Ridgewood High School Class of 1977

Old Friends

2012-01-09T08:58:00.000-05:00

Old friends are unique in our fast paced, ready-in-an-instant society. The tendency is to try and keep up with the latest news, technology, and fads, if for no other reason it gives us something to talk about while we try to keep up. It represents a vicious cycle to me sometimes.

This is why old friends are even better than new friends. We have had more time to cultivate the relationship and there is less than can be hidden. Our new friends don't have the perspective of time and really only know our current incarnation of our self. They are valuable just the same but different in a number of ways.

It hurts more I believe to lose an old friend than it does a new one. Both occurrences are tragic in their own way but when the friends we made as children leave our lives, either voluntarily or not, there is an emptiness we feel that often times cannot be replaced by a new friend.

It's very common that a busy life will prompt us to let old friends slip away and make us cling that more tightly to our new friends. Again, having friends is what is important, and even more important is how we treat them and the other people in our lives.

I compose these blog entries with my old friends in mind. Every once and a while, like just last week, an old friend will email me to tell me of their interest in my recollections. Sometimes they offer me one of their own, but they always get me thinking about how we crossed paths at an earlier and seemingly more innocent time in our lives. It always makes me feel good and gives me the incentive to try and capture those old time feelings in words. Only our old friends can do this and that is why it is so important to stay in touch. I believe that of all the claims made about the Internet there is little doubt that it has helped us find and keep our old friends better than all the previous technologies and methods which came before. I fully expect to see the day when retirement homes are filled with seniors emailing, video conferencing, and posting their thoughts online, even if they are bedridden. It all makes me feel less afraid of growing old as I know I will be doing it with the people who knew me when I was young.

Raise Revenue, Not Taxes!

2011-12-22T08:59:00.000-05:00

Ridgewood is a beautiful place, in my memory, and in its present incarnation. The Village seemingly reinvents itself periodically, in an effortless fashion, as the old families who put their children through school move out and new ones move in to begin the cycle over again. This is fairly typical of suburban life in the Northeast US, except that Ridgewood does it as well or better than any other place.

This cycle of renewal of Ridgewood residents does come with a price, as any Village property tax statement will readily attest. It costs plenty to maintain a first rate school system, operate police and fire departments, and to keep the Village, including its gems like Graydon Pool, in pristine condition. This just names a few items which must be funded annually, and the price of all these amenities is only going up.

Let's be clear, I am all in favor of funding the tangible and intangible features of Ridgewood which add to the desirability of a living within its borders, and especially those that increase its attractiveness or value. I just want to point out the obvious that Ridgewood's next renewal will have to be predicated on finding new sources of revenue and not new sources of taxes.

This to me means growing the tax base by building housing in the Central Business District which are of the one and two bedroom variety. Besides offering a place for empty nest Villagers looking to downsize, they would also maintain a sense of continuity in the village. Downtown housing offers the opportunity, which is now largely lost when people move out, of protecting the Village's collective knowledge of what it is and hopes to represent. I maintain that the Village's Group Intelligence is a priceless asset, and one which common sense urges be respected and encouraged to developed further.

In our likelihood in addition to downtown housing ideas, raising revenue and not taxes might mean swallowing hard and accepting ideas which might be aesthetically challenging like cell phone towers and solar panels.

I've never felt it was going to be easy for Ridgewood to contemplate, not to mention implement, its next period of renewal. I just put these ideas out for discussion and hope that I won't be shouted down. I fear and have felt the pervasive group think which is often inflicted ex-Ridgewood residents when they speak their minds regarding their old hometown. This happens often enough that it hampers our collective intelligence by limiting input to a select few individuals or filtering potential Golden Suggestions. My suggestions may not be "Golden" but they are worthy of consideration as a means for making the future of Ridgewood as bright and promising as it was when I lived there in the 1960s and 70s.

Happy Holidays!

Playing Games

2011-12-18T08:13:00.000-05:00

"Before there were play dates there was play..."

I wish I could claim credit for the above statement as I share its sentiment. It was taken from a short documentary on the games children played in NYC in the 50's, 60's and 70s. They interviewed people from all the boroughs and the games were basically the same, though they might have called them by different names. The interesting part to me was that no adult ever showed the kids how to play these games, and that the origins of the games could be traced back hundreds of years by examining paintings of scenes of children playing.

We had many of the same games in Ridgewood, due in large part to the large migration of New Yorkers to the suburbs. Let me name a few and provide Wilipedia explanations for those that made the journey to Jersey:

Red Rover

The game is played between two lines of players, usually around thirty feet apart. Each team lines up along one of these lines, and the game starts when the first team (usually called the "East" or "South" team, although this does not relate to the actual relative location of the teams) calls out, "Red rover, red rover, send [name of player on opposite team] right over." or "Red Rover, Red Rover, let [name of player of opposing team] come over." or "Red rover, red rover, we call [name of player on opposite team] over."

Box Ball

Four square, also known as squareball, boxball, and in Canada, champ, is a ball game played among four individuals on a square court divided into quadrants. It is a popular playground game with little required equipment, almost no setup, and short rounds of play that can be ended at any time.

Stickball

Stickball is a street game related to baseball, usually formed as a pick-up game, played in large cities in the Northeastern United States, especially New York City. The equipment consists of a broom handle and a rubber ball, typically a spaldeen, pensie pinkie, high bouncer or tennis ball.

Stoopball

Stoop ball (also spelled "stoopball") is a game that is played by throwing a ball against a stoop (stairs leading up to a building) on the pavement in front of a building. The game is also known as "Off the Point". [1] Historically, it has been popular in Brooklyn and other inner cities. It first became popular after World War II.[2] A Portable Stoopball Striker has been patented. [3]

The games were usually impromptu and a group for the game could easily be mustered at the schoolyard or nearby park. These games taught us life lessons about who we could trust and how to negotiate. Though this posting is mostly about boys games, there were interviews with many girls, too. We might call them tomboys if they played the boys games but they had also hopscotch and skipping rope in a multitude of variations.

The other theme this all presupposes is that no direct adult supervision was required, though in all cases there were stay-at-home Moms, close relatives, and the ultimate arbiters the Police. All these groups kept order to a degree and kids knew they had to behave or else their parents would find out their infraction.

This is all a dream world supposition now, with fewer extended relatives like aunts and uncles living nearby, not to mention grandparents, fewer stay-at-home Moms, and lastly fewer kids playing on the streets. It seems that a combination of central air conditioning, television, and video games has depleted the streets and schoolyards of the armies of children who used to play the aforementioned games so regularly. This is not to say the games have vanished, only that their ability to bind us together and teach us life lessons has diminished.

Santa at the Old Garden State Plaza

2011-12-12T15:14:00.000-05:00

All it takes is a quick search of Google these days to bring up memories of days past. I was not astonished when I searched for the picture of Santa in the chimney, which used to adorn the old Garden State Plaza, and quickly found numerous mentions in blogs. As the story goes it cost about $20,000 each year to repair Santa and another $20,000 to get him set up in the chimney. I suppose for the number crunchers who work for these retailers with their razor thin margins this was an expense which was easy to eliminate.

Santa was in the same category of 1960s excess as The 200-by-50-foot work, created by the Polish-born artist Stefan Knapp. It dominated the intersection of Routes 17 and 4 from 1962 to 1995. Constructed of red, orange and blue porcelain panels attached to a steel structure, it was commissioned for $250,000 by George Farkas, a former owner of the store.

People generally liked seeing both of these landmarks but were not going to put up a fight when both were kicked to the curb to make way for new stores. They'll live forever, however, in our memories and on the Internet.

I guess that makes us luckier than our ancestors, who had only grainy photographs of landmarks torn down to make way for something newer and better.

RHS Class of 1977 35th Reunion Fundraising

2011-11-19T14:48:00.008-05:00

If you would like to be remembered in the Reunion Program with RHS Football, please use this button to donate. Our 35th Reunion will be the weekend of July 20-22 2012.

Becky Deetz came up with this fine idea of allowing groups of individuals to donate as one, for example the RHS Football team. Everyone in a group would do this by clicking on the specific PayPal button on the web site home page or the same one located on this blog. In either case for the Football team, the button is located underneath Tom Thurston's picture. The same holds true if you would like to contribute and be remembered as a member of the UHAAA (Uncle Harry Ahearn Admiration Association). ((See below.))

Everyone who contributes to a group would be mentioned in the Reunion program in the specific group they have designated, no matter what they donate. Becky's idea is that we concentrate on making the occasion of our 35th Reunion a success, and not on how much people are donating. Please let us know about ideas for creating groups other than the two that have been mentioned.

We do mention individuals and businesses on our web site who give more than $200 in cash, prizes or supplies. They are referred to as Patrons, but nothing is said about the size of anyone's contribution to a group.

As an FYI, we have prioritized our Reunion Weekend expenditures and are first taking care of necessities like the deposits for the Marriott Park Ridge, The Stable, and liability insurance for the Sunday Picnic at The Stable.

We are also making provisions for door prizes, swag bags, a printed program, and anything that Jimmy Velardi says he needs for the Alumni All-Star Band on Friday night. We would like to also pay for the food at the picnic and buy specially designed t-shirts for the RHS Ambassadors to wear, who will be giving us a tour of RHS on Saturday morning. These just so happen to be on sale in the RHS Class of 1977 online store CafePress. As you can tell we have a big list and we will need the support of everyone. Though I cannot mention enough that we will take care of the needs first, then concentrate on the frills.

If you would like to be remembered in the Reunion Program with members of the UHAAA, please use this button to donate.

The Schonemans

2011-11-05T09:11:00.002-04:00

A photo taken by Robert Schoneman of his parents. His Mom was one of our Cub Scout Den Mothers and his Dad was the Scoutmaster. The Schonemans were wonderful neighbors and close friends of my parents. They would have been married 61 years today.

Learning To Drive

2011-10-25T07:01:00.001-04:00

Learning to drive is a right of passage I take completely for granted these days. Though at the time it consumed me just like it did every teenager starting at age 16. It did not let up until I had received my license sometime after my 17th birthday. Gas was $.50 a gallon and had gone up significantly after the oil shock of 1974. It was still cheap enough that we could empty all of our pals pockets for donations and have enough to cruise around on a Saturday night. Up and down Ridgewood Avenue we would go looking for other people doing the same and possibly word of a party at some unsuspecting parent's house.

In those days it didn't matter if the car only had an AM radio, as long as we were out of the house and moving around we were content. If we could find some girls who wanted to sit in the back seat and drive around with us then that was all the better.

When it was hot the windows would be down and we would hear the sounds on the street as we drove. It was sometimes the best form of communications that we had, and usually it was the only type since we cruised in the era before cellphones. Though 0ur communications could also be non-verbal and be left entirely to the drivers of the cars, especially if we were in a car with some horsepower that could go fast on route 208. It was well known among hot rod enthusiasts that if you hooked up a single white light near your back license plate and flashed it at another hot rod that this was a challenge for a race. I can't say I was in any races ala American Graffiti, but I did on one occasion ride "shotgun" while my driver played a dangerous game of "getting on the rear" of the car in front of us in an attempt to intimidate and show how fast his car could run. In those days we were immortal and split second decisions about safety were usually shouted down by those in the car. It was scary and stupid but all a part of growing up.

Ridgewood High School Alumni Association

2011-10-14T09:07:00.002-04:00

Through the years I have received a mountain of requests from my college alma mater for funds. Both of my brothers went to Prep school and they receive requests from Phillips Academy as well as their respective colleges and graduate schools. This is all well and good but it has lately left me wondering why Ridgewood High School doesn't have an alumni association of its own. Here is my suggestion:

The purpose of this non-profit association would be to identify and properly recognize the accomplishments of the alumni, students, faculty and staff of Ridgewood High School. Equal attention would be paid to the academic and non-academic phases of high school activities, in order that a well-balanced picture may be presented to the public.

The Ridgewood High School Alumni Association would strive to sustain friendships and memories of Ridgewood High School days in four ways. Firstly, its membership database would help graduates stay in touch and would facilitate class reunion efforts by offering advice and a refined methodology for organizing and supporting class reunions. The association's second mission would be to preserve RHS mementos and to create a permanent record of alumni accomplishments; at first collecting achievements and posting them on its website, and then ultimately by the acquisition of a permanent space for a Ridgewood High School Alumni Museum/Information Center, created and operated by the Association. The Association's third mission would be to use its website and FaceBook page to provide information about RHS alumni and association activities. The fourth way the association would fulfill its primary mission would be by awarding scholarships annually to deserving graduates.

In this age of Cloud Computing this seems to me an obvious use of technology for the common good. Nobody would be included who didn't want to belong and the RHS Alumni Association would create its own database of names.

142 Glenwood Road

2011-10-12T16:34:00.000-04:00

I lived at 142 Glenwood Road from 1961-1978 in a single family house built in 1937 on .21 acres of land adjoining Willard School. It always amazes me when I see how the house has appreciated since that time. I don't believe the first mortgage my parents had on the house was as large as the property taxes the current owner pays in a single year.

According to the Zillow web site the house last sold in 1995 for $420,000.

Today they estimate a 30 year fixed mortgage at about 4% with 20% down payment would leave you paying $3459 a month.

Tax History

Year           Property taxes    % Change            Tax assessment            % Change

2011           $18,281                       5.3% $968,800    --
2010 $17,361                       4.0% $968,800                      --
2009          $16,692                         --                     $968,800                      --
2008          $16,692                         2.9%                $968,800                    59.4%
2007           $16,228 --                     $607,800                      --

139th Annual Harvest Fair

2011-10-11T12:31:00.001-04:00

139th Annual Harvest Fair

Old Paramus Reformed Church
10am to 4pm - Free Admission - Come early for holiday shopping, have lunch and bring friends. 660 East Glen Avenue at Rt. 17. Garage Sale - Gift Basket Raffle - Attic Treasures & Collectibles - Furniture - Jewelry - linens - books - toys - Homemade Baked Goods - & soup - Farm Stand Country Kitchen Refreshments & Lunch!

From their website a bit of history:

Old Paramus Reformed Church has a rich past. The congregation was formed in the year 1725. During the American Revolution, the Paramus Church was the site of a Continental Army military post for four years during which clashes between American and British forces took place. It was also in the original church building that General George Washington held a session of the court-martial of General Charles Lee who disobeyed orders at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. Washington had his headquarters here at the church a total of ten times during various days from 1778-1780.

Other noted Revolutionary War figures such as Alexander Hamilton, the Marquis de Lafayette, Anthony Wayne, Richard Henry Lee, and Aaron Burr also were here from time to time during the war. From early colonial times, slaves were members of the church congregation, the upper galleries on both sides being designated for their use during services.

The present church building was built in 1800. An interesting feature is that the pews are numbered. The members of earlier days rented them on an annual basis. The most expensive were numbers 50 to 57 at $52.00 per year while the least expensive were numbers 38 to 100 at $4.00 per year. Needless to say, the less expensive pews are at the rear of the sanctuary.

On each side of the pulpit, there are three pews placed at right angles to the rest of the pews in the church. These were reserved for the Elders and Deacons (on the left and right respectively). These persons collectively are known as the Consistory, which is the governing board of the church. It was their duty to sit in these pews each Sabbath with their Bibles and copies of the day's sermon to check on the "Domine" as to his conduct of the service as well as sticking to his sermon! That tradition (as to seating) is kept alive in Old Paramus by current members of the Consistory who sit in the first pew facing the pulpit each Sunday.

The decorated organ pipes in the rear of the chancel (choir loft) behind the pulpit date back to 1892. In that year they were installed when the church received the gift of a new organ from a congregation member.

At the top of the arch over the pulpit, there is a Dove of Peace. The dove is made of wood and is hand-carved. The exact date of origin of the dove is unknown. One authority claims that, "The bird is an eagle and was a donation by Dr. Garret D. Banta in 1800." Records from the Consistory minutes read: 1874, Aug. 3rd: Resolved that the Consistory thankfully recognize the kindness of Mrs. Catherine Wessella for repairing and regilding the Dove, which has been a part of the decoration of the old church."

There are three flags on the pulpit - the American flag, the Christian flag and the flag of The Netherlands, the last representing our Dutch heritage. In a similar vein, the Dutch flag is flown under the American flag on the staff in front of the church.

There are several plaques on the inside walls of the church. Some honor the ministers, and others honor the various Consistories since 1725. Another just inside the front door notes that this Church has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In display cases you will find various bits of memorabilia concerning our history.

When attending Old Paramus Reformed Church, you will have come to a warm and comfortable historic church, but the service is up to date, alive, and nourishing to your whole being.

On the church campus, you will find the modern Educational Building which houses the church offices and facilities needed for Christian nurture. Another building is the one-room, church-like schoolhouse. This building houses the Ridgewood Historical and Preservation Society and is known as The Schoolhouse Museum. It was built in 1872 and was used as a school until 1905. It contains many items of historical note to this area. Make it a point to visit this museum during visiting hours. You should find it to be a very interesting and rewarding visit.

So, what kind of a church is Old Paramus Reformed Church? It is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, the oldest Protestant denomination with a continuous ministry in America. The first church was established in New York City, then known as Nieuw Amsterdam, in 1628. The Collegiate Churches presently represent the origins of that original congregation. The best known is Marble Collegiate Church, which is where Dr. Norman Vincent Peale was the minister for fifty-two years. The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is an historic denomination coming out of the Reformation when the Church was "re-formed" and re-organized according to the teachings of the Word of God, the Bible. The Reformed Church is Biblical in doctrine, semi-liturgical in worship. Presbyterian in government, and evangelical in practice.

This year, Old Paramus Reformed Church celebrates 286 Years of God's Loving Spirit. Come join us next Sunday at 10 A.M. We would be most happy to see you, and you will surely feel rewarded for the experience.

Call For Pledges: Promote Your Business and our 35th Reunion Weekend

2011-10-10T08:51:00.000-04:00

To all potential sponsors of the RHS Class of 1977 35th Reunion Weekend:

With our 35th Reunion Weekend some nine months away, plans are take shape nicely, and we are now in possession of the approximate costs of all the weekend's events. Our goal is to raise $1000, that's ten pledges of $100 from businesses with a presence on the Internet and from individuals.

By giving to this event you'll be helping defray expenses for things such as door prizes, decorations, the Reunion program, and the rental fee for use of The Stables for our Sunday Farewell Picnic. Your donation will be recognized in several ways. As a business sponsor you'll have a link to your web site on our web site in the sidebar on every page, and on our new page dedicated just to sponsors. Your donation will also be acknowledged in in all press releases, advertising materials, and banners which publicize the weekend, as well as announced verbally at our events.

We hope that we can count on you to support our 35th Reunion Weekend. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me privately via FaceBook or via my email address: paulmccubbin@gmail.com.

Thank you in advance for your consideration!

To date the following people have made pledges of money, prizes, and/or their time.

The ladies first:
Francesca Cavallaro Wall
Rebecca Deetz Haskell
Laura Fleming
Joanne Hunter Currey
Deborah White Bryant
Penelope King Quirk
Suzi Baxter-Beene
Susan Raymond
Carrie Stewart
Cindy Neidig Myer

The men:
Jeff Roberson
Hank Bordowitz
Gypsies on Parole
Jim Velordi
Schweinfurth Florist
Chet Douglas
Karl Olsen
Peter Branigan
Paul McCubbin
Tim Daly

RHS Football Field

2011-09-20T17:36:00.003-04:00

This is from my pals over at the Ridgewood Patch:

"Neighbor of the high school Tom Kossoff says he's concerned about health implications of dust related to the cleaning of the high school fields. Kossoff maintains the district should receive a citation for having the dust affect neighbors. Additionally, he expressed concern that the school didn't lock gates that allowed students to be exposed to the dust."

Photo Credit Tom Kossoff

I would say "concerned" is putting it mildly. I bet he is furious and wishes the school still played on a grass football field!

The grass field flooded out on more than one occasion while I was growing up but "astroturf" was relatively new and wasn't ever considered an option in those days. My guess is that if people had seen the health hazard created by the method used to clean the field this month, plans for the turf would been shelved. Admittedly, hindsight is always 100% correct so I hope a less noxious solution is proposed the next time we have a flood.

My rather conventional thinking about turf versus grass always supposed the replacement of grass field was supposed to reduce costs and offer a better guarantee that the field would be available after a heavy rain. I can't produce statistics to show how much we used to spend to restore the football field after a heavy rain or even how much this month's affair will cost in the end after litigation is complete. Though I did find on the Internet the minutes from a Village Special Meeting in 2007 to discuss the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. The following statistics were presented by Bard Fresenberg, an Extension Turf Grass specialist at the University of Missouri. He "completed a cost analysis over 16 years stating that a natural soil based field would cost $33, 5000 to maintain; a sand cap grass field would cost $49,000; a basic synthetic field would cost $65,800 and a premium synthetic field would cost $109,000. Mr. Fresenberg concluded that a public agency could take the same money it would cost to install a synthetic field and instead put in a sand-capped field and put the remaining money into a maintenance fund with recurring bond value resulting in a premium natural grass field with most of the maintenance costs covered."

I will now say, half-jokingly, that the argument against turf will always be the same: Grass doesn't ever have to be "cleaned" and it will withstand a flood just as well as the turf does, which is to say, not very well.

