Talamini Road, Bridgewater

Weird New Jersey gives very specific details of what you're supposed to do when driving on Talamini Road in Bridgewater:
1. Turn off your music and your air conditioner
2. Sit on the driver's side of the car
3. Drive West on the road, away from Route 202
4. Go 35 miles per hour



And then, from the depths of... well, wherever, you're supposed to hear a moan.

Rumor is that someone died on that road, hit by a speeding car. Weird New Jersey found no records of this, but when the reporters went, they did hear this mysterious moan.

I decided this would be my next adventure. A few days ago, Sharon, my friend Kristina, and I decided to check out an abandoned high school in Madison. We couldn't find it, however, and ended up going bowling instead, which was fun, but not really blog worthy.

I told Sharon I wanted to go to Talamini Road, and my friend Charlie texted me later that afternoon, asking me to hang out, so he agreed to go on the adventure with us.

Over the years, Charlie has been one of my favorite adventuring partners. We've gone to a lot of really cool places together--waterfalls, abandoned houses, abandoned barns, and a laundry list of local punk and ska shows when we were younger and when Jersey had more venues.

However, we had never been to Talamini Road before. We left from Charlie's house, since he lives closer, in his mom's car (since it's a little nicer than either his car or my car).

"Pick a CD," He said, handing me a huge binder. I saw one that said "Gypsy Night" on it, and shoved it into the disk player. When I was a sophomore and/or junior (my four years of high school have started to run together) we had a "gypsy night" where a few of us got dressed up like gypsies and had our more musically inclined friends play their instruments for us by a fire. We roasted marshmellows and ate homecooked vegetarian food.

The soundtrack to this evening had a bunch of gypsy-esq music--from Tibet and the Ukraine and, well, the United States--and the ocassional spoken-word song.


Just as we turned onto a dark road in Bridgewater, a spoken-word song by the band 1905 came over the speakers.

Sharon moved to a different seat in the car, shifting towards the passenger's side in the back seat, "I don't want to be on the driver's side anymore."


"Alright, we're not on the road yet, though," I said to her, craning my neck to see her.

"Oh," She laughed. "I heard the guy talking in the song and I thought it was the moan."

A few minutes later, though, we came to Talamini Road.

When we drove down it the first time, we didn't hear anything, but we were going in the wrong direction. We got to the end of the road, and then Sharon and I switched seats so I could be on the driver's side in the back.

A car came up behind us and saw Sharon and I running to different seats. They pulled up next to us and a young boy poked his head out of the window, "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine," I said. And because I felt like I had to explain why Sharon and I were switching seats I continued, "We just had to change seat... cause of... motion sickness."

The boy nodded, looking a little confused, and they drove off. I rolled my eyes at myself. Motion sickness? Really?

"I can't believe they asked us if we were okay," Charlie said.

"It was so... nice."

"And so not something that happens in Jersey."

We turned off the radio and the air conditioner in Charlie's car. We kept the windows rolled down, set the cruise control to 35, and started down the road.

All of a sudden around a curve, we heard a weird vibrating noise. Sharon, who wasn't supposed to be able to hear the moan because of where she was sitting, turned around.

"Did-" I started, but then kept quiet incase that wasn't the moan. But when we got to the end of the street, I hadn't heard anything except the strange vibration.

"Did you guys hear anything?" Charlie asked.

"When I started to talk, I thought I heard something," I said.

Sharon turned around, "I heard that too."

"Yeah, so did I," Charlie agreed.

Sharon went on, "It wasn't really a moan though. It just sounded like a note." She demonstrated, making a monotone sound with her voice. "It sounded like bagpipes."

That started an endless line of jokes about The Bagpipes of Talamini Road.

We decided to try it again, but the next time we didn't hear anything. On the way back, Sharon and I switched seats again.

A few minutes later she said, "Did I leave my purse up in the front?" I handed it to her. She scoffed, "I'm glad it was up there--I got worried the Bagpipe Ghost had stolen it."

New Jersey is so full of legends that even hearing a bagpipe sound when you're supposed to hear a moan is amazing, because at least we actually heard something. Half of the time legends are 100% made up. At least this one was only 50% made up; although, I'm no scientist, but I'm sure physics could explain why we heard a weird sound going around a bend at a very specific speed in a car...