11-20 PE

ECHO

PRINCETON NOVEMBER 2020 COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG

REVOLUTIONARY PRINCETON NEW BOOK DESCRIBES A TOWN — AND COUNTRY — AT A CROSSROADS. PAGE 6.

Last Call at Landau Henry and Robert Landau — owners of the iconic 106-year-old Nassau Street woolens shop — are retiring.

Page 8

Food for Thought

Pizza shop Proof and Amazing Thai open their doors, and Planted Plate vegan restaurant is coming soon.

Page 9

Silent Companions

Columnist Pia de Jong introduces John, who has developed a 40-year friendship with Princeton’s trees.

Page 11

Capital Health Medical Group

WELCOMES THREE FELLOWSHIP TRAINED RHEUMATOLOGISTS

Capital Health Medical Group welcomes DRS. WILLIAM TORELLI, SEHRIS KHAWAJA, and RISHI PATEL, fellowship trained rheumatologists, to its Capital Health – Rheumatology Specialists practice. With expertise in diagnosing and treating autoimmune conditions and diseases that affect the joints, muscles and bones, the new physicians join Dr. Sajina Prabhakaran at their main office, located in the medical office building at Capital Health Medical Center – Hopewell. New offices will also open soon in Newtown, Pennsylvania and Bordentown, New Jersey.

Dr. Torelli received his medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and completed his fellowship training in rheumatology, including training in musculoskeletal ultrasound, at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Patel received his medical degree at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and completed his rheumatology fellowship at North Shore Long Island Jewish Medical Center, part of Northwell Health/Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra University in Great Neck, New York. He is fluent in English and Gujarati (and conversant in Hindi and Spanish).

Dr. Khawaja received her medical degree at West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine and completed her fellowship training in rheumatology at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., during which time she also provided care for patients at the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The team at Capital Health – Rheumatology Specialists diagnoses and treats complex autoimmune conditions, providing personalized care plans tailored to each patient.

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2Princeton Echo | November 2020

MEDICAL GROUP

ECHO EDITOR Sara Hastings (Ext. 206) CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST Pia de Jong PRODUCTION Stacey Micallef SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Jennifer Steffen (Ext. 113) ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Mark Nebbia (Ext. 115)

Community News Service 15 Princess Road, Suite K Lawrence, NJ 08648 Phone: (609) 396-1511 News & Letters: hastings@princetoninfo.com Events: events@communitynews.org Website: communitynews.org Facebook: facebook.com/princetonecho Twitter: twitter.com/mercerspace 3,000 copies of the Princeton Echo are bulkdistributed to businesses in Princeton 12 times a year.

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November 2020 | Princeton Echo3

REAL ESTATE

“Fall Is The Best Time For Cleaning!”

Town plans for a more walkable Witherspoon

W For immediate attention, call the Princeton Renata for all your housecleaning and organizing needs.

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vestigate, to gather data, and do an analysis of those three options.

It’ll be using available big data that represents the traffic that was in operation prior to COVID,” Stockton said. “I know there was a lot of concern that we can’t use the COVID traffic volumes as a gauge for what to expect once life returns to the new normal, so they do have the ability to use this big data source to get a better picture of the anticipated traffic and then project into the future.”

The study is expected to take six to seven weeks, at which point Council will see draft recommendations.

More information on the Witherspoon Street improvement project as well as diagrams of potential road layouts can be seene online at www.princetonnj.gov/resources/witherspoonstreet-improvement-project.

hile Witherspoon StrEAT — the reduction of Witherspoon Street to one lane — was an immediate solution to the need for socially distanced outdoor dining setups, it is also a test run for more permanent changes to the downtown corridor between Nassau and Green streets.

Princeton Council has entered into an agreement with traffic engineering firm McMahon Associates to conduct a study on three possible options for the area between Nassau and Spring streets.

“It’s been in the concept planning process since February,” municipal engineer Deanna Stockton explained at the October 12 Council meeting. The three main options under consideration are to keep it as a two-way street, to adopt the COVID pilot with a oneway northbound street, or to close that stretch to vehicle traffic entirely.

There are also variations to the configurations of sidewalks and parking Aspire presents an Elm and loading areas under consider- Road designer showhouse ation. Other possibilities include hyspire Design and Home Magazine brid models in which, for instance, the is giving Princetonians a chance at street is open to cars during the week a novel experience this November: setbut closed to traffic on the weekends.