One other note:
"the National Football League (NFL) Report of 2004 states that 100% of football players prefer natural grass fields rather than artificial turf."

In the end I say we might listen more carefully to what the Professionals think about turf.

That Used To Be Us

2011-09-11T13:42:00.000-04:00

This blog in a small way is a testimony to my amazement, each and every day, with what lies buried in my mind. Until one day, for no particular reason it rises up, and makes itself known.

It's funny how we all started under the well meaning care of our parents. Then puberty arrives and all bets were off. Our parents who had once seemed so brilliant and all-knowing suddenly seemed, in our young and evolving minds, less than bright. And this impression only grows stronger as we journey through our teens and early twenties.

Fortunately, somewhere after college and before we have our first grandchild is born, we realize our parents have regained their senses and now give us only first class advice!

If you agree with me please send my best to your parents. They surely deserve it.

Does Ridgewood Need a Post Office?

2011-09-07T07:52:00.002-04:00

This would have been a silly question even as few as ten years ago. Now with the United States Post Office hemorrhaging money and talks of eliminating Saturday service and small rural post offices, it is not such a farfetched idea.

It is not an idea I favor, as these are solid middle class jobs which we are speaking about. These are the kind of jobs which people for generations have used to acquire their share of the American Dream: a house, family with children who plan to go to college, and enough money to retire on once their working days were completed.

I do favor re-inventing the US Postal Service. It is not the Pony Express, an institution doomed once faster means of transportation became available. The US Postal Service is an institution with a mission which needs to be refined; this is what I mean by re-inventing the Postal Service. Then why do our leaders, in this case the leader of the USPS, always consider gutting or eliminating long time public institutions first and not consider what other purpose this fully functioning, communications and transportation company might aspire to. We have relied upon the USPS for years and until recently they were pulling their own weight, while at the same time providing an anchor to many communities. Doesn't this alone give them and us a mandate to fix them for the 21st century?

I'll be the first to admit that I use very few stamps these days. Though I do find it re-assuring to see letter carriers walking the streets pushing their four wheeled mail bags in front of them. When we were kids these men and women, in all kinds of weather, just like their motto says, would be out on these streets keeping an eye out for things which were out of the ordinary, in addition to delivering letters and packages. This is not to say the UPS and Fedex folks in their big trucks don't do the same. Though they do it at high speed and with timers ticking away inside their trucks as a constant reminder to pick up the pace. The same could never be said of the US Postal Service, especially if you have waited on line in a postal office like mine in Forest Hills, NY. There you leave swearing that you will never, ever use the Postal Service again, and even wish they had a timer reminding them to pick up the pace.

How did we come to this situation any how? Was it the speed of UPS and Fedex, the long lines in post offices, the advent of email and online billpaying, or some combination of them all which turned our minds towards hasty thoughts of eliminating the US Postal Services?Look, I realize Ridgewood's Post Office is far down on the list of post offices proposed for closing. I also know that besides delivering mail and packages, the USPS handles passport applications, and maintains the Zip Code system, without which Fedex and UPS could not function. These jobs could be outsourced to another agency or two.

Though the fact remains US Post Offices are anchors in countless small communities, and not just places people visit for their mail when home delivery is unfeasible. This is not just an issue of inconvenience. It’s about how closing post offices will hurt neighborhoods and the downtown business district. It's how closing the post office will gradually destroy people's connection to their home town. Seen in the vacuum of being totally committed to efficiency and profit it's easy to pull the plug on the USPS.

Let's keep in mind that Post Offices do still provide places where local issues are discussed and debated. These are irreplaceable locales which private enterprise will not try to re-build once they are in charge of the 1 Trillion Dollar business of delivering mail. It may be inconvenient to the number crunchers, but when people feel rooted to a particular place, when they feel loyal to a town or a neighborhood doesn't that make them better citizens? doesn't that make them better customers for our local businesses?

Rainy Sundays in August

2011-08-28T08:08:00.002-04:00

There were days like we are having today with Hurricane Irene when we were growing up. They felt much more isolating than today, no doubt thanks to the invention of the Internet, Social Networking, and precise hurricane tracking maps. People criticize the Internet for allowing people to socialize without seeing one another face-to-face. I can tell you for a fact that as a kid I would have liked to have seen anyone during one of those storms, which left the streets and sometimes our basement flooded.

Today I have friends all over the map to touch base with, as long as the power stays on, and my assorted Internet connections stay up. I am a techie so I have redundant paths to the Internet and numerous backup batteries. As a kid we would have had the radio and TV, until the power went out, then we were alone and on our own. It didn't matter how many Three Musketeers bars my mother might offer us, we still felt alone and had no place to go.

When the storm had ceased we would go out and inspect the damage and the flooding. I can remember streets in my neighborhood where the water would be standing up to my knees. We would walk through it anyway, especially if there was no power and we had nothing better to do.

During these storm events I can remember the Hohokus brook would inevitably flood over its banks and people nearby would have to contend with a stream that was now on steroids. I have seen the improvements which have been made to the flood control system in and around the Hohokus brook and will be curious to hear how these modifications handled today's deluge.

Oh well, the only thing now is to wait and see, just like we did when we were younger. I think the fact that I recall Sunday storms in August infers they must have been memorable and somewhat traumatic. I'm sure this one will have its own set of difficult circumstances. What's more, now I am the adult and the one who must be brave. Wonder where the Three Musketeers bars are anyway?

Stay dry and indoors. The flooded streets will be there to wander through after the all clear has been sounded.

Randi Engle

2011-08-21T14:07:00.000-04:00

This story was told to me by Russell Engle, RHS Class of 1977. It concerns his sister:

"Randi Engle is an Assoc. Prof. of Education at UC Berkeley. She just received tenure on July 1st. She is married with 2 daughters, ages 8 and 15.

With all the good things in her life, Randi has also been fighting pancreatic cancer for a year now, the condition was bad at that time. Though it hasn't stopped her P.C. research fundraising website at:

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/randi-engle/raisethecureforrandi

She's raised $42K so far and even traveled from Berkeley, CA to Wash, DC to lobby congress to increase federal funding. Thankfully, her disease is stable right now on the chemo she is taking."

Whenever I hear of story like this it makes me stop and wonder how I would handle the same situation. Would I lay down and stop fighting, or fight even harder like Randi has been doing? Nobody can say until they are placed in this sort of situation, and then their true character begins to show.

Glad to hear her condition is stable and I hope she keeps fighting as people like Randi are an inspiration to us all.

RHS Class of 1991 20th Reunion

2011-08-16T08:04:00.001-04:00

The Official Reunion will be held at the Women's Club of Ridgewood, located near George Washington Middle School in Ridgewood, NJ. The Event will take place Saturday November 5th, 2011 from 7-11PM.

Tickets are $80.00 per person on or before September 15, 2011 and include beer, wine and a variety of hot and cold hors d'oeuvres. After September 15, 2011, the ticket price will increase to $90.00 per person. Guests are welcome and can be added to your ticket order online. Due to space and other restrictions, children, and/or anyone under the age of 21, are not permitted at this event.
We will have a special table set up where people can share business cards and gather to network and discuss business ventures. We hope that we can facilitate some valuable conversations and contacts among our fellow classmates. If you are interested in displaying any thing other than business cards, please go to the “contact us” link to send us a message with your contact information and a brief description of what you are interested in displaying. A reunion committee member will be in touch with you to discuss your request.

Overnight accomodations are available at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Paramus, NJ at a special rate of $99 per night. The rooms are blocked for both Friday and Saturday night. For reservations, please call (201) 262-6900 or visit the website: www.crowneplaza.com/paramus.
The Ridgewood Women’s Club is located at 215 West Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ 07450. It is close to mass transportation and within walking distance (less than ½ mile) from NJ Transit train/Ridgewood train station.

Broad Street 100 Years Ago

2011-08-15T12:19:00.001-04:00

Thanks to our friends at the Ridgewood Patch! This is what Broad Street looked like roughly a century ago. Photo Credit Courtesy of the Bolger Heritage Center at the Ridgewood Public Library.

Ridgewood Patch Editor, James Kleimann:

"It's still known as the transit hub of Ridgewood, just as it was a century ago. But things have changed on Broad Street since the early 1900s, notably the name.

Back in 1906, the street that now houses Smith Brothers, Mediteraneo, Bagelicious and the train station was called "Rock Avenue" and even then featured some of the same landmarks that gives the thoroughfare its unique look.

According to a Ridgewood Herald article from June 28, 1906, property owners lobbied the village trustees to have the street changed to "Broad Street" though the reasons why were not disclosed in archives.

"Mr. Brackett opposed changing the names of streets but his was the only negative vote on a motion to instruct the counsel to prepare an ordinance complying with the request of the petitioners," the article stated."

Class of 1977 35th Reunion Weekend

2011-08-14T09:25:00.001-04:00

My favorite poet, William Butler Yeats, penned a poem which I long ago committed to memory: "When You are Old." It inspires me to this day, and hopefully will reveal to you the purpose and reason behind our 35th Reunion Weekend next summer. It begins, "When you are old and grey and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire…"

These lines suggest a comfort in old age. The poem also briefly traces the journey from youth to old age. It suggests we need to gather as many beautiful memories as we can during our short time on this planet. I hope this Reunion becomes just such a recollection for us all.

The Saturday night party will be held at the Marriott in Park Ridge, NJ on July 21st 2012 starting at 7PM.
Tickets are $95 and may be purchased online via our web site with a credit card or a PayPal account.
Rooms for both Friday and Saturday nights are $99.

More details regarding deadlines will be posted on our web site and on Facebook. Hope you all can make it.

August Days

2011-08-08T17:20:00.000-04:00

It was always about this time of the summer when as a kid we used to feel out of sorts. The usual routines around school and friends had been broken, and the new school year was still a month away. We easily lost touch with our friends whenever someone went on vacation. We had no Internet or text messaging capabilities to tie us together like kids do these days. In August there always seemed like there was plenty of time, or too much time, and the days would sometimes drag.

This all wasn't a totally bad thing. The lack of routine combined with the oppressive heat of August always seemed to prompt one to do some brutal self-reckoning and maybe even take a chance or two like riding our bicycles through a different part of town or playing around with kids we previously had never hung around with. When we were old enough to drive there were trips to the Jersey Shore unaccompanied by adults. These sort of eye-opening activities seemed appropriate in August as we anticipated the coming of Labor Day and the beginning of the new school year.

In late August we always made a trip to MacHughs to buy new clothes for school. There was also a trip to Bill Lyons Shoe Store to buy shoes, and a trip to Perdues or Bernards to buy sneakers. These constants kept us grounded during this period. The malls had arrived and were beginning to grab our shopping attention but there was still enough customers for the local merchants.

The shopping also sparked our thinking once again about our friends from school, who might be our teachers, and who would be in our classes. I suppose we could have found out in advance if our parents had asked, but I doubt this would have alleviated our fear and excitement one iota. There was plenty of time before the natural flow of events would reveal these details. Besides, it was August and we were wearing shorts and often times were barefoot. There were BBQs still to attend, watermelon to eat, and fireflies to catch. All simple pleasures which would help propel us through the August Days of our youth.

Chris DuFlocq

2011-07-26T18:36:00.002-04:00

Here is one we can brag about:
With the appointment last week of Chris DuFlocq to captain, the village now has a full staff of officers for the Ridgewood Fire Department.

Finite Possibilities

2011-07-17T15:04:00.000-04:00

When we are in our teens and twenties, everything seems possible. Our bucket lists are endless, and if we are lucky, our enthusiasm is equal to our lofty ambitions.

Something happens when we turn about thirty to relieve us of this self-imposed pressure. We are then free to recognize our limitations and chart a more realistic course for our lives.

I might have taken longer than most to come to this revelation, but I feel secure that my bucket list is much shorter than when I was 18 and much more doable.

This is very reassuring in the long run, and gives me the confidence to focus on things like our Class of 1977 35th Reunion. I hope to announce the exact time and place by the end of this week.

We have had so many stellar leaders of our past reunions that I feel guilty even asking them for help, because I know they will volunteer to do much more. To me, the responsibility for our reunions needs to be shared. I don't think that has been done in the past. Our reunions have been wonderful and many people are worthy of a "High Five" for their efforts.

The 35th Reunion is going to be lead by a new leader with a combination of old and new team members. I say this only because the past leaders are so dedicated that they might feel as guilty as I do for not participating more. This is a false supposition.

Let's be clear: If you worked on a past reunion, you are given a free pass on this reunion. This means you are a consultant only! The current team would be ignorant to not include your opinions. Please offer them freely.

The current status of the reunion is good. We only need to set the hotel and the price of the ticket. Please keep your email channels open, and watch our website and FaceBook page for details.

As always your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Peace,
Paul

4th of July

2011-07-04T07:42:00.000-04:00

In the mind of a child, the Fourth of July ranks among the best days of the year. I always thought its place immediately after the last day of school did it justice. The village is in its glory on the 4th and throws a parade in the morning and a fireworks celebration at night, which make even the most jaded among us smile. The children who witness these events have no problem smiling at all. For the youngest of them watching the fireworks means they get to stay up past their school year bed time. This break from routine only adds to the excitement which a good fireworks display is always able to conjure up. If you are lucky enough to attend a BBQ in between the parade and the fireworks then falling asleep at the end of the day on the Fourth of July is no problem at all.

Hope you have a Happy Fourth of July.

End of June

2011-06-28T18:26:00.000-04:00

I've always enjoyed the waning days of June. As a youth this meant that school was out and the summer months lay in front of me with all their wonderful possibilities. It has also always been the time when Jersey Blueberries hit the market, and for my money there are no better. The ones from Michigan are good but there is a hint of tartness in the Jersey variety which I find more to my liking.

The end of June means the 4th of July is near, with its parade and fireworks. In Ridgewood this has always been a huge tradition and probably the one day of the year where beers are openly consumed in public. I'm mostly talking about the people who watch the parade near the Railroad Station and grab some beers to go at Smith Brothers. We even did this the one year I was in the parade on the Graduating Seniors float. It was a hot day and the parade was moving at a glacial pace, so David Rorty and myself hopped off the float and bought a couple of six packs to go. We were back on the float and in the parade again so fast that we were barely missed.

June's closing for a working man may not hold the same possibilities it once had when we were young and anticipating where we might go and what we might do over the summer. It does give us the same pause on the 4th of July and if we are smart we'll buy all the Jersey blueberries we can and eat them until we can eat no more, then freeze the rest. When we defrost them sometime later, long after the blueberry season in Jersey is over, we can maybe for a moment recollect how good they were fresh and how much we enjoy looking forward to them each year.

Father's Day

2011-06-19T07:37:00.001-04:00

My Dad always looked sheepish whenever Father's Day rolled around on the calendar. He spent 364 days a year providing for his family, paying for our educations, and being a fount of wisdom when we asked for his opinion. The fact there was a single day in the year designated to honor just such men as he was fine for the other Dads, but it put him at the center of attention and that was not something he was entirely comfortable with. I know how he feels and can relate to what he must have felt every year when we offered our tokens of appreciation and uttered the memorable phrase, "Happy Father's Day!"

This year my brothers and I came up with an idea which surely would have made him blush. We endowed a scholarship at Ridgewood High School in his honor. The John B. McCubbin Higher Education Scholarship will be given to a graduating senior each year who will be attending either college or trade school in the fall. The principal at RHS will make the selection of the boy or girl from a middle income family, with at least a B average, to receive the $1,000.

I know my Dad wouldn't have wanted his full name on the award, but we did it anyway. Thanks for all you did for us, Dad. We miss you.

School Spirit

2011-06-18T08:48:00.002-04:00

Some people have it when they are in school and some people don't. Some people lose it after they graduate and some people kick themselves for not acknowledging it when they were in school.

I am referring to the emotional support one has for an educational institution. This is usually tied intrinsically to the town where you live. Unless you are a commuter student or attend a prep school, t one's feelings about a school are bound forever to the town.

I was lucky you could say because I had one town and one school system. I can see how hard it would be to develop an attachment for a place if it was one of a string of residences you lived in growing up.

One's school spirit is tested severely later in life by class reunions. Whether you admit it or not, everyone is concerned to a degree about how their lives have turned out when compared with the lives of their former classmates. I would readily admit this to anyone. Though I also know that once the reunion is over these comparisons become moot and I will return to comparing myself with my brothers, those I work with, and those I live around. These people are ubiquitous while those I see at reunions every five years or so who make me feel uncomfortable are more easily avoided.

The RHS Class of 1977 is planning a 35th reunion the weekend of July 20-22 2012. We have events starting on Friday night when the first performance of our Alumni All-Star band will be held at the Elks Club. Saturday morning at 11:00 AM we will have a student-led tour, the RHS Ambassadors will provide us a tour of the newly renovated Ridgewood High School. Saturday night at a 7:00 PM at a local hotel we will have the traditional reunion dinner with music, prizes and a great deal of picture taking I'm sure. Sunday afternoon we will have a picnic at Graydon and say our last goodbyes.

I am truly looking forward to this weekend. Not because I am so successful by any standard that I can fearlessly be compared with the accomplishments of my classmates, or because I am a social butterfly. No, the reason I want to go is to simply be in the presence of people who have known me longer than anyone outside my family. Some of these people will make me uncomfortable and some will bring joy to my heart. They will all remind me from whence I came. They will collectively serve as a touchstone and hopefully I'll gain some insight which will serve me well in the future. I guess that would sum up my reason for wanting to go, as scary as that might be.

RHS Class of 1977 Alumni Band

2011-05-27T05:53:00.000-04:00

This idea was sent to me by Jim Velordi of the band Gypsies on Parole. It was seconded by Joanne Hunter. We have a lot of talented people and Jim thinks we need to add a Keyboardist and Bass player to the Alumni band he is envisioning. Jeff Robey and Chris Duflocq are squarely in Jim's sights.

Let's this be a call to all musicians and singers in the Class of 1977. Let us know if you are interested.
Contact via this blog or our FaceBook page.

RHS Class of 1977 35th Reunion

2011-05-19T19:41:00.001-04:00

We are in the planning stages as of today. Check out our Facebook page for possible dates and venues. We will gather people's views and then make a decision in a week or two.

RHS Class of 1977 Reunion Web Site

RHS Class of 1977 on FaceBook

Graydon Pool Early Birds

2011-05-18T12:41:00.002-04:00

I've added a link to The Preserve Graydon Coalition to the sidebar under Ridgewood and Hohokus links. Here is an excerpt from their latest newsletter. Details for signing up to the newsletter can be found on their web site.

Be an Early Bird

Discounted prices (Ridgewood residents only) for Graydon badges will end after Saturday, May 21. Why not buy your badge now and pay less? Here's how:
Online, 24/7, through CommunityPass: http://ridgewoodnj.net/communitypass
          OR
In person THIS SATURDAY, May 14, and NEXT SATURDAY, May 21, 10 am to noon, badge office on the Graydon grounds
          OR
Age 62 and up: THIS THURSDAY, May 12, 9:30 am-12:30 pm, during Highlights in Leisure Time (HILT) meeting, Community Center, Village Hall, 131 N. Maple Ave., Ridgewood. Cash, check, Visa, and MasterCard accepted. Ridgewood seniors pay $15 (starting May 22: $20)

Full-price pool badges will be sold at the Graydon badge office starting June 4 during pool hours and through CommunityPass any time all summer.

More details: http://ridgewoodnj.net/graydon

Memories of 1974

2011-05-18T11:18:00.001-04:00

Written by Guest Blogger Damian “Lou” Vidal RHS Class of 1978.

Memories are funny. Some like the birth of my children are vivid and almost tactile in form as the
images materialize in my head while others like my father’s funeral appear in a haze of emotion. Maybe it’s the content of our memories that makes the difference, maybe it’s the emotion, and maybe it’s both. Sometimes music or smells can pull you into a time warp of images that come rushing back like a flood bursting a dam.

Just a few Sundays ago my wife was cooking pancakes and my young seven year old son got up from bed and said to her “Mmm that smells good Mom” and as I smelled the same wonderful odor I remembered a similar day in my youth when I said a similar thing to my mother, the moment brought a smile to my face, memories are funny that way.

More and more as I get older it seems that the memories that hold their meaning to me are those that remind me of family and of friends. Even though it may be about something I was doing it always falls into the content of my memory because of those that were around me. It appears that what we are doing isn’t as important as who we were doing it with or for. I remember the first time I played touch football at Mount Carmel because of Bill DeMayo asking me if I wanted to play. I remember my first snowman because my older sister was telling me how it should be done. I remember the first time I dove off the high dive at Graydon Pool because of Joe Schroeder’s incessant ribbing that I wouldn’t. All those memories bring back a feeling of joy and happiness that are engraved in my essence. It is a time of innocence that I often think about and sometimes miss.

Funny how job promotions or bonuses or making a great deal of money don’t create any everlasting flashbacks in me, we seem to place such value on the material things in our lives yet it appears that what really counts are the relationships, and the emotions we attach to them. It seems that what matters most are those moments with people that retrospectively ripple back like waves in time crossing the pond of our lives.

The other day I was going through some old photo albums and found a picture of one of those moments in time. It is 1974 and I am in ninth grade and I am doing one of those things that as young boys we loved about school, going to gym and playing for the love of it. There is no championship, no trophy, and no scholarships on the line, just the bragging rights for that afternoon and the feeling that you were the greatest athlete ever if you won. I have no idea where these boys are today, I hope and pray all are well, but they will forever exist in my memory as the teammates and opponents in a do or die game of flag football on a sunny fall day in the field across from GW JR. HIGH.

