Brooklyn New York was and is, no town. It was concreted well before WW II and comprises many sections. My section was known as Flatbush.

As a kid, my neighborhood was a good place, with trees between the sidewalks and streets in front of semi-detached houses. Naturally, my block was better than others because it was wider than many others and not a main thorofare. My street was great for roller-skating, stick ball, Hide and Seek, (ole-ole-home-free), touch football and other kid stuff. Dodging cars was always a hazard. I nearly got creamed several times. Why do you think the Brooklyn Dodgers were called the Dodgers? Sports on the block required special rules, too. If the ball hit a parked car..., the telephone wire over the street..., etc. (Yes, we had telephones then).

The tree that grew in Brooklyn was in front of my house. Until a hurricane pushed it over onto the front stoop. I remember my dad had to buy a two-man saw on his way home from work to saw his way into the house. They were two-man saws then, not two person saws.

I remember the sound of the crashing tree. I was dutifully doing my homework in the basement when, wow. The empty square area of dirt where the huge tree had been made a neat place to play marbles.

I remember I loved to go to the candy store up at the corner of the block. Any excuse to spend some time there. Seemed I always needed some sort of school supplies. Sam Golub, the owner, had a huge display of great comics. His daughter had a nifty display, as well. A popular local hangout.

The subways, trolleys and buses were mobbed but safe, even for a short, thin, youthful towhead kid like me to get to and from school. And only a nickel a ride. Dad used them too, to get to and from his office near the base of the Manhattan Bridge in NY. The logic of mass transit.

But I didn’t grow my kids where this city kid grew up. Enough of neighborhood evolution.

Among the gentle, rolling New Jersey hills of Hunterdon County, Flemington, the county seat, also evolved from its bucolic, agricultural roots into its present day suburban setting. I watched the farming community change since settling my family there in 1967 where I started a new job. It was the perfect setting for the research farm.

I took up flying after a while and took pictures of the region from altitudes of only five hundred to a thousand feet, which afforded the proverbial birds-eye view of the growth and development of this formerly nationally famous, and subsequently forgotten little town.

The communitiy of homes where my five children grew up was one of the two housing developments outside of the borough of Flemington at that time. In both developments, homes were on lots of over an acre and a third each. Plenty of room for individual wells and septic systems. The well water was particularly delicious, always cold and nearly sterile. I checked. The house that the bank let us live in, and still does, was situated on a spacious, flat corner lot. Plenty of room for five kids to dig in the several tons of sand piled there, (and chase the cats away from), swing on the swings, slide down the sliding board chute, race motor scooters and go-carts around the periphery, play baseball using the trees as bases, play that new game, soccer and do all the other things that kids do and still be far enough away from neighbors and cars.

In 1967, there were no local police and cows could be heard from the bedroom. And rarely, one loose Holstein would meander through back yards. One must understand, in New Jersey, fenced properties are not the norm as in most western states. I've never heard good reasons why westerners compulsively wall themselves in. To block the breezes? To block the views? But I digress. And the irritating sound of those damn beepers on construction backhoes and front-end loaders could be heard from the bedroom, replacing the more natural mooos.

In the late sixties there were no modern shopping malls. People shopped using the Sears catalogue and waited for the delivery truck or the post person. The county had been a center for poultry and egg production which gave way to dairy farms, which gave way to fewer and fewer farms, which gave way to the present day crop, housing. So many of those gentle-rolling hills have sprouted homes, condos and town houses. The State Police don't patrol any more, the township has twenty-five or more of its own cops.

But outside of town, those splendid Hunterdon County rolling hills are still there, still cultivated in field corn which should imbue even today’s citified viewer with a rich sense of country serenity.

The seasons are dramatic, too. As snow melts it reveals geometric patterns of precise columns and rows of emergent winter wheat. The sprigs begin to grow as other fields of reddish clay soil are tilled following the last frost. Welcome stems of field corn appear. The silage corn and soybeans grow with remarkable speed and the residents have the joy of watching deep green envelop the reddish soil. Green then takes over those curious, sculptured rolling hills. Residents can pace the summer months by the height of the corn and measure the summer day's temperatures by the intensity of the afternoon thunderstorms.

Fall blazes with fierce fiery colors. Trees and crops generate vistas that make wonderful post cards and kids look forward to Halloween. And winters are okay for those few who don't have to commute.

I feared that Flemington will fall from forgotten-ness, at least temporarily. HBO showed a TV movie about the "Trial of the Century." The Lindbergh Trial that took place in sleepy downtown Flemington. Hauptman was, as you remember, convicted in the little courthouse on that rural Main Street. And the Union Hotel across the street was headquarters for all the mobs of media persons. I served as a juror a few times in that small courthouse over the years and have had lunch/dinner at the Union Hotel from time to time. Old photographs of the trial activities still decorate both buildings.

And something happened almost everywhere in that town during my decades there. I remember being in the local hospital’s maternity delivery room twice trying to balance being at fault and being helpful all at the same time. I also remember being in that hospital's emergency room on a gurney once. But, according to the befuddled state trooper,

that was my fault.

After thirty some years, Flemington is still a good place to raise a family. It's different now, of course, with shopping malls and burgeoning growth, but change is reality.

The school system still works, all five kids made it through colleges from that system without a problem and now the second batch of kids are working their way through that same system. What a joy.

The brain's gray matter has stored endless hard disks and DVDs worth of all manner of data. It sure is amazing. I sure hope biomedical research can soon render Alzheimer's, moot. It’s 2004 already. I’ll need the help.