Visit to Clinton

One of our planned trips was to visit Clinton, NJ, where my sister and I were born. Clinton was a sleepy little town then, and while it still isn't big, it's on the western edge of the New York City Metropolitan Area. But we moved to California in 1966, and I've never been back.

The Red Mill

My parents moved here from California in 1962. It was a familiar area to my dad, who was from Bethlehem, just over the state line. My parents both worked for Lockheed, my mom in Plainfield, my dad in Metuchen, each on the other side of the state. Although my dad was taking night classes at Rutgers (close to Metuchen), this still must have been quite the commute in the early '60s.

South Branch of the Raritan River

They bought their first home in a then-brand new development adjacent to Lingerts Pond. Appropriately, our street was called Lingert. It was a bit sad to see it is now one of the less kept-up houses on the street.



We circled the block, with Holly taking pictures, and then we headed downtown.



My Aunt Loretta came along for the ride. We dressed according to the weather forecast--high 60s. Buuut it was 20 degrees cooler! I'd scoped out several restaurant choices a few weeks ago, and we settled on The Clinton Towne Restaurant, which turned out to be a fantastic choice!

After lunch, we ran across the bridge (in an unsuccessful attempt to stay warm) so I could get a few more photos.


The weather definitely changed our plans to walk in the town and visit the different shops. Instead, we headed back to southside Bethlehem, to see the house my Grandma lived in as a child. My dad lived here too as a child, and currently one of my distant cousins lives here.



We drove past St. Cyril & Methodius, our family's church since its inception in 1907. (Okay, really, how cool is that?)


The building was cleaned last year, and you can see that there was some problem with the stones weeping.


A really neat day; I'm so glad we had the opportunity to have my aunt give us a real tour. I hope that by memorializing some of this by blogging, my kids will remember this for decades to come. I hope they have the same opportunity to share this with their own kids.