From right to left:

In the wonderfully stylish 70’s print shirt, Sam Ward, The massive Jim Foody getting ready to break
some bones, The diminutive Mike Travers who had a heart as big as the Titanic, great soccer player! The cool and collected Chip Conklin. The always smiling, I know you can’t see him, Chris Holmes, and me, an average kid with average talent who always gave it 101%, Damian “Lou” Vidal.

Thoughts and Memories of Graydon Pool

2011-05-14T16:41:00.004-04:00

My memories of Graydon Pool are happy ones, anchored in the 1960s and 70s, of learning how to swim, water fights, 10 cent Good Humor Ice Cream, and of a group of stay-at-home Moms who would collectively watch us from morning until mid-afternoon.

I have always believed that the Village has done a fine job acting as Steward of the land which was willed to the Village and we know as Graydon Pool. Though times change and so has my opinion of the job the Village is currently doing.

The metrics I use to judge the Village are now quite different then the ones I used as a youth. As a child it was simple to say that if the pool was open, the lifeguards led by Richard Flectner were keeping order, and the Good Humor truck showed up that all was well. You would expect such judgments from a youth.

Today I offer 3 standard measures to assess the performance of the Village, and I offer them to everyone when judging the success or failure of Graydon Pool under its current administrative leaders.

1. Does Graydon make any money for the Village? No, according to reports it costs the Village $100,000 a year to maintain 365 Days a year.
2. Is the Graydon Pool membership on the rise or in a decline? All reports say it is in a decline and that members can now sponsor members from other towns in order to try and make up the difference.
3. Can Graydon be used for any functions during the other seasons of the year? In the spring and fall the muck and mire prevents any use of the pool grounds. In the winter at one time we ice skated on the pool, but I'm not sure if that's allowed anymore.

Now that you can see I am coming down hard on our current leaders you might ask what suggestion do I have to make in order to improve the situation.

I know of no law that says the Village must be the one to provide the money for operational support of Graydon Pool. The Village does it and with mixed results. If you follow this reasoning then why not consider offering to lease the Pool to a private professional organization on a renewable 10 year lease with strict covenants set forth by the Village.

In return for the rights to run the pool the private operator would pay a mutually agreed to rent and would be asked to sponsor at least one town initiative like fund raising for the Library, or planting flowers in Van Neste Square Park, or supplying a boys and girls baseball team with equipment and uniforms. These are all details which would be negotiated with the winner of a transparent bidding process.

As we all know private companies advertise and under a plan like this we would see a corporate logo on things like pool signage and badges. The private operator likely would consider a refreshment stand with logos on their napkins and cups. They might even open a merchandise stand to sell t-shirts, towels, and other pool related items. Other ideas they might try could include giveaways of merchandise with sponsors names plastered on things like sand shovels and buckets.

Now the touchstone by which the advertising would be judged could be carefully spelled out in advance. My preference would be to keep it as low key as the names on all the baseball uniforms worn by boys and girls in the Ridgewood Baseball Association. Or maybe something along the lines of the Coca-Cola logo on the High School Football Scoreboard. Anything more garish than these suggestions would be crossing the line in my opinion.

There will no doubt be a legal challenge to any proposal which tries to change the intent of the original will that Graydon be a park. Though I don't believe that relieving the town of its self-imposed obligation to provide operational support would compromise the park in any way. What's more its goal would be to create a financially sound operation. Graydon Pool would remain the same beautifully designed, tranquil setting that it has always been. As well as remaining a huge storage area for flood waters. The big difference would be that professionals would be running the show.

Thoughts on Ridgewood Library Funding

2011-05-12T13:30:00.000-04:00

As a lifetime lover of libraries I read with piqued interest in The Ridgewood Patch the recap of last nights Village Council meeting. This is an excerpt pertaining to the Ridgewood Public Library:

"Friends and trustees of the Ridgewood Public Library also took the floor to again express public support for the institution and the council said it was willing to give $35,000 of Director Nancy Greene's request of just over $75,000, which she has said if not granted will lead to closures over the summer."

It made me wonder why an institution which is transformational as well as informational is always having to go hat in hand to these meetings and seemingly never receives the full amount they ask for to keep the doors open.

Libraries not only provide information but they provide a space where people can dream and aspire to better themselves and the community around them. It is my fervent hope that the Village might see that given the chance to transform their residents they might make better citizens, and then possibly be capable of paying more taxes.

The problem here just might be that the voting public is not seeing the connection between how they perceive the library and the support they give the library. If they saw it as an incubator of new ideas and new ways of doing things, which could result in higher tax receipts, then they might not be so reluctant to fully fund the operations of the library. It's not as if there is a scandalous amount of waste going on or that Librarians are grossly overpaid. This has never been the issue, yet the underfunding continues and it makes me wonder what people are thinking.

Thoughts About Valley Hospital Expansion

2011-05-10T08:46:00.001-04:00

As someone who used to live in Ridgewood (over 30 years ago) I do know something of the layout of Valley Hospital and can understand how after repeated expansions over these last 30 years since I have been gone, some people might be saying enough is enough.

To my way of thinking there are 4 options to consider:

1. Allow further expansion on the current site. I haven't seen the plans and will only say that the area which Valley occupies is looking fully developed to my untrained eye.
2. Disallow further expansion on the current site. The common wisdom as I understand it is that hospitals need to be big to establish their reputations, to attract the best professionals to work within them, and to provide the most modern care to their patients. Putting an end expansion might go in the face of this common wisdom. Only time would tell.
3. Close Valley Hospital. This is ridiculous but I have seen hospitals closed in my neighborhood in Forest Hills because they were not big enough and had no room to expand. I wouldn't wish this on Ridgewood for anything.
4. Build a Valley Hospital Annex on another site. According to reports this is what is currently going on in the background of this discussion on expansion. Valley Hospital according to North Jersey.com:

"is in the process of acquiring the Community Blood Services building in Paramus, where it plans to provide treatment and cardiac rehab as well as conduct research, hospital officials confirmed."

If you know this site as I do then you might see the possibilities for the building of an annex. It would require tearing down an old shopping mall and some zoning variances to build a true hospital, though it would give Valley Hospital all the room it needed. The biggest issue the hospital would then face is who would initially have to work in the new facility. At the moment they are moving some rehabilitation and research down to the Community Blood Services building. If and when further expansion commenced there would certainly be plenty of internal fighting at Valley Hospital as to who has to move. This is fairly common in all lines of business when an expansion is proposed. The inevitable result is some people won't feel like they are in the loop when they have to work at the Annex and will find the commute to be inconvenient, especially in a snow or rain storm.

It almost looks to me that the people who favor expansion are throwing in the towel by this acquisition of the Community Blood Services building in Paramus and know that they can't win a fight to expand at the current location.

New Track at BF

2011-05-08T08:35:00.005-04:00

For all of you who follow Track and Field or who once participated while in the Ridgewood School System, there is great news to share about the new track at BF Junior High School. According to Tom Thurston, who was our Track Captain in 1977 along with Andy Drapkin, this is "probably the nicest HS track and field facility in northern NJ."

To take a look click here

You will be taken to Jacob Brown's web site. Yes, he is still a coach at RHS and is looking pretty good by all accounts and pictures. It must be the exercise and healthy living which he teaches.

When you see a track as fast as the one now at BF, it makes old time runners like me and Tom wonder how much faster we might have run if we hadn't been running on cinders and a 300 something yard track. It's pretty comical to consider what we had to compete on in the 1970s and earlier. This photo of Larry Coyle shows the kind of track we ran on, though I'm not sure if this was taken in Ridgewood.

More Baseball Fields

2011-05-06T15:33:00.000-04:00

As a rapid Baseball fan and someone who played in seemingly thousands of games (pickup and organized) as a youth growing up in Ridgewood in the 1960s and 70s, it would seem to be logical for me to support the proposal to develop the Village's Shedler property near Route 17 for ball fields and walking paths.

Though in light of constrained budgets, decreasing levels of services, and the expectation of further tax increases I can only agree with the mayor. According to the Ridgewood Patch:

"Mayor Killion says village services should be restored, infrastructure improved before considering development of fields, which he says were never promised."

Schedler, a 7-acre property off Route 17 the Village purchased with bonds totaling $2 million with the inclusion of a recent grant, is earmarked to become a passive park. Though even a passive park requires its grass to be regularly cut, its baseball diamond raked, its trash cans to be emptied, and its environs patrolled by the police. This all costs money as anyone will tell you.

My greatest for concern for my old home town is that unless new sources of tax and general revenue income can be developed, this latest field might very well end up like the ball fields at Willard School I played on as a youth: filled with weeds, trash, and clay infields which couldn't absorb even a normal rain fall.

I only hope the Village Council considers some new ideas for increasing the Village coffers. Whether it is Cell Phone Towers, Advertising on Village property, or programs to decrease costs like the one developed by RHS Students for Environmental Action Club which has saved taxpayers thousands of dollars by regularly turning off classroom lights at RHS on Friday afternoons.

Moms and Baseball

2011-05-06T14:16:00.000-04:00

As I am reminded by the author of the Watching The Game blog, Judy Van Sickle Johnson, it's not only fathers and sons who share memories of playing or watching baseball together. My Mom easily saw just about every baseball game I ever played, including Summer Recreation Softball. If she ever missed one of my games it would have been because she was attending one of my brother's games instead.

My Mom still likes baseball and even watches the Little League World Series broadcast live from Williamsport, Pennsylvania each summer on ESPN. Now that is a fan!

The only live games she sees now are of my nephew in Los Angeles. He did not disappointment this past month when she was visiting LA on her 80th birthday. My nephew hit 2 home runs and pitched a complete game victory for his team. She couldn't have been happier if a time machine had transported her back to Ridgewood in the late 1960s and she had seen one of her own sons in action.

Turning Off The Lights

2011-05-06T09:34:00.000-04:00

When I read in the Ridgewood Patch about how the RHS Students for Environmental Action Club was saving the taxpayers thousands of dollars, I had one of those, "Why didn't we do this when I was young?" moments. Their idea is a simple one, but takes perseverance and good record keeping. Every Friday afternoon as soon as school is over they split up in teams and turn out all the lights in all the classrooms.

According to Victoria Pan, a junior at Ridgewood High School and the co-president of Students for Environmental Action (SEA), an RHS club,

"Turn Off the Lights is a project in which our club turns off all the classroom lights at the end of the week. Every Friday after school, we basically “raid” the school, turning off all the light switches in the classrooms.

We measure our progress by keeping track of all the lights in our school and using charts to monitor their on/off status. At the end of each raid, I compile the results from the students. We continuously examine the monthly electricity bills every few months or so to check for reductions in energy costs. I’ve been consistently running this project every week for more than a year, and so far, it has saved the school thousands of dollars in electricity costs!"

What a brilliant idea! (pun intended).

The Ridgewood Guild

2011-05-03T13:30:00.001-04:00

"The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens." Alexis de Tocqueville

With the words of Tocqueville in mind, it was good to hear about the new, non-profit organization which was formed in Ridgewood. The Ridgewood Guild " encourages smaller and more aesthetic projects, says Scott Lief, president of the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce, such as planting flowers to adorn the empty tree wells in the business district and auditioning volunteer musicians to play acoustic repertoires at eight locations on the east and west sides of the village on Fridays through August.. This past April 27th was the first ever Ridgewood Film Festival held at Warner Theater."

From their website:

The Ridgewood Guild is an exciting new organization dedicated to making Ridgewood a more enjoyable place to shop, dine and visit. Our board is made up of a group of high-energy, hard working individuals who plan to make a difference. Because we have no rent, overhead, or salaries to pay, our annual dues are minimal. This gives us the opportunity to give back to the community via a carefully planned out series of events, fundraisers and marketing strategies.

The Guild's membership includes retailers, restaurateurs, non-profits, professionals and residents who have an interest in seeing our village thrive. We are always looking for ideas and suggestions, so don't hesitate to contact us. We hope you will join us!

201-493-9911 • ridgewoodguild@aol.com

Future Events

Spring Film Festival
Wednesday, April 27th and Thursday, April 28th
Ridgewood Clearview Cinema
Check our Film Festival page for entry information. More details coming soon....

Music in The Night
Our Downtown music series begins Friday, May 6th and runs every Friday night through July 29th.

Mom's the Word
Saturday, May 7th

Dads & Grads
Saturday, June 18th

Movies in The Park
Wednesday, July 6th and Wednesday, July 20th

Autumn in Ridgewood House Tour
Thursday, October 13th
(This is shaping up to be a fabulous event. More information coming soon....)

Cell Phone Towers in Ridgewood

2011-04-30T08:57:00.001-04:00

First it was the installation of solar panels on utility poles and now it is cell phone towers which are making headlines in Ridgewood. Both are technological advances designed to make our lives more sustainable and convenient so on first glance why are residents making such a fuss?

Of course, it is easy for me to judge as I live in Forest Hills, NY and have towers all around me, as well as jets from La Guardia airport passing overhead on a regular basis. You could say this makes me immune to the beauty of nature and the tranquility of a quiet day. Though I knew what I was getting into when I moved here and scenic beauty and quiet afternoons were not part of the bargain of living in the Big Apple.

My hunch is that residents of Ridgewood are up in arms because the rules of the Village are seemingly being changed. I'm not here to argue about Master Plans or the particulars of zoning laws. I'll just point out that if you asked a resident whether they ever thought there would be solar panels in their southern facing front yards or cell phone towers on empty lots, they probable would have said no. It's not part of the idyllic image which Ridgewood cultivates so carefully.

It will be interesting to see how this works out, especially in an era where sources of new tax revenue are few and far between. These cell phone towers do bring in rental money and once you put up one for T-Mobile the other Telco Carriers will come with their checkbooks open. I could see this as being hard for a cash-strapped village government to turn down.

Gum Day

2011-04-29T15:33:00.001-04:00

I actually had a teacher in the 6th grade, Miss Jensen, who would let us chew gum on Fridays. It was called Gum Day and you had to be on your best behavior and sitting in the book reading area of the classroom. This section had a couple of old comfy chairs and was screened off from the windows so passer-bys wouldn't see this limited bit of anarchy which was going on in our classroom.

This truly was an anomaly I believe for any classroom in Ridgewood. I can't think of any other teacher in my thirteen years spent in the Ridgewood Public Schools who condoned the chewing of gum during school hours.

Gum chewing was confined to after school where some of us learned to blow bubbles to various degrees of dexterity. I never learned to blow a bubble because I didn't like the taste of Bazooka Bubble Gum which was the standard by which all bubbles were judged. I liked the gum which came in the nickel packs of baseball cards ( 5 cards and a stick of gum). Though it was inferior bubble blowing gum so I would either chew it or throw it away.

Some of you may even remember the introduction of sugarless gum and one preposterous commercial produced by Dentyne. In the ad they stated, that if you chewed Dentyne after a meal you didn't need to brush your teeth. It went to show how brazen a fraud some companies were willing to try on a gullible public. This commercial lasted for months before being pulled from the airwaves after protests from dentists and parents alike.

Teaching Cursive Writing

2011-04-29T14:49:00.000-04:00

Cursive writing was taught to everyone in the Ridgewood School System usually in the third grade. We were admonished to write our signatures neatly as this would likely be the same style we would use for the rest of our lives.

Implied in this warning was the strongly held opinion that something we did now would have repercussions much later in our lives. The same thing was said about cracking one's knuckles but to this was adding a warning about some hideous deformity which would surely afflict one's hands if you continued to crack your knuckles.

I heeded the second warning but am one of many I know who has let their cursive skills atrophy. The fear now is that with the use of computers some students many never learn cursive, except to sign their names. This would be a shame as there is an artistic skill which can inherently be taught along with cursive writing, even if I am not an art lover who makes this a personal practice.

Some educators are going as far as to complain that children are "losing time where they create beauty every day." These same people have a hard time making this a practical argument for cursive. Probably because they are mourning the beauty and the aesthetics of an increasingly lost artistic skill as well as an ability to read historical documents like the US Constitution in its original form.

Though this begs the question whether cursive is a 21st century skill. I am on the fence as to whether it is one. I do remember being kept after school because my handwriting was bad, though a lot of good this did me.

I have no problem with the teaching of cursive if it is placed in the context that those who learn to write by hand learn better. I recall it mostly as a rote exercise devoid of attempts at creating something appealing to gaze at or that by learning to write clearly by hand would make me a more capable student in the future.

Sometimes all it takes is a change of context for a seemingly cryptic lesson to become, in the words of the poet John Keats "a thing of beauty." In the end the argument for teaching cursive might come down to whether we want to teach our children be added that a thing of beauty can also be a joy for ever.

Solar Panels in Ridgewood

2011-04-28T09:11:00.001-04:00

It's hard for an outsider like myself to come down on either side of the argument about the aesthetics of solar panels being mounted on PSE&G utility poles in Ridgewood. Our old house didn't have the southern exposure these panels require so we probably wouldn't have had a quarrel to pick. Though I can see how they might be an eyesore to some who once had a view and now found they were on the frontline in the fight to expand the use of clean energy in New Jersey. There hasn't been much warning according to reports in today's New York Times. People say they have left their homes for a few hours and returned to find the solar panels installed and the installers long gone.

There is talk in the village of steering the installations to the roofs of schools and that to me makes sense. As a matter of prudent public policy and as a teaching moment for students, placing them on the flat roofs of the public schools might very well be the best solution. Nobody is talking badly about solar power in general it's just how they look in someone's front yard and how that might lower the value of the property. If the installation of solar panels somehow lowered homeowner's property taxes there might be a line of people volunteering their utility poles. It might be difficult to place a dollar value on a view from one's front window but given enough incentive I bet people would name a price where suburban aesthetics could be bought.

HDTV

2011-04-25T08:38:00.000-04:00

Let's be clear about one thing: no matter how much I might characterize the 1960s and 70s as a golden time to grow up in Ridgewood, there is still one thing without question which is better now: TV. We had channels 2,4,5,7,9,11,13, and the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) if you wanted to be adventurous. We had mostly black and white sets with rabbit ears and there was no cable or remote controls.

Today I can lay in bed at night and watch my Yankees live in HD (High Definition) or record them and watch something else. I can mute the sound at my whim and channel surf to my heart's content. It would probable do my heart good to get up and change the channels and volume like we used to do, but I'm not going to look this gift horse in the mouth. The fact that the picture is so sharp you can see the players sweat just adds to the experience.

While TV has become better it has also become a more personalized and solitary experience. Sure we still gather around the TV on occasion but with no where near the frequency as when we watched rockets blast off into space or for funeral processions of slain presidents. We don't even pay attention to the commercials anymore and nobody gets a laugh by repeating Alka Seltzer catch phrases like, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" or even Wendys, "Where's the Beef?"

I'm not the one to judge whether this loss of a collective memory of what was on TV the night before is good or bad. It likely is just another sign of the times and what most people call progress. Nobody I know wants to give up their remote, or their cable connection, or HDTV and trade for an old black and white. Though I bet someone in the future will draw the connection between the obesity epidemic in this country and the introduction of the TV remote control. I don't believe we are watching more TV we are just naturally not getting up as often as we used to in order to change channels or fuss with the antennas. All those calories we used to burn are one day going to be estimated and give everyone pause for thought.

Baseball Played Without The Lines and Bases

2011-04-23T08:25:00.000-04:00

It is impossible to travel through Ridgewood these days and not marvel at all the well groomed ball fields. There are more now than when I was growing up and they are infinitely better cared for by the Village. I am glad for the children living close by as these are good places for them to learn about life and the fine lines of differences between us all.

I can recall as a youth how when it rained the Willard School field would flood and the water would stand for days. It would produce a mud, in the outfield particularly, which made for many comical moments for these unlucky enough to have the outfield as their position. We called it the "Creek Mud" and one unlucky soul even had this nickname awarded to him after one very memorable slide through the creek mud in an attempt to field a ball.

It's funny to me now how our games were played with rags for bases, foul lines which were approximated and always a source of contention, and with various patches of grass in the outfield that no suburban homeowner would ever allow to grow on their property. All of these obstacles didn't deter our desire to play baseball. These were just incorporated into our games and became variations on a theme which could be played with a full contingent on each side or with half the outfield designated as foul territory. If somebody who didn't know the rules of the game had watched us all day they would have become quite confused as to what we were doing. You see, baseball could be played off the wall, off the steps, with a kickball, on a stickball court, and on any manner of baseball diamond we might configure. We might play with a hard ball, softball, red kickball, wiffle ball, or tennis ball. It was all the same to us, but to a stranger it would have been a real head-scratcher for someone to say them that we were all playing the same game.

RHS Class of 1973 40th Reunion

2011-04-22T16:58:00.000-04:00

According to the folks on the planning committee of the RHS class of 1973 40th Reunion"

"Well we got together back in December for our first 40th reunion meeting - after all the laughs and inevitable memories and a few drinks we finally talked about places.

Attending were John Wescott, Frank Petrucci, Terri Dimodugno, Jack Wolfstirn and Rick Flannery (missing that day was Tom O'Connor). We met at the Village Grill in Waldwick. We will be meeting again in April! Frank is back in New Jersey!! Frank's another one of those ageless classmates - can you age please!

