this cemetery almost 25 years ago when Poppa died, but not since. It's a beautiful place and Uncle George showed me where he will someday be - under some beautiful trees. We took a brief tour of old part of Flemington before heading back home to make lunch for Aunt Jean. During the day, as we were talking two more trucks arrived to collect honey, and not small amounts of it! Uncle George would go out and greet these people who, naturally, were people he has known a long time now. It was fun to watch and I even chipped in to help pack some cases of honey bears. In the mean time, Uncle George brought out some very old family items that his parents had once owned, and through the course of the afternoon we went through it all, discovering some treasures along the way. And then Uncle George and I just sat back and talked - all afternoon, it seemed like time just slipped away as I kept asking questions and he kept remembering and describing and I kept scribbling notes. I learned much more than I expected to about Schaefer history as well as Uncle George's own life. Our conversation seemed to weave in and out as Aunt Jean would wake up and need our attention in between, cousin George arrived to get the truck ready for Sunday's delivery of sugar water barrels, and Uncle George prepared a wonderful dinner (chicken breasts, green beans, Jeannie's yummy leftover macaroni casserole, and apple sauce), Aunt Jean did the dishes (which I did again later). At the end of the day while the elders napped in their chairs, I sat outside watching the fireflies lighting up around his land and tried to let my mind just quietly absorb this time and place, and the long and proud history of Uncle George's life and that of his and our family. There's so much more than I never knew in the story of our past and its evolution into present, and I feel happy and proud to discover this heritage now and to set my intentions to document what I can for any of the questioning souls who might come behind us.
Now I am on the train to Boston, having reversed my course back to PHL early this morning, returned the car, traveled back into the city, having time to sit and enjoy a hot cup of tea while admiring the cavernous architecture and history that seems to belong to all old train stations. The train has a plug-in for my computer and even as I type I watch out the window the click-clack of changing scenery, urban to suburbuan to rural, and I feel myself sliding back into present tense where I will necessarily be for the next 3 days. But I'm glad for arriving in the way I am, not all at once, but in stages where the past seems to call me to know not only the old stories but also the shared relations of today whose lives of work and love are carving the stories of now.
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