Charles Chips

During the late 1960s and early 1970s we used to receive home delivery of cans of Charles Chips. This economic model worked well until the mid-1970s when the price and availability of gas made it much less profitable than it had been previously. Though in its day the site of a Charles Chips truck in the neighborhood was a welcome site indeed. Besides the convenience of home delivery, the potato chips were good and could be easily transported around the house as needed. When we had friends over to visit the introduction of a Charles Chips can was always a pleasurable interruption to whatever we might be doing.

Today with far fewer people at home on a regular basis as housewives, and a greater reluctance to open the front door to strangers,  services like Charles Chips and the Fuller Brush Man are much harder to maintain than they once were in suburbs. There was also the Avon Lady who would visit on a regular basis and the man who sharpened knives. All the knife sharpener would do was pick a spot in the neighborhood and clang his bell in order to tell people to bring their knives and tools to be sharpened on his portable grind stone.

I guess the lack of these strangers in our suburban neighborhoods make them safer now, but it also makes them more homogeneous and a bit less interesting. It was a rare kid among us who didn't look forward to the site of a stranger invading the quiet of our neighborhood and stirring things up with their door bell ringing and bell clanging.  I sure know we looked forward to their visits when I was a kid. These people didn't scare us or annoy us in the least. At times we opened lemonade and candy stands to encourage them to stop, even if they had just lost they way on our side of town.

In those days we knew who belonged in our neighborhood and who didn't because people were less transient than they are now. Did we take chances when we momentarily allowed these strangers into our lives? Of course we did! This was part of the fun we used to have. It might have even helped fill in the gaps in our then limited life experience. The end result was that our eyes were being opened to the immense world around us, and it wasn't being done via TV or radio. It was being done close to home in our own neighborhood.

Early To Rise

For as long as I can remember I have risen early in the morning, sometimes as early as 5:30 AM during the summer months when we were off from school. This meant if nobody else was awake, usually the case, I would venture down to the coolest room in our home: the basement. Before we added central air conditioning in 1975, the basement could be relied upon as the one place we could go, that wasn't a swimming pool, to escape the heat. When it was too hot to be in the basement we would often rely upon an old standby and run through the sprinkler while it watered the lawn. Once we had been thoroughly soaked by the sprinkler we were game for more strenuous activities like a squirt gun fight or simply throwing balloons filled with water at each other.

When I was up and about early on those summer mornings my attention sometimes turned to what was on TV at that hour. Some channels were still running a test pattern until 6 AM but one of them had a cartoon show called Colonel Bleep, which I guess was supposed to get us accustomed to the forthcoming modern era of space travel. It was then followed by an early morning fixture called The Modern Farmer. I fully understood why they showed The Modern Farmer at such an early hour because farmers were people who generally woke even earlier than I did. What I didn't understand was why it was on at all, given that such a small percentage of people were classified as farmers and the information provided by the show was not anything these people didn't already know backwards and forwards. I knew that I lived in the Garden State and that we even had a working farm in Ridgewood into the late 1970s but the show always appeared incongruous with our suburban life style.

I will say that my ability to rise early did stand me in good stead when I went off to college and 8:00 AM classes were sometimes all that were left for Freshmen to choose from. They used to kid us that these classes were lessons in how to get up early that would come in handy when we found our first 9 to 5 job, which probably would require it.

Truth be told it was probably not TV which caused a life long habit of rising with the sun. It had more to do with the fact that I liked the sounds of the birds in the morning and the predictable sounds we used to hear at our house like the long, lonesome moan of a train whistle, or the clanging of cans by our garbageman. These sounds because they were so predictable and regular soothed me as I began my day. I have all these same sounds outside my window now here in Forest Hills, NY but they don't resonate with me in the same manner. I have certainly gotten used to them but these sounds are more shrill and faster paced. Nothing like the slow and easy pace we lived growing up in Ridgewood in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ridgewood Outdoors

This post courtesy of an old neighbor from the Willard School area, Jim Schoneman:

Yesterday was the first time I took a serious look at this facebook site ((Ridgewood Expats)) and in the last 24 hours my mind has been flooded with memories of my years growing up in Ridgewood. I started kindergarten at Willard in 1961 and graduated RHS in ’74. I haven’t seen a discussion topic talking about my most vivid memory of Ridgewood so I thought I’d start this one. I’m talking about the beautiful and rugged countryside that we lived in.