McMahon Associates’ role is to “in- ting foot inside someone else’s house.

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4Princeton Echo | November 2020

The new home at 221 Elm Road.

In partnership with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services and Fox and Roach Realtors, Aspire is presenting a Princeton showhouse at 221 Elm Road. The brand new home has been furnished and decorated by New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania-based interior designers including Princeton’s own Judy King.

The home will be open for viewing Wednesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., from November 1 through 22. Registration for timed entry tickets is required via EventBrite. The $25 to $30 admission fee benefits scholarships for aspiring interior design students from underrepresented communities.

All visitors will be required to wear face masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines.

For more information and to purchase tickets visit www.aspireshowhouse.com/princeton.

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The rendering above shows the proposed replacement for the existing house at 29 Green Street, right.

Zoning Board updates

T

he Zoning Board of Adjustment was scheduled to hear two applications at its October 28 meeting, after the Echo went to press.

One application is for 22 Stockton Street, a property owned by Trinity Church that until late 2019 was occupied by Trinity Counseling Service. The counseling center relocated to 353 Nassau Street, and the church seeks to convert the Stockton Street space to offices.

The church requires a variance for the office use in a residential zone — the counseling use was a permitted conditional use — as well as a sign variance.

At 29 Green Street owner/applicant Sam Boraie is seeking numerous variances to construct a new home in the Witherspoon-Jackson historic district.

Variances relate to floor area ratio, required lot area and width, rear and side-yard setbacks, impervious coverage, and to permit two driveways as well as a main entrance not oriented to the street. The plan also requires approval from the Historic Preservation Commission.

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November 2020 | Princeton Echo5

Kidder’s ‘Revolutionary Princeton’ explores the life of a place

By Dan Aubrey

‘A

round 9 a.m., on the bitterly cold Friday, January 3, 1777, the terrifying sounds of musket and cannon fire made by several thousand soldiers finally diminished and became more distant,” starts William (Larry) Kidder in his new book “Revolutionary Princeton 1774 - 1783: The Biography of an American Town.”

The Ewing resident continues by taking the reader deeper into the home located on what is now known as the Princeton Battlefield and opens the door to history.

Here we meet “34-year-old farmer Thomas Clarke, his 24-year-old sister Sarah, their 28-year-old enslaved woman Susannah, and 19-year-old French Huguenot farmhand David de la Force.

“Following their farmer’s routine, they had awakened early to start the farm chores that bitterly cold morning when they unexpectedly heard and then saw a long column of American Continental soldiers and militiamen marching up the little-used dirt road that passed the front of their house. As they watched, several hundred soldiers turned left from the column and marched across crop stubble and winter wheat shoots on their frozen farm fields and the adjacent icy cropland and bare orchard of their 41-year-old brother, William.

“In horror, these peaceful Quakers watched an intense battle flare up when those American troops ran into about 500 British troops coming towards them from the Post Road connecting Princeton and Trenton.

“The resulting combat ended in less than an hour, but the fighting had been very heavy near their houses, with an occasional British bullet peppering a wall while they cowered inside. As the sounds of battle became more distant, Thomas and Sarah’s great relief suddenly changed to shocked sadness when several American soldiers came to their door carrying wounded, heavily bleeding men, including one identified as a high ranking officer.

“The peaceful Quaker siblings accommodated these injured men in their home, knowing there must be more wounded and dead outside lying on their fields.”

That’s just one of the vivid moments Kidder presents in this 384-page book that brings Princeton history alive.

It also contains some important observations and harsh realities.

For example, take Kidder’s overview of the region’s Quakers who “lived comfortably but did not display magnificent homes, expensive furniture, or other signs of wealth.”

But, like others throughout the British colonies, they employed indentured servants and owned enslaved persons, despite some members’ push to abolish the practice.

“Concerns among Quakers in West Jersey about the ethics of slavery first appeared in 1688 when the Germantown, Pennsylvania Quakers wrote up an anti-slavery petition,” Kidder writes.

“The debate led to increasing abolitionist expressions, protests, and actions, including among the Princeton area Quakers. Quakers manumitted many slaves, including ones at Princeton, during the 1770s.”