Hey you're not gonna want to miss this one everybody - its gonna be good! Teachers will be there too!"

Godzilla

2011-04-10T09:44:00.001-04:00

A contribution from Jim Schoneman, RHS class of 1974

When older men recall their younger days, there is a tendency towards a selective ransacking of thoughts. It’s not intentional. More likely it has to do with survival. After five or more decades, if we were to remember everything as it actually happened, and then put it all together in one collective notion, many of us would volunteer to spend the rest of our lives in prison. Bill Heavey had it right when he said "that memory doesn’t give a damn what you think." We should be thankful for that.

But there are certain memories that withstand the whack job we politely call “time.” Some of those moments, and one in particular, I recall with clarity. But hardly anybody believes me, because there’s no such thing as a hundred pound snapping turtle.

Several years ago I was out fishing some northern Wisconsin back bay with a friend. Dean and I had been fishing partners for many years, and all you need to know about him is that when the game warden shows up, you want Dean in your boat.Dean and I have a longstanding agreement that if his ploy doesn’t work, then I’ll pay the fine.

We were fishing in early June, and even though the ice had gone out only a month previous, the weeds in this bay had already started to clog its warmer and quieter water; but that’s where the fish were. We casted the edge of the weeds and picked up some perch and bluegills, and the occasional walleye. Then the snapper showed up. By any measure, he was a big snapper; and we watched him while he quietly circled our boat, acting as if he had some previous experience with a fisherman’s leftovers.

When a snapping turtle is in the water, you can only see the top of the turtle’s shell and his snout sticking out above the surface. As a result, the best way to gauge size is to eyeball the distance between the snout and the part of the shell that is visible. Based on our hayseed assessment, it was clear that this was a high ranking cooter.

Dean was impressed. So much so that he put down his walleye rod and proceeded to rig up his hefty musky pole with the strongest and thickest hook he could find. He grabbed a sickly bluegill from the livewell, threaded it onto the hook, and threw it within striking distance of the snapper. Anticipating some form of prehistoric entertainment ahead, I sat down in the boat and popped open a Blatz. As an afterthought, I told Dean that he was going to need a stronger hook.

The snapper took the bait, and Dean managed to drag it to within 10 feet of the boat before it became aware of the minor inconvenience. Then the turtle simply dove into the weeds and dug his claws into the mucky bottom. It was slight bother for the submerged turtle, but above water Dean was picking himself up off the floor of the boat. The turtle had floored him, and he reeled in his slack line to find that his hook was now shaped like a fat toothpick.

“Did you see the size of that monster?!” Dean said. I had, and I was feeling quite satisfied when he was reminded of my warning about the need for a stronger hook. After reassuring Dean that he sure was a big old thing, I took another swig of Blatz, and silently reflected on that other turtle; the one I had seen and battled 30 years earlier. There was no point in mentioning it to Dean. It would only serve to spoil his queerly glorious turtle moment. I knew how Dean felt.

Back at the tavern, Dean proceeded to regale the patrons with the story of his turtle battle. It was fun to listen to, if only because Dean was a good teller of tales. But there came a point when the nonsense needed to be silenced, and I interrupted his story and told him, and everyone else in the bar, that I had once hooked into a hundred pounder. Then I held up my arm and stretched out my fingers, and pointed to the area between my elbow and fingertips. And then I said “His front foot was that big, and his claws were as long as my fingers.”

That got everyone’s attention, because this was a fisherman’s bar, and everyone in there knew that there’s no such thing as a hundred pound snapper, with claws as big as your fingers. Now I had to back up my preposterous claim with an even more preposterous story. But that was easy, because this story was true. I had once hooked into Godzilla.

Around the time South Vietnam fell to the communists, I got a job as a summer camp counselor. That would put me there about 1974 or ‘75, depending on which side you talked to. The camp was located in Harriman State Park, in lower New York state, and was situated on the banks of tiny Lake Stahahe.

Lake Stahahe was a small mounatin lake, perhaps 100 acres in surface area. It was long and narrow, and about 20 feet in its deepest hole. At its northern end there was a concrete dam that held back a ten foot head of water; so in its original state, Lake Stahahe was probably no more than a wet pothole, surrounded by bog. Once through the dam, the waters of Stahahe Brook flowed north, until it reached the upper stretch of the Ramapo River.

There were several small, rocky islands at the lake’s southern and deeper end. The biggest island we called Blueberry Island. It was simply a granite formation that for thousands of years had been nurturing a patch of wild blueberries. They tasted good in the pancakes.

This whole scene, including the pancakes, was nestled in a wild and comfortable valley of the Ramapo Mountains.

I worked the waterfront at the camp, and taught swimming and canoeing to poor kids from the South Bronx, and rich kids from Long Island and the Jersey suburbs. It was on this waterfront that I first heard of Godzilla.

Every summer camp has its legends of ghosts and goblins and escaped madmen who would dismember you in the dark if you misbehaved, but this camp had an advantage when it came to spook stories. It was only 20 miles from there, at a place called Sleepy Hollow, that Washington Irving was inspired to write about that headless apparition, riding on a horse. The Headless Horseman. There was something about the mountains and valleys and forests of the Ramapo and Catskill ranges, especially at dusk or dawn, that made a guy consider that a zombie with a hatchet could actually be waiting for you in the dim and misty twilight. It also helped having the Appalachian Trail run right through the camp. The only people who walked that trail were the deranged and parasitic type, and sometimes they’d get lost and ask us for spooky directions. But none of this has much to do with turtles.

What made Lake Stahahe truly unique, at least back in those days, was its infestation with Eurasian Milfoil. Sometime during the mid 20th century, some hunyak decided it would be a good idea to plant a sprig of the aquatic weed in his fish aquarium. Then, after he had emigrated to America, his fish died. So he flushed his dead fish, and the aquarium water, down the toilet. Somehow, some of that water ended up in Lake Stahahe, and the milfoil spores got together and decided to settle and build a colony. 40 years later, those of us living in the upper Midwest know that the rest is history.

Eurasian Milfoil is bad for lakes, but the turtles seem to like it.

My introduction to Godzilla came on my first day on the waterfront dock. It was during Class 1, Lesson A, of the Red Cross Introduction to Canoeing (RCIC) course. Being a recent graduate of the Red Cross Certified Canoeing Instructor (RCCCI) course, I was proud owner of an RCCCI manual. For Lesson A of the RCIC course, the manual said that the instructor should simply place the student inside the canoe, hand him a paddle, and then give the canoe a good shove.

My first two students sailed away smartly, but the third one, Norbert, was not cooperating. I pointed his canoe north, towards the dam, but as I prepared him for take-off Norbert grabbed the gunwales and started screaming “Don’t send me there! That’s where Godzilla is!!!”

I leafed through my RCCCI manual and scanned it for anything helpful, but there was nothing found in the index that even hinted at how to deal with a student who’s afraid of Godzilla. I did find an index entry relating to how to deal with a gunwale grabber, but that had more to do with the simple fear of water. The Red Cross had not considered that a fear of giant, fire blowing, Japanese dinosaurs might present itself as an obstacle to canoe instruction.

My partner on the dock, Larry, heard the commotion and came over to lend a hand. “What’s the screaming about?” he asked. I told Larry that I was simply pointing Norbert in a canoeable direction when he started screaming something about Godzilla. Larry replied, “Oh. Well, you can’t send them that way Jim. Godzilla’s down there.”

Larry was kind enough to elaborate, and he explained that Godzilla was a monster snapping turtle. He lived down by the dam, in the milfoil, and had been around for as long as anyone could remember. On occasion he would come out of the weeds and infiltrate the camper’s fishing hole. From the small and well worn platform of granite and sand above the hole, where the campers would stand and fish, he could be seen on the bottom, six feet down; and all you could see were his giant, white claws. Larry held up his hand, stretched out his fingers and said “His claws are as long as my fingers.”

Over the course of the summer I would often find myself fishing with the campers at the fishing hole. It was right next to the dam. Being next to the dam allowed for a decent flow of water, so the milfoil had never been allowed to take root. The water was clear, and it was loaded with fat bluegills. It was a good fishing hole. Godzilla thought so too, because he was a frequent visitor. He’d be on the bottom, six feet down; and except for those huge white claws, all you could see would be a ghostly shadow of his gargantuan head and carapace. For the kids on the rocks, it was a singular experience. You would overhear many youthful exclamations of the word “Wow!” expressed in various moods and tenses. And then you would see campers holding up their hands, and stretching out there fingers.

Godzilla would never be able to crawl out of the water and show himself completely. For without the benefit of the water’s neutral buoyancy, the shear mass of his body and shell would cause him to be crushed by normal gravity. But there came a day when Godzilla did show himself, at least a part of himself, above water. On that day, out in the milfoil patch, Godzilla stuck his snout up through the weeds. We were standing on the shore and watching, and he was watching us. Based on the size of that snout, it could be none other than the beast himself.

It was time for quick thinking. None of us had a rig suitable for this task. There was no fishing pole on earth that would volunteer for this job. I ran to my tackle box and rifled through its contents, looking for the hook that I knew was in there. And there it was. A zinc plated, galvanized steel triple hook, in size 3/0. It wasn’t necessarily large, but it was thick – and very strong. That hook had served me well at that trout farm back in New Jersey, under cover of darkness. That hook served only one purpose. It was never intended for legal sport.

Now we needed line. Line? This wasn’t a job for “line.” This was a job for rope, or cable or…lanyard string! This was a summer camp. Not only did we make a lot of lanyards, but we had lanyard string holding up our tents. We used it as clotheslines and climbing ropes. We even used it once to tow a 400 pound tombstone off the premises. It was amazing stuff. It looked like a flimsy plastic fiber, about the thickness of yarn, but it was reinforced with some kind of tungsten steel belting that made it extremely strong. I ordered one of the campers to head up to the Arts & Crafts cabin and grab about 30 yards of lanyard string. He returned quickly with the required amount – in green.

I hurriedly threaded the lanyard string through the hook, and told one of the campers to tie one of those strong knots he was supposed to have learned in Frontier Class. We were all acting as a cohesive unit, working quickly and efficiently, and casting fleet glances out to the milfoil to make sure the snout was still there.

The hook was now rigged, and I called for bait. “I need a lively bluegill!” Within seconds, a brightly colored six incher was impaled on the hook. I gave the loose end of the lanyard string to a camper to hold, and then I took that bluegill and gave him a mighty heave. It landed one foot from Godzilla, and it flopped as it lay on top of the heavy carpet of milfoil. It was a perfect shot.

My memory seems to recall that time stood still, and maybe it did. We watched the flopping bluegill, and we watched Godzilla. He was either going to pull his head back under the weeds, or he was going to advance on the bluegill. He chose the latter, and his front legs slowly pulled him through the thick milfoil. When he approached within striking distance, he paused and sniffed the air. And then, as fast as lightning, he opened his jaws and struck.

On shore, the camper holding the other end of the lanyard string held his poise. He would have made a good Marine. We all watched, and patiently waited, as Godzilla took several healthy chomps out of that poor fish. When we were confident that Godzilla had reached the hook, I gave the go-ahead to start pulling.

The camper took up slack and the lanyard string came taught. He pulled, and pulled some more, and even though we could see the camper was pulling with all he had, Godzilla wouldn’t budge.

We were now confident that the hook was firmly lodged in Godzilla’s bony jaw. It was time to put a bit more muscle into this turtle tug-of-war. I took over as chief turtle puller. I wrapped the lanyard string several times around my hand, and grabbed that hand with my other hand. I faced Godzilla, and began to walk slowly backwards on the gravel shoreline.

Godzilla began to part the milfoil. The lanyard string held. As Godzilla sensed his peril he began to backpaddle clumsily, but to no avail. As we pulled him closer to shore, we could see the full outline of his massive carapace. He was as big as a camper’s torso, and twice as thick. He had to weigh at least 100 pounds. But it was becoming clear that Godzilla’s last chapter was being written. I heaved back with all my might, and it was over. Godzilla had reached terra firma. He was out of his element.

What we didn’t realize was that it was all a trick. Godzilla was simply biding his time until his feet could touch the bottom. When he was in about two feet of water he was able to dig his claws into the gravely basin. It was never a contest. Like a Sherman tank, he backed up and never stopped. I had all my weight against the lanyard string, and the next thing I knew I was flat on my ass.

Godzilla had floored me, and as I reeled in the slack lanyard string, I saw that the number of barbs on my triple hook had been reduced by one third. He had broken the hook.

I stood up and joined the campers at the shoreline. We watched Godzilla slowly fade into the depths, and disappear into the forest of milfoil. And then he was gone.

**********

Twenty five years later, I had two little campers of my own, and on a spring day in Wisconsin the boys and I found ourselves exploring the edge of a nearby cattail marsh. As we walked along the cattails, one of the boys found a tiny turtle. He picked it up, and came running over to show it to me. It was a baby snapper, no bigger than a silver dollar. The boys wanted to take him home and keep him for a pet, and daddy was more than happy to oblige.

We named him Godzilla.

When we got home, we found the old 10 gallon aquarium and filled it with water. We threw some sand and gravel in the bottom, and dropped baby Godzilla into the tank. We watched him swim happily around, and then he got tired and rested on the bottom.

After I tucked the boys into bed, I told them the story about my adventures with the real Godzilla, and I explained to them that if they took real good care of their baby Godzilla, he might grow up to be a hundred pounds too. They were quiet, and they listened, and they looked into daddy’s eyes as only young boys can; and then they fell asleep.

As I closed their bedroom door, I took one more look at baby Godzilla. He was sleeping peacefully too.

**********

Aw, Jim. What a sweet ending to this story. Your little boys, falling asleep with baby Godzilla, while daddy tells a story.

Well…yeah. That is pretty sweet, but the story isn’t finished yet.

When we woke up in the morning, we all raced to the aquarium to look at baby Godzilla. He was still resting peacefully on the bottom of the tank. But this morning his eyelids seemed to be a little pale, and his shell had turned white. Oh no.

As God is my witness, I thought turtles could swim. When I saw baby Godzilla sleeping peacefully the night before on the bottom of the tank, I figured that when he needed to take a breath, he’d simply swim to the surface and get one; just like Flipper. The thought had never occurred to me that placing a turtle in deep water, and inside a glass lined canyon, meant certain death. I had not provided safe sanctuary, meaning a rock that would let him climb out of the water - and breathe. I had visions of poor baby Godzilla scratching against the glass all night, trying to gain a foothold somewhere, and then giving up, and drowning.

So I had managed to kill Godzilla after all, but not in a manner that I would dare tell in a fisherman’s tavern. I’m really not sure if the boys have ever forgiven me for that blunder. But they’re adults now, and will have to live with whatever traumas I’ve passed on, without any apology from me.

Now that the story is over, I’m wondering why I ever thought any of this was worth bragging about.

Why Blog?

2011-04-05T12:56:00.000-04:00

Every once and while when the ideas for this blog seem few and far between, I have to ask myself the obvious question of why I recount a time so long ago. The answer today is that I believe in the benefits of technology and the Internet in particular. Nothing is ever forgotten on the Internet. Data sits in storage forever. This is a fact, and a good reason to have something memorable and or inspirational to write before you begin a blog as it will follow you to your grave.

This is not to give myself too much credit as I know I have good posts and bad. The important thing is I believe its important to recall a time and a town much different than the one which stands today. I sometimes sound old and say the "good old days were better" but that is fairly common as we age and I see nothing wrong about my including a subjective judgment or two into a blog for the world to criticize.

The fact is there are somethings I like better about the Village now than when I was growing up. It's hard to argue with a bigger library, more parks, and better cared for ball fields, to name a few of my favorite things.

I may not like the loss of a "local feel" to Ridgewood in the form of individual shopkeepers who operated store like Perdues, McHughs, Bill Lyons, and the hardware stores. Their children went to our schools and they all had commutes to work which were the envy of their customers who had to hop a train or bus into NYC. The localness of Ridgewood I remember has been replaced with restaurants and bank branches and brings with it a superfluousness that didn't exist when we had Moms at home and we at least tried to eat dinner together.

Who is to say Ridgewood won't return to some of the habits of its simpler roots? The furor created by talk of changing Graydon Pool is a good example. It was nice to see people become passionate and engage in a strong public debate over the pool's future. This leads me to believe their is a strong core of people, living among the McMansions, who will steward the Village through the coming years. Hopefully they will remember the history of Ridgewood and will continue to strongly debate any proposed changes to its aesthetics or the aura it so routinely projects as a nice place to live or to be from.

Super Science Saturday

2011-04-03T09:15:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the poor quality picture I shot with my I-Phone. I took it at last month's Super Science Saturday at RHS, an annual event where science is the star and not athletics for a change. Don't get me wrong I was a jock and had a good time but now I am a network security geek and was very pleased to see all the attention these young scientists were receiving.

The photo was something of a discovery as it was not something we did in the 1960s and 1970s, namely, honoring teachers for their contributions to our education. You will see a few teachers in the photo receiving long overdue recognition and one teacher who is still active at RHS, Helen Aslanides.

Nature Walk at Habernickel Property

2011-03-09T11:29:00.003-05:00

On one of my rare appearances in Ridgewood I drove past a site I found so unsettling that I had to stop and take these photos. If you are like me you can remember the stables on Hillcrest Road in Upper Ridgewood, and all the fun that we had exploring in the Hohokus woods behind them. In winter we went ice skating on the pond, and in summer we went wading in the small pond next to where the horses used to linger by the white fence and eat the grass.

What I later found out was that this is the newest park under construction in Ridgewood. It will have a nature walk and ballfields. The house will also be kept and will provide bathroom facilities.

Rob Lane Meets Dave Rorty

2011-03-07T17:40:00.000-05:00

It is always a beautiful thing when old track pals get to see one another many years past their glory. This photo was taken in Sarasota, Florida. Here we have David Rorty and Rob Lane together again. They surely reminisced about past track meets and the time we went to the Penn Relays in 1977.

Hope they get the chance to see each other again soon.

A Sign of Spring

2011-02-27T14:32:00.000-05:00

When the baseball pitchers and catchers begin their limbering up in places like Florida and Arizona I can't help but smile. Their annual arrival in these warm weather climates heralds the arrival of spring for people like me.

My RHS friends, like Rob Lane, Dave Rorty and Jens Larson, who live year round in these temperate climates I hope remember how it is now in the northeast and how they might have felt the same thing I feel now: a great sense of relief that winter is almost over!

At the bottom of the page are two of my all time favorite lefty pitchers: Lefty Grove and Ron Guidry. You can look up their statistics but I will add that both were fearless and accepted responsibilities. I personally believe the lessons we learn in sports carry over into the lives we live thereafter; if we only bother to remember them. My favorite lesson from my years of participating in sports has always been to dare to be good. This translates into being brave enough to take a chance and deliver more than you promise. It means standing up for what is right and letting the consequences fall as they may.

I sometimes wish we could put up posters in our bedrooms the way we did as kids of our favorite sports heroes. They were so perfect in their limited sphere of influence, and they did influence a great many young people. It would be wonderful if we could do the same with public figures. Though I realize their jobs and choices are much more complicated than Lefty Grove's or Ron Guidry's. I was told by someone who played with Lefty, Doc Cramer, that Lefty truly had one pitch: the fastball. He would dare you to hit it. His 300 wins and his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame seem to indicate this worked for him. In direct opposition is Ron Guidry, who retired before he was ready to leave the scene. He came back a couple years later and pitched a spring training game against the Yankees first team and shut them down. This wasn't an "I told you so moment" for Guidry. In hindsight, Lefty and Guidry stand as role models to all the hard work that has always been necessary to put into the craft of baseball, or any profession. The beauty of sports is sometimes seen in examples of hard work we can all learn from, especially as we examine the level of effort we all put into our own crafts. Play Ball!

The Way We Live Now

2011-02-19T13:43:00.000-05:00

I bought a book of stamps the other day. This was quite unusual for me since I write exactly two checks every month and these are required to be sent via US Mail. When I bought this last book it got me thinking about how we live now as compared to what I call the "simpler time" in which I grew up in Ridgewood. The mail was a much bigger part of our lives in those days. Now it is mostly an afterthought and sometimes a downright inconvenience. When I am feeling very patient I will go down to my local post office and peak in at the people waiting on line to transact their business. Nobody is happy to be there, especially the people working behind the bullet proof glass. It's not that I live in a bad neighborhood, it's only that people become so infuriated at having to wait on line that even the most calm among us might have a bad day and want to throw something after an infuriating wait to do something seemingly simple like pick up a package. The folks at Fedex and UPS I'm sure have seen these lines for themselves and figured out there was a buck to be had in making sure nobody had to suffer in this way.

It wasn't always like this and at one time working at the post office was a respectable middle class profession. Our mailman in Ridgewood lived in Midland Park and knew everyone on his route, including the kids. If you stepped out of line and you might find yourself on the receiving end of a stern warning to watch your step. He was a nice fellow who liked his job and did it well. The little bit of crowd control in the neighborhood I believe he did because he felt it important and something that civic minded people did as a matter of course.

The post office we had in Ridgewood, like it was in many towns, was not a place to be avoided. It produced wonder in many of us as to how they could possibly send so many packages and letters to so many different places in such a reasonable amount of time. If you recall it was 1963 that ZIP codes (Zone Improvement Plan) were introduced and that solved part of the mystery of the postal system's efficiency. Now we look up our Zip codes online and don't have to visit a post office to look through the huge book of zip codes.

