Two towns, linked by tough times

Marlton is wealthier, the Clementon area worn; they share the strain of job loss.

At the Marlton Tavern, a town institution on Main Street, with a menu that stretches from nachos to lobster tail, the average guest check is down 25 percent, while dinner business is off 30 percent, according to owner George Lavdas.

And longtime customers just laid off from white-collar jobs at places like Lockheed Martin Corp. in South Jersey are asking Lavdas for work as waiters and bartenders.

Meanwhile, Marlton laid off 14 municipal workers out of 225 in the last 18 months, what Elesh calls the typical result of a community losing jobs. As the recession bores in and people cut back, governments collect less in tax revenue, pushing even more cuts in services.

Over at Whole Foods Market in a strip mall on Route 73, "the domino effect from unemployment is really starting to hit," according to manager Ken Letherer.

"You can feel it with the customers. They look downtrodden, a little beaten-up."

As a result, Letherer has doubled the store's bulk-foods section, noticing that people are buying fewer prepared foods. "They're shopping us hard, looking for values, and cooking at home," he said.

Older people who planned to retire and live out their days in Marlton are rethinking, said Andrew Kavulich, an unemployed management consultant who helps Tarzy.

"These folks who lose jobs move out, unable to afford Marlton anymore," said Kavulich, 66, citing high mortgages and property taxes. "It's dramatic."

Grinding worry

Robert Buffaloe cries alone in his basement.

"Stress makes me feel like I'm less than a man," said Buffaloe, a 48-year-old unemployed plumber's helper from Clementon. "There's been problems in my marriage because of lack of work."

It's been a year since a Camden plumbing outfit laid off Buffaloe.

"What can I do?" asked Buffaloe, wired and tense in the STRIVE office in Camden, taking classes on how to look for work. His wife, Nadine, is a Verizon lab technician. But the couple has six children. "When I don't have money," he said, "it's a strain on her."

Living with that sort of worry grinds a person down, said Renee Ransom, a 43-year-old widow from Lindenwold, who lost her clerical/sales job in advertising nearly a year ago.

She lives in a townhouse with her father and two kids, ages 10 and 12.

Ransom, a STRIVE client with lovely interview clothes but no interview to wear them to, isn't sure what to do with herself.

"I do a lot of housework. There's nothing left to clean," she said. "It's depressing. There are no jobs here."

There really never were big employers in the mostly working-class bedroom communities of the Clementon area.

Lindenwold has a transient feel, thanks in part to the High-Speed Line stop and an unusually high 5,000 rental apartments in a community of about 20,000 people, said Mayor Frank DeLucca.

Beyond that, he added, "there are no lines anymore to eat dinner at the Applebee's, and you don't see many people who want to fix up their houses at Home Depot on Saturday mornings."

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