I spent lots and lots of times roaming the pockets of woods hunting with my homemade slingshots and fishing the Ho Ho Kus brook. The first fish I ever caught was at the duck pond. It was one of those big goldfish that some well intentioned but not so forward thinking soul decided to stock in the pond. Those goldfish ended up infesting the entire watershed. It was kind of funny because when they got into the streams you could see them from a mile away.

My favorite area was the Ho Ho Kus Brook behind Hoffman’s Pond. I’d ride my bike down to the horse farm and get to the stream by walking right through the horse farm property and using their gate to get to the woods behind the house. The woods were full of wild rhododendrons and oak trees and the ground was always covered with a thick blanket of oak leaves. It was never any problem to gather a couple dozen big, fat wiggler worms just by brushing away the leaves. Now, armed with our Zebcos and fully loaded with bait we’d walk down to the stream and fish. We’d fish off of the old wooden bridge. We’d fish the first dam and then walk down to Cole’s Pond and fish that. Then we’d fish the second dam (down by where the tennis club now is). Sometimes we’d fish the stream all the way down to the spillway in Ho Ho Kus. Lots of bluegills, bass and eels, plus the occasional rainbow trout. I’d throw the eels on my little brother. That was always fun. Sometimes we’d find a huge bullfrog and we’d dangle a bare hook in front of its mouth and he’d jump at it thinking it was a fly. Sounds cruel, but that’s what boys do.

My dad had told me that he had heard that the Ho Ho Kus Fire Chief made a deal with the state fisheries department to have a couple of giant trout planted in the stream by the Ho Ho Kus Fire Station. I tried fishing around that fire station fairly often and one day I hooked one of those monsters. I had him on for all of two seconds. He nearly ripped the pole right out of my hands.

I found my pet pigeon, Walter, under the steel high bridge in Ho Ho Kus. I was fishing the stream and there, sitting on a rock in the middle of the stream, was this little puffball. It was a baby pigeon only a couple weeks old that had fallen from his nest on the bridge. I took him home and after a while I taught him to fly (yes I did) and then let him go. The problem was that he didn’t want to leave, so I built him a nice cage where he could sleep at night and I'd let him out in the morning. He lived a grand life for about a year and a half, until he was hit by a car. Walter was famous in my neighborhood around Willard School. He’d fly up to the school and watch the kids play. My mom got called up there a few times to retrieve Walter because he’d land on the field in the middle of a soccer game or he’d sit on a windowsill looking in on a class. My mom, bless her heart, would walk up to the school and call for Walter and Walter would fly down and land on her head. Then she’d walk home with a pigeon on her head.

I’ve got so many more adventure stories that I could tell, like the time I took a bunch of my friends to crawl through that tunnel that led to The Hermitage (which was just an old, abandoned building back then). I got them scared pretty good in there.

Hope I didn’t overextend my welcome with this long post. I was just wondering if anyone else had memories of the beautiful countryside we were blessed to live in back then.

Does anyone remember hiking Devil’s Path?

That was a scary path to walk on. There was a bridge upstream from the first dam but someone burned it up. I remember fishing off of it one time and I caught a bluegill and as I was reeling it in a pickerel came out and took the bluegill. The funny thing about that was that the pickerel was hiding in a couch that someone had thrown in the stream. Since that time I've had lots of fish come and bite on a fish that I'm reeling in, but I can't say I've ever caught another fish that was hiding in a couch!