In the 1960s ZIP codes were such a great step forward that the fact was advertised on TV.

I would be hard pressed to think of something today which touches all our lives in the same manner. To mention the Internet and all the new Social Networking applications would be a close second to Zip codes because in the old days you depended upon the US Mail. Today there are many people who still do and don't have a thing to do with the Internet. If something comes to mind I'll probably blog about it but I don't hold out much hope for something replacing Mr Zip in terms of importance in everybody's day to day lives.

So Many Unique Lives

2011-02-06T22:10:00.004-05:00

We Ridgewood-ers (Ridgewoodians? Whatever) are spread far and wide. And we live very interesting lives. I recently discovered that one of my classmates is a boxing ring announcer. How cool is that?

The idea of a ring announcer got me to thinking. What other unique experiences have we seen? I'm not talking about skydiving, or running a marathon, or bumming around Europe. Those are special and exciting for sure, but they aren't really unusual. Lots of people do all of those things.

So, my question to you is this: What truly unique and unusual experiences have you enjoyed? Post in the comments, or send me an email (kflechtner*at*gmail*dot*com) and I will post your story to the blog. To get things started, here's mine:

I am an architect, and from the late 1990s until 2002, I helped design the Olympic Village for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. We were all so excited to work on it, and it was thrilling to watch the athletes compete, knowing that they were living in an environment we had created for them.

What's your unique experience?

Andy Pettite

2011-02-03T19:09:00.003-05:00

Andy Pettite is retiring. Pettitte was 240-138 in 16 seasons in the majors.

I don't blame him as I lost my desire in 1989 for competition, too. Plus, I never contributed to the NYC Experience in the same way as Andy Pettite did. He also carried on longer than most athletes. Though I have to believe that his forthcoming courtroom scenes regarding his friendship with Roger "Rocket" Clemons helped send him into retirement. Once again, I have no qualms with his choice.

Andy Pettite will never make the Baseball Hall of Fame based on regular season statistics, even though his post-season statistics are off the charts. He admitted to using steroids so it will take a Veterans Committee in 10 or 20 years to let him into the Hall of Fame.

I wish Andy the best in his future endeavors as he belongs to the "Big Four" which Super Scout Gene Michael promoted, and who formed the core which won 4 World Series in 5 years.

Andy, enjoy this time with your children. You have five rings and may one day have a special day with your image placed in Monument Park in the New Yankee Stadium. You did all us Yankee fans proud in this past season when you played hurt. If you had come back our opponents would have bunted on you to no end. With a troubled groin this is not something you should attempt at the age of 38.

Carry the fact with you every day that you will be a Yankee legend for the rest of your life. This is a high honor and not something you ever have to prove again.

Internet Bullies

2011-02-01T19:02:00.000-05:00

Bullies have been around as long as I can remember. When they are given their comeuppance it always gives one the opportunity to hide a sly smile.

Unfortunately, when children are bullied on the Internet it is quite a but different from the public shame the old time bullies felt when they were shown the error of their ways. This makes the comparison between now and when I was growing up that much more difficult. Truth be told it is harder now. Truth be told we as adults have to take more affirmative action, in order to prevent our alumni from thinking that a jump off the GW Bridge is their best recourse.

Let's resolve to be better every day. To acknowledge that people are different and that they are born a certain way and cannot help it. Let's take the argument away that people have a choice as to how they are born and how they feel during their adolescence and young adulthood.

I offer this only as a New Year's resolution.

Peace

Mr C. Bertram Harmon--One of the 100 Best Teachers

2011-01-23T13:47:00.001-05:00

This post was sent to me by Chris Stella, class of 1973. I haven't changed a word and completely share his sentiment.

"If you attended the George Washington Junior High in the late 1960's, you knew who Mr. C. Bertram Harmon was. He held one of the more difficult civilian jobs on the Eastern Seaboard. He was the only African-American teacher in the middle school which enrolled students from the Country Club side of the rather conservative, Protestant-Catholic-Republican town of Ridgewood, teaching music.
His classroom was a large, and well-lit place, with tall windows overlooking the rutted, caged ballfield. I believe there were some risers, towards the back. On one wall, was a framed, ornate, latinated ancient page of music. On the other side, was a piano, and during Eighth grade, a stereo phonograph in a walnut case appeared, of the sort that normally would belong in your grandmother's parlor.
He always dressed extremely well. He wore well tailored suits, with a perfectly knotted tie, and the cravat was backed by a gold pin, which served to emphasize his high, well-formed and prominent larynx, from which emanated the most interesting observations, in a distinctive, sonorous voice. His facial features were strong, and unambiguously African. He projected a ferocious, active and self-confident, yet fastidious "look".
* * * *
During my first year, Mr. Harmon was very adamant about his dislike for rock 'n roll music. He thought it was childish, and said so frequently, in theatrical tones of mock horror.
However, the next fall, he had a dramatic announcement to make. He said that over the summer he had considered the matter carefully. He decided that such music was a major cultural force, and that some of it, though not all, was of excellent quality and had a great deal to teach.
He informed his astounded audience of junior high school students, who were used to having their musical tastes derided by every authority figure in the universe, that he had decided that he was going to completely revamp a major part of his method of teaching music. We were going to study rock 'n roll music in a serious way. We were going to learn about where it came from. We were going to develop good rock 'n roll taste. Furthermore, as an assignment we would all have the opportunity to choose a song, play it for the class on the walnut-cased phonograph, and analyze its content and musicological qualities, for our teacher and peers.
Mr. Harmon showed us how our favorite songs were rooted in decades and centuries of jazz, blues, and yes, continental African rhythyms. Analyses of popular music now well accepted or even cliche, were heard in very early iteration, in Mr. Harmon's room.
But, my favorite day was the day he showed us that the familiar Beatles Penny Lane" trumpet solo, heard so frequently on the Cousin Brucie WABC top 40 music show, was less George Harrison and John Lennon, than George Handel, and Johann Bach. Mr. Harmon was able to prove that this piccolo trumpet "riff" had been lifted, more or less intact, from Johann and this other George, another Brit who had honed his craft in Hamburg, Germany, though in the 1700's. The proof-by-listening was made so convincingly, that fourty-two years on, I cannot hear any of these compositions without smiling and thinking of Mr. Harmon.
A wave of excitement passed over the class. Surely Mr. Harmon loved, and would have something provocative to say about the last song on the first side of the Magical Mystery Tour album by the Beatles. (This is the one where John Lennon sings about the "elementary Penguins singing Hare Krishna".) But, here, his love of precision and focus took over. We were disappointed:
"During the next class, we will study what is so terribly wrong about 'I am the Walrus'."
For my analytical presentation, I chose the Classics IV tune, "Traces." A sweet little song, but my presentation was disastrous. I was able to demonstrate to the world only my 45 RPM, Five and Dime store musical sensibility.
Others scored wonderful successes. My friend Bill Walstrum, picked "Thinking is the Best Way to Travel", a song by the early Moody Blues. This music was classically based, but also featured numerous interesting electronic effects, which was what you noticed first.
"So, William", Mr. Harmon said. "This music supports the psychedelic drug culture, does it not?" Bill became quite forceful. No, it is anti-drug. The song is saying that your own thoughts can be much more exciting than any substance.
The prominent larynx bobbed, and for once was silent. Mr. Harmon smiled. We had all learned something. Bill had the made the point with power, and succinct elegance.
C. Bertram Harmon's past, was a complete opacity, and he never spoke of it. There was one exception to this. This was the day when he told us, semi-conspiratorially, that in HIS day as a young high school student, when on the dance floor, he'd been known as THE jitterbug King. It was a highly plausible claim.
* * * * * * *
I do not have a complete sense of what the adult town thought of him. The more liberal tendencies of the people who lived in Ridgewood at the time were in part an abstraction, as there was precious little direct contact with people of ANY different color. At a minimum, I would think, at their core, parents of that time would feel a private need to be convinced. To his 1968 students, having an African-American man as your music teacher, was a cool and exotic thing.
However, I do have one 1971 grown-up data point. A friend's mother, a woman of conventional Ridgewood character, once whispered quietly to me that she felt that "the man is a saint, an absolute saint." By this she was not directing my attention to the fact that Mr. Harmon was able to gracefully bear the stress of being the only African-American teacher, or that he was able to master the loneliness which must have been present. Rather, she meant that it had become known that Mr. Harmon cared about his students as people, that his good influence went way beyond his effect on our musical sensibilities.
A boy, it was rumored, had stolen a car. I believe that this boy was a Caucasian. I do not think he could have been a musically-oriented boy. The word was, that Mr. Harmon had used his good agency, to see to it that although the proper penalty was paid, the boys' future prospects were not destroyed.
As for me, during ninth-grade, he taught a music theory course, extremely advanced in scope. It included the requirement that the students compose original music. I took this course, and displayed no talent or aptitude whatsoever. At the end of the year, Mr. Harmon signed my yearbook with a long, carefully written, unique paragraph, in which he hoped for, and had great EXPECTATIONS of, my future success and happiness. It seemed at once so formal, and yet so heartfelt, that I remember it to this day.
* * * * * * *
The June, 1970 Assembly was memorable. The large chorus, of which I was not a member, performed for the departing students. Their final work, conducted by Harmon, was spectacularly intricate in its construction. In the manner of a baroque fugue, the various voices repeated and interwove, underlining, emphasizing, strengthening.
Mr. Harmon, had advised the student audience to listen carefully to the WORDS that had been set to the music.
"The words need to be listened to, as they will be quite relevant to the contemporary scene."
And, Bach-like, the words were not! In a glorious fugue-like style, each section of the chorus hurled family-type criticisms at a solitary, unseen adolescent. The refrain was:
"What do you have to say for yourself,? Speak up, speak up, SPEAK UP !!"
First the basses took the role of the father, leveling all the usual complaints about poor grades, back-talk, and rudeness. Then the altos played the role of the mother, SINGING the familiar words about neatness, sloppy and provocative dress, rooms not tidy, all sung in perfect fugue way, in gorgeous harmony and high style, directed tightly by Harmon. Finally the tenors and sopranos sang the stock role of the younger siblings harassing the unfortunate, solitary young person. Finally at the conclusion of the choral work the "Speak Up!" refrain was again re-presented in repetitive order, followed by sudden silence.
Then, one student hand-picked by Harmon, someone who fit the role quite precisely, someone who everyone knew was not doing very well, would weakly gulp in a perfect stage whisper just loud enough for the audience to hear, HELP! Everyone laughed.
There could not have been a more appropriate coda to my junior high school years, and so my career at George Washington ended.
* * * * * * *
If I could have only one Magical Mystery wish with Mr. Harmon, I would be quite selfish. Sure, the guy was a pioneer in several ways, do anything you want with that, retire all names starting with the letter "C.", if you want, I'll back you !
But with Mr. Harmon, I would want only one thing. I would want to sit in the back of his class, perhaps on one of the risers, and just listen to his wonderful voice, as he described the beautiful things that he loved, speaking of how they were constructed, how they worked. I'd stay as long as they let me.
No doubt, after a while Mr. Cobb, or Mr. Egli would come by and tell me that I had to leave, as my presence had become a distraction. Who is that gray-haired Ridgewood man, sitting on the riser, perfectly still, in the back, they would have begun to ask. And, like the man in the song, I wouldn't give any answers!
But, inside, I would want to shake the kids forcefully. Don't you see?
C. Bertram Harmon, the man, with his knowledge, and devotion, and commanding stage presence, at a minimum he could have been a major success as a university-based musicologist.
However, there he was, by his choice, with us.
He had been been placed there by a town, some of whose residents might have denied how well they were doing by us. The Ridgewood adults had been wise in their placing him before us, some, maybe, without knowing the degree of their wisdom. He was a stabilizing aesthetic and personal presence. He is remembered standing, not sitting, in front, as our Junior High School worlds spun 'round, in varying states of control.

Martin Luther King Day

2011-01-17T08:01:00.001-05:00

President Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and it was first observed on January 20, 1986. At first, some states resisted observing the holiday as such, giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays. It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.

I can't say that I remember what I was doing the day MLK was assassinated, as I was in the third grade and couldn't fully comprehend the significance of what had happened. This abhorrent act and the riots which followed in major urban areas, first Washington, DC, then Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, and LA appeared to me on our black and white TV. It didn't make sense to me at the time for people to trash their own neighborhoods. Now I understand that this is only true if the neighborhoods and the institutions are worth saving. Obviously, the people who were confronting armed police and national guardsmen and were chanting "Burn Baby Burn" didn't hold these places in such high esteem. I had never been to these places so I was left to wonder.

There had been riots before in American cities during the 1960s, notably New York City and Paterson in 1964 and Newark in 1967. Years later I would drive through and around these cities and the blight was still apparent. Truth be told the scars are still apparent in most every city in the country where riots took place and will be for quite some time. The lesson here is that it doesn't take long for a neighborhood to go up in flames, but it takes a very long time to clean up and rebuild afterward.

Hope you all have a nice day off if your calendar allows. Maybe we can all reflect for a moment on how this holiday came into being and all the work that still needs to be done cleaning up the cities which were shattered by riots so many decades ago.

Peace.

Childhood Riddles

2011-01-10T09:38:00.001-05:00

As someone who spends a fair amount of time in airplanes I fortunately get the chance to indulge my love of reading. At the moment I am reading "That Old Cape Magic" by Richard Russo. He writes with a style which makes me stop and ponder every once and a while; an admirable trait for any author. This latest novel made me think about the riddles of our childhoods and why growing up doesn't always solve them.

A wise old friend of mine explained it to me simply that their are no answers to some of our questions and I have had to reluctantly accept this maxim many a time instead of pursuing an answer to a question any further. My friend was in his late 80s when he told me this and had seen some terrible suffering in Europe during WWII. He had no answers for all that had happened in his life and had come to realize that it is sometimes better to simply accept things as they are and to quit questioning.

This all makes me wonder if as children we had adopted this stoic attitude how different our lives would have been. I guess the wisdom is in knowing when to develop this attitude and in the meantime hold out a chance that our childhood riddles may one day be answered.

The riddles of my childhood centered around the usual time worn concerns: why someone had died or moved away, or had changed their opinion of me or I had changed my opinion of them. When you are young with a great expanse of time hopefully before you it is easy to believe that a plausible answer might present itself. As we grow up though we begin to see how this might not be the case, and how tragedies will keep occurring for no good reason. I saw this again the other day with the shooting in an Arizona shopping center. We might well never understand the man's motivation, just like we will never know why Lee Harvey Oswald had wanted to shoot President Kennedy. I believe Oswald acted alone and was a deeply troubled individual. Though all during my childhood there was the riddle in many people's minds as to whether he acted alone. Some people still see a plot but after all this time this to me appears unlikely. It's too hard to keep a secret like that for so long. It will just remain one of those childhood riddles that growing up hasn't solved.

New Year's Day

2011-01-01T09:47:00.001-05:00

This day used to be all about the end of the College Football season. There were bowl games all day and at the end of the day or early the following one we all knew who was the best team in the country, as voted by the sports writers.

Today we have so many tournaments and games I can't keep count and have stopped trying. The bowl game to decide the national champion is being played on January 10th. It's little wonder that I have stopped following college sports entirely as it would take a monumental effort and I have better ways to spend my time.

When we were kids if the weather was mild enough on New Year's Day we might try to imitate the college guys and play a game of our own. Though usually it was tough to gather a gang on New Year's Day and the weather in northern jersey tended to make the football hard as a rock and not much fun to throw or catch.

Truth be known our football season ended with the first blast of prolonged cold weather. This is when we turned our attention to indoor sports like basketball. The YMCA/YWCA on Oak Street had supervised basketball on Saturday and Sunday afternoons so that's where our parents would drop off Bill Barnett, Bill Steen, and myself and pick us up several hours later. It was a good way for us to mix with the kids from the other side of town as the Y was centrally located and attracted a cross section of people from both George Washington Junior High School and Benjamin Franklin Junior High School.
These long names were always shortened to GW and BF.

Today I will be in Ridgewood with my in-laws, exchanging Christmas gifts and renewing old acquaintances with family members we see only at the holidays. Of course, the college bowl games will be on in the background but nobody at this party will have any "skin in the game" as the old saying goes. It's just hard to break the old childhood habits, especially while we are creating new traditions. I like our new tradition of going back to my old hometown and seeing how it has changed. The changes have mostly occurred on the inside of the houses as the town itself still remains a charming place to visit. The biggest difference between now and when I lived there over 30 years ago would be in the tremendous number of ways people have to spend their time. Back in the 1960s and 1970s we had more in common and were distracted less by the wondrous options which are available as a matter of course. No doubt all these alternatives are a good sign and one we should be glad to live amongst. My only concern is for people who have only known plenitude and whether this will make them resistant to the misfortunes which strike all of us at one time or another. In other words, are the houses today filled with a bit of empathy for those less fortunate or are they only safe fortresses which block out all signs of our sometimes harsh existence? I hope the former is true and will go on believing that until proven otherwise.

Happy New Year! Make a difference where and when you can as we are all in this together.

New Year's Eve

2010-12-31T09:40:00.000-05:00

The first time I was allowed to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve to see the ball dropped in Times Square I was 10 years old. In those days part of the tradition was to listen to Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo (June 19, 1902 – November 5, 1977) and his Royal Canadians play their music from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The music may have sounded corny to a first time listener but it didn't take long for one to realize they were a well organized and tight group of musicians. They were noted for playing the traditional song Auld Lang Syne and their recording of the song still plays as the first song of the new year in Times Square.

While my younger brother and I waited for midnight and were being shown traditions like the Royal Canadians and the sight of all the people at Times Square, we soon realized we needed some confetti to throw at each other at midnight. The first thing we started ripping up was our blank notebook paper used for school reports but after a short while we were steered towards the newspapers in the pantry. In those days before the town began recycling, this was the logical thing to do.

When the clock struck 12 the ball began its descent at Times Square and we heard for the first time Guy Lombardo's version of the Robert Burns poem Auld Lang Syne. We could also see on the old black and white TV that people had begun to throw their confetti so we started throwing ours in support. After all the confetti was thrown we picked it up and threw it all again. This second celebration finally wore us out and we were sent off to bed, with the nostalgic tunes of the Royal Canadians playing in the background to lull us to sleep.

Flexible Flyers

2010-12-26T10:02:00.000-05:00

With the first winter snow storm fast approaching us here in the northeast, a blizzard no less, it's easy to remember those times when we saw a snowstorm as the perfect opportunity to have fun with our flexible flyer sleds. They would be hustled down from the attic and then stored in the garage until spring. You never knew when they would come in handy so they had to be close at hand.

This current storm which is coming would have been a slight disappointment because it will fall during Christmas vacation and there would be little chance of us celebrating a snow day with the subsequent loss of a day at school. I say a slight disappointment because sledding was and is too much fun to care whether or not you are doing it instead of attending school.

We had a fine little hill in the school yard at Willard, right behind our home. Dozens of people would use it at one time. As I recall if you made a running start and then threw yourself upon the sled you would travel quickly all the way to the fence at the bottom. We would then turn around and pull our sleds back to the top to do it all again. Such a simple activity, and one which we would repeat for an hour or two. After that time we would either engage in some other snow activity like a snowball fight or just go inside to get warm.

This hill at Willard is the only place I can ever remember sledding. I think this was because our parents would discourage us from sledding in the streets, for obvious safety reasons. Though the streets were never as pristine as the snow at Willard so it wasn't a terrible restriction in our eyes. The Village of Ridgewood would do the snow removal even in our edge of the town fairly early in the morning and would take most of the sledding fun with them.

Later in my younger days I would take up skiing and leave my flexible flyer in the attic for the last time. When we moved from Ridgewood the sleds were donated and hopefully found some kids who appreciated them the way in which we used to. If given the choice now between skiing and sledding I would take sledding in a heartbeat. Too bad we can't sled down the ski trails as that would be a blast! We could put the sleds on our laps while we road to the top on a ski lift, instead of pulling them up the hill the way we did as kids. Now there is something I would pay for, and would cheerfully weather even a blizzard to engage in.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T11:12:00.001-05:00

One of the most anticipated days of the year in our house growing up. One year we even wrote our plans down for getting up Christmas Day very early in order to watch Charles Dickens' The Christmas Carol on TV on our old black and white television set. The 1930s version with Reginald Owen as Scrooge was in my mind more faithful to the original story than the 1950s version with Alastair Sim as Scrooge, which had the advantage of better photographic techniques. These both played in the middle of the night so our written plan had the exact time we had to set our alarm clocks to wake up and watch. This was usually a formality as the excitement of Christmas Day usually made us wake up on time every year.

The other aspects of Christmas Eve which comes to mind include how our tree looked with all the presents under it, plus the Christmas decorations we had in our house like the Christmas creche and the red Santa Claus with a light inside. In those days people also wrote Christmas cards to each other and each day's mail in December was sure to include some of these now obsolete reminders of a simpler era. I guess this loss of the annual supply of Christmas cards, the prettiest of which were displayed tastefully in the living room, is the inevitable result of the Internet and it instant communication. Christmas cards are now a quaint memory of when communications from distant places was something we got excited about, whether it was a long distance telephone call or a written note. These were events we delighted in much more than we will ever glory e-mail, instant messages, or phone calls over Skype. The ironic fact is now that we can be in contact without much effort it makes us less likely to do at traditional times like Christmas and via old time methods such as a card sent in the US Mail.

