The Hideout

The Sloatsburg hideout as it appears today.

As I've mentioned a bunch of times on this blog, my grandparents lived in Sloatsburg, NY.  Sloatsburg is a small town not far from the Jersey border in Rockland County, NY.

If you know the area and you're coming from New Jersey (like we did almost every Sunday growing up) you drive North on Rt. 17, past the Leaning Tower of Pizza, past the Ford plant in Mahwah, past Suffern, and through beautiful, scenic down-town Sloatsburg.

Course, the Leaning Tower of Pizza is no longer there (leastwise, I don't think it is) and neither is the Ford Plant. Suffern is still there, of course. It's a pretty large town, almost city-like. And so is downtown Sloatsburg, such as it is. The key syllable in Sloatsburg is "burg."  Because that's what it was and still is. A burg. A small burg. A place people mostly go through on their way upstate or when going to the Seven Lakes, Bear Mountain, or other picturesque destinations.  Even if you take the thruway, you're going to go through parts of the burg known as Sloatsburg.

When I was growing up, every so often my grandparents had "guests" or boarders staying at their house. The guests would live in one of the bedrooms upstairs for a time-- sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes longer. The guests were always  Italian guys. Usually Italian guys who either did not know how to speak English or chose not to.

 The guests always took part in the big Sunday meals we enjoyed. They were like part of the family, distant relatives or something like that. In fact, I think the guests were sometimes introduced as distant relatives.  And they were always treated with respect! Lots of respect. An inordinate amount of respect. As kids, we thought the way the guests were treated was a bit strange but we were told to always treat the guests with lots of respect. Yep. Everyone seemed to treat the guests with lots of special respect. Kind of phony respect but respect nonetheless. And in return, the guests were always very nice, respectful, and polite guys to everyone in the family. They seemed like really good guys. You know, really good fellas.

My Dad told me that, when he was a kid, there were periodic guests who used to stay at his parent's home back then too. In fact, his parents sometimes had guests as far back as he can remember. He loved it, he said, whenever a guest was staying. Why? Because whenever a guest stayed, there was always plenty of food. Almost like magic after the guests arrived, cars or small trucks would stop by regularly and deliver meats, fruits and vegetables, breads, and more. They ate like royalty, he said, whenever one of those guests or boarders were staying at the house.

Fictional guys of the sort who sometimes stayed at the hideout.

Sometimes, the guests were sick, at least that's what we were told, and that they were there to recuperate. Recuperate from what? Not exactly sure but one thing we did know, us kids that is, the guests weren't recuperating from illnesses because there were always bandages involved, or slings, or crutches or canes. Not all guests were there recuperating. Some of them were perfectly fine. They were just there. Staying as guests. No explanation was given as to why.

When I got older, I figured out why the guests were there. I asked my Dad a bit later in life and he confirmed my suspicions. The guests were guys who were hiding out at my grandparent's home in that little burg called Sloatsburg.  And when they were recuperating guests, my Dad also confirmed, what they were recuperating from was, for the most part, gunshot wounds.

I'm pretty sure you've already figured out what was going on: The guests were members of certain groups or families out of New York City or Jersey. They were at my grandparent's house because they were hiding out, either from others like themselves or the law. Yep. My grandparent's house was a hideout! At least temporarily and occasionally. My guess is that some money was also dropped off at my grandparent's house, in a addition to the food deliveries, whenever a guest was staying.