MONEYPIT - Apr '04

MONEYPIT MID-ATLANTIC: April 23-25, 2004

MONEYPIT Mini-FAQ:

What is MONEYPIT? It's the Mellotron Owners of New England, a.k.a. Mellotron Owners Needing Excessive Yen for Purchases for Improving their 'Trons.

When do MONEYPIT activities happen? Randomly. OK, it's whenever Your Webmaster shows up with his camera where there's a Mellotron and there's not a Mellotron Symposium happening.

Does MONEYPIT mean "New England" only? Apparently not. This one took us to New Jersey.

Jerry Korb determined it was time for Your Webmaster here to take a tour of what little is left of the old Morris Canal in New Jersey over the weekend of April 23, 2004. As a side trip, Mellotronist Fritz Doddy just happened to have scheduled an interview on the 25th with some good folks from WNYC to discuss the Mellotron and sampling in general, and Fritz just happens to live in New Jersey. Thus a MONEYPIT weekend was hatched (see--we really don't need much of an excuse to have one of these "MONYEPITs").

I arrived at the house of Mrs. Margaret Korb, Jerry's Mom, in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey on Friday afternoon after a four hour ride from Boston. Jerry and Mali pulled in about 15 minutes later from a much longer ride from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

First, the culture shock. Your Webmaster likes trees. Trees don't beep at you, and unless you're intoxicated, they don't jump out in front of you while you're driving. This close to "The City" (New York City) means you take your life into your own hands while trying to reach your destination. Fortunately we all made it with little damage.

It was good to see Jerry and Mali again, and it was a pleasure to meet Jerry's Mom, who's even older than Jerry but despite that is still very active in her community. Mrs. Korb has lived in the house in Wood-Ridge for over fifty years, and it's where Jerry grew up. Jerry's Dad could never sit still and worked on the house endlessly, and he even built the furniture in the dining room--complete with inlays--that is showroom quality. Jerry takes right after his Dad and learned a lot from him.

The plan for the weekend was a tour of the Morris Canal on Saturday and then a ride over to Fritz's house on Sunday. We settled in for the evening, which, as it happened, was Mali's birthday!

Yeah, the cake was awesome. My doctor will be scraping it out of my arteries for years to come--but it was worth it!

So...the big to-dos for the weekend...

	Personal Guided Tour of the Morris Canal
	Visit to Fritz & Family -- and the WNYC Interview

After some cake it was time to get some shuteye. Jerry and I would be out all over the place on Saturday...

Jerry's Mom, Jerry, and Mali

Many thanks to Mrs. Korb for sharing her home and for her most kind hospitality.

Thanks, too, to Jerry for being a great tour guide and for sharing all that information with me about the Morris Canal.

Your Webmaster, Mali, and Jerry

The usual credits and disclaimers:

	Text, photos, and mini-movie by Ken Leonard. Additional photos ("A" series) from Jerry Korb (some of these have Your Webmaster in 'em---have a look at that ragin' stud muffin!). Elblag Canal photos courtesy of the Canal Society of New Jersey.
	Morris Canal Tour by Jerry Korb. Jerry also provided extensive Morris Canal information and literature. He also proofread this stuff and sanitized it for your protection.
	Fritz Doddy (and family) supplied the munchies, a nice dinner, and great humor. Fritz also contributed new sounds to the growing Mellotron tape library, helping keep the instrument alive!
	Cake by Mill's Bakery in Wood-Ridge, NJ. It shall live on in my arteries forever!
	The Mellotron name is owned by Mellotron Archives. I don't own it. Chances are you don't own it. Don't use it unless you own it.
	There's no Mellotron advice in here this time, so I don't have to tell you to do the right thing and ignore it.