H

owever, as Kidder points out, “while early Stony Brook residents were primarily Quakers, Presbyterianism became prevalent throughout the area as the population grew. The Presbyterians were not strongly anti-slavery at this point, and some Quakers may have converted to escape criticism for owning slaves.

“Commenting on the enslaved people around Princeton, Presbyterian Reverend John Witherspoon, president of the college in Princeton, a slave owner himself, noted rather casually, if not defensively, that ‘Negroes are exceedingly well used, being fed and clothed as well as any free persons who live by daily labor.’”

It’s such social and personal conflicts that pull the reader into the minds of

‘Princeton experienced the Revolution and the war as a diverse community trying to deal with events that were outside their control,’ Kidder writes. the people who created our region and nation.

The book strikes its flint spark in 1774 when “many residents of Princeton, like many people in the 13 British North American colonies, had become increasingly concerned about acts passed by the distant British Parliament that affected their lives.

“The resultant protest actions, however, came more under the heading of news than something in which people were actively involved. The rising tide of protests against these acts reached flood level on December 13, 1773, when protestors acted out their disgust with a small tax on tea and destroyed a shipment of it in Boston Harbor.”

Then, as Kidder so keenly reports, “One night in late January, a few days after Paul Revere rode through Princeton spreading the news about the destruction of tea in Boston harbor, College of New Jersey students held their own protest against the tax of imported tea. Several boys broke into the college steward’s storeroom, took out the win-

6Princeton Echo | November 2020

On the cover: The cover image, aptly titled “The Battle of Princeton,” is an unsigned painting in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum believed to have been completed by James Peale.

(His older brother, Charles Willson Peale, is responsible for the more famous battle painting on view at the museum.) Both brothers fought in the battle, and James is said to have been assisted by an apprentice named Billy Mercer — son of General Hugh Mercer who was famously slain in the battle. ter supply of tea, and then went from room to room, removing all privately owned tea.

“They destroyed the tea in a bonfire built in the yard in front of Nassau Hall while tolling the school bell and making ‘many spirited resolves.’ Other students enthusiastically burned effigies of Massachusetts Governor Hutchinson, ‘amidst the repeated acclamations of a large crowd of spectators.’

“Not everyone in the village agreed with the boys’ actions, and tempers flared on both sides. Innkeeper William Hick, whose inn stood across the street from the college, drew negative attention to himself by making progovernment remarks that others in the assembled crowd found obnoxious.

College senior Samuel Leake became so emotionally caught up that he somehow insulted a college trustee, possibly local lawyer Richard Stockton, who came by and calmly tried to break up the ‘riotous proceedings.’

“Afterward, the Pennsylvania Gazette reported that ‘we hear from Princeton, in New Jersey, that the officers and students of the college, have unanimously agreed to drink no more TEA.’” Kidder’s witty blending of American figures such as Paul Revere with the day-to-day details of colonial Princeton engages and quickly reminds us of the region’s placement as both the crossroads for East Coast travel and the crossroads of the Revolution.

H

ere’s another example of the many prominent historic figures to be mentioned — and a Princeton tavern that had been known to locals until the late 20th century: “Before the Continental Congress was scheduled to meet, 39-year-old John Adams set out from New Brunswick in a carriage smartly drawn by four horses. Squeezed in the vehicle with him were his older cousin Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine, the Massachusetts delegates to the upcoming Continental Congress, and also their four servants.

“After a jarring, dusty ride of about 15 miles over the uneven dirt Post

Road, sometimes called the King’s Highway or the Upper Road, connecting New York and Philadelphia, they entered the pretty village of Princeton about noon.

“Their driver stopped the carriage in front of 38-year-old Jacob Hyer’s tavern, proudly displaying an image of the literary character Hudibras on its sign.

This inn stood quite near massive Nassau Hall, constructed from light brown, locally quarried sandstone that housed the College of New Jersey.

“Presbyterians brought the college to town in 1757, and Jacob had humorously named his tavern the Hudibras, after the title character in Samuel Butler’s 1663 mock-heroic poem satirizing religious dissenters, such as ‘New Light’ Presbyterians.”

Yet it is Kidder’s ability to place the reader into the era’s uncertain times and the grating daily challenges that people faced that makes the book more than just a recount of familiar history.

