My dear husband, Andrew, has a brief but storied past relationship with Princeton, New Jersey, and the surrounding areas, having lived in nearby Hopewell for about a year when he was five years old. His father, Ron, had obtained a job in the area and took a solo trip to the area to secure a place for his young family to live.
Upon arriving in Princeton, Ron stopped for a bite to eat at PJs Pancake House on the main road in town, Nassau Street. While there, he discovered some rooms for rent in the newspaper, on nearby Bank street that might be able to host him for a week or so while on his housing hunt. He made his way there, to the home owned by Ms. Cunningham. The rooms were generally reserved for students, and her abrupt manner and terse tone might have driven others off. But Ron impressed her in some way, and perhaps she intrigued him as well, and she reluctantly offered him a room, perhaps given that it was summertime and there was a dearth of students to fill her home. Almost as quickly, she made it clear that she would do no cooking for Ron while he was in the area.
So off he went, around the corner and down the block, back to PJs Pancake House, where the food was good and the atmosphere pleasant. From that first visit to Ms. Cunningham, Ron and his entire family formed a friendship that lasted decades until her death, and long after the family had returned to the Baltimore area. In the end, Ms. Cunningham served MANY meals to Ron and counted the Schmidt family among her many friends.
She was a person that lived a pretty full life, based on the endless interesting stories about the famous, not-quite-famous, and perhaps infamous people she had met along the way. Among them, she told stories of Einstein, and later, of Walter Matthau, who had played Einstein in a movie that was filmed on location on her street in the 1990s, reportedly offering Mr. Matthau acting tips to be sure to get his character just right.
Armed with a retelling of the many stories and fond childhood memories Andrew had from that year in New Jersey, we decided a road trip to the Garden State should be a part of our summer plans. We drove into Princeton and made a direct move to visit PJs Pancake House. He smiled as we stood out front to admire the simple structure, and again when we entered, remembering that which was familiar and noticing the updates and changes made over the decades.
Part of the kitchen was now opened up to a dining counter with bar seating, perhaps an effort to widen the exceedingly narrow building. The rest of the tiny space was filled with standalone tables and chairs in the center of the room, and dinette booths along the opposite wall, with heavy wooden tables throughout the space. As Andrew sat down at our table near the back, I could see his childhood memories flash through his mind, showing clearly on his smile while his blue eyes scanned the room.
I had heard stories of this place many times, from his parents and Andy, in more recent years since we married, and way back in high school when we dated initially. But as his hands gently wiped across the wooden tabletop, I suddenly heard some new information that he had perhaps kept to himself, or only remembered at the moment he sat down. “I carved our names into one of these tables”, he said quietly. I looked down at the table in front of us, and it was only then that I noticed that these tables were likely original to the restaurant, founded in 1962. What likely began as vandalism eventually became an accepted, treasured tradition – guests carving their names, initials, and special messages into every inch of available space on those heavy-duty wood block tables.
Quickly I did the math and searched through my memory banks. Sure, our families had known each other since the 1940s, and we had met in the early months of our lives in the 1960s, but when did he carve our names into one of these tables if he frequented this restaurant when he was only five years old? “I was nineteen”, he said, filling in the blank look that must have appeared on my face – and it hit me, suddenly.
The last time he visited this restaurant was when he was a teenager, but after we had broken up. Nonetheless, this place was special to him, and so he memorialized our lost relationship at this special place as if it was a tree in the woods where lovers might carve their initials. He wanted to share this place with me back then, even though we were no longer together.
I sat quietly as the facts settled in. It warmed my heart, and at the same time, was a melancholy moment, because that had been a difficult time for both of us, each wanting to be with the other, but each not knowing about the other’s feelings. And so, we didn’t speak, didn’t see each other, and didn’t date again for another 30 years, our carved names lying in wait for our visit on this day in 2022.
