Grover's Mill: Finally seeing the forest for the trees

The Grover's Mill Co. building is something I pass on a daily basis on my way to and from work. You can't miss the big red barn at the corner of Cranbury and Clarksville Roads. In fact, if you drove straight at the end of Clarksville Road, you literally wouldn't miss it...you'd plow right into the front of it.

Anyway, I've been taking these back roads for over ten years, always seeing the big red barn twice a day, never thinking twice about it.

Then last year, out of the blue, it hit me. Where the hell did I hear of Grover's Mill before? Holy shit, that's right! War of the Worlds! Of course, by now everyone's heard of the famous radio program which, back in 1938, had over a million NJ residents panicking when Orson Welles announced that the Martians had landed in a small hamlet in central NJ called "Grover's Mill". I couldn't believe that for all these years I was driving past a part of history. Well, fictional history, anyway. It's like all those New Yorkers you hear about who live so close to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, but have never visited them.

So today, I decided to swing by Van Nest park where they have a monument dedicated to the War of the Worlds' "landing" spot. Nothing memorable...the park's no bigger than a Sam's Club parking lot...but still, I feel part of my life is now complete. How sad is that?