As the writer notes at the start of his chapter “1781,” “Morale in America had reached another low point as (the year) began to unfold. The continual dragging on of the inconclusive war had created or exacerbated many problems, including the depreciation of currency and Loyalists’ efforts to disrupt the revolution. The 13 new states had not even come together to ratify the Articles of Confederation.”

“Princeton experienced the Revolution and the war as a diverse community trying to deal with events that were outside their control,” writes Kidder at the end of his book.

He then gets to the heart of his life’s work and the importance of learning history: “In many ways, they were like us today, and understanding their struggles in the 18th century can help us understand our struggles today.”

Revolutionary Princeton 1774 1783: The Biography of an American Town by William Kidder, $19, Knox Books.

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November 2020 | Princeton Echo7

RETAIL NEWS

Princeton’s ‘wool family’ to retire

By Sara Hastings

A

fter 106 years — through two World Wars, evolving fashions, and technological leaps in how people do their shopping — it’s a global pandemic that might finally stop “the little shop that could.” Brothers Henry and Robert Landau, owners of the eponymous woolens shop that has been in Princeton since 1955, have announced their retirement.

“Current conditions make it very difficult for our unique business model. Limited access to our special products, limited ability to touch and feel, limited staffing with health concerns, limited customers with health concerns,” Robert Landau said in a statement.

“So brothers Henry and Robert Landau announce a retirement sale to begin Wednesday, October 7, while discussing a potential sale to another family business with several shops.”

Landau was founded by the brothers’ grandfather, Henry, in Jersey City in 1914. Their parents, David and Evelyn Landau, moved the store to Princeton in 1955. It occupied a small space on Witherspoon Street before moving to its longtime home at 102 Nassau Street in the early 1960s.

Throughout its history, the store has distinguished itself by listening to customers and carrying the products they want. In a 2015 interview, Robert Landau explained that when the family store first arrived in town, restaurant workers came in looking for specialty uniforms. “Specialty uniform stores were not part of the landscape then,” he said. “This was another

chance to focus on what people wanted.”

Soon after that, when a customer asked about pants she had seen cowboys wearing out west, Landau became the first non-western store to carry blue jeans. In 1959 it was Wrangler’s largest U.S. specialty store.

Landau gained a new claim to fame in the late 1960s, when a woman who had been in England asked if they carried “hold-ups,” a precursor to pantyhose that had already come into fashion in Europe.

The Landaus contacted the British manufacturer, Pretty Polly, and became the company’s representative in the United States. When pantyhose emerged in 1967, Landau was the first store in the U.S. to sell them.

It was in the 1970s, after Robert Landau had graduated from the University of Virginia and joined the family business, that he and his wife happened to buy some wraps made from Icelandic wool at a trade show. Before long the store accounted for 30 percent of Iceland’s woolens exports. In 1982 the Landaus were dubbed “the wool family” by Iceland’s president.

But while the store has centered its business on fine woolens, it is also ingrained in Princeton’s larger cultural scene. Its marketing efforts have frequently involved noted Princeton artists. In the 1980s the store held a caption contest for cartoons created by New Yorker cartoonist and Princeton resident Henry Martin. Noted architect and designer Michael Graves coordinated with Landau on the design of a series of

Irish throws.

Landau’s catalogs featured artwork by Lonni Sue Johnson, another New Yorker illustrator who grew up in Princeton. When a virus in Johnson’s brain caused severe amnesia, Robert Landau’s wife, Johns Hopkins cognitive scientist Barbara Landau, led research on the relationship between Johnson’s return to art and recovery from her brain injury.

In 1994, around the time the Einstein-centric romantic comedy “I.Q.” was being filmed in Princeton, Landau transformed the back corner of his store into an Albert Einstein museum — yet another detail that makes Landau unique. As shown in a 2017 answer on the “Jeopardy!” quiz show —“Oddly the only museum devoted to this physicist is tucked inside a woolen shop in Princeton NJ” — the Einstein museum, like the store, is one of a kind.

Landau, 102 Nassau Street. Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 609-9243494 or www.landauprinceton.com.

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roof is not the only restaurant to have opened its doors in Princeton amid an ongoing pandemic. Amazing Thai has opened at 260 Nassau Street, the former location of Tiger Noodles.