Where The Wild Things Are

One of the first books which I can remember being read to us by the librarians at Willard School is Maurice Sendek's 1963 children's picture book, Where The Wild Things Are. This is my earliest memory of being read to at school, my parents also did it quite a bit in our home. It shows to me that a love of reading is preferably encouraged at a young age by both parents and schools.

Today's children, if the news can be believed, are more likely to own a cell phone than a book. While I am a proponent of technology, and earn my living because of its ubiquity, I do find this report from the National Literacy Trust most disturbing. Here is more:

Almost nine-in-10 pupils now have a mobile phone compared with fewer than three-quarters who have their own books in the home, it was disclosed. The study by the National Literacy Trust suggested a link between regular access to books outside school and high test scores. According to figures, some 80 per cent of children with better than expected reading skills had their own books, compared with just 58 per cent who were below the level expected for their age group. The disclosure follows the publication of a study found that found keeping just 20 books in the home could boost children's chances of doing well at school.

It's hard to consider a future, or even a present, where school children have electronic gadgets and power adapters lining the bookshelves in their bedrooms, instead of having them lined with books. The books on my shelves, some of which have been with me for decades and were originally my father's, are a great source of comfort and inspiration. They contain the thoughts of the best and brightest minds and demand to be re-examined for their relevance by each successive generation. I can't think of a single cell phone, or electronic device which will produce the same feelings of attachment that books can or which can act as touchstones like books or poems. We tend to dispose of our electronic devices rather quickly and only retain small amounts of nostalgia regarding them. These feelings are dwarfed by those generated by a reading, or re-reading of the plays or sonnets of Shakespeare or one of the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson or a poem of William Butler Yeats. We will keep these authors and poets with us, if we are smart, long after we discard our old computers, cell phones, and TV sets. I just can't imagine it being any other way. The thought of no books is truly a place to me "where the wild things are" and not one I imagine would do much for a child's development into an adult.

Longer Days

It was always at this time of the year, late May, when the days grew longer, that the likelihood of having to do homework when there was still light outside began to increase slowly but surely. The afternoons were full of promise, 60 and 70 degree temperatures, so homework was rarely given a second thought. When dinner time came around we all retreated from the schoolyard and went our separate ways. Though the sun had other ideas. It would still be shining, as if to taunt us to linger a little longer and let our dinners wait. After dinner the call of the outdoors was just as strong and we might make up some reason to go outside for a moment or two. The homework would get done we would tell our parents, it just wouldn't get started until after 8:00 PM. By that time the sun would be down and the temptation to procrastinate would have abated, at least until the next day. Then we might be faced once again with another glorious late May day with all its inherent wonder and the pernicious ability to delay school age children from completing their homework by the usual time.

8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Public DNS



The Internet for people who are both curious and technically inclined is a wonderful invention. It doesn't demand that you possess either of these traits in vast quantities for it to be a source of inspiration and delight, but it does help.

I found this link concerning a project to improve the Domain Name System (DNS) via an ordinary afternoon of checking my Social Networking links. It was technical and it also made me curious because it was being spearheaded by Paul Chisholm, an old neighbor and member of the RHS Class of 1975.

Now the combination of a project to make The Internet more responsive and the fact it was being led by somebody from the old neighborhood around Willard peaked my interest so much that I have joined the project in a tangential manner by changing my DNS settings to 8.8.8.8.

Why does this matter? According to Google:

"The DNS protocol is an important part of the web's infrastructure, serving as the Internet's phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day."

In non-technical terms: it will speed up your browser and make your time spent on The Internet a bit more secure.

All I know is that it appears to be working for my browser and I am always looking to add additional layers of security protection to my computing environment. I hope the project goes well and that one day Paul Chisholm will be recognized by Ridgewood High School for his efforts and place a picture of him on their wall of Distinguished Alumni.

Van Neste Park

This photo is used with the permission of Sam Fran Scavuzzo. He is editor of The Ridgewood Patch.

The Patch.org Foundation was formed in March, 2010 to improve the quality of life in underserved communities across the globe through access to trusted local news and information.

