Hoboken Captains, Fore and Aft

"Transported I am, from the haunts of man
on the banks of the Hudson Stream,
Where the wolves and the owls, and their
menacing howls, disturb our nightly dream."

Thus sang the first ferry master, as he rowed the flat barge that served as Revolutionary transportation up and down the mighty Hudson. His was a dry and thirsty occupation, and he was constantly assailed by strange sights and sounds from both sides of the Hudson.

River pirates abounded and shanty gangs with names like "the Down-river Cowboys," and "the Upriver Continental Bully Boys", were a prevalent part and parcel of our aquatic history and culture.

Both sides of the river boasted rowdy late night revelers, who over time generously donated their nightly contributions to the pickling of early American living.

Our early Hoboken, no stranger to the liquid refreshment culture and accompanying thirst of the nation had earned its place in history. A historical tribute, much of which, excluding baseball and the birth place of Frank Sinatra, has not been publicly revealed.

Baseball, after all was a landlubber sport, except for an occasional fly ball into the river, and Frank, after all was Frank.

Since there must have been an aquatic beginning, this author has sub-scribed, temporarily to the maxim, that wetter is better, and has stretched an historical curiosity all the way back to a sober Hoboken, where this author must apologetically remain. This present non politically correct position, however, is certainly not mandatory for the reader.

Shortly before previous gentrifications and the mowing of the newly invented steamboat wheel of progress over our predecessors, a new upward Hoboken emerged.

A wandering local poet, in love with Hoboken and the written word, described her in detail, "as an aging Madam with a face lift". For it’s time it was an accurate caricature, but she is now viewed as being less sober, more educated by travel and culture, and infinitely more gastronomical.Her manners have declined, and are now deplorably attached to her greed. Yet, as her waistline has expanded so have we.