South Jersey

I am a native of south Jersey.
You’ll note I didn’t say “proud.”
That’s debatable. South Jersey is the gravel-pit capital of the world.
Also the dumping ground for Philadelphia.
(North Jersey is the dumping ground for New York City. There is no middle Jersey, although the dividing line between north and south Jersey starts at Trenton, which is mid-state on the western border.
As a south Jersey native, I retain a vestige of the infamous “Philadelphia accent,” also known as the “Delaware Valley accent.”
Calling it the “Philadelphia accent” is a misnomer. I’ve noticed that accent all the way across the southern half of Pennsylvania.
I knew a lady from Pittsburgh who had the accent.
Defining the accent is hard. I suppose it’s mainly the pronunciation of vowels; particularly the “O.”
I’ve lived in the Rochester area since 1966, but still have a little of the accent. Enough for people to hear it.
The other night I fired up my Google satellite views to get the correct spelling of “Pennsauken”(“penn-SAW-kin”), a small town north of Camden, NJ across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
I noticed three things:

Screenshot by the mighty MAC.

—1) It looks like the street we lived on may have been renamed — or Google got it wrong.
We lived at “625 Jefferson Ave.,” but actually S. Jefferson Drive.
Jefferson goes west-to-east across Erlton, but then splits into three streets at the east end, N. Jefferson Drive, Jefferson Ave., and S. Jefferson Drive.
But “Jefferson Ave.” was good enough for the post-office, mainly because the even numbers were on the north side of N. Jefferson Drive, and the odd numbers were on the south side of S. Jefferson Drive.
In between north and south was vacant land, known as “the Triangle;” essentially baseball fields.
The straight extension of “Jefferson Ave.” crossed it. No development on it.
It looks like S. Jefferson Drive might have been renamed “Harrison Ave.,” an extension of the original Harrison Ave., which previously ended at Jefferson.
“Or else Google got it wrong,” my wife said.
The three-way split of Jefferson Ave. at the Triangle was always confusing.
I can imagine town-leaders changing it, or maybe not.

Screenshot by the mighty MAC.

—2) An area my Aunt Betty lived near has been named “the Golden Triangle.”
What’s golden about it?
What I remember is a desolate area with ramshackle houses and small businesses here and there.
More upscale development was farther out; farmland converted to bedroom communities in the ‘60s.
—3) East of Erlton was “Ellisburg Circle.”
Years ago, all major intersections in south Jersey were traffic circles; “roundabouts.”
Ellisburg Circle was the intersection of east-west Marlton (“MARL-tin”) Pike with north-south Kings Highway, with Brace Road to the southeast.
Like all traffic-circles, Ellisburg Circle has been converted back to traffic-lights — this despite the drive by local highway authorities to convert all major intersections to roundabouts.
Um, guys; roundabouts don’t work! In south Jersey they all were converted back to cross-street intersections with traffic-lights.
And it looks like Brace Road was getting a lotta use.
The approach of Kings Highway from the south has been ramped into Marlton Pike east, and Kings Highway from the north goes into Brace Road.

Epson Expression 10000 XL.

Our house in 1941. (That garage might swallow the old Chevy pictured, but nothing after the mid-‘50s.)

I’ve been back, and it’s crowded.
Marlton Pike, which used to be the main route east to the Jersey beaches from Philadelphia, is overwhelmed.
Our house is still there. It was built before plywood in 1941.
The addition on the back was designed by my father; correcting the lack of a downstairs bathroom, and doubling the tiny kitchen.
But the backyard is returning into the fetid overgrown swamp it long ago was.

• The capitol of New Jersey is “Trenton.”
• A “Google satellite view” is a satellite photograph that comes up in a Google satellite view search. (“Google” being the computer search-engine.)
• “Erlton” (‘EARL-tin’) is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary town.