The above photo contains the names of the stewards in the Village of Ridgewood who banded together in the early 1990s to renovate Van Neste Park. To say they helped restore it to its previous glory would be to do them a disservice, because they made lasting contributions to the overall beauty of the park so that generations to come would be able to continue to enjoy its simple pleasures. What's more, they accepted contributions from the community and in turn used the money so that visitors would long remember who were the benefactors of the park.

The Van Neste Park renovation was the sort of civic project which are harder than ever today to organize and carry out with the aplomb these folks did. It didn't surprise me at all when I first saw their completed efforts because the committee contained members who had watched over me during all the years I lived in Ridgewood. People like Marion Barnett, Jack Bennett, and Bill Kuipers were my neighbors and they and their spouses were the sort of folks who took pride in the idea that we all have civic responsibilities as residents of a town like Ridgewood. The Van Neste Park project was easily their best work and I'm glad they weren't too modest to have their names engraved on a commemorative stone placed centrally in the park. The stone is a simple reminder of the social forces which bind us together as a community, and what better place than in the tranquil setting of Van Neste Park.

Wondering Aloud

I wonder aloud very often in this blog about who I was many years ago. It's probably closer to the truth to say I wonder about who I am today in light of how I remember growing up in Ridgewood in the 1960s and 70s.

This kind of reflection is not unusual for someone in their early 50 such as I am now. We are all such experts in the particulars of our circumstances that I would be remiss if I couldn't offer some bit of expertise for posterity.

I readily admit to having paid attention while growing up in Ridgewood. I had all the basics provided for me by my family which allowed for a careful observation of the shared values and beliefs of those living in Ridgewood at the time. Not to mention I was lucky enough to live in the same home throughout my K-12 school years. It wasn't until we moved away from Ridgewood that I understood the wisdom of having a homestead where well worn rituals are acted out and their significance is regularly reinforced by proximity.

This is all fairly commonsensical and I am sure many other people have concluded as I have that a vagabound life is in many ways inferior to one which is more physically and emotionally grounded. Though at the time of one's graduation from high school the world looks bright and promising. We are told to go explore and see for ourselves the places we have been only reading about for years. This is accepted as being the wise thing to do and most everyone follows this path to a more or less extent.

I wonder how it would have been if I had followed a time honored custom and had chosen to live close to my parents in the same town, or had bought their home when they decided to retire? Ridgewood taxes and expenses make this a fantasy for most people, and a scant few folks spend time away then move back. It's sorta sad that is how the town has evolved because we lose so much that can never be restored when we uproot ourselves and seek fame and fortune elsewhere.

The question I wonder about is whether the loss of shared values and a sense of community that we discard upon graduation day is more often than not returned to us in kind by the life styles we later lead and the communities we help grow and promote?

I have no conclusive answer to leave you with. All I can say is that with each successive post I appear to myself in a somewhat clearer focus, as paradoxical as that might sound. Even though with each passing moment I move further away from the fond moments I am trying to remember. My hope is to be able to continue with my recollections about a time long gone, the thought-filled wondering, and what it all means to me today.

Wildlife Around Willard School in the 1960s

While the area commonly known as Upper Ridgewood was filling up its empty lots with house all through the 1960s, one area close to me remained in a somewhat "natural" state. I'm referring to the border to my backyard which abutted the Willard School playground. This area in the mid-1960s, before what was called the "New Wing" was constructed, was filled with wild berry bushes along one of its fences. One year my Mom actually made a jam out of these berries before the birds were able to strip the bushes clean. There was also a tall apple tree which we used to climb up and build tree forts on its branches. The apples it produced weren't much good for eating but they did come in handy during the occasional apple fight between rival grades of kids.

I can also recall us once or twice using this area to plant gardens of flowers, in particular, Sunflowers. These were the first Sunflower plants I had ever seen and I marveled at their enormous size and was flabbergasted when I was told that we were going to eat the seeds.

