Ho-Ho-Kus Circa 1960s

These descriptions were provided by a former Ho-Ho-Kus resident who now lives in Australia. Here is the link and please do check out her site My Sydney Paris Life.

What follows is exactly how I remember it. Thanks, Carolyn.

The shops in the middle were our favourites:

* Mufson’s: Sliding-glass candy cabinets had a full range of penny candy and larger candy bars. Here we bought dot candy, Lik’M Aid, black licorice sticks, and Rob’s favourite Three Musketeers. Sometimes when my grandparents visited, my grandfather took me to Mufson’s to get a pint of Country Club vanilla ice cream. Best of all, some Wednesday nights after Dad took me and Rob out for our weekly dinner with him, he’d take us to Mufson’s afterwards. He stopped to get cigarettes for himself, but we knew he’d be good for a large candy bar and a 25-cent Little Dot or Richie Rich comic book for each of us.

* Ho-Ho-Kus Bakery: Sometimes Mom got bread here, where they asked me if we wanted it sliced thin or regular. Rob loved their jelly donuts. I requested their small rectangular 7-layer cake for my birthday every year. I often got a big chocolate chip cookie and Rob a large sugar cookie.

* Ben’s 5 & 10: The absolute, undisputed, world’s greatest 5 & 10 store on the planet, in my humble opinion. I can see every aisle in my mind, starting with my favorite, the stationery section on the left-hand side, lined with little rainbow pads and spiral notebooks. Toys were up the back, and on the right-hand side were the ‘grown-up’ aisles, with kitchen and sewing supplies. Robby and I lived on the left-hand aisle. I bought notebooks and pens and he bought squirt guns and miniature cars. I’ve been in many variety stores around the world but have never found one I liked as much as Ben’s.

Trick or Treat

In the days when I used to go trick or treating in Ridgewood, neighbors moved less often than they do now and we interacted with each other more. There existed a familiarity which our current insular brand of neighborliness does not afford us. When I finally stopped trick or treating in the 8th grade, it wasn't that I didn't like the free candy or walking around the neighborhood at night with my friends. It was more that I had come to the realization that I was just too old to be doing it. Funny thing was most all of my friends came to the same conclusion simultaneously.

Looking back on how our neighbors greeted us, and us them, it amazes me to recall how well we knew each of the houses. We had a good idea of what sort of reception we would receive and we would shout to one another in the street if someone was not home that evening. The best Halloween experiences were those like we received at the Gehrigs on Heights road. They used to invite trick or treaters into their home for hot apple cider. This stood in stark contrast to most every home we visited where the door was opened and we stayed on the front steps.

Nowadays Halloween is one of our biggest holidays in this country. The National Retail Federation published statistics to back up this assertion. They found that in the United States that 53.3% of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up $10 from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.3 billion the previous year. I remember we used to go out as hobos most of the time with our faces blackened with charcoal and our cloths old and ripped. These type of costumes didn't cost a thing and were quickly assembled immediately before going out. If we did buy something it was usually purchased at Woolworths in Ridgewood or from Ben's Five and Ten in Hohokus (pictured below).

Sincere Pumpkins

Ever October since I moved back to the northeast in the late 1990s, I have made a point of buying a "sincere pumpkin" or two to commemorate the season. At first I went to Tice's Farm in Woodcliff Lake to buy my pumpkins, where I would partake in the doughnuts and apple cider I remembered so well from growing up. Tice's neighbor, Van Ripers, closed its doors in 1994 but Tices carried on until 1999. Today the site is home to Tice's Corner Marketplace, a non-descriptive, strip mall. With Tices and Van Ripers long gone, I usually buy my pumpkins, cider, and doughnuts at Demarest Farms in Hillsdale, NJ. They do a fine job. My annual pilgrimage is made all the more special because we used to buy corn and blueberries from the Demarest roadside stand. They have since built a large market across the street from the original stand, and use it as a gathering point for the people they let pick fruit from their orchards.

What makes a pumpkin sincere? I naively believe it has much to do with the frame of mind of the person who is buying it. It also has to be locally grown and sold by a long-time farmer.

To my way of thinking it is important to imagine yourself as a child filled with the wonders of the season when you go to purchase the pumpkins. I like to first stop and dwell upon autumn's colors and unique tastes, like the apples and pumpkins which seem omnipresent, and then consciously go to choose a pumpkin. I look for a small, bright colored pumpkin with a strong stem. I don't carve them as I want them to last, and I don't possess a talent for carving. The pumpkin should be able to stand for weeks on its own in order to rate the accolade of a sincere pumpkin. This strategy has yet to fail me and it allows me to feel the authentic meaning of my ritual long into November.

Willard School 1968

This one has been hanging in Bill Nolan's office for the last 20 years and is a favorite.

Ridgewood Basement Parties 1977

Bill Nolan, Chris DuFlocq, and Paul Ferraro. I can't imagine what they might have been drinking but they certainly were having a fine time.






Jim Velordi, Dan Conti, Bill Nolan, and Tim Daly.

These guys were studs. ;-)







FYI, these are all on FaceBook. Just another reason to join as there are many more where these came from, and many more are on the way.