The Village of Ridgewood always did itself proud with decorations. The Christmas Tree near the train station was always a place we would stop and marvel at, along with the infamous Arthur's House of Beauty. I can't remember ever being inside this landmark, as I usually patronized the Barber Shops in Hohokus, but this was another must-see at Christmas time while growing up. I scooped this picture off the Ridgewood Ridgewood-Expats page on Facebook.

I can also clearly remember how our elementary school, Willard, used to have all the grades gather in the auditorium to sing Christmas carols to the parents. They would march us in one grade at a time as I recall and we would do our best to sing the old faithfuls, Silent Night and Jingle Bells. One year there was even a class who sang Oh Tannenbaum in German. They had a stern german woman as their teacher and the kids knew they had to get it right or else! Not that anyone ever got hit in Ridgewood by a teacher but the teachers could make our lives miserable just the same by a look or a cranky disposition. Of course, the worst was having to stay after school. I had a spanish teacher in high school as the last class of the day and she would always threaten us with 5 minutes after school. Just think about it: 5 minutes was all it took to get our attention back to our studies. You would have thought we were being sentenced to a year in jail. I guess our attention spans were shorter back then and we didn't ever want to miss the rush to get out of school and be with our friends.

I hope you all are with family and friends this Christmas and can conjure up some happy memories of your own.

Peace.

Cold December Days

2010-12-17T15:01:00.000-05:00

While we were growing up cold December days always heralded our countdowns to Christmas vacation and New Year's Eve festivities. Back then Dick Clark was in his heyday and the first time we were allowed to watch the ball drop on Times Square at 12 midnight on television we tore up newspapers as our confetti and tossed it wildly around the living room until our mother told us to clean it up and go to bed. I still savor the simplicity of my first New Year's Eve celebration, more than most of the rest that have come thereafter.

New Year's Eve 1999 was another memorable one held at the Novy's in Wyckoff was a great time that carried on well into the morning.

Though I have also had the unenviable task of working in restaurants on New Year's Eve. This task along with a desire to enter another profession were not much fun. This was caused mostly by the fact that we began to call it Amateur Night' as it always seemed that people who never went out all year would pick this evening to go out, be grossly overcharged, and show that they lacked the aplomb to truly enjoy themselves on a night out. It was always the little things which ticked them off and caused them to make a scene with the staff. It is for this reason I usually never go out to dinner on New Years and would never in a million years consider standing in Times Square to watch the ball drop. It those cold December days which keep me inside. Not to mention the warm memories of my first New Years as a child, and the best New Year's I ever had as an adult spent at the Novys with many old pals from my Ridgewood days.

RHS 1970 Reunion Web Site

2010-12-05T09:51:00.002-05:00

http://ridgewood70.shutterfly.com/

This is a wonderful site, filled with pictures, and sections devoted to every school in town. Well worth the time for a look if only to see some familiar haunts.

Ridgewood Education Foundation Link Added

2010-12-04T09:35:00.001-05:00

I received a nice note from Jennie Smith Wilson, the Vice President of the Ridgewood Education Foundation. The Foundation is now included in our list of Ridgewood Links. According to Jennie:

"The Foundation provides support to the Ridgewood public schools through classroom grants and community-wide programs.

We were founded 20 years ago by then superintendent Fred Stokley and a group of residents and in the following years we have given over $400,000 to the schools through programs that directly reach the students and support excellence in education. We are an independent foundation and not part of the district administration or Board if Education.

Many alumni support the Foundation and the additional exposure would be great."

Hope this helps raise awareness of the work they do.

Elton John

2010-11-26T11:52:00.000-05:00

This shot of Elton and John Lennon was taken on November 28th 1974. A day probably didn't go by in the 1970s when you could go an hour and not hear an Elton John tune being broadcast on the radio. He was at the top of his game and the hits looked like they would never stop. Of course, things eventually settled down as they usually do. Though for someone growing up in the 1970s Elton John songs served as a comfortable soundtrack to our young lives.

The story behind this photo was that Lennon supposedly said he would play live with Elton if his solo album produced a #1 hit. As luck would have it the song "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" reached number one on November 16th, and Lennon was good to his word. He joined Elton on stage at New York's Madison Square Garden during Elton's Thanksgiving Day concert there.

Thanksgiving Television

2010-11-25T09:27:00.000-05:00

We always watched the football games on Thanksgiving Day, between playing football if the weather permitted and eating turkey. We still do the same thing, except for the playing of football. Though there is still a crew that does still participate in an annual Turkey Bowl game and if we are lucky they will post some photos on FaceBook.

My first memory of TV watching on Thanksgiving wasn't of football, it was the Victor Herbert classic, Babes in Toyland starring Laurel and Hardy.

Remember Silas Barnaby and how scary he appeared in the old black and white versions?
Not as scary in the colorized version, or maybe we just outgrow these things. ;-)

Though even to this day the site of the Wooden Soldiers coming to the rescue fills my heart with joy. Good triumphs over evil and the guy gets the girl. This has always been a fine way to start this day, even if we only happen upon the movie these days. As a child it was a certainty and one that could always produce a "I can't look" sort of feeling no matter how many times you had seen it.

Happy Thanksgiving. It's time to see the show!

The Days Before Thanksgiving

2010-11-23T19:39:00.001-05:00

I easily recall that these were times filled with great anticipation, not the least because of the long weekend which the holiday afforded us.

There was always a bit of a nip in the air but usually no snow to complain about. We would see plenty of snow in the coming months so November didn't need to add to our burden. There were always still leaves on the trees and on the ground, which if we had strong backs and not too many callouses on our hands we could turn into some spending money.

Thanksgiving was always a holiday with few pressures, as the most important part was to show up at the table at the appointed hour with clean hands and a big appetite. This was not much of a challenge for us kids growing up, especially if we were able to sneak in a football game in the morning with our pals.

Sometimes we had relatives at our table and this always kept us on our best behavior. Though table manners were a custom we were all well drilled in and all it took was a look from my Mom or Dad if we acted out to rein in our youthful energies. These had no place at the dinner table and to this day I always appreciate a host or hostess who makes this clear to their children when I am so honored to have a place at their table.

I hope you all enjoy the holiday. My job this year is to make the pumpkin pies and whip the cream which serves as garnish. I like to do the entire meal but if left to only one task it will always be the dessert that I will select.

Peace.

November Leaves

2010-11-19T17:34:00.000-05:00

We saw piles of leaves on Glenwood Road as we were growing up. One year they were piled so high that it was twice the size of the machine designed to bring them to the compost pile. Of course, as kids we saw this as an opportunity to climb to the top and try and throw our friends from the top of the heap.

This only lasted until the "Big Machines" from the village came and eliminated these piles. But until they did the leaf piles were ours to play within. These were some of the best times which I can remember from my Ridgewood days because the leaves were so soft and our bones were so malleable.

November

2010-11-08T18:46:00.002-05:00

This was always the month of the year when each day was an adventure for athletes; sometimes hot and sometimes cold. Up until Thanksgiving this really didn't matter to us runners or football players (tackle or touch). We glorified in running in the rain or playing football in the mud. Though for obvious reasons the warm days were always more pleasant to compete in.

Enduring both the heat and the cold were realities which were part of the deal we made with ourselves and our coaches. I have written before about the monsoon our 1976 Cross Country ran through in the Eastern States Finals at Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. From the moment we stepped off the bus we were drenched and even more so once we removed our sweats to go warmed up. It is hard to imagine we were very warm at any point, and a glance at our coach, Larry Coyle, showed that his glasses were completely fogged up from the rain. This meant of course that there was no turning back, if the coach could do it we could too.

We did well that day despite the heavy November rain and mud. The team received numerous medals for enduring this maelstrom and no one who ran the race will ever forget it. Among the medals I received and the memories which have endured to this day the Eastern States is among the best. This was partly due to the fact that this was the end of the era for us Seniors; the Juniors and Sophomores knew it was now their turn to succeed us. It was also simply gratifying to say we survived the race because some of our competitors didn't, one boy broke his leg when he slipped in the mud. The scream he let out could be heard all over the park.

As the American poet T.S. Eliot once wrote, "April is the cruelest month.." At times during my youthful, more athletic days, this could have been said about November. I suppose one can always use their memory in hindsight to block out the cold and the rain, to give what was once a test of one's endurance a lighter tone and feel. With any luck this produces the end result of the warm glow which can sustain us through many a cold autumn night.

(Thanks for anonymous who pointed out that in "The Wasteland" it was April which was the cruelest month.)

Halloween

2010-10-31T16:03:00.001-04:00

Halloween is a wonderful holiday. Kids get to explore their neighborhoods and grownups give them candy when they knock of their door. It's a good deal for all concerned and it also is a learning lesson for kids. At some point each child has to decide whether or not they are too old to make the candy tour. It's not that they don't want the treats it is just a sign, which they can always choose to ignore, that they need to make a decision about whether or not they are a kid or a teenager. Of course, this is how I remember it in my day.

These days Halloween is celebrated by people of all ages, and grownups go to great lengths to make costumes which reveal their inner selves. I have not been one to dress up since the day I decided I was too old to go out for Tricks or Treats. I have stood by the decision made in the 8th grade and I have never looked back and longed for ringing doorbells and shouting "tricks or treats" or dressing myself for an adult party. To each his own is my thinking.

It is curious to remember that my friends and I used to dress up as hobos, and the complete time it took to fashion our costumes was usually no more than a few minutes. All it took was some old cloths, one of my Dad's old hats, and a bit a charcoal applied to our faces. Maybe a few dry leaves stuffed inside our pockets to add to the desired effect. It was acceptable to dress as a hobo in those days, inexpensive, and required nobody to ruminate as to whether it was politically correct.

I now prefer to celebrate the holiday in more subtle ways, like picking out pumpkins which, in the words of Linus of Peanuts fame, that are sincere. These pumpkins have found a place on my window sill for many years and are never carved or painted. These "sincere pumpkins" stand on their own and need no special treatment. They are sort of like our old hobo costumes, they need no explanation.

RHS 1977 Class Gathering 26 Nov 2010

2010-10-16T09:06:00.000-04:00

Many of the class of 1977 received this email from Bill Nolan so I thought it appropriate to re-post it:

"Guys: I don't know if any of you will be in Ridgewood over the Thanksgiving weekend. If you are, why don't we get together at Smith Brothers on Friday, Nov. 26th around 7:00ish. We could grab dinner, or just have a few cold ones. Fuzzy, please send this out to all the boys. I lost half of my addresses a few weeks ago when I switched to a new computer. Cindy Neidig is going to send an e-mail out as well. Please feel free to send to other class of '77 people. I hope to see many of you in Nov. Fuzz, is Ridgewood home on Thanksgiving? Willie"

The Road Not Taken

2010-10-11T17:22:00.000-04:00

My favorite American Poet, Robert Frost, made a timeless observation about the choices we make in his 1920 poem, The Road Not Taken. When I first heard it elementary school I was the young fellow of the poem's first four stanzas. I'm not sure when I became the older person of the closing stanza but I am sure that is me now.

The choices I have made regarding my friends, career, and where I have chosen to live have made a difference, as they do for everybody. I suppose some people consider these choices more than others, and for some they are just agony. This makes me fairly lucky as I have no regrets about the life paths I didn't take, or where I stand in life at the moment. I have seen many stories far sadder than anything I could conjure up and this keeps me honest about what I am doing and where I want to be going.

We all have many times in our lives when there are two roads before us and we need to choose one. I guess one of those roads, ala the Frost poem, I saved for another day was the option to live in Ridgewood. In fact, I have saved it for so long it is no longer a reasonable option, or even one I would consider. This is not to denigrate the town or its inhabitants. We all just grow up differently and cherish different things. I like to remember how Ridgewood was in the 1960s and 1970s and try to keep these memories alive via this blog. It gives me the chance to ponder at length the road not taken. It has also made me realize that for me this has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

RHS Class of 1970 40th Reunion

2010-10-05T12:52:00.001-04:00

Now only days away. Very excited. Here’s what is new.

· Record turnout expected. Ticket sales for the Main Event on Sat have now topped 155. We expect more during the week, and some walk ups at the event. We also believe that the turnout at the Elks Club on Fri night will be even greater (since some classmates will attend only the Elks but not the Main Event). Very exciting.

· Share your photos of the reunion – As you know, we will have a photographer to take photos. We also expect that many of you will bring your own digital cameras. We will set up a photo sharing site after the reunion, and we will let you know how to post your photos to the site. Should be fun.

· Pick up your “Reunion Weekend Info Sheet” – We are putting together a sheet with important info about the weekend (e.g. events and timeline, last minute updates, key contacts, transportation) and a list of attendees. You should be given one when you check in at the DoubleTree or Super8. We will also hand them out at the Elks Club on Fri night, and the Main Event on Sat night. Make sure you pick one up.

· Want a tour of Ridge Elementary School? – Classmate, and Ridge alum, Nancy Kandoian, has arranged for a tour on Fri afternoon Oct 8, 3:30 – 4:00. If you are interested contact Nancy at nak04574@gmail.com, or cell phone, 201-888-1246. Nancy is also the coordinator for the Ridge din ner on Fri at MacMurphy’s in Ridgewood, 6:00 – 8:00.

· Dress code for Main Event on Sat. Men should wear ties. Women should wear cocktail party/semi formal evening wear.

· Make sure you are registered for the Main Event – If you purchased tickets over the reunion web site, or sent Irene Nagy a check in the mail, you should have received back from Irene a confirming email, and your name should be shown as having ‘Purchased Tickets” on the “Who’s Coming” page of the reunion web site. If there is any confusion, pls contact Irene at gardendesign@bellsouth.net or 678-467-7795.

· Main Event ticket sales at the door – Tickets are $125, cash only. Price includes: cash bar for 2 hours (7:00 – 9:00), meal, DJ and dancing, reunion CD.

· Timeline for the weekend – You will find more details on the reunion web site (www.rhs70.myevent.com), but we have made some changes. For your planning purposes, here is a recap:

Friday Oct 8

· 3:30 – 4:00 Tours of Ridge School and Willard School

· 6:00 – 8:00 Elementary School dinners (check web site for exact times & locations)

· 8:00 – 12:00 Elks Club Icebreaker

Saturday Oct 9

· 8:00 – 11:00 Breakfast at DoubleTree Hotel

· Noon – 1:30 Lunch at the Fireplace

· 2:00 – 4:30 Football game at RHS

· 3:00 – 3:30 Tour of RHS (at half time of game)

· 4:00 – 6:00 Warm up for the evening at DoubleTree

· 7:00 – 12:00 Main Event at DoubleTree

Sunday Oct 10

· 8:00 – 11:00 Breakfast at DoubleTree Hotel

Safe travels to Ridgewood. See you this weekend.

RHS ’70 Reunion Committee:

Brian Corcoran

Irene Nagy

Rick Bowe

Don Christensen's New Business

2010-10-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

According to Don, the new business is called Restaurant Services of Michigan.

"The services and systems we offer were designed to help small restaurants compete with "the chain operations" and are robust enough to keep up with your growth. Although we provide 3 services, we are only in one business - helping locally owned restaurants compete with "big company" tools and methods."

"Helping Small Business Run Big"

RSM was formed to provide restaurants with new tools to increase sales and delight their customers. The company began with providing online ordering services for carryout and delivered foods in 2001 and continues to successfully expand this business as consumers opt for this service more and more. “It became very clear, early on, that small and locally owned restaurants were attempting to compete with big corporate chains without the same tools and methods.” said company founder George Ryder.

“Our web based Point Of Sale system will help restaurants manage their business and help reduce their costs like the “Big Guys” do.”, said partner Don Christensen.

Managing Partners Ryder & Christensen both spent many years working in engineering and manufacturing sectors and are quick to point out that “There are hundreds of very valuable procedures and methods that we have learned in the these segments that we fully intend to bring our locally owned restaurants”, said Christensen

Restaurant Services of Michigan, Inc.

Tyler Clementi

2010-10-02T16:05:00.001-04:00

It was not a quiet week in my old home town, Ridgewood. Tyler Clementi, RHS 2010, reportedly jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge following the release of a sex tape on the Internet. According to reports, Police recovered a man's body Wednesday afternoon just north of the bridge, and authorities were trying to determine whether it was Clementi's. Check the story out here: Tyler Clementi

It would be foolish to say there were no gay people living in Ridgewood during the 1960s and 1970s. There most certainly were and are now, but then they were not as well organized or disposed to let their neighbors know.

Being gay is not right or wrong. It is not a life choice; it's just what some of my friends are and I have no problems with it.

I do have problems with people who would deny them equal status in the eyes of the law. I have problems with any state which has one set of rules for men and women who are married, and another set of rules for men who want to marry men or women who want to marry women. There is no difference in my eyes as long as they are law abiding, hard-working, and paying taxes.

When I was growing up this sort of argument was not acceptable among people living in Ridgewood. What's more, it was not offered by anyone unless they wanted a lot of needless trouble on their hands. Thankfully, times have changed and we can all openly mourn the passing of a young man who didn't know how to handle his feelings, and might only have needed an intervention in order for him to still be among us today.

It is all very sad and I hope we all learn something from this incident which just leaves me numb when I think about it.

Peace.

The Places You Go

2010-09-24T16:20:00.000-04:00

I'm referring to places you go after graduating from high school. Some people travel the globe, while others are content to stay close to surroundings they know and love. Most people have no choice and end up somewhere else after graduation because their parents have emptied the nest and sold the house. It's hard to blame these parents as the lawn still needs to be cut, the leaves raked, and the sidewalks shoveled. Besides, they no longer have us close by to fret about to their friends, and sometimes directly to us.

The places I visited after graduation from RHS are easily categorized as being North American-centric. I took this path for 20 years and then settled back in northern NJ as a bachelor pursuing a new career as a network engineer. Shortly thereafter I met my wife and we moved into NYC. I consider my time away from my roots well spent but the return to my roots has provided me with more tangible and intangibles than my time spent away from the area I call home.

I suppose this is all entirely natural, and seems so to me. Enjoy the time in the places you go, and if you are lucky like me, revel in your return. Not a day goes by when I am not glad to be back, near to places I know, and to surroundings which helped make me the man I am today.

Make Way For Tomorrow

2010-09-19T14:07:00.000-04:00

I believe it is good form for those making High School graduation speeches to include some sort of heartfelt advice. I can't say I remember any of the advice from my High School or College graduation speakers, but if I was given the chance to speak, I would talk on the subject of "Making Way For Tomorrow."

It is likely an easier subject to contemplate for graduates than the usual subject they are prompted to consider by their esteemed graduation speakers. As I vaguely recall they speak of the many years that lie ahead and that they have the choice to strive to fill them with promise for a better world. The graduates are reminded also that we are sure this promise is an essential part of the DNA, and has been nurtured by all the time they have spent in institutions of higher learning. This all sounds good and of course, it should be uttered at moments like these when friends and family are all wishing them well.

My only additional word of advice would be to include a reminder that they can do one thing before they begin the next step in life's journey, and that is to make way for the generation which is following right behind them. Make a gesture, however slight, which shows you fully accept the fact that your day in the sun on these high school grounds has come and gone. By acknowledging that you are no longer part of the social scene I believe will speed up the next generation's recognition that it is time for them to shine. I would encourage every graduating class to do the same thing. What's more, if they have the time, and can pass along some wisdom they have acquired about the next phase of life, then all the better. The point here is to communicate and to not dominate. I believe with the tools we now have this could be built into every curriculum. Why disenfranchise those alumni who have insights worthy of passing on to the next generation?

I ultimately advocate open communication between graduating classes and those who follow in their footsteps. I also realize the recent graduates don't have much time, but any small gesture during those care free moments in September of Freshman year at college could go a long way towards making sure that they current Seniors are making the appropriate decisions based upon the wisdom of their "forefather." Please correct me if I am wrong but I believe that is what made this country great.

RHS Class of 1976 35th Reunion

2010-09-12T18:21:00.002-04:00

From my pal Mitch Morrison:

So far, the following classmates have paid for the RHS Class of '76 Reunion which will be held from July 15th-17th 2011; Barbara Bird Schneider, Ann Brogan Barbi, Kathy Belleza Gabrielle, Mitch Morrison, Mark Moscarello, Cheryl Roelke Finger and Liz Rubenstein Fuentes. Please send your $100/person check asap (made out to Kathy Gabrielle) to: Kathy Gabrielle; 396 Frances Place, Wyckoff, NJ 07481 Thanks!! Mitch

Willard Class of 1964 Reunion Reception

2010-09-06T07:31:00.002-04:00

Willard Class of '64 Reunion Reception

Location:
Home of Judy Hall Saydah
228 Hamilton Ave.
Glen Rock, NJ US

When:
Friday, October 8, 4:00PM to 8:00PM

Phone: 201-447-6158

The Willard Reunion Team invites YOU to join your Willard classmates for an INFORMAL DINNER BUFFET prior to the RHS '70 gathering at the Elk's Club.
$25.00 per person will be collected at the door. It will cover the cost of food, beer, wine and soft drinks. You may bring additional beverages if you so choose. A tour of Willard is also being made available from 3:00 - 4:00 pm. We are hoping to arrange rides from the Double Tree in Mahwah, to Willard, on to Judy's, the Elks' Club and back to Double Tree. Your favor of a reply for dinner as well as for the Willard tour is requested!