This small, bucolic setting was vanquished from the seen when the construction began on the New Wing for Willard School. They needed some place to pile the dirt and that meant clearing away all the undergrowth and inadvertently ripping out the wild berry bushes. The funny thing in hindsight was that they left the overgrown apple tree. They trimmed its branches so we couldn't climb it anymore but left the source of ammunition for our apple fights largely intact.

Today all my youthful memories are gone and a state-of-the-art playground resides in its stead. I suppose this is progress but I wonder where the children today find their own bits of nature to admire and be amazed about? The equipment is nice and safe but I'll be able to recall the wonder of homemade jam from our backyard wild berries, as well as roasted sunflower seeds from our makeshift garden, long after they have outgrown the shiny new swing set and the new jungle gym. These replaced the small patch of wildlife which was a normal part of my growing up and one I wish the children attending Willard today would have been given a chance to experience for themselves.

Tending The Roses

Our backyard was small by Ridgewood standards. It was separated from the Willard School playground by a tall privet hedge, a 4 foot high wire fence and a gate which allowed us to come and go to school.

Inside the backyard was a small patch of grass for the boys to cut, a variety of annuals, perennials, and the roses. These roses were my Dad's domain completely and you didn't want to be around when he was spraying for bugs because the smell was awful.

One rose was given to us by an old friend and was forever known as the Cloukey Rose. It bloomed happily for many years in our backyard and when we moved to Hilton Head Island the Cloukey rose made the trip, too. It was later joined there by a dozen roses I purchased from the mail-order nursery Jackson and Perkins. My Dad continued to spray and trim all these roses just like in Ridgewood and, no surprise, they all thrived.

Then one day in late 1987 my Dad decided to buy a "Gentlemen's Farm" in Ashville, NC.
The plan was to keep the place in Hilton Head until they decided which one they liked better. This left the question of the roses and where the Cloukey rose in particular should reside. A quick decision was made and all the roses were uprooted and bundled up in the back of our Red Pickup truck for the move to what we called the "Branchwater Farm." If you surmised that the roses thrived at Branchwater Farm then you are correct.

Sadly, when we sold the farm 7 years later and re-settled on Hilton Head all the roses were left behind for the new owners, even the venerable Cloukey. I guess my Dad thought he was leaving them in good hands and with someone who would care and look after them like he had for so many years.

A quick trip back to the area the following year disabused him of this idea pretty quickly. All our old neighbor could say about the new owner was that he was a "horse person" and didn't care much about growing things. In addition to letting the roses die from lack of water, he had paid someone to chop down all the Christmas trees we had planted on one of the hillsides. These trees were just left where they lay for the longest time until he finally paid someone to clear them away.

The lesson learned by our family was that it takes quite a bit of effort to properly tend to roses and if you don't have the foresight to appreciate the beautiful flowers they will produce each year then you really have no business working in a garden at all.

Making Time For Old Friends

     How do we make time in our lives for old friends? The question is not "do we make time" it's more a matter of how and when we re-connect with those who knew us when we were younger. It is not something we can shirk without leaving ourselves open to experiencing feelings of loneliness and regret. The loneliness is obvious but it is the regrets we feel which are usually less well understood and tend to linger far longer than they might.

       When we gather with old friends we invariably recollect and tell of past experiences. This act in and of itself offers a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present. This indulging in memories and attempts to recapture the past become habits, if we are lucky, as we grow older. Though as youngsters the site of my parents and their friends sitting outside around a picnic table well past dark in the summertime, long after a the coals from the BBQ had become embers, always made me wonder what they were doing. Their usual response was that they were talking. For someone as active as myself I couldn't fathom what they could talk about for so long and why they wouldn't instead want to join us for some late night discovery of the neighborhood or the schoolyard next door. All they would say was that I would understand when I was older. Now that the time they sagely predicted has arrived, and age has shown me the wisdom I couldn't fathom as a child, what they were doing makes perfect sense to me now. There is truly nothing I like better than to gather with old friends to reminisce. I take a special pleasure these days when the age old question presents itself as to what we adults are doing. I am now able to tell the inquisitive child who might dare ask of our doings, "that we are talking." These same kids who casually enter into and leave our conversations quite like busboys at a restaurant now give me the same quizzical look I gave my parents. Hopefully, they will remember these nights and pass this bit of wisdom down to their children. More importantly, I hope they see the intelligence and the possibility for creativity which a gathering of old friends provides to all the participants. I trust they will achieve this insight and understand the transformational power that goes along with finding time in our lives for old friends.

