North Branch Raritan River at Bedminster

Some years ago, my wife walked our black Labrador, Sadie, along the Hike & Bike Trail. They made their regular stop at the stretch between the AT&T entry and exit. She was trying to be careful to not let Sadie take to swimming, to just let her get a drink or sit at the edge a bit, because two trout fishermen were nearby, knee deep or so in waders. A well-dressed woman in her 40's, as my wife described her, approached and said about Sadie, "She deserves to be in the water more than they do." "They" happened to be Hispanic. 

Just this evening, as we returned from the Beatle Mania Again concert in Basking Ridge, we saw pro-Trump protestors in the dark, alongside Highway 202/206, on Clarence Dillon Public Library property. We've always assumed they come from out-of-town, and though we could be mistaken on that assumption, chances are pretty good that our intuition, developed over the course of 23 years of Bedminster residency, is correct. This is the very first time I've heard my wife utter what could be construed as a desire to have them removed. They have often come in throngs. Horn honking, yelling, all but naked chest beating, you might say. My wife took issue tonight. "Why are they allowed to occupy our public library grounds, when the Hispanics are driven from public property at the river?"

My wife is a coalminer's granddaughter with a keen sympathy for the oppressed, so when she calls it racism, I listen. But I'm not altogether sure it is that, or is that altogether, in the particular case I will outline. I can only vouch for my wife's vastly superior intelligence compared to mine in political matters.

I managed to get the photograph (above) just a day or so before cone markers forbade convenient parking along Highway 202/206 to access the same stretch. The regulations stated on the sign are a new development, too, although surely a more permanent one. Markers also forbid easy access to stretches upstream and Bedminster Pond. The constitutional legality of the town's move is a question I don't have the answer to, my not being a lawyer; I'm just pointing out I don't know. Whether the law commands open and easy access to public land--one would think it must.

Yesterday, I spoke to a friend in the neighborhood. He brought up the cones. 

"They're still there?" I said.

What he divulged led me to mention it to my wife, when she told me the story of the two Hispanic trout anglers.

My friend told me in some detail about word he got of abuses. They were building fires and/or using barbeque grills, swimming in the river--Mexicans, as he put it, from North Plainfield--but the thing that disgusted me was word of the diapers left behind along with assorted other trash. If indeed this is the case. I believe he said he saw the property when it was a mess. As for the swimming, I've got GoPro footage, if anyone wants to ogle, of me and my son snorkeling the stretch. Perhaps, as would seem likely at my age now, such halcyon days are gone for the Litton's. What about opportunity for others? 

No, we never barbequed there, but it seems a neat thing to do. If you keep it clean. As for the new sunrise to sunset access provision on the board I photographed--many times I've been back there in the dark. Doing night photography and waiting on the initiation of Opening Day for trout. Fishing browns, too.

I checked out the stretch today, having accessed it legally by another means than the Highway. No fire marks, though it's quite possible some barbeque cooking went on. The bottom of the river is clean and looks untouched, unspoiled, despite alleged swimming going on. No trash. I guess it was cleaned up, because if I heard my friend's word right, he saw it, and I believe him in that case. It seems to me the "Mexicans" crossed the line. (I work with people from the Dominican Republic who could be confused with Mexicans.) It's fully understandable that Bedminster residents using the Hike and Bike Trail, as well as innocent anglers who leave no trace, should not be left feeling disgusted at trash visibly left behind. There's a trash container there. If more is consumed than the trash container can take, then one wonders if things are being overdone. Now parties in excess of five must obtain a permit. It's on the board. That rule seems like a good idea to me; though it's an inconvenience to large families, there should be an element of pride in being legitimized. 

Swimming--or snorkeling--was always done when it would probably offend no one. To invite lolling about in the river contradicts what that stretch is mostly used for--fishing. Lolling around in the water gets to be offensive pretty fast. On the other hand, to see a crazy dad and his son, the son who was well-known in the circles of Bernards High School, among classmates and parents alike, for being brilliant at math; or in other words, because the motive of doing more than indulging the body was evident due to a GoPro mounted on the head, a certain relief likely occurred to some witnessing us, not that anything is wrong with indulging the body except that we're referring to public property, and besides that, to an element of belonging...we knew some of the people who saw us in the river. Such a feeling of belonging eases the social nature of the situation--snorkeling that river was surely amusing to walkers and joggers, but offensive? Why should it have been? 

It's just that if towns begin to bar outsiders, we lose rather than gain unity. Sometimes anxiety about others you don't know helps heighten your awareness. Awareness functions by struggling to be inclusive--it wants to gain, but in some situations it settles on drawing the line or beating back what it feels is threatening. Snorkeling itself is a way to encounter unfamiliarity and become acquainted.  Largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, bluegills, green sunnies, redbreast sunfish, bullheads, suckers and rainbow trout--we've seen all of these species. We've viewed them not only in the interest of fishing. More so in the interest of naturalism. I'm not even naming the minnows viewed through diving masks there in the summer, here in Bedminster.  

Hunterdon