RHS Prom 1977

A big thank you goes out to Bill Nolan for posting this on FaceBook.







The guys from left to right with their dates:

Bill Nolan and Brenda Earl,
Tom Thurston and Jamie Rider,
Paul Ferraro and Kim Puglisi,
Mike Crockford and Tammy Porreca,
Dan Conti and Mary Beth Reagan,
Jim Velordi and Carol Murphy,
Tim Daly and Kim Dalby.

Dr. Lenihan

Last time I drove by his office it was being razed for something else. Funny how things change and more often than not a concrete memory becomes just another piece of concrete.

Dr. Thomas Lenihan had his office at 530 North Maple Avenue in Ridgewood. It was located for a while in the 1960s directly across the street from the old Maple House Ice Cream Store.

All my brothers and I visited him until our 18 birthdays and then he would turn us loose as we were no longer children. I will always remember my last visit when I was 18 and ready to go off to college. This visit was different from all the rest because it was my last, and my mother didn't give me a ride down to his office. When we were younger she had always accompanied us into the examination room. I suppose by this last visit I had grown self-conscious enough to tell her that her participation was no longer necessary.

On this last visit when we were done Dr. Lenihan looked me in the eye and shook my hand. It was very similar to another time later in my life when I shook the hand of a friend, both of us knowing full well we would never see each other again.

Dr. Lenihan wished me well in college and I then made a point of thanking him for all he had done for me while growing up.

A knowing smile overcome both of us and I walked out of his life forever.

Ice Cream Stores

This photo courtesy of www.201.net. I still have a 201 area code on my cell so I am fairly certain that is where they draw the name for this site which highlights the best of Bergen County.


"The kids tag along to help out when the adults come to Terwilliger & Wakefield in Ridgewood to pick up their families’ supplies of milk for the next few days. Here, Mrs. F.W. Tenney receives her two quart-bottles’ worth from T&W staffer Catherine Van Echelpoel; Tenney’s grandson, 3-year-old Richard Long, seems quite pleased with the transaction.

T&W, particularly beloved among locals for its large cones of premium ice cream, was a regular stop for visitors to Ridgewood’s Wild Duck Pond Area, just across East Ridgewood Avenue. The company was later sold to Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, and the site today houses a branch of Prudential Insurance Company."

Along with T+Ws there was also the Maple House on the border of Hohokus and Ridgewood which we frequented for ice cream in the 1960s, and Van Dykes on Ackerman which is still serving delicious ice cream by all accounts.

Of course during baseball season it was a tradition for winning teams to visit Dairy Queen, where if your manager told them you had hit a home run that day they would give you a banana split on the house.

Ho-Ho-Kus Inn

It took me over 40 years before I first stepped foot in this historic Inn. I must have passed it literally thousands of times but never had an occasion to eat, drink, or have a look inside. This all changed on the night before my wedding in Ridgewood when I entertained my family there and had a wonderful evening.

I am not too sure my parents had ever eaten there either before my wedding. They were like many parents of the day in Ridgewood and didn't eat out much and instead feverishly saved for their childrens' college education. They also didn't take their kids out to dinner much, which is quite different from today. I often wonder if kids today are dine out more because both parents have to work, or both parents have to work because they dine out more than we did. All I know is that eating out was a special moment and our table manners had to be precise. We were shown what to do with our napkins, elbows were kept off the table, and we buttered one small piece of bread at a time and not the whole piece. I still laugh thinking about the bread whenever I dine out with clients and they reveal their complete lack of table manners by picking up a piece of bread and slathering it with butter. Seriously, does anyone really want to watch them do this? We were taught that it was the small things which counted and that dining out should be enjoyable for everyone, including the people sitting next to you in the restaurant.


The Ho-Ho-Kus Inn is currently being renovated and various announcements have stated that it was to re-open in the spring of fall of 2009. I hope they make it but am well aware of how difficult it is to run an upscale restaurant in a down economy.

This tidbit is from Wilipedia and sounds fairly accurate but you never know.

Ho-Ho-Kus Inn was oringally a private residence built for John “Jake” Zabriskie in 1790. After his death the house was converted into a private church and served as a parsonage for the Christ Episcopal Church in Ringwood. During this time Ho-Ho-Kus Inn had been referred to by several nicknames such as Zabriskie House, the Villa Inn, The Mansion House, the Wayside Inn, and the Washington Inn.

The building later became a resting house for the New York elite until 1920 and was referred to as Mansion House during this time. In 1920 the house faced demolition but was saved by Mrs. H.T.B. Jacquelin. In 1941 the house was purchased by the town and became a landmark and was leased to several people. In 2007 the restaurant was bought by Chris Kelly. Kelly had asked George Zahakos and Catherine Stauch, formerly of the Bicycle Club in Englewood Cliffs, to take over the restaurant however this deal has fallen through.

Passbook Savings Accounts

It was on April 1st 1986 that the end of Federal regulation on passbook savings accounts allowed banks and savings and loans to pay whatever they wanted.

