Six Doors Down: A Journey Through Synchronicity

by Donna Clovis

Overview

In this sequel, award-winning journalist Dr. Donna Clovis recounts the stories of Princeton,
New Jersey, from the 1960s to the present, through the eyes of its oldest citizens by means of
interviews, diaries, and articles. The synchronicity of being at the right place at the right time
for the interviews, locations, and journals plays a major role in the construction of the book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504373722
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	02/02/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	108
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.26(d)

Read an Excerpt

Six Doors Down

A Journey Through Synchronicity

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By Donna Clovis

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2017 Dr. Donna Clovis
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-7372-2

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CHAPTER 1

DR. JOHN NASH

Dr. John Nash, the Nobel Prize Winner in Economics at Princeton University, used to live six doors down from me in the Berrien section of Princeton Junction. This was before the rotary circle was built, before several large looming homes were squeezed between us on a pretzel-like parcel of land. These were the days when his grown-up son, Johnny, took strolls down the streets. His head was topped with a glitter-gold Burger King hat, crowned with the glory of a sun-sparkling day. Johnny had schizophrenia like his father.

It was through this uncanny connection of schizophrenia that we knew the Nash family. Our 18-year-old son had the onset of schizophrenia back then. We were looking for help and support. And John's wife, Alicia, who was a mental health advocate, told us about the organization AAMH in West Windsor.

But now, local newspapers shared the untimely death of John and Alicia in a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike and the release of my new book Quantum Leaps in Princeton's Place on the same page. This strange juxtaposition of emotion — sadness and joy, tragedy and triumph — led to a melancholy spirit upon my return to Princeton for the book signing at the library.

It was a windy, rain-filled evening. Umbrellas fluttered like dark butterflies along the sidewalk outside. About 140 people packed the Community Room in the library. I looked about the room, realizing I had moved away from Princeton nearly fifteen years ago. It was a strange feeling. Here I was giving a reading of my first book about Princeton.

After my talk, people crowded the podium where I stood to speak with me and buy signed books. Then something magical began to happen, the synchronicity surprises again. A 93-year-old man, tall with deep-set blue eyes came to me and said, "I've lived in Princeton all of my life. Interview me for a second book." His name was Paul Hill, son of the man who started Hill Market between Witherspoon and Spring Streets in 1907.

Another woman told me that she also knew the Nash family well. I gave her my email address to be in touch with me. Then I recognized a familiar face, now wrinkled a bit due to age. It was Shirley Satterfield, my son's former guidance counselor from Princeton High School. She was now the Historical Society's tour guide, leading people through the old African American neighborhood. "It's so good to see you," she hugged me.

"And you too. Maybe we can have coffee sometime soon. I'd love to chat and I'd love to tour Princeton with you," I said.

Then there was Evelyn Counts, my son's middle school teacher from many years ago. Other people like Giordana Marioni and her son Alex told me she knew of interesting Mafia connections from Naples in Princeton. And Kathy Kapp, a local librarian, spoke of secret underground tunnels beneath the streets of Princeton. Even the infamous author of the Amelia Bedelia books, Herman Parish, was in attendance and spoke with me for a future interview. This synchronicity led me to make up my mind that I would write the sequel to the first book.

Paul Hill was the first person I interviewed. He was a member of the local Men's Club and the ROMEOs (Retired Old Men Eating Out). As I embarked upon my first interview in Princeton for my second book, it was sunny and raining at the same time. Sycamores swayed gently in the wind. Immediately, Ida's words echoed, "The Devil is beating his wife ... The Devil is beating his wife ..." The same weather pattern that ended the first book was beginning the second.

CHAPTER 2

HILL MARKET

Paul Hill's house was a pale blue ranch located on a tree-lined cul-de-sac off of Mountain Avenue. As he opened the door, I entered the living room that resembled a 1930s parlor. Green plants in short ornate bowls draped down glamorously upon white lace doilies. Medal memorabilia from World War I graced his walls in frames. Couches cluttered the room into small walkways leading to the kitchen. He invited me to take a seat.