The restaurant offers authentic Thai fare including curry, fried rice, and noodle-based dishes. A lunch special, $10.50 to $14.50, is available weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. and includes an appetizer and an entree served with jasmine rice.

Specialty entrees, like the Amazing Pad Thai packed with jumbo prawns, crab meat, and chicken ($35); Phuket Crispy Half Duck ($32); and Bangkok Curry Fish ($24) range from $20 to $38.

Amazing Thai is open for indoor and outdoor dining as well as takeout for lunch and dinner seven days a week.

It joins Thai Village and Lil Thai Pin as Princeton’s purveyors of Thai cuisine.

Amazing Thai, 260 Nassau Street.

Open Monday through Sunday for lunch, noon to 3 p.m. Open for dinner Sunday through Thursday, 4:30 to 9:30 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, 4:30 to 10 p.m. 609-454-3593. www.amazingthainj.com.

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oming soon to Princeton is the Planted Plate, a vegan restaurant taking the space at 15 Spring Street that has been vacant since Savory Spice Shop left at the beginning of 2018.

Planted Plate is part of the same family of vegan restaurants that operates Kaya’s Kitchen, serving lunch and dinner in Belmar, and Kaya’s Kitchen Vegan Cafe, serving breakfast and lunch in Asbury Park.

Menu items include soups, salads, and entrees based on products like tofu, seitan, and tempe.

A fall opening is anticipated for what will be Princeton’s only fully vegan restaurant.

For more information visit www. kayaskitchenbelmar.com/plantedplate.

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t didn’t take long for a new pizza place to take the spot of Princeton Pi, which closed its 84 Nassau Street pizza and frozen yogurt eatery early in the pandemic.

The space has undergone substantial interior renovations, but one need only look in the front window to see the shelves displaying artisanal pizza pies in search of hungry customers.

That was all it took to lure my husband and me in for lunch on a recent weekday. While we opted for slices to go topped with sopressata, castelvetrano olives, and roasted onions, we had a range of other choices not limited to pizza.

The menu also features salads ($6 to $9), including classic caesar and chopped salads as well as arugula and peach, tomato, and roasted corn. There is also a full “veggies” menu — priced from $8 to $14 — with choices like corn fritters, cauliflower gnocchi, and a twist on eggplant parmesan featuring burrata cheese.

But the stars of the show are the pizzas, available by the slice for $3 to $4 or as a whole pie, starting at $12 for a 12inch pie and $16 for a 16-inch pie with added cost for toppings. Among the specialty pies ($16 to $24) are a breakfast pie — topped with sausage, bacon, pork roll, and eggs — a fried clam pie, a salad pie — topped with arugula, tomato, red peppers, and basil — and others.

The limited dessert menu includes fried dough-based Italian zeppole ($4) and panzerotti dolci ($7) as well as — of course — a dessert pizza, $6, with sweet ricotta, seasonal fruit, marshmallows, and nutella.

While Proof is the third straight pizza restaurant that has occupied the space, the counter-service restaurant has a different look and feel from previous incarnations. In the past patrons had to walk through the seating area and down a half-flight of stairs to place an order. At Proof the counter is up front, alongside the window display of pizzas to entice passersby, and a small number of socially distanced tables are available further back. The restaurant’s public-facing area is much shallower, and patrons no longer need to navigate any stairs.

Proof is a member of Genesis Hospitality Group, which also operates Chez Alice on Chambers Street and the Peacock Inn on Bayard Lane. It offers delivery (for a $2 fee) as well as online ordering.

Proof, 84 Nassau Street. Open Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. 609-497-7663. www.proofpizzeria.com.

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November 2020 | Princeton Echo9

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The following are highlights from the November calendar. For complete dayby-day event listings visit www.princetoninfo.com/events.

Thursday, November 12, 6 p.m. Labyrinth Books invites curious readers and aspiring writers to join a livestream with young adult authors Dana L. Davis, Claire Legrand, and Princeton’s own Anica Mrose Rissi for a conversation about the craft of writing young adult fiction. The authors will discuss their best (and worst) techniques for writing and revising, lessons pulled from working with an editor, how plot shapes character and character shapes plot, and more. Register. www. labyrinthbooks.com.

