The Hohokus Hill

       My Dad commuted to Wall Street for 17 years from Ridgewood. He usually walked and used the Hohokus Hill to access the train station. It's hard to imagine people still make this 3 hour a day commute.

     This photo is about 80 years old. I don't know if the sidewalk was put in after he started walking this hill twice a day. We used to explore the woods on either side of this feeble excuse for a road. Though my greatest adventure occurred shortly after I began driving. I was driving a stick shift car up the hill and at the turn my engine stalled. To compound the tension of the situation my passenger's Dad was walking up the hill and noticed us sitting in the stalled car. He showed no emotion and might have even offered a silent prayer to the saints for lost causes. I gave him a thumbs up from the driver's seat and gently took my foot off the brake and let out the clutch. We rolled backwards and miracle of miracles the engine turned over before we slid off the hill. I immediately put the car in gear and we both gave him a jolly wave as we sped up the hill. He never commented on that moment until some ten years later when I mentioned it to him. He just gave me a smile and said he knew I would pull through. I'm pretty sure he was fibbing but the smile on his face was priceless and I'm not one for being a know-it-all guest.