My eyes searched our tabletop, and I saw the many layers of carvings, preserved with an occasional coating of what seemed like polyurethane, to seal the customer’s artwork for another 60 years. He didn’t recall which table he sat at while he carved, and he didn’t elaborate on the circumstances that placed him there, but I already knew. We were young, and apart from each other, and we still had a lot to figure out about life and love and relationships.
The silver dollar pancakes were among his favorite food memories from PJs, but on this day, he combined both breakfast and lunch into one order, beginning with pancakes, and ending with French onion soup, trying to cram in as many culinary childhood memories as possible into this little sliver of our day. It wasn’t so much about the quality of the food – it was diner food, sufficient and good, but not a culinary pinnacle. Instead, it was a place that the Schmidt family of his youth would always remember happily, simply because it represented life lived through the eyes and heart of an innocent five year old boy.
As we left the restaurant, we wandered into several little shops that Andrew remembered as well. His memories fooled him into thinking there had been more ice cream shops on the street back in the 1970s, but the bookstore and other shops still held a vague familiarity.
Just a few blocks down the street, Andrew quickly noticed that we had arrived at Bank Street, where the famed Ms. Cunningham had lived. We made the turn and wandered down a tiny street lined with old homes in varying levels of restoration or disrepair. As a lover of old homes, I was immediately drawn to the stories these homes could tell in a town like Princeton.
Thinking we were close to what used to be Ms. Cunninham’s house, we called Andrew’s mom and quickly confirmed that we were indeed, right outside her front door at 20 Bank Street. As our memory sometimes alters over time, and because childhood memories can be skewed because of a child’s more limited understanding of the world, Andrew was surprised to see that the home was not the large five-story row home he remembered in his mind’s eye (he remembered many steps inside the home), but rather a simple 1400 square foot, two-story Victorian half-of-a-double home.
What was once a home that Ms. Cunningham could afford to keep by renting out rooms to students, is now a slightly run-down version of the same, estimated to be worth three-quarters of a million dollars! There were even a few renovated look-alike homes on the block having recently sold for $1.25 million. As we paused to look upon the old home, it seemed that we could almost see Ms. Cunningham sitting on her front steps, queen of the block in her little town of Princeton, telling stories to all that passed in front of her.
Princeton is a beautiful, historic, ivy league college town, and the old buildings and quaint shops all evoke an academic vibe. I always loved attending school, and any college campus I ever visit leaves me harkening to those days when I could freely pursue the joy of learning and exploring. Andrew knew I would find the town interesting, and I was not disappointed.
For me, the town immediately brought out feelings from those more difficult years in our late teens when we were apart. When he was 19, carving our names on a table, I was at college, on a different pretty little campus, thinking of him as well. We remained apart physically, but now more fully understood that we had kept a bit of each other in our hearts for all those years. Once again in a loving relationship with each other, our road trip to Princeton was a healing look backward in time to when things seemed simpler, simply because we had experienced and understood so little of life.
We shopped the stores and walked through campus arm in arm and quietly absorbed the feelings of our childhoods and youth. Without words, we could feel both the ache and the warmth it left behind, the heat of the day ushering us down the street in pretty little Princeton.
Satisfied with our little road trip, we drove back home to our little mobile house on wheels and decided to rent that 1994 movie, “IQ”, that was filmed in part, on Bank Street and Ms. Cunningham used to talk about. We had never seen it before, but we immediately recognized the streets of Princeton and pretty little Bank Street. Walter Matthau’s “Einstein”, Meg Ryan’s, “Catherine Boyd”, and others strolled down the street in the film – just like Ms. Cunningham had said.
The entire day reminded us that it is those simplest of things in life that sometimes create the deepest memories. It is often not the vast mountain vistas but instead, a brief moment at the top of a hilltop when the sun shines just right and your loved ones are near. It is not the trip to the farthest corners of the world, but rather the long car ride there when you have the time to talk about just about everything along the way. Sometimes, it is simply silver dollar pancakes in a little restaurant and a little street with a little old lady that tells terrific stories to a five-year-old boy that makes a loving, lifelong, lasting impression.
Safe travels, and enjoy the memories of when life was simpler.
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