It was in the summer of 1984 that I visited Prion, New Jersey for the first time.
I took an Amtrak train from Washington D.d on my way to New York, I got off the train at Prion Jun and took a taxi ao the uy. 1984 was the presidential ele year between Reagan and Mondale. Everywhere I heard "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Ja was wearing the silver glove due to getting burned on the hand. (That sounds like just a few years ago. Maybe because Im getting older)
The reason I came to Prion was simple; Prion Uy was the school F. Scott Fitzgerald graduated from and I wao see its campus myself. I had no special purpose for my visiting except that. My train stopped at Prion and probably, I thought, I would have no business ing here again in my future, which made me to decide to drop in the uy. After rambling on campus, looking at his own hand written manuscript in a special room at the library, walking around the town, and staying one night at a shabby motel "Prion Motor Lodge," I jumped orak again ao New York. I still remember that the town gave me a peaceful and pastoral impression. It was during the summer vacation and few people were seen on spacious campus and the town looked drowsy. When jogging in the m, I stumbled upon many rabbits and squirrels around the area. (The ime I visited, the fields were replaced by a big shopping mall.)
Ahing I clearly remember was the taxi I took at Prion Jun. Nowadays lots of taxis are waiting in front of the railway station, but when I arrived there, there happeo be no taxi. The shuttle traiweeation and the uy was out of service then, I fot the reason, though. The Prion Jun station is located all alone in vat fields, and you could find no house where people are living. The passengers who got off at the station were only four; a woman in her mid-twenties, a black man around twenty, me and my panion. All we could do was sit in front of the station and wait for a taxi.
It was quite a long time before a taxi came up. We had started to worry about ourselves wheually, oaxi appeared. Feeling relieved, all four of us pooled the oaxi. The woman took a seat beside the driver and the rest of us occupied the back seat. The taxi-driver was a middle-aged big white guy. The taxi started with our sense of relief, but after a while the black mao me deliberately took his hair spray out of a suitcase, and after shaking it up and down, started to spray on his hair. I could not uand why he did such a thing in a taxi-cab, but anyway the rest of us could hardly bear it. He kept on spraying and finally the driver pulled the car to the curb, got out, opehe back door and shouted furiously to the black man saying "You get out here!" At first, he grumbled aed, but maybe intimidated by the tough-guy-appearance of the driver, he got out with his suitcase, showing no further protest. He must have been stoned s. The driver returo his seat and tio drive, and carried three of us to town, as if nothing had happened.
A little later, the driver said to us as if to spit out that "We had no one like that here before." "After inviting the business plex in the suburbs of town, ever more narcotics began to flow into this area. What oh will bee of this town in the several years?
Seven years later, I revisited Prion. This time I was going to stay at the uy for a long period. When chatting with an Ameri in Japan, I said something to the effect that "Id like to get relaxed and write novels in