Saturday, November 14, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Kick off your holiday shopping at the Arts Council of Princeton’s Sauce for the Goose Outdoor Art Market at the Princeton Shopping Center. Celebrating its 27th year, Sauce for the Goose offers shoppers the unique opportunity to purchase handmade pieces directly from 25 local artisans and crafters working in ceramics, textiles, jewelry, fine art, and more. www.artscouncilofprinceton.org.

Saturdays, November 14 and 21. McCarter Theater offers the first two installments of its four-part virtual play festival titled “The Work of Adrienne Kennedy: Inspiration & Influence.” Theater materials explain the festival’s purpose: “Despite her outsized influence, three Obie Awards, and induction into the Theater Hall of Fame, Adrienne Kennedy is not a household name. This festival is a celebration of why she should be.”

Debuting November 14 is Kennedy’s “He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box,” which centers on a 1941 exchange of love letters full of tragic reminiscences. On November 21 is “Sleep Deprivation Chamber,” a semi-autobi-

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ographical collaboration with her son, Adam Kennedy, that provides a chilling meditation on race and powerlessness. Each play will be available from its release date through February 28, 2021. Each performance costs $15 to view. www.mccarter.org.

Sunday, November 15, 4 p.m.: The Princeton Symphony Orchestra presents a virtual concert featuring solo violinist Elina Vähälä for a performance of Bach’s Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D Minor. The program also includes a movement from Florence Price’s String Quartet in G Major arranged for string ensemble and Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite. Register. $15 for a unique link to the concert accessible on demand for one week following the live performance. www.princetonsymphony.org.

Friday, November 20, 2 p.m.: Princeton University Art Museum explores objects in its collection related to pandemics in a 6 Issues $59 PER ISSUE. For more information call 609-396-1511 SPECIALZING IN:

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PARTING SHOT

The tree man was 16,” he says. “I was the youngest worker. I was a skinny kid who didn’t his is my lucky day,” says John, have to shave yet.” He rubs his hand as he carefully descends the over his beard. “I was posted on guard ladder. “Now take a look.” He at the bottom to warn if danger was imholds out his hand, and I see a crea- minent. Never worked anywhere else. I ture about two inches long. Two beady know all the trees around here like the eyes are darting around on a body that back of my hand. I have planted some looks like a piece of tree bark. “I’ve still here. That one, for example.” He been doing this job here for 40 years,” points to a red oak that seems to burn in the Indian sumhe says, “and this is the third time ‘I started at this company mer sun. “It was just a seedling.

I’ve seen a gray when I was 16,’ he says.

And now look. ” tree frog.”

They say that John works at ‘Never worked anywhere people start to a company that look like their monitors the trees else. I know all the trees dogs over time. here in gardens A man with wild and parks. This around here like the back curly hair with a week he came evpoodle, a woman ery morning with of my hand.’ with hair combed a cherry picker onto the site. I walk with him. I want straight back with a greyhound. John to make sure he doesn’t leave trees that has come to resemble the trees he works pose a danger, that have rotted and can with, year after year. Tall, straight, and solidly built. Not someone who would fall over.

“Look, it bends with the wind, it’ll be blow over, just like that.

The amphibian sits comfortably in fine,” he says, as he stares up at spruce about 250 feet high. “But this elm” — his large hands. “Aren’t they dangerhe knocks on the wood — “Sick! It ous?” I ask. He looks serious. “You are afraid of nature because you know little must be cut.” I take John’s word.

“I started at this company when I about it. The more you immerse your-

By Pia de Jong

‘T

self in it, the less fear you need to have.”

“This frog is a female,” he says. “You can see that in the length. As long as you don’t touch your face, there’s nothing wrong. ” He puts her on the bark of another tree before continuing to prune. The frog shoots her eyes in all directions before she jumps away.

Who will stay with the same company for another 40 years now? I wonder.

Young people start a job for a few years at the most and then they seek other things. You have to develop constantly, they say. People who keep working until they get a golden watch for retire-

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ment? That’s a thing of the past.

John works in silence among his trees for the rest of the day. “Trees are my friends,” he says. “I’m not much of a talker. That’s why I never married. To get a girlfriend, you have to have something to say.”

For John, the silence of the trees speaks volumes.

Pia de Jong is a Dutch writer who lives in Princeton. Her bestselling memoir, “Saving Charlotte,” was published in 2017 in the U.S. She can be contacted at pdejong@ias.edu.

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