Take Me To The River: Thoughts on South Orange River Day
Cindy Hairston, South Orange Anyone who knows me probably knows at least this one simple thing about me. I absolutely do not care for the cold.
So it may come as a surprise that one of my favorite days of the year in South Orange is River Day. Early May in New Jersey can still be quite miserable. In fact, it is often rainy and dreary. Trees and flowers are beginning to bloom but the air has yet to completely shake off that bite, that chill that settles into you. The kind of day that calls for reading a book by a cozy fire. Not for donning rain gear and boots and heading over to the Rahway to search and excavate trash from the river. And yet I love it and look forward to it every year.
There is something so deeply satisfying in physical work. I remember watching my father clearing the overgrowth behind our childhood home for hours as I played in the backyard. What my brother and I called the “forest primeval”. I had yet to understand the appeal of it all. I get it no...