Divorce NJ Style!
The ink was barely dry on the divorce papers when my wife shipped the boys off to live with me in New Jersey
 Robin Hood Dr., Medford, NJ
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There was a bizarre path to our divorce. I had become a very sucessful manager for JCPenney, providing my family with a magnificent home and all the comforts I never had as a child.
My wife saw it differently. She hated my hours and my commitment. She visibly hated my job. Apparently she liked my salary, though, because she asked the court for all of it in the divorce.
When JCPenney transferred me to the Camden Service Center, the house Arlene picked out had been one of the model homes. The developement was Sherwood Forest in Medford, NJ and the street was Robin Hood Drive. Located on the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, it wa as beautiful as it was catchy.
The house was 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, breakfast knook, formal dining room, family room, 2-car garage and a hugh laundry room. There was even a 12'x16' screened-in porch off the family room.
It was a stunning center hall home where the upstairs hallway overlooked the foyer. The master bedroom was big enough for a comfortable sitting area, a walk-in closet. There were additional his and her closets in the master bath.
I had wallpapered all of our other homes we had, a skill I learned working as a teenager, but this house we could afford to have professionally decorated. The living room was papered with grass cloth wallpaper below the chair rail and foil paper above it.
New artwork for the dinning and living rooms was selected from samples the decorator brought to the house so we could be sure the prints we bought would perfectly accent the the room.
The dining room had pegged wood plank flooring and hand painted wallpaper. The family room had a full wall brick fireplace with a log bin all highlighted by a long beam mantle.
The laundry room ws located behind the garage. There was a mud room, washer and dryer, chest freezer and a playroom for the boys all in the laundry room.
Then one unsuspecting morning as I was dressing for work my wife announced to me that she had seen a lawyer and taken all the money out of the bank. She had just cashed my montly paycheck and that money was also in her possession. What a way to start a day!
I went to see a lawyer that day and moved into the guest bedroom which was across the hall from the master bedroom. That evening I was told I could no longer eat any of the food she prepared.
The JCP National service manager had scheduled a visit to see the service center with its new computer. The evening involved cocktails and dinner to end his visit. That night when I got home all my clothes and personal belongings were thrown on the bedroom floor and the lightbulbs had been removed from the lamps.
I stormed into the master bedroom to get a lamp. She grabbed the cord that was dragging behind me and wrapped it around
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the upstairs railing jerking the lamp from my hand. She hit me with the lamp and I locked myself in the master bedroom.
She literaly kicked open the door and called the police from the bedroom phone. When they arrived she sent the kids to their rooms and told the police I "kicked the door down in a drunken stooper." They could tell I was not inebriated but suggested I leave the house. I drank only socially and hadn't been drunk since my arrival at Plattsburgh Air Force Base.
Then one day when I came home from work all my clothes were in green plastic trash bags on the front lawn. The locks had been changed and were locked and Arlene had fobedden the boys to answer the door.
I learned this devious scheme was not an original. During my divorce I was waiting in the Mt. Holly, NJ courthouse when I overheared a divorce attorney instructing her female client to pick a fight and call the police. They will make him leave the house. Then put his belongings outside and change the locks.
Even though the woman argued "but its his house too," the attorney insisted she "must do this." That confirmed that divorce lawyers have no shame.
After our seperation my life became a roller coaster of events. If I put them in chronological order they come out something like this.
With no money, I lived at my office for a month. It took nearly my entire next paycheck to rent a one bedroom apartment and I had nowhere to entertain the boys for my weekly visit. It was during this time that Arlene pulled her most evil trick.
She informed me one week that I couldn't visit the boys because they would be away at Boy Scout Camp. The next week I found the house vacant and the deadbolts locked. When I got a locksmith to open the house it was empty.
Arlene had disappeared with all the furniture and furnishings, artwork, china, pots, pans; everything was gone. All she left behind were credit card debts, enormous debts, and my books. Arlene hated books so I had to keep the encycopedias, so old WWII was in an "addendum," and my books from college, in the attic. They were still there.
While the court ruled she had a right to "live in the manner to which she was accustomed," the irony here is that the long hours I worked, and that she hated, was the reason for the life to which she was accustomed. Meanwhile, my life had become very frugal.
The divorce dragged on for over two years. Judge Ferrelli had gone on vacation to Italy and Judge Gaddos took the case. He was so out of it he thought my two boys were infants and ruled accordingly.
Early one morning following the divorce my sons called from Massena, NY. They were at the Greyhound Bus Depot and headed for New Jersey. Apparently they were no longer needed as pawns in the divorce.