Questions or RSVP to Judy Hall Saydah, rejj21@optonline.net or Susan Main, Susan@ramscoinc.com.

Labor Day

2010-09-02T17:04:00.000-04:00

It used to be a part of our lives that school (K-12) began after Labor Day. This was a common experience no matter where you grew up in these United States.

Now it is the norm for school (K-12) to start before Labor Day in order to allow for Snow Days and for Religious holidays which fall in early September. There is nothing wrong with this change as it's just a sign of the times.

The last days of August and those before Labor Day were always times of great confusion. We knew we would be seeing our friends soon on the first day of school, though we didn't have the communications networks that we have now. To pick up a phone was a moment, for both boys and girls, filled with great trepidation. We usually just waited the days out and enjoyed the quiet in our neighborhood. An occasional BBQ with friends of the family was always on the schedule, though it felt like a stopgap and the real action began with the start of the new school year.

Kids today start (K-12) ((not to mention College)) before Labor Day and then have a break which I cannot fathom. To me, it only increases their anxiety, as there is another gap in the schedule. To reduce anxiety it might be better to keep the old way of opening school. We had snow days and religious holidays to account for in my day, but we had greater continuity and a timetable which allowed for the re-establishment of face-to-face friendships. Maybe this all doesn't matter in age where communication is omnipresent. This is just my 2 cents.

RHS 1977 Reunion

2010-08-29T08:25:00.001-04:00

A casual gathering, over this coming Thanksgiving weekend, at Smith Brothers in Ridgewood is how this was announced by Cindy Neidig Myer on Facebook a few days ago. Stay tuned for more details.

Joe Antonacci, Top 100 RHS Teacher of the 20th Century

2010-08-28T07:04:00.001-04:00

Whenever an homage to a teacher comes across my desk I like to post it, even if I never knew the person or can't remember them. I realize that there were easily more than 100 people worthy of this distinction but not every teacher has a Boswell willing to put their observations into print.

I should probable call this "100 Most Inspirational RHS teachers of the 20th Century." good teachers inspire something inside of each of us which will prepare us for the life ahead. As a former teacher of 40 years, Dorothy Rich, once said about what makes a good teacher, "It's about relationships between people, hopes and dreams, and about a future we can't even envision."

If teaching were just about tests and reading books then we would need inspiration all the more from our teachers. Thankfully, I grew up in an era were it was common to say, "go ask your teacher for the answer." Instead of in the current era where kids are told to use Google.

My teachers gave us tests and compelled us to read but also they were figures of authority and respect. Most could silence a room by raising an eyebrow, and if that didn't work they would just raise there voices. Once they had our attention they might add how disappointed they were with us for not paying attention immediately. This tactic the good teachers would use just often enough to teach us to be ashamed of ourselves for not giving the respect a teacher deserves. Though not too often as to make for a classroom devoid of fun.

This Top 100 Teacher was sent by current Ridgewood resident and class of 1977 graduate Tom Thurston.

You will have many well qualified and beloved teachers "nominated" for your Top 100. I would offer Joe Antonacci my 6th Grade teacher at the old Somerville Annex. Mr. Antonacci was the personification of the tough love male teacher of that era. He pushed and demanded you try your best. He was organized and disciplined and demanded the same from his students. But everyone in his class knew how much he cared. His teaching methods were innovative and he really made learning fun. When I look back at my years in the Ridgewood School System his name is right there with some of the other great teachers I had.

A couple of years ago Paul Ferraro and I had the pleasure of visiting with him when Paul was in town to play the Jets. It was great to see him (he hasn't changed a bit) and we talked very fondly of our "Somerville Days." Just a great guy and a great teacher.

Tom

Late August Days

2010-08-21T18:47:00.000-04:00

This used to be a quiet time in our lives. We had lost momentary contact with our friends due to different vacation schedules and the endlessness of summer days that typifies late August. College and K-12 didn't start until after Labor Day so we were left to our own devices as to how to best spend our time.

Given the chance now there isn't a reader among us who couldn't think of 10 or 15 things they would do with their time if offered another chance. Though back in those days we didn't have the Internet , Cable TV, or discretionary income, so we had to make our fun outdoors.

Of course, a backyard BBQ with our parents friends and families usually helped fill the void if we weren't on vacation as a family ourselves. During the BBQ we would play badminton, drink far too much soda, eat watermelon, and then hunt for fireflies. It was a routine we savored as it couldn't be duplicated at any other time of the year except late August.

I suppose we should all be so lucky as to be able to summon such quiet thoughts. Especially when it's easy enough to give a concerted look at the world around us now and be so easily reminded that our present lives are so very unlike the late August days we knew growing up.

RHS 1970 Reunion Update #4

2010-08-18T18:50:00.000-04:00

The Oct 8-9 reunion is now 7 weeks away, and we are cranking. As we get closer, we will send more emails. Also keep checking what is new on the reunion web site (www.rhs70.myevent.com).

· Tickets are now on sale! You can buy them with a credit card via the web site, or sending a check to Irene Nagy. Details on the “Purchase Tickets” page of the reunion site. Please purchase your ticket(s) ASAP. This enables us to plan, and ensures that you will have your custom name tag. Tickets to the Fri night Oct 8 event at the Elks Club will payable at the door. Cash bar. Price is still TBD, but will be modest.

· Make your hotel reservations: The Main Event (and the center of other activities) is at the DoubleTree Hotel, Route 17, Mahwah, NJ. We have reserved a block of rooms at a special $99 rate for Fri Oct 8 and Sat Oct 9. The $99 DoubleTree rate (and guaranteed availability) expires Sept 8. So act now(201) 529-5880). Another hotel option: Super 8. This hotel is right next to the DoubleTree. It is less fancy, and it is cheaper. We have reserved a block of rooms for Fri Oct 8 and Sat Oct 9, rate is $65 single, $75 double. Offer expires Sept 8 ((201) 512-0800).

· Attendance is strong. As of 8/16, 109 classmates have RSVP’d that they plan to attend (with spouses etc. total attendance tops 150!). Again, thanks. This helps us plan, and builds excitement. The response is greater than expected. If you have not RSVP’d, pls do.

· Committees: Sally Rodman heads the Hospitality Committee. Kathy Lauerman leads the Decorations Committee. Those of you who volunteered will be notified shortly. Thanks for volunteering. We will let you know if we need additional volunteers.

· Reunion Book: Wes Jenkins reports that he has received photos and/or update info from 241 classmates. Thanks for this. If you have not yet, pls send it to Wes wjenkins5@austin.rr.com.

· We need a photographer – In addition to the digital cameras that most of us will bring to the reunion, we want an experienced photographer to take group and individual photos. If you are interested in taking photos on Friday and/or Sat nights, pls contact Irene Nagy (gardendesign@bellsouth.net). Thanks.

· Calling campaign – This campaign to call all our classmates is still on, but has slipped (until we figured out some things). Those of you who volunteered to make calls, thank you. We will be in touch in time to start making the calls very soon..

· Reunion web site has been updated for:

1. Missing Classmates - Thanks to you, we continue to make progress finding classmates: down to 75 missing (from over 150 when we started!). Pls keep the help coming til we find everybody.( http://www.rhs70.myevent.com/3/miscellaneous5.htm)

2. Classmates who have passed – Over the past six weeks we have added 3 more classmates: Donald Haring, Michalene Ryan, and Bruce Hillman. (http://www.rhs70.myevent.com/3/memorials.htm)

That’s all for now. Buy those tickets. Make hotel reservations.

RHS ’70 Reunion Committee:

Brian Corcoran

Irene Nagy

Rick Bowe

Website address: http://rhs70.myevent.com

Gene Ricci

2010-08-08T16:46:00.003-04:00

If you attended Willard School between 1964 and 1979, you know who Gene Ricci (pronounced "Ritchie") is in all his glory. They held an annual flower sale for many years in his honor after he died and the front walk way to Willard is filled with flowers and trees that he would have appreciated.

If you were a guy then you probably felt his ring on the top of you head, never too hard as he had a soft touch, but hard enough to get your attention. This sort of behavior would be considered child abuse today but Gene Ricci got away with it because he would smile and rib the hurt if necessary. He was from another era, and one I like to reflect upon and which makes up the essence of this blog.

Thanks to Jim Schoneman for the picture.

Endless Summer Memories

2010-07-30T11:11:00.000-04:00

The number of images of summers past, which I carry around in my head, is seemingly endless. I think there are so many because summer is such a lively time and more time is spent outdoors than in any other season.

When you are outdoors as a kid that is when things, good and bad, happen. This process is always what creates the abundance of memories. They can range from the feel of the morning dew on your bare feet, to the intensity of the midday sun, to the sight of the first fireflies of the early evening. As we grow older there are fewer opportunities to go barefoot, the midday sun we now avoid by staying close to air conditioners, and fireflies are not something we catch in glass jars anymore. Maybe we notice the fireflies from time to time, and recall the fun we used to have collecting them. Though the simple joy we used to feel when we caught our first is not something readily repeatable by middle age types. We can only hope to see a younger generation engage in the same sort of activities we did. Hopefully, we'll catch the same familiar glint of happiness in their eyes that we had after running through pure, dew covered grass in the morning, or when we found a shady spot in which to wait out an afternoon sun, or best of all in my mind seeing young children chasing fireflies in the evening dusk.

The squeals of delight from children when they catch one is easily discernible to me on summer evenings when I am out for a stroll. The memory of my own chases after these intermittent, blinking lights makes me believe that these new firefly pursuers are creating their own endless supply of summer memories.

Did You Play?

2010-07-26T14:46:00.001-04:00

A tip of the cap to the Watching The Game blog for the inspiration for this post.
http://watchingthegame.typepad.com/my-blog/2010/07/did-you-play-1.html

The answer to the question is yes. Probably I participated in thousands of hardball, softball, wiffle ball and stick ball games, most never finished because of time or the desire to play on when the score became too one-sided. We played with whomever was available and sometimes due to our numbers half the outfield would be foul territory. You literally had to "call your field" when you stepped to the plate to bat. It wasn't as fun as being able to hit to all fields but it at least satisfied our desire to play the game, no matter the self-imposed limits.

When you were younger than the assembled crowd of ball players it was a right of passage to be asked to play. The invitation was usually extended so a full complement of players could be fielded on both sides. Sometimes this meant right field, but in my case I learned early to tell them I would pitch. Now this was a somewhat dangerous position given the strength and size of some of the players I was pitching the softball to and because of the short distance between pitcher and batter. You were either quick or lucky when you pitched in those games, and for the most part when I was young, I was both.

By the time I assumed the status of the older boys I still liked pitching, even though I could have chosen a spot in the outfield based on seniority. The infield was largely off limits because I am left-handed, though at one time or another I did play every position on the diamond, and once toward the end of my playing days, I played center field with a right-handed glove. This effort took some guile and an effortless looking throwing style. I did field one fly ball that day and a couple of grounders. It was just my usual good luck that nobody on the other team knew that my arm was far less than the cannon one would usually expect from a center fielder. Yes, I played and still enjoy reflecting back on those blissful days in the sun.

RHS 1970 Reunion Update

2010-07-24T07:23:00.000-04:00

The count down to the Oct 8-9 reunion is now 10 weeks away, and we have started to step it up. As we get closer, we will send more emails. Also keep checking what is new on the reunion web site (www.rhs70.myevent.com).

· Ticket pricing: $99. Tickets to the Main Event at the DoubleTree Hotel on Sat night Oct 9 are $99 (if purchased by Sept 30 via the web site, $119 at the door (cash only)). Price includes: Dinner, open bar (for 2 hours), DJ, photographer, Wes Jenkins’ memory book. Tickets go on sale via the reunion web site in mid-August. Tickets to the Fri night Oct 8 event at the Elks Club will payable at the door. Cash bar. Price is still TBD, but will be modest.

· Map of your classmates. Check out this link, pretty amazing. http://www.batchgeo.com/map/c083263a9a290e9394de079cd6c3724a Here is where all 578 of your classmates live (street addresses intentionally are not included). Click around, zoom in. See if there is a classmate near you. If you want to contact a classmate, contact Irene Nagy (gardendesign@bellsouth.net) and she will be the go-between.

· Need Volunteers for Reunion Committees. We are putting together the following committees to prepare for and conduct the reunion weekend. We need volunteers. Pls email Irene (gardendesign@bellsouth.net) if you are interested in participating on a committee.

1. Decoration Committee – In charge of decorations for Main Event on Sat night. Has a sizeable budget. Need 4 people.

2. Welcoming Committee – Check people in at Elks Club on Fri, and Main Event on Sat. Produce welcome packets. Need 3 people.

3. Event Committee – Brian Corcoran heads this group. In charge of all logistics for Main Event. Brian could use 1 more person.

4. Calling Campaign – As you may know, we are calling all classmates in August to remind, encourage, re-connect, and improve our contact database. 8 of you have already volunteered. Thank you. (See “Calling Campaign” below for update.)

· Memory Book. We are taking a different tack with the incredible ‘Memory Book” that Wes Jenkins is creating. In order to capture reunion photos and updates from all classmates at the reunion, we have decided to not complete and deliver the Memory Book until after the reunion. At the Main Event on Sat night Oct 9, we will be gathering input from attendees. We will mail a Memory Book, on CD, to all who attend the reunion and provide us with update info. We will make it easy to do at the Main Event. The cost of the Memory Book is included in the $99 price of the Main Event. We will also sell Memory Book CD’s to classmates who are unable to attend the reunion. Details to foll ow. In the meantime, if you can, pls send Wes a bio, blurb, photos. wjenkins5@austin.rr.com. See details on the reunion web site (http://www.rhs70.myevent.com/3/miscellaneous3.htm).

· Calling campaign – This campaign to call all our classmates is still on, but has slipped into August. Those of you who volunteered to make calls, thank you. We will be in touch in time to start making the calls the first week in Aug.

· Attendance. As of 7/20, 97 classmates have RSVP’d that they plan to attend (with spouses etc. total attendance tops 150!). Again, thanks. This helps us plan, and builds excitement. The response is greater than expected. If you have not RSVP’d, pls do.

· Missing Classmates - Thanks to you, we continue to make progress finding classmates: down to 75 missing (from over 150 when we started!). Pls keep the help coming til we find everybody.( http://www.rhs70.myevent.com/3/miscellaneous5.htm)

· Transportation in an around Ridgewood – If the expense of renting a car is a major concern for you, our hope is that that many of you will team up with your friends/classmates who will have cars, and that classmates will step up to the need. We are arranging to have a taxi service on standby as needed, and hope to provide a reasonably priced van service to/from Newark Airport to the DoubleTree Hotel. We will let you know what we come up with.

That’s all for now. Keep in touch. Next update in mid-August.

RHS ’70 Reunion Committee:

Brian Corcoran

Irene Nagy

Rick Bowe

Website address: http://rhs70.myevent.com

Carl Albano, RHS Top 100 Teacher of the 20th Century

2010-07-15T18:04:00.002-04:00

Many thanks to Chris Stella, class of 1973, for this moving tribute to 20th Century RHS Teacher, Carl Albano. It is admittedly long for a blog, but worth the time to read.

As a gentle reminder, one of the goals of this blog is to offer praise for individuals who positively influenced people's lives in the 1960s and 70s in Ridgewood, NJ. Please feel free to forward me your ideas. I am trying to establish a site which acknowledges the contributions of the 100 Best Teachers in the Ridgewood Public School system over the last 100 years. It is a lofty ambition, but I am not above making the effort with the assistance of people who read this blog. Here is the first entry in what I hope is a continuing series of long overdue expressions of gratitude to the people who made us what we are today.

Well, just looking at him, he didn’t quite fit the picture of the high-impact RHS teacher, that is for sure. He had this near spherical head and face, stuck on an ovoid body. His brown hair was slicked straight back, held in position by some sort of lustrous substance, distinctly unfashionable among the young of Ridgewood in 1972.

He taught Health, and Driver Ed, but not Physical Ed. And, his presence wasn’t like any of the RHS pedagogue stars: He didn’t have the tweedy, genial sense of learned excellence suggested by a Harry Ahearn, or the muscular, rigorous intellectualism of a Milo Okkema. Both the subject matter, and teacher might have seemed a bit, well, shall we say, Less Academic.

To complete the picture, his brother was one of those show wrestlers, Lou Albano, later a huge WWF star as Captain Lou Albano. Our teacher did not make TOO big a deal of this, though he was often willing to make predictions on the results of his brother’s bouts. These predictions were accurate to a degree not suggested possible by statistical variability.

Since my time with him in the classroom and automobile, where he taught me Health and how to drive a car, I have come to see him as a true genius.
He made people who were not in the habit of thinking, think. “Okay, today, we’re going to talk about Drugs”. Certain facts would follow. Then, he would pick a student carefully, approach that student, and pull a small clear glass bottle with a black screw-top out of his valise. Inside the bottle was a few ounces of a clear, but obscurely and unusually colored liquid.

“Frank, “Mr. Albano would genially say to the student he had picked, “Please unscrew the cap, and swallow the liquid.”

“Oh, come on, it will be fine. I promise. “ Mr. Albano would say.

“No”, Frank would again say.

At this point Frank’s so-called buddies would begin to egg him on, urging him to drink the liquid, in a way that severely suggested that they were a lot more interested in the evolving spectacle, than in Frank’s well-being.

“Frank. This won’t hurt you. I promise. It’s Okay”, Albano would continue.

“I’m not drinkin’ that shit !!!“

(Laughter.)

Albano would smile and ask, “Why not?”

Desperate, Frank would say, “’Cause I don’t what kinda shit’s in there !!”

(More laughter.)

Albano would take a step back, put the bottle back in the valise, and smile again.

“Frank. I’m your teacher. You know me. It is my job to see that you are safe here, and that no harm comes to you while you are in school. I’ll get in a lot of trouble if I don’t. After all, a good lawyer can make black seem like white, right?”

Albano would then continue, in a sensible and kind way:

“Frank, if you aren’t willing to take this stuff into your body when I say it is okay and your friends are here, why would you be willing to take other stuff given to you by other people who you DON’T know, and who don’t care about you AT ALL?”

Well, this seemed clever in real time, but there was a whole less obvious layer of teacherly smarts at work here, which only recently occurred to me. Albano had picked his mark well. There were florid risk-takers in the class who would have called Albano’s bluff instantaneously, and quaffed the mysterious liquid in a gulp.

But, although “Frank” tried to play the role of the uncooperative rebel, he was actually a nervous wannabe. He was someone on the periphery, someone who Albano knew would perform as desired and refuse to drink the Kool-Aid, and refuse in a squeamish way, either out of general anxiety, or latent good sense, hard to say which.

The first year of Health was taught in an all-male class of over fifty students, as high anxiety, high-potential-for-disruptive-behavior stuff was presented, topic after topic.

Albano controlled the class effortlessly:

“Hey you, yes, you in the back talking. Stand up. What’s ya name, I don’t know ya name, what is it?”

Duh, Uh,…Stella.

“Oh. Very nice. Stella. Italian, no? Italian, yes, Stella?”

Duh, Uh, yeah, Italian.

(Laughter)

“Oh, Stella, Italian, very nice, very very nice.

“Now, Stella: SHUT YA MOUTH, SHUT YA MOUTH, STELLA.”

“Now, sit down, Stella.”

(Laughter, Cascading.)

And the classroom discussion of the picture of the syphilitic genital chancre would go on:

“Now, like you can see it really looks like bad news, but funny thing is, it doesn’t hurt too bad at all. But if you see it, you got to go see the doctor, because if you don’t get this taken care of it can ruin the rest of your life. But, the medicine, it isn’t too bad, so if this happens, you have to go to the doctor.”

Again, brilliant, visceral, teacherly smarts. He could have yelled, screamed, tossed people out, or just given up, we had seen all of that, elsewhere. But, his technique was radically different. He seemed to be saying:

“Okay Mister Cut-Up, I know your type, maybe I was one myself, maybe I still am, a bit. I know you want attention, so I’m going to let you have some. I’m going to let you be half of my comedy act, for a few seconds. People will get a kick out of this, I guarantee it. But then you have to sit down and cooperate, because I have a lot of stuff important to your well-being that you need to know.”

Senior Year Health Class, time for the discussion of Abortion. Some neutrally presented facts were described, followed by a general class discussion on the topic, with Albano as moderator:

“Now, when we talk, you can say anything you want about abortion, but I’m not going to tell you what I believe, unless you ask, at the end.” In the discussion that followed, Albano skillfully brought out all the issues from the students themselves, his own views remaining opaque. And at the end of the class, someone did ask him what he thought on the topic. And Mr. Albano said, again with an affable smile, “Oh, well, I am a really strict Catholic, and so, I don’t believe in abortion under any circumstances. Now, I really love my wife, if her life was ever in danger, I don’t know; but, for me, abortion is not okay.”

I thought his ability to be respectful of everyone’s opinion was wonderful, as was the straightforward and persuasive statement of his own faith, as well as the acknowledgment of his own humanity, and potential for weakness.

