Bobby Moten

I would like to dedicate a song to a friend of mine who died this past June. He was a long time crossing guard in Metuchen.

The name of the song is “When you are smiling, When you are smiling. The whole world smiles with you.”

The name of my friend was Bobby Moten. I met Bob for the first time about seven years ago. We had a couple of things in common. He worked and retired from General Motors in Pennsylvania and I worked a couple of years for General Motors in Linden. We were also patients at one time in Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick. I once told Bobby that my Doctor told me to drink plenty of water. He said, “That sounds like a good idea.”

If you drove or walked on Main Street near St. Francis Church on a school day between 7 and 9 a.m. or 2 p.m. till 4 p.m., you couldn’t miss him. His big smile would even cheer up Ebenezer Scrooge if he was driving by. The kids at Campbell School and St. Francis loved him, but he also could lift the spirits of adults. I once told him that he was like Nick Swisher of the Yankees. Bobby just laughed.

As Bob Moten stood at his corner, he would get horn honks, waves, victory signs, fist bumps and even a high five from a walker. I had a special greeting for Bobby I would hold up my water bottle and he would hold up his with that great big smile.

Bobby used to say, “There is a reason for everything.” I truly believe this. I don’t have the answer and I’m not supposed to have the answer. The only one that has the answer is the Man up above.

I was born and raised in Metuchen and when I was a kid we used to refer to the corner of Main and Middlesex as Danford’s Corner. Sixty-two years later and only a few blocks away we now have Moten’s Corner. I drove past there one day and I thought I saw Bobby. I reached down for my water bottle but when I looked up, he was gone.

I noticed an empty water bottle by his corner. He finished his job down here and Bobby was raising his water bottle to me with that big smile on his face from up above.

Yes my friends, the corner of Main and Talmadge will always be Bobby Moten’s Corner.

Thomas Francis Clark