At the age of ninety-three, Paul has not changed much from the photographs of thirty years ago that hang upon the walls. He leaned into his wrinkled hands and frowned, "I guess I should start my story with Einstein. In those days, Einstein could be found walking along the streets of Princeton with a double-dipped ice cream cone. His hair was wild and mangled and he wore black high-top Keds that were unlaced." Then his grimace turned into a smile. "And there was my Dad's Hill Market where I helped every morning at 7:00 ..."

Hill Market, on Witherspoon, was a bustling storefront with customers picking up their meats for the day. Meats hung from the ceiling and the shelves were decorated with cracker boxes and packaged goods. People in their Sunday best crowded in to see and buy the freshest foods in town. Servers wore Princeton University straw hats as a representation of the meat market. And a horse and buggy were used to make some of the deliveries in nearby Rocky Hill.

After the market burned down in 1977, Paul managed Springdale Golf Club. Its rooms were spacious eating areas tucked into and hidden on the University Campus beyond the dorms.

CHAPTER 3

IT'S ALL ABOUT HER

"No, no. You don't understand." the woman said, "When you're with me, it's all about me."

Somehow, we all have heard this line before. Maybe in an old nouveau noir black-and-white film from the 1940s. Cut to scene: She is smoking a cigarette and blows the smoke gently from her pursed, crinkled lips into the dark air. Then she taps her long fingernails on the table.

She is the protagonist. She is in control. It is all about her.

She is the sassy jewel in this sea of knowledge. Other characters come in and out and around her. But they are never the true focus of her stories. As she puffs on her thin cigarette again, she boasts that all the cards are in her hands. For she is the grantor of dreams and the teller of disappointments.

As she rides the waves of statesmen and kings, she seduces them with her power and beauty. As the stellar lights dim and the background music intensifies, she lights up another cigarette. She becomes seductive with another glass of moonlit chardonnay.

In the richness of her wealth, some remain alienated, by race, by class, by professions that are not aligned with her style and grace. She possesses a type of sultry smooth angst. A type of seduction that takes deliberate, determined action.

Her thoughts are always in flux. She hesitates. Pauses. Thinks again. But her terse dialogue shows she is always in control. She looks out onto the wet rain-slicked street and glances back. She then takes the butt of her cigarette and snuffs it out in the ashtray.

She is the great American East Coast town, Princeton, sprawling with stories spectacular and quiet in the beloved bazaar of lost and found souls.

CHAPTER 4

A PERSONAL HEAVEN

Someone is following Roberto Saviano. He lurks in the dark shadows behind Roberto on the streets of Naples. He hears footsteps. They stop. Then start again. Stop. Roberto paces, looking nervously at his watch as he now waits at the bus stop. The bus comes and stops. Roberto gets on the bus. But he feels the breath of someone close behind him stepping onto the bus after him. The man whispers, "You know they are going to make you pay for what you did." At the next stop, the man mysteriously disappears from the bus through the rear exit.

There was a war raging between two Mafia groups in Naples. Corruption constantly reigned. The violence spilled blood upon the streets. And Roberto was in the middle of the chaos as a writer. He learned about the informants and messengers. He put together the stories of the neighborhoods. But there was a problem. He knew too much. So for eight years, the Italian journalist faced threats for exposing the Mafia in Naples in his book Gomorrah, which became a global bestseller and film.

For that reason, Roberto had to become anonymous. He spent lonely nights in various hotel rooms with the company of armed bodyguards in Italy. He did not trust anyone anymore. He looked over his shoulder with every movement in the darkness of night. He lived in constant fear. There was an attempt on his life once. He managed to escape.

But something changed. In 2013-2014, he was invited to Princeton University to teach students in Italian 401, Economic Politics and Organized Crime, by a friend in the Departments of French and Italian. Here, he could walk the campus gardens with a true sense of freedom. He watched sunsets. Listened to birds rejoice. And he enjoyed the silence that stilled his soul. He felt a sweet slumber for the first time. He often referred to Princeton as his personal heaven. But it was more than a personal heaven.

It was heaven to be set free.

CHAPTER 5

STEAM TUNNELS

Back in 1968, Princeton resident Kathy Kapp, then 16 years old, knew about the steam tunnels underground. She worked as a waitress for Renwick's on the corner of Palmer Square along with Percy, who was a dishwasher there. Kathy, now gray with glasses and glowing blue eyes, reminisces about her experiences.