I was lucky enough to have him for Driver Ed, Practical Portion, in a real Auto, behind the wheel.

“We start in the Graydon Parking lot, but don’t put me into the Ho-Ho-Kus Brook, please.“

During my final evaluation drive, I was in the driver’s seat, he in the passenger seat. The Driver Ed car was new, with an automatic transmission. The only modification was an auxiliary brake pedal on Albano’s side. I tooled tentatively about the Village of Ridgewood.

“The Driving, it looks pretty good, Stella. Pretty good. Who you got for your other classes?”

I told him I had Mr. Okkema for History. “Oh, he’s a very, very smart man, one of the best! You’re really lucky, Stella.” This was all true, but I wasn’t so sure that the academic stars at RHS would return such compliments to Albano.

The cut-up in his Health class when surrounded by other kids was shy and awkward with him, when one on one, just us in the Driver Ed car. I tried to steer the conversation to general topics. I told him that on weekends, I liked to go hiking and camping with friends. Did he ever do this sort of thing?

Again, the bemused but transparent warm tone. “Oh, no, never!! When I go away, I gotta be attended to, hand and foot!’ A bemused quarter turn of the head, another bemused smile, his rotund frame turned a bit, “Look at me Stella, hand and foot!”
“The Driving looks pretty good, Stella.”

I relaxed a bit. It was time to return to the RHS parking lot. At the T–intersection of Oak Street and Linwood Avenue, there was, and still is, a red flashing blinker, where the plan was for me to turn right, back towards the school.

I came to a full stop, as was proper before making the right turn at the T-intersection with the flashing red light. I looked right, all clear. I did not look left. I pushed the accelerator down with my foot.

The engine growled harshly, as if being subjected to some unusual load. The car did not move, even an inch. I heard Mr. Albano speak the single word “No”, in a factual, stressless and non-judgmental tone.

Then, I looked left. There was a large panel truck speeding towards us, real close. Had Albano not had his foot on the auxiliary brake, our car would have entered the intersection. This truck would have impacted the driver side of the RHS Driver Ed Auto, which at that particular point in its history, happened to contain, me.

“The Driving. The Driving, it looks pretty good, Stella, but ya gotta look both left and right at the flashing red lights, Stella. Now, let’s get back to the school.”

Well, I’m not SURE he saved my life, but I AM sure he gets credit, yet again, for knowing his student. No doubt there were kids who after such an event needed to be chewed out, flunked out, or both, but he knew that I was not one of them. He knew that in my heart of hearts I wanted to please him, and he also knew that if he was nice to me after I had made such a terrible mistake, I would want to please him even more, and would therefore be more careful in the future.

All of this has come to pass, my subsequent behavior at T-intersections has been exemplary.

II.
About seven years later, I had another experience with him.

I was halfway through Med School, in New York City. It was August, and the re-radiated infrared heat from the City buildings had become intolerable. The plan was for me and my girlfriend to drive across the George Washington Bridge, and use my parents continued residence in Ridgewood to somehow get into Graydon Pool. The plan was completely successful, the only surprise being, seeing Mr. Albano bobbing stresslessly in the shallow waters of Graydon.

I introduced myself, and my friend, to him. Maybe he remembered me, maybe he didn’t. It didn’t seem to matter, the even-toned good nature would have been there, either way.

I told him eagerly how much I had enjoyed his influence, but I don’t remember reminding him of the RHS Driver Ed auto incident.

I also told him that I was making a career out of health care. There might have been a bit of less innocent, Darth Vaderish, Now-I-am-the-Master stuff in this part of the conversation, on my part.

More Stressless Graydon Bobbing on the part of my old RHS Health teacher Mr. Albano. The body that I had always thought of as chubby, was in fact quite muscular.

He showed great and obvious pleasure in the direction my professional life had taken. A period of extended, pleasant conversation followed.

Then he said something else that I won’t forget. He had that bemused, familiar, regretless tone.

“Stella, you know, I majored in Biology and also did very well, and I applied to Medical School too, and I could have gone.”

“But, our family, it was really big, and teaching was a way I could make pretty good money right away, to help out.”

“And my teaching, it looked pretty good, so that’s what I did.”

Well, hearing that, I felt the same way as I had felt after he had saved me from Something Really Bad in the Driver Ed auto. His words had the same strong but honest and sensible character that it had on that important day in the car, seven years prior. Once again, he was able to gracefully stake out his own moral position, making my own mistake clear in a firm but gentle way, a way that only made me like him and respect him, even more.

I am now an academic sort of person, and Carl Albano taught subjects thought of as non-academic, at least while I was a student at Ridgewood High School. But as you can see, I now think he was among the best teachers I’ve known, and a great deal of his teaching and deportment remains influential for me.

Ham Radios in Ridgewood (circa 1960-70)

2010-07-13T17:39:00.002-04:00

This was sent by Chris Stella. class of 1973.

“Ham” Radio, in Ridgewood

“Now, listen my Children, and you shall hear
Of when Ne’er a Cell phone was raised to an ear
If you wanted
Your words to project
It was the land-line,
Or an epistle,
Upon which to carefully reflect.”

--C.S., with apologies to Longfellow

Actually, there was one other method that a few of us knew about. It was called
Amateur Radio. Those of us who were licensed to do this, could project their
voice and signal all over the country, and world. The transmitter equipment
needed to do so was often home built from a “Heathkit”. If you couldn’t afford
the relatively safe Heath Power Pack, then the parts needed to construct an
(extremely dangerous) 1000 volt supply that allowed the development of the 200
watt signal needed to keep your set competitive, could be liberated from an older,
nonfunctional obsolete television set.

This in turn could often be had for the asking from a TV Repair shop, such as
Terhune’s, located north of Ridgewood. Technical advice, general mentoring, and license proctoring was provided by my wonderful Electronics Teacher at RHS, Mr. John Keeley. He helped me
send away to the FCC to get the license forms, and he gently administered the
Government test, and within a few weeks I was duly licensed as Amateur Radio Station WN2.

There were many hundreds of these stations scattered through Ridgewood and
the surrounding towns. The most elaborate ones could be identified by these
huge Yagi “Beam” antennas, suspended over residential roofs, much to the
detriment of neighborly relations, local television reception, and the property
value of adjacent real estate parcels.

I had nothing like this. A Heathkit HW-101 transceiver in Kit Form, cost $259.
A Saturday of work at The Ridgewood Auto Wash yielded $20, with the “tips”
exactly counterbalancing the “Social Security”, an unanticipated deduction which
I was inaccurately told would be returned to me at the time of my Retirement.
Accoringly, exactly 14 weeks later I had my transceiver soldered and assembled,
and it worked very well after I designed and constructed the potentially death-
dealing 1000 volt supply mentioned above. My antenna was a simple wire
precisely tuned to 7.100 megahertz, it was slung between two oak trees outside
of my bedroom window. A smaller, 21.200 megahertz wire was suspended from
the eaves of our house.

Using this simple setup, I “worked” stations routinely all over America.
Whatever educational value I gained from doing this was at least partially
negated by the knowledge that the best time to communicate with Europe with
my little Heathkit was at about 10:00 a.m., Eastern Time. Thus, a “stomachache
health emergency” had to be declared, when openings to Europe were expected,
if I was to participate. My Gastrointestinal health during mr RHS years, was
actually a lot better than my parents knew.

The most wonderful thing of all about this hobby was, the knowledge that when
you pressed your Morse Code Key, your signal, through the obscure action-
at – a-distance of Electromagnetic waves, was inducing discernable electrical
information in every metallic object in the Eastern United States, and Beyond.
This was a wonderful mystery, that you could affect the world, in this way.
I still have the Heathkit HW-101 Transceiver that I built as a Sophomore at RHS,
and I still use it. But, it is hard to find a younger person on the air. A cell phone
call is also at least Semi-Amateur Radio, though few see fit to dwell on the
miraculous things that are occurring, when you put that tiny device to your ear.

Summer Rains

2010-07-12T17:50:00.000-04:00

I watched a summer rain today and recalled how these downpours used to fill up the outfield at Willard School during the dry months of summer. The outfield of the big baseball diamond had patches of grass and some areas where no grass would grow because of the foot traffic from school children. A summer rain would create shallow puddles as there was no drainage system, other than the parched grass and weeds. These puddles made playing the outfield a comic ballet at best and treacherous sometimes to say the least. I was a pitcher and could only empathize with my teammates who had to play in the muck and mire.

It's comforting to me now that because of The Internet and sites like FaceBook I am now in touch with most of the summer softball team I played with during the Summer of 1973. They are a joy to remember because for two years we were undefeated. They would all understand very clearly what I say about the old outfield at Willard. It was literally "creekmud" at times for the outfielders like my brother Don, who patrolled Center Field and was credited with the final out of our 2nd consecutive Championship season.

Statistics and headlines were not a part of our games in those days. If a couple dozen people showed up to watch we felt honored. I compare this to the current scene where RHS Football games are filmed and broadcast on Cable Television. Our games remain only in our memories, and thank goodness a mere summer rain can make me reflect upon those games, which were free of secondary complications like how handsome we would appear on TV. This is not to say our field would not have been telegenic, despite the patches of grass in the outfield. Before the home games at Willard, during our undefeated Championship reign (14-0) in 1972-73, we would lime the base paths, rake the infield, and plant the American flag in deep center field. This all took hours of effort which only made the victories that much more sweet. I have no regrets that no pictures exist of this time because I saw it all again today in my mind after the summer rain had stopped and the sun began to shine.

Dr. Armand Stella DDS

2010-07-10T07:49:00.003-04:00

Chris Stella of the RHS class of 1973 was kind enough to send this photo of his Dad along with some history about my old orthodontist. "He was quite well known in Ridgewood, and because his practice only involved Orthodontics, essentially all of his patients were young people." Hopefully Chris will send more photos and stories.

"Here is a picture of my Dad, Armand Stella, DDS, who you tell me was your orthodontist. For many years he was one of only two orthodontists in town, the other being Dr. Mario Ferraro. Quite a few Ridgewood kids sported his "appliances", as they were properly and ALWAYS called, in our house.

I took this photograph of him myself in our backyard, using an old YashicaMat roll film camera. He was about 75 years old here, and it captures his nature quite well, I think. He died in 2003, of an aggressive dementia, but was active and athletic and a good tennis player at Upper Ridgewood until only about two years prior to his passing."

Running Through Sprinklers

2010-07-05T08:16:00.000-04:00

Before swimming pools became a ubiquitous part of the landscape, and on days we didn't go to Graydon Pool, we often cooled ourselves on a hot day by simply running through and around a portable lawn sprinkler. There were mostly two types in those days, before automated lawn irrigation systems sent the manual kinds to the back of the garage or the garbage can. There was the oscillating sprinkler that featured an oscillating spray bar which evenly douses a rectangular area.

There was also the spike which shot water in a circle.

In the case of both of these stalwarts of the irrigation industry the the initial intent was to get wet slowly by dodging the direct spray when it came your way. Eventually we would tire of this running around and simply let either a wave or a direct blast cool us off.

We also used to drink from the hose which was connected to the sprinklers, without a thought in the world as to the quality of the water. Lucky for us in Ridgewood this wasn't an issue but I would be hard pressed to want to do the same today. The bottled water industry has done its work too well and I either drink from plastic or from a filtered tap. I've also been scared away from water fountains, both inside and outside varieties. Its funny to think we used to line up as kids to drink at these fountains, and to no doubt share germs good and bad with one another.

Such pleasures as I am describing make me wonder at what point they lost their appeal and became work instead of a form of play. If I had to guess the moment, it probably occurred the first time I was asked to move one of the sprinklers in our yard by one of my parents. Play usually happens when no force exists to urge you to do something. Work is comprised of those activities you are being directed to do. Even the ones you once did gladly to cool your heals, and to hear yourself and your friends squeal in delight at the first drops of water as they grazed your sun baked bodies.

Ridgewood's 4th of July Parade

2010-07-04T08:21:00.000-04:00

There are plenty of amazing aspects I can reflect upon when thinking about a 4th of July in Ridgewood. First of all, as the chairs in the photo readily point out, people are very eager to see the parade and pick their spot days in advance. This is a time honored tradition which is respected by all. Once you put your chairs down they cannot be moved by anyone else. It would be hard to find another town in any era which follows the same protocol as flawlessly as Ridgewood.

Then there is the parade itself with a myriad of marching bands, floats, and cars filled with dignitaries. My favorite float is the one they create for the RHS graduating seniors, allowing them one last hurrah, in front of family and friends, before their summer activities and plans for the following autumn must commence in earnest.

Next comes a leisurely day spent in close proximity to BBQs and swimming pools while everyone awaits the fireworks at the end of the day. You would really have to work at it to not have a grand time, especially when the weather cooperates. You will also likely have as part of your day a serendipitous meeting or two with old friends, who showed up in Ridgewood for the same reason which you did: to celebrate the 4th of July!

Have a safe and happy 4th of July.

Fathers and Daughters

2010-06-25T09:37:00.008-04:00

Reprinted from http://watchingthegame.typepad.com/my-blog/
by Judy Van Sickle Johnson

"It's not even a complete sentence. No command or question, no declarative statement, no imperative verb, no main verb at all. Just a phrase with an -ing participle (maybe a gerund) which indicates some type of action ongoing between two select people.

Fathers playing catch with sons: the lovely, familiar phrase may not be a complete sentence, but perhaps that's one reason why the words resonate poignantly for so many.

"Everybody that plays major league baseball, I promise you, had a dad that played catch with him." That's what Don Nava had to say last Saturday at Fenway Park after watching his son's first major-league at bat: a grand slam delivered by 27-year-old rookie Daniel Nava on an 0-0 count. What an amazing way to break into the big leagues after an unpromising eight-year journey; what an important moment for father and son.

My dad played catch with my brother almost every single day at lunchtime in a bygone era when kids walked home from school for their midday meal, then returned to their classrooms an hour later. Kind of like Jem and Scout and Atticus Finch. Like Atticus with his children, my dad made it his business to join my brother for a sit-down lunch in our small kitchen, and that quick lunch was usually followed by an unhurried game of catch in the front yard.

The only boy in our family following three sisters, my brother went on to become an outstanding player in our town's youth league. One spring weekend I rode a Greyhound bus home from college just to see him pitch. Working efficiently and striking out almost every batter in the lineup, my kid brother threw a complete game that Saturday afternoon. Mowed them all down with blazing fastballs and pinpoint control. He was just nine or ten years old at the time, but something about his consistency and confidence on a hill of dirt made him seem much older. I had left home, and my youngest sibling had grown up overnight.

My dad didn't play catch with me very often.

I never really coveted or envied the baseball times that my brother enjoyed with our dad, however. Truth be told, I didn't particularly want to play catch with my father. There was something else I wanted even more.

I just wanted to watch the game with him - wanted to watch baseball every single night.

There we sat, just my dad and I out on the screened porch, gliding side by side in the soft breeze of a sultry July evening, listening to Ralph Kiner, Lindsay Nelson, and Bob Murphy, and watching the New York Mets. Together we enjoyed the primitive, grainy images that brought baseball to life on a small black-and-white RCA television topped with skinny rabbit ears.

It's a miracle that we chose the Mets in 1963, but that's what we did. A team of losers (51-111) felt like a win to me, because I had just fallen in love with baseball, and I loved every single part of it.

When my father came home from work, the game began to assert itself as language, and that is how baseball felt most real to me. Its magical sounds, metaphors and idioms, syntax and rhythm, its diction both poetical and crude became integral pieces of our evening conversation, a comfortable mode of speech and thought, a language that I loved. While learning to speak English in increasingly complex ways in grades three and four, I simultaneously acquired the splendid vocabulary of baseball, as if it were an important part of the curriculum. The game felt like something basic and essential - as normal, natural, and necessary as speech itself.

Baseball took shape for me as language not as sport, partly because the man who nurtured my early love of the game was a Protestant minister. Using few words and allowing for long periods of silence, he taught me baseball, both its fundamentals and its poetry. In my mind's ear, an amazing vocabulary became inseparably entwined with familiar Biblical passages, both deeply embedded in my young psyche, and both becoming an essential part of who I am: "3-2 count," Love is patient and kind, "in the cellar," my rock and my Redeemer, "6-4-3 double play." And the Word was made flesh ... and dwelt among us, full of love and peace.

Many years have passed since those summer days and nights, but I can still hear the ever-modulating commentary, the sweet sounds of a televised broadcast, a soft breeze and buzzing in the trees, the gentle words of my father out on the screened porch once upon a quiet New Jersey evening. I was a lucky girl, because when hearing my dad's voice and when listening to the comforting music of a play-by-play on summer evenings, I knew for certain that I was safe and deeply loved.

I have always associated baseball with happiness and love. Thank you, Dad."

Remembering RHS Graduation 33 Years Later

2010-06-23T12:50:00.000-04:00

It was a beautiful day and we graduates were looking grand in our long white dresses and a bouquet of red roses for the ladies, and white tuxedos for the guys. I'm told it was a rather unique way to dress in that day and age for high school graduates, and remains so to this day.

I don't remember any of the speeches or words of praise which were heaped upon us, nobody does and it probably is just as well. All the words about the life before us, the places we will visit and the things we will do truly must be done by each of us, that is, nobody can do it for you.

No amount of dire warnings or sophisticated advice is going to be heeded on an RHS Graduation day. Maybe some small part will be reflected upon much later in life, but for the most part it is all lost in the pageantry and knowledge that people who have for a long time been a significant part of our lives will be no longer. We will all make the promises to keep in touch and write addresses in one anothers Yearbooks but in the end we all know these are promises we are not intending to keep. Maybe we shouldn't try but we do in an attempt to be true to this high school self, which is quickly being transformed into an adult by an age old ritual which begins on the football field in the afternoon in front of family and friends, and ends sometime the next day after a visit to the Jersey shore.

I like the fact the entire ceremony is larger than life and gives everyone a chance to remember at least one part of it for the rest of their lives. Whether it is the country club dinner, the party at BF in the middle of the night, or the early morning swim at Graydon, there is more than enough going on that each one of us can call some small part of it uniquely our own.

Congratulations to today's RHS graduates! May your experience today be pleasurable and fill you with memories which will bring a smile to your face for a long time to come.

Ted Gehrig and Family

2010-06-15T12:53:00.001-04:00

RHS 1980 Reunion Update

2010-06-15T09:47:00.003-04:00

30th HS Reunion
Saturday, August 7, 2010 R

Ramsey Golf and Country Club

Deadline to Purchase Tickets is June 30th...get your tickets today!

http://rhs80reunion.com/

Tickets can be purchased online via Paypal or by using a credit card $75 each.

RHS 1970 Reunion Update

2010-06-14T10:24:00.002-04:00

The 40th Reunion is the weekend of Oct 8th 2010

May 19th 2010
According to the class of 1970 Reunion Team: RHS 1970 40th Reunion

Things are heating up. We sent an email last week to all 268 of you for whom we have email addresses. If you did not receive it, let Irene Nagy know (gardendesign@bellsouth.net). The email created a stir of activity. 80 classmates have RSVP’d as coming. Newcomers include: Jim Stroker, Eric Scofield, Peter Rita (coming all the way from Japan), Kathleen Keating, Andy Rork, Barbara Hall, Gloria Thornton, Kathy Lauerman, and Cleveland Marsh. Susan Egerton has been found in Tenn, and is off the “missing” list. The Thompson triplets have been located (great to find them). We are sending postcards to the 451 classmates for whom we have street addresses by not emails. We are now too big for the Elks Club on Fri night Oct 8 (a good problem). We are looking for a bigger place.

Apr 6...Up to 73 classmates have RSVP'd as coming. In the last month the following have declared: Bev Florance, Christine Nienaber, Patti Staehle, Marsha Golla, Virginia Zabrinski, Denise Durvette, Kathy Baker, Susan Main. Our first teacher has RSVP'd (Don MacKay). Sandy Hawley has been found in eastern PA. This sounds weird but hopeful: we have word that Christine Armstrong is not dead (pls contact us if you have info).

In April we will do a second emailing and a second post card mailing (if we don't have email address). So look for that.

Mar 6...Blogs for each Elementary School: Classmate Judy Schoneman has created a blog for Willard School classmates http://willard64.blogspot.com/. It has been so successful that we will create a blog for each Elementary School, and ask you to send photos and re-connect. We will let you know more about this.

Mar 3...Hits on reunion web site tops 1400

Mar 1...Lots going on. We continue to track down classmates, process is arduous but rewarding. Have located 4 in the last 3 weeks. Following have signed up for the reunion: Debbie Frey, Mike Augello, Bill Tobey, Jim O'Brien, Carlton Frost. Number of classmates attending now 64, total attendees over 100.

Feb 11...Anne Adams replies from Vermont that she will attend. Number of classmates attending is now 59.
Feb 9...Donna Nunley checks in from Houston. Plans to attend.
Feb 8...We updated the "Missing Grads" and the "In Memoriam" pages. Good news/Bad news: 4 classmates off the missing list...1 added to the memoriam list.
Feb 7...Got our 1,000th hit on the web site.
Feb 6...Dave Smith contacts Stan Brown. Stan RSVP's
Feb 5...Tracked down Dave Smith in Tennessee. Dave is amazed we found him. Will attend.
Feb 4...Marcia Field checks in from Columbus, OH. Plans to attend.