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From Prosperity to Deprivation
I furnished the kitchen with the cheapest utensiles I could find at K-Mart along with an iron, ironing board, toaster oven and coffee maker.
During the seperation I had rented a one bedroom apartment in Lindenwold, NJ. I had only a bed, my stereo, dart board and a few prints and artwork I had managed to get out of the house one day when the boys were home alone.
That errand was a trip. I told the police of my plan so they were there when I arrived with a truck I had rented. I was taking the furniture from the guest bedroom and loading it on the truck when Arlene came home.
She had convinced the neighbors that I was a wife beater so as fast as I loaded the truck the neighbors were unloading it and putting things on their property. I had loaded the bed frame and box spring and an officer tried to help me get the mattress out of the house but Arlene had now locked the doors.
I left with what little I had taking it to the apartment I had rented. I furnished the kitchen with the cheapest utensiles I could find at K-Mart along with an iron, ironing board, toaster oven and coffee maker.
To complete the bedroom I bought a damaged mattress at a JCPenney clearance sale and a small table with two chairs for the kitchen. For the living room I was searching the newspaper for some second hand furniture when an ad for a pool table caught my eye.
Why not turn the living room into a game room? And so I did. I papered one wall, set up my stereo and hung my dart board and the pictures.
As the divorce dragged on I settled into my new lifestyle. I started dancing again. When Arlene and I met, I was a dance champion at Brody's night club in Plattsburgh. But after the boys were born there was no more dancing in my married life.
I met a gal who was a terrific
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My Lindenwold, NJ Apartment
dancer and Disco was becomming popular. We spent a lot of time together and could certainly attract a crowd of admirers when we danced.
Barbara taught me how to ski and we joined the South Jersey Ski Club. The club had planned a ski trip to Whiteface Mountain. I contacted the boys and asked if they would like to meet me there for some skiing.
The boys had disappeared to Massena with their mother and I had little contact with them. Once the boys callled me and Arlene made them pay for the call with money they earned delivering papers in the fridged cold of Massena.
Barbara and I once made a trip to Massena to see them but I had to meet them in town. I also met with her brother on that trip. He had no idea that she had taken all the furnishings from the house. She told him I had everything.
Well, the boys agreed to the trip but Arlene was livid. When they arrived in in Lake Placid they had ALL of there belongings with them and were expecting to return to New Jersey with me.
However, the ski club bus was full. I had no idea what her plan was but I made sure the boys returned to Masena safely. She tried to create a disasterous ending to what was otherwise was a fun and valuable time spent with my sons. Worse yet, her anger wouldn't stop there.
The ink was barely dry on the divorce papers when I got an early morning call from Bob and Joe that they were at the Greyhound station in Massena and heading for York City and on their way to New Jersey.
I gave them instructions to take the Mt Laural bus from New York. They hadn't eaten all day when they arrived at the Mt. Laural bus depot. We went to dinner and headed for my little Lindenwold apartment.
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American Appliance
I carefully laid out a one-year reorganization plan that worked quite well for them.
After struggling unsuccessfully in several jobs, namely computer sales, Real Estate and finally mortgages, I reluctantly accepted a service management position with American Appliance, a large Delaware Valley appliance retailer.
They had a problematic reputation but I was earning less than 1/3 what I made at JCPenney. Rent, alimony and two highschool boys were gobbling that up pretty quickly. Furthermore, several of my former employees had taken jobs there and were urging me join them.
After examining the operation I carefully laid out a one-year reorganization plan that worked quite well for them. The disappearance of small electronics was abated, service trucks were well stocked with replacement parts, scheduling and production greatly improved.
The working conditions were not very comfortable. A ramp lead up to my office and I spent much of the day running up and down the ramp. The parts department was not controlled so
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technicians helped themselves each morning to the parts they had used the day before.
This made inventory control nearly impossible. Parts were ordered when it was discovered the box was empty. I closed off access to the parts area and promoted the delivery person to parts manager.
I hired Bob to make deliveries to the stores which were located throughout the Valley. When I started work there were lists of merchandise that store managers claimed had been "lost" by the service department. Most items lost were VCRs which were a very hot item at that time. I suspected foul play and set up a manifest procedure to I made sure every piece picked up and delivered was signed for.
Parts control aggravated the technicians, some of whom I discovered had their own repair business on the side and helped themselves to the AA's parts. And the manifests aggravated some of the store managers but it was a procedure I had used at Service In Electronics and at JCPenney to assure nothing was "lost."
Well, blood, or longevity, certainly is thicker than water. After just nine months the owner fired me for poor results. It was a setup because I aggravated the store managers and the comptroller all of whom I suspected of taking the "lost" merchandise.
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