Exploring Outside of the Box

Upon exiting the front gate of The Peddie School, Andre and I had little in common. We had never been in class together. I was a day student and he a boarder. We rarely encountered one another during the regular class day. As fellow traveler Tanya Shaffer mentioned in her travel tale, “Looking for Abdelati”, one loved aspect of travel is that “strangers get a chance to amaze you” (AWPT 3). Although Andre was not a complete stranger to me, throughout our journey he continued to surprise me as to how much we had common.

As we walked down empty streets, I learned that Andre knew as little about Hightstown as I. Being Peddie students, we had never traveled beyond the typical stomping grounds of Slowdown, Maninos, and Theo’s. Not knowing that Hightstown was much larger than the Main Street stretch, we decided to explore what we considered the outskirts of town. Upon arriving at the first crosswalk that would lead us down long streets filled with houses and unfamiliar businesses, Andre mentioned how friendly people were in yielding to pedestrians. Where we come from, not many people are willing to take five seconds out of their busy travels to yield to pedestrians so, we were pleasantly surprised by this gesture. Although, after safely crossing over Main Street, Andre realized that a police officer was parked a couple hundred feet in front of the crosswalk, we still liked to believe that people stopped out of the kindness of their hearts, not because the police were watching.

Walking up and down the streets less traveled by cars taught Andre and I much about the history of Hightstown and a little about the people who traveled before us. On either side of each street were small houses and shops. Although these places may not seem small to the inhabitants, to us, they were much smaller than those being constructed in new development complexes within the state of New Jersey. Intrigued by the houses during our walk, I turned to Andre and said, “I love the way that all of these houses are basic and not too extravagant.” Nodding his head in response, Andre replied, “Yeah, it looks like all of them have been here for a while.” As we walked down more settled streets, we were fascinated that none of the houses looked particularly newly built. All looked as if they had been inhabited for many years. One particular house on the corner of Bank Street and Academy Street looked as if it had been once occupied many years ago, and has been deteriorating ever since. Andre and I imagined the creamy yellow mansion in its prime and concluded that wealthy people had once lived there. Despite the fact that the once elegant mansion is now run-down, its inner beauty could not be taken away. Not even the rumors of it being haunted, a random yellow cat at the foot of the mailbox, nor the sound of a dog bark coming from the backyard, could keep Andre and I from wishing to learn more about the house’s “younger years”.

On our way down another street away from the yellow mansion, Andre and I discovered three of the most visually appealing houses. All three were over one hundred and fifty years old and looked like life sized versions of doll houses. Their bold, yet smooth colors and carefully sculpted structures allowed Andre and I to feel like we were in the mid 1800s. Walking down what I like to call “doll house row”, and discovering the “haunted” yet beautiful yellow mansion really gave Andre and I a taste of Hightstown’s history.

During our journey, Andre and I came across a small corner shop called “Curious, etc.”. Since we were “curious” to learn more about the store, we decided to have a look inside. From the moment we walked in the door, we were warmly greeted by three beautiful, elderly women. After exchanging handshakes and introducing ourselves, we decided to ask a few questions as to why they chose Hightstown for the location of the shop and what exactly they were selling. After learning that the store was just five weeks old, we were surprised that we had not noticed its arrival into the town earlier. Once the three women covered their store’s background information, they quickly changed the topic to current events and personal stories. We told the women that we were exploring town and asked if they knew of any interesting locations outside of the “food strip” on Main Street. They recommended that we check out the sign near Peddie Lake that mentioned the history of Hightstown, including information about the founders, the Heights family. After listening to many interesting stories of the women and their grandchildren, we kindly bid them farewell and continued on our journey through town.

At the end of our journey, Andre and I picked a cozy booth in the Slowdown Café to sit and share our experiences from the journey. We both agreed that Hightstown was not the small town that we had pictured it to be. Instead, it was full of rich history and interesting locations. We would have never known that the town was full of construction companies, antique shops, and hundred year old houses. As Andre and I walked back through Peddie’s front gate onto campus, we brought with us a whole new understanding of the not-so-little town of Hightstown as well as a traveling companionship.