"Kathy," Percy would ask her. "Have you heard about the tunnels?"

"What tunnels?" Kathy said, wiping her hair away from her sweaty face.

"You know, the tunnels. I know how to get into them from beneath here in the basement."

"I heard that you should not go in them. They are too small. You have to crawl on all fours and it's dark."

"I have flashlights for us. Yes, there are twists and turns. Maybe a steep drop or two. They're big ol' steel pipes that go 400 feet and bend in and out of the walls. But I've been there. I want to show you. They are something to see!"

"I heard that it's hot like a sauna. Not a good idea. The whole idea just scares me." Kathy shook her head from side to side. "Why do you go down there anyway?"

"It's an adventure. Who would ever believe that there are secret tunnels under Princeton? There are. And we have the key to enter them. The door in the basement here leads us to them. It's that easy!" "You might be able to tempt me more if there were buried treasure there somewhere. But without that, I'm too scared to go down with you."

"At least come down to the basement where you can hear the steam if you push your ear close to the floor."

"Okay. Just the basement. I want to hear the steam pipes. But that's as far as I will go."

They walked down the creaking steps to the damp basement.

"Where can I hear this?"

"Over here," Percy pointed to the floor in the back of the basement. "Put your ear to the ground." Percy demonstrated first.

"You are spooking me! I'm getting out of here!"

"You can't ever say you didn't have the chance to go." Percy smirked as he reached for Kathy's hand.

"I almost went down there," Kathy said. "I'm glad I didn't."

CHAPTER 6

THE GROUND ON WHICH WE STAND

Twenty years after Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright August Wilson delivered this foundational speech about race, gender, and equality on the same stage at the McCarter Theater, it is being discussed again today, April 18, 2016. One entertains whether any progress has been made over this time in diversity and opportunity in theater. The day is filled with performance, symposium, discussion, and reflection, with Toni Morrison giving the final reading at McCosh Hall.

The McCarter house is squeezed full with members of the small African American community, members of Princeton University, members of the Board, students, and visitors from far away. The artistic director, Emily Mann, has her biographer present. Also present is the first African American female professor at Princeton University, Dr. Cecilia B. Hodge, who came from Douglass College in New Brunswick while the student body was still male. She strolls down the aisle elegantly and slowly in her formal silver and black blouse to her front seat.

The lights are dimmed slowly as if stars disappear one by one from the sky. The black curtain opens. Six college students enter the stage and each stands behind a black podium. Each recites from the original work with confidence and enthusiasm. Determination is seen in their expression, gesture, and voice.

"Welcome to my country," a brown-skinned girl with wide eyes starts. "I did not always think this was my country. I am seeking ways to alter the way I interact with society."

A young Caucasian boy with long suspenders attached to his jeans adds, "Art and life together. The Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement together. Race matters in the American landscape in all cultural forms. In all shapes of beauty and justice." Another African American youth chimes in: "I stare across the boundaries that divide us. Black theater is alive, but not funded. Black playwrights of the 1960s altered American Theater creating the signpost to contemporary work."

A dark-skinned girl with soft ringlets commands: "Webster's Dictionary tells us that black means devil, menacing, unqualified. White means righteous, fortunate, decent, linguistically different ..." A bald man with a deep bellowing voice demands: "Where is the human commonality in theater? Where is the common ground in the shell of a bullet?"

CHAPTER 7

THE HOUSE BECKONS

Houses are tellers of stories. They listen and record things with people unaware, going about their daily lives. The love, the joys, the sorrows, and the disappointments are inscribed within every crack and fissure, slowly and effortlessly as these feelings sink into the foundation filled with life. And when life has moved on and the owners have moved out, the house still remembers and whimpers with the howling voice, the whisper of wind. White, pale walls now withered with words of tales echo in vacant hallways. Outside, orange rust bubbles brown down the drain and grazes slowly into the overgrown grass. Spider webs scatter over dead brush trying to cover the past.