Working From Home

     My Dad used to bring home work on the weekends sometimes so he could work from home in his study. He was a decent typist but sometimes would rely upon my Mom who was a professional secretary before she was married and never lost the touch.

      Today the term "working from home" has an old fashioned attractiveness to it for someone who doesn't understand our always connected work world. Now we can have calls, emails, and faxes at all hours of the day and night. My Dad was a solitary worker on those weekends and rarely would have had a colleague or client call to confer about something.

      Which is the more civilized life style: one where you literally go to work or one where you are always with your work? Hard to say because the commute my Dad had to his 40 Wall Street office was fairly brutal when you consider he had to walk to the train then take a subway and finally walk to the office. It was just under 3 hours round trip and more if the weather was bad. When you work at home during a snow storm or transit strike there are still plenty of ways to contribute even if you miss a few face-to-face meetings with the boss or client. It just didn't happen like that in the old days. What's more, if there was a major blackout like the one we had in the mid 1960s in NYC you might spend the night at the office like my Dad and his colleagues did. The funny thing in retrospect about "The Blackout" was the rotary phones worked. They were powered by the Phone Company telephone cables but everything else was not connected via dedicated lines in this manner. All we had were a supply of candles and the faint hope that all the food in the refrigerator wouldn't spoil.

      In today's world of VoIP (Internet-based Phone service) when the power goes out, even just in your home, one quickly discovers that if you rely upon the cable company you won't have a dial tone. Of course, you will still have your cell phone as long as you can keep it charged and the people you want to speak with do the same. Again, another trade-off and who is to say which is the better way to live?

      If my preference counts for anything then I guess working from home now is better than working from home for my parent's generation. I think the tremendous amount of time we waste in office politics tips the scale in favor of home offices. Work is hard enough but if you have to listen to the griping of disgruntled co-workers, smell their lunches boiling away in the microwaves, and have to pretend like you are working when you really aren't, then you are truly better off at home with email and cell phones.

      What this all means is that the solitary weekend worker of the 1960s and 70s, who had few distractions, has been replaced by the solitary, multitasking worker who is distracted wherever Internet and cell phone coverage is available. The drive for career success is the same in both eras, but the modern day distractions dictated by the exigencies of many a career are starkly different and take some getting used to. One day I hope to master these modern demands, if possible, and be able to maintain a calm like those slow but steady rat-ta-tat-tat sounds produced by my Dad's old Underwood typewriter on a Sunday afternoon.

Wheat Back Pennies

     For as long as I can remember my brothers and I collected coins. My Dad's Mom got us started at a young age with Lincoln Head Set Penny Collections and later with Jefferson Nickels and "Mercury" Head Dimes.

      I still have all my collections though I confess to not being very diligent these days in keeping them up to date, with one exception: the Lincoln Wheat Cent or Wheatie as we used to call them. They turn up every once and a while in my change and each night as I empty my pockets I check for Wheaties. It's a habit I suppose and the kind of gentle reminder of simpler days which I appreciate. Probably this thrifty habit is in my Scottish DNA and just can't be helped. To tell the truth I am actually glad for it because it keeps me conscious of how hard it is to earn money, let alone save it. I don't consider it cheapness but only an awareness of the consequences of not having a tidy sum in reserve. I pity people who call themselves "cheapskates" because they tend to feel guilty all too often regarding some of life's pleasures, especially those which are worth paying a premium for. A nice meal in a NYC restaurant with friends who appreciate fine dining comes to mind as an indulgence which I budget for and enjoy no end.

