It really wasn't much of an airport. One short runway, with power lines high on the hill to the east. When I first moved to New Jersey I got checked out in one of the FBO's rental planes, but it just was not for me. I had learned to fly at a huge airport, with parking areas bigger than Marlboro Airport's entire runway, and I was not comfortable with a runway as small as the one there on Route 79. I soon moved to Old Bridge Airport, next to Raceway Park, and I have flown from there ever since.
Marlboro Airport, referred to as 2N8 on aeronautical charts, was not dangerous. I truly believe that the people who bought it and closed it down had ulterior motives: They knew full well that it was safe before they bought it, and nothing changed that fact once they owned it. As far as I can tell, not a single person on the ground was ever injured by an airplane flying to or from the airport. I add this only because of the claims that closing it would be a service to the public, to preserve us from the threat of "airplanes falling from the sky," which was nonsense. This declaration hurt the reputation of the fine pilots who safely flew from Marlboro for half a century.
Even though I did not fly from Marlboro, its closing in 2002 saddens me. I am sorry to see the loss of another opportunity for people to experience the freedom of flight; a lot of people were lured in by the airport's "sightseeing flights" sign and ended up becoming pilots. I am sorry to see such a large, green field destined to become high-density senior citizen housing, even as I wonder how many senior citizens are going to want to look out their windows at the cemetery next door. But most of all, I am sorry to see Marlboro Airport go because it had one quality that I will miss more than all the others: They left the lights on at night.
Lighting a runway is not cheap, so at most small airports the lights are on a timer: Tap a certain code on a certain radio frequency and the lights turn on for 15 minutes. Without an aviation radio and the right number of clicks, the lights remain dark. But for some reason, all the owners of Marlboro Airport, going back at least 20 years, decided simply to leave the lights on all night. For that decision I will be eternally grateful.
Way back in 1985, when I began to look for "my" place to walk alone at night, the yellow-white lights of Runway 9/27 called to me. I parked my car just inside the entrance, and with tentative steps, I began to walk along the runway. I do not recommend this for everyone; especially today, a stranger walking on an airport gets questioned long and hard. Back then, a few police officers would drive up and ask me what I was doing, but between showing them my pilot certificate and identifying myself as the local rabbi, they apparently decided I was not dangerous, just strange.
On that runway, late at night, I came to confront my fears, my failings, my mortality, my God. No noise except the sounds of nature and the occasional train whistle from the Matawan Station. No cell phone; they hadn't been invented yet. No one to impress, no one to hide behind, no one to demand an explanation for my odd behavior. Sometimes I walked in silence. Sometimes I prayed. Sometimes I sang. Sometimes I cried.
I went to that place the night after my father died, the night before his funeral. It was there that I found him — not on the runway, but inside of me. Years before, we had fought. We reconciled long before he died, but the scars stayed with me until that night. There, in the darkness, I looked down the two rows of runway lights that always seemed to be leading away from me, and suddenly I felt that they led toward me. I drove to the airport alone that night, but I drove away with my father, and he has not left me since then.
There was a time when my wife, Shira, was jealous of 2N8, so I took her there. I showed her what I saw, and told her what I felt there. After that, she was OK with my late-night walks, and sometimes joined me.
I yelled at her out there, too. I love you, but there are times when you make me a little crazy, and I have to blow off steam before I say something that will only make matters worse. Oy, the trees around that runway have heard such things about her! But the trees also whispered of peace, and gentleness, and finding holiness in the things people mean, even if sometimes it is hard to find it in what they do. Every rabbi should have such a place, and it's probably not a bad idea for every person who is in a loving relationship to have one, too.
I stopped walking at Marlboro Airport five years ago, when we bought our own airplane. Now Old Bridge Airport really is mine, and I can walk there without anyone questioning me. I tell the airport regulars that I walk for exercise, which is correct, to a point. Pilots are a conservative lot, and I would not want to burden them with the thought of what really goes on during my walks.
Late at night there are deer, geese, and fox at the far end of the Old Bridge runway, and sometimes they will honor my nighttime conversations with God by remaining where they are as I walk past. Apparently, I don't threaten them, and I like that a lot.
The day before Marlboro officially closed, my kids and I flew over there one last time. I landed on each end of the runway, stopping in less than half the length of that short piece of concrete. Even coming in over the wires I was able to guide the plane to the exact spot I had chosen; the airport didn't seem nearly as small as it had years before. It made me realize that I have learned a lot since 1985, about flying and about myself. Now that "classroom" is gone, and I will miss it. But the lessons I learned there will live on.
Rabbi Donald A. Weber, AOPA 0424032, of Morganville, New Jersey, flies his Cessna 172 from Old Bridge Airport in Englishtown, New Jersey, where he is the AOPA Airport Support Network volunteer.
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