[NJARC] Boontonware

[Robert Lilley]

Boonton had the only movie theater I know of whereby you walked into the theater underneath the screen.  It had radiators that would hiss and bang.  We would roll marbles down the center aisle and try to get them through the door under the screen.  A great place to spend a Saturday afternoon on a cold winter day.  

When I was stationed at NATO Headquarters in Izmir Turkey I was traveling to the airport and needed to grab a cab.  A turkish private soldier (Oskar) asked me in perfect American English if he could share the cab to the airport.  This was amazing to me because one would never expect a Turkish private to speak English as many were illiterate at the time.  In the cab he asked me where I was from in the States.  I said rather surprised,  "New Jersey".   "I'm from New Jersey too!", he said.  Oh wow, I thought, this has got to be a 'slicky boy' scam of some sort when he went on to ask "Where are you from in New Jersey?"   I answered, "Like, you're gonna know - Mountain Lakes."  He smiled and said, "I know it, I'm from Boonton!"   Boonton is the town next to Mountain Lakes. 

He was - he was born in Turkey and his family immigrated to this country when he was young.  He traveled to see family in Turkey when he was a young man and as the army is compulsory in Turkey, they wouldn't let him back out unless he served.

Rob