I remember my first savings account and the 5% interest it earned. I had to go into the imposing bank on Ridgewood Avenue and give them my money so they could then stamp my passbook. The bank is located in the left of the photo and is still there, though under another name. The interest they pay now is one of their own choosing, and likely much less than what I used to receive.

The transactions I recall occurred in the era when the term "Bankers' Hours" meant that your bank opened at 10 AM and closed at 3 PM Monday through Friday. This gave the bankers time to count the money and make sure they were able to greet the public with the self-confidence which the laws and our social customs required.

It really is a quaint idea to recall: the bankers were well-known and respected members of the community, who kept a tight rein on borrowing. They were, after all, the safeguards (literally) of the local money. Risky loans were discouraged and the people who were having trouble with making payments were counseled, and in some cases had their loans re-worked. It was Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life" that would represent this ideal picture in my mind in all its glory.

Now I would love to say, in order to strike a contrast between now and then, that we now have Lionel Barrymore's character, Mr Potter, in all his evil glory minding the money of our banks. Though this would be far from the truth. Nobody is actually counting the money these days or opening the doors to the public at 10 AM. Banking is now a non-stop affair conducted over the Internet and in bank branches open 7 days a week. The bankers are mostly unknowns in the community because there are so many branches and the people who work in them come and go like bus boys at a restaurant. Whether this is all progress is not for me to say. I can say that I like the interest they used to pay and the huge edifices they had to house our funds. When I see a bank like this today I known that it will either be made a landmark or sold to be used for something else like an upscale deli. I would personally love to have an office in such a structure, that or an old railroad station.

Our First Award for Blogging

     I would love to say this blog earned an award for public service or journalistic excellence but all we did was exist on the Internet and a company found us. In return for this award, the firm wants a permanent link to their site. This I won't do unless they can show me they have a connection to RHS, and then I will gladly give them a link because I have done this for other alumni. The award is from a company who sells National Football League ThrowBack Football Jerseys. As a child this would have thrilled me as I used to wear football jerseys all the time, especially to play football. The more mud, blood, and grass stains these jerseys accumulated the better we felt wearing them. Now these jerseys are simply another piece of clothing to me as my football days are long gone. I am grateful for the recognition and if you hurry you might even see this blog in the featured section by following this link: Throwbackfootballjerseys.net

On the Bus

Growing up I lived near the end of the line for a commuter bus which carried people into New York City. It was very handy in junior and senior high school because we could see the bus pass by on its way to the end of the line, the spot on Hillcrest Road where it turned around. On cold or rainy days this meant we usual had about 5 minutes to wait before it returned.

In those days people could smoke on the bus. Many under age smokers found this was one of the few places they could light up and not be caught. You knew the bus driver wasn't going to say a word, especially if you saw his ashtray filled with cigarette butts. People would smoke no matter how crowded the bus, and this was simply accepted as commonplace.

The ride cost a quarter to either GW or RHS. It's funny to think that when I was in high school if I had wanted to walk say three or four blocks in the opposite direction I could have rode a yellow school bus for free. RHS provided a ride to kids who lived more than 2 miles from school. We lived just within this 2 mile limit.

While the yellow bus was a bargain it wasn't nearly as interesting as the commuter bus, catching a ride to school in a friend's car, walking or even riding my bicycle. No, the yellow bus was too filled with school-related pressures for me in the morning to make it a compelling option, and it was long gone after I was down with sports practices in the afternoon. I can honestly say I never once rode the yellow bus and truly doubt that I missed anything.

Touch Football

When I was growing up Autumn afternoons, like the one we are having today in the Northeast, were devoted to touch football. The games on Saturdays and Sundays were usually played at Willard School on a field comprised mostly in our imaginations, and one which bears little resemblance to the neatly manicured field that exists today.

We played on a field with no markers and which was largely composed of dirt. The out-of-bounds marker on one side was based upon the upright posts of a metal fence on California Street. The other out-of-bounds marker was more specific because it was the stone wall which abutted the school itself.

The dimensions of the field mattered very little to us because the game itself was more important. If only the fathers of today would take these words to heart, they could have saved themselves a ton of tax dollars spent sprucing up fields which required no maintenance other than cutting the grass in the summer. Such is the irony of life.

We only lived for the game in those days and didn't care how the field looked or was designed. There were rainy days we played and reveled mostly in the mud we accumulated on our cloths. Not that our mothers, who had to wash our cloths, had the same feeling but they at least understood where we had been and what we had been doing. These seemingly innocent games were rights of passage and nothing was going to stop us, except the eventual coming of snow in winter. We might have marveled at the Professionals who played through the "Ice Bowls" in Green Bay, Wisconsin but we would only carry this admiration just so far. When it was too cold to throw or catch the ball the Touch Football season was over.

Now that I have lived a half century the Touch Football season is long over. I tried to play at the annual Turkey Day Game at Glen Field on Thanksgiving but my body in the late 1990s had long since betrayed me, and the exhilaration was gone.

My friends still keep the tradition of touch football going each and every Thanksgiving, so if you are in the vicinity of Glen School around 10:00 AM next Thanksgiving you should stop in, that is, if your body will permit.