Stories stay hidden within the soul of its being until the next family moves in. Their voices blend with the past. The quest of new owners is to find the history of why the house exists and breathes, inhaling and exhaling a vibrating energy of age-old souls. It is these storytellers who recover the tales and sing songs of remembrance to make a record of the lives long past. History speaks through the lives of the houses. We record them in our oral tales, pass them on in books now covered in library dust.

And so the Rosedale House beckons. The old family interviewed for the first book, Quantum Leaps in Princeton's Place, has moved out. Another family has moved in, but the house still beckons through synchronicity.

Synchronicity brought events together for me to write in the house again after twenty years. I was sitting in the McCarter Theater in Princeton watching the Symposium on August Wilson. A reading by Toni Morrison would end the day. I was furiously taking notes for my second book when the woman next to me asked what brought me there. Her name was Leslie and she was the Vice President for the Board for the McCarter Theater. I explained that I was writing my second book and told her the name of my first book about Princeton that was released last year. She told me that it sounded interesting and I should submit it to be read by the theater as a possible play. Leslie asked me to tell her more about my book, Quantum Leaps in Princeton's Place. Then she responded, "I know that house. I live around the corner on Cleveland from it. I knew the first people you interviewed. They have moved since, but I am friends with the people living there now. They have a book group there. Maybe you could read your book."

We had not seen the Rosedale House for over fifteen years. Michaela, my daughter, now 27 years old, and I thought we would drive by since I was writing about the house again. Thick tree limbs hung over the road and swayed as the autumn sun speckled white polka-dots upon the road.

"I think we passed it," I chuckled as we travelled on Rosedale Road.

"Why don't you turn around at my old school and go back," Michaela suggested as she pulled her long curly hair away from her face.

I turned around in the Johnson Park School driveway and headed back.

"I feel like the day we first found the house for my first play date."

Michaela laughed, "You weren't so good at finding the house the first time."

"But everything is overgrown and dark now. I can't see any of the homes from the road because of the thick foliage. Can you?" "No. I'm trying," she said as we turned around again.

This time I drove slowly, close to the right side of the road.

"Oh my, there it is!" I pointed, "It looks the same, just hidden from the road by trees."

"I remember my playdates there," Michaela said, "And I remember Miss Ida B's stories about growing up in the Rosedale House. I really miss her."

"I miss her too," I whispered. "I miss her wonderful stories about her life too."

"Actually the house was a little creepy. It has not changed. It still looks ominous."

"What do you mean?" I asked as I drove slowly past the house and parked on the side of the road.

"Creepy," Michaela repeated, "My friend Taylor thought so too."

"You never told me this before. I used to write in the house all the time. What do you mean?"

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Six Doors Down by Donna Clovis. Copyright © 2017 Dr. Donna Clovis. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword Life as a Synchronicity, ix,
Preface Writing Stories from the Realm of Possibilities, xiii,
Chapter 1 Dr. John Nash, 1,
Chapter 2 Hill Market, 4,
Chapter 3 It's All About Her, 6,
Chapter 4 A Personal Heaven, 8,
Chapter 5 Steam Tunnels, 10,
Chapter 6 The Ground on Which We Stand, 12,
Chapter 7 The House Beckons, 14,
Chapter 8 Haunting Memories, 20,
Chapter 9 Twenty-Three Days, 24,
Chapter 10 September 11Th, 27,
Chapter 11 Healing the World One Blanket at a Time, 30,
Chapter 12 Across the Tracks, 32,
Chapter 13 Being Black and Orange in the Ivy League, 35,
Chapter 14 "The Closer", 37,
Chapter 15 A Little Taste of Cuba, 40,
Chapter 16 Step Down, Mr. Wilson, 42,
Chapter 17 Profiling the System, 54,
Chapter 18 With Grace and Wit, 64,
Chapter 19 Away From the Gates, 66,
Chapter 20 Princeton Cemetery Whispers Stories, 69,
Chapter 21 This Hallowed Ground, 72,
Chapter 22 Every Twenty-Eight Hours, 74,
Chapter 23 We Lean Upon Two Pillars, 77,
Afterword Synchronicity's Call to Write, 79,
End Note Stepping Through the Looking-Glass the Science of Synchronicity, 81,
Bibliography, 85,
About The Author, 87,