      We all have our own pecuniary habits. For me, all it takes is the site of a Wheatie to make me become conscious of the origins of how I first learned about money. Admittedly, my subsequent uses of money might not have always been as prudent as collecting coins in Whitman Publishing coin folders. Though I did manage to save the original books and their insights are part of my wakefulness and dictate my usual response to a penny laying on the sidewalk. Without a hesitation I grab it before some other thrifty guy like me to come along and beats me to it. One never knows where they might find a Wheatie to add to their collection.

Vote For Preserving Graydon

      This blog endorses Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh and Thomas M. Riche for Ridgewood Town Council. The election is Tuesday May 11th and the voting booths will be open from 6:00AM to 8:00PM.

      There are four reasons to support keeping a sandy bottom at Graydon Pool. These can be summarized based upon Geology, Economics, Aesthetics, and the Law.

1. Geology: Ridgewood is built on a floodplain. Graydon has always been a huge storage area for flood waters. It must be kept free of encroachments that might block flood flows or restrict storage of flood waters. The concrete pool supporters either don't understand, because they haven't lived in Ridgewood long enough to see a flood, or it's something they are hoping they will never live to see.


2. Economics: The current configuration of Graydon is not making enough money to be self-supporting. To believe that a concrete bottom design would make money stretches the realms of credibility. Where are the paying customers going to come from? How high can badge fees be raised in a Recession to support the bonds needed to build a concrete pool?

3. Aesthetics: Graydon is a beautifully designed, tranquil setting in an otherwise bustling little community. Hard to see how the concrete proposal would improve upon this natural oasis that has been enjoyed for generations.

4. Law: While I am not a lawyer I do know that the land on which Graydon sits was willed to the Village of Ridgewood. 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. We might as well save ourselves time and money because both sides on this issue can afford the lawyers to keep this one in the courts for a long time.

ZIP Codes

      It's hard to remember a time when we didn't need ZIP codes on our letters and packages. Though I dare say it compares with the 19th century creation of the Dewey Decimal System as one of the 20th century's best ideas for organizing the job of delivery into a specific and repeatable process. The ZIP will be in use long into this century as it is now translated into what is called Postnet and printed on mailpieces for use by automated sorting machines. Some further history from our pals at Wikipedia:

     The ZIP code is the system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS) since 1963. The letters ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan. In 1967, these were made mandatory for second- and third-class bulk mailers, and the system was soon adopted generally.

       My hunch is that most people who grew up in Ridgewood still remember the village's ZIP codes as 07450. Though given the transient nature of people now I suspect these same folks would be hard pressed to name all the other towns ZIP codes they have lived in. For myself, I can remember my college town's ZIP and the one we had when we had a home on Hilton Head Island. All the rest of my way stops have long ago been erased from my memory or were changed to make any memory of them superfluous.

Stuff We Wished We Had Kept

     Everyone has some possession from their youth which they wished they had kept for posterity. The classic one for guys from the 1960s and 1970s would be their baseball cards. These were items which were purchased five cards to a pack at places like the Corner Store for a nickel and included a stick of gum. I actually still have some of these cards and have been giving them away as gifts for years now. I have encased each one in a plastic holder so they maintain their shape and value. Lucky for me these cards give me the same joy whether I still possess them or not. There is something about knowing you have given someone a good gift that stays with you forever. 

       One thing I didn't save even though I carried them around for years were my record albums. I started collecting them in 1973. My first purchases were Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon, The Allman Brothers' Brothers and Sisters, Grand Funk's We're An American Band, and Don McLean's American Pie. They all made it into the 21st century even though I had nothing to play them on but didn't survive my last move into New York City in 2002. It makes me slightly nostalgic now to see turntables for LPs with USB connections, but the site of these modern marvels don't cause me any regrets. The albums served their purpose and were mostly dust collectors in the end, many were warped and scratched. The artwork on the album covers themselves was the last redeeming feature these old LPs possessed.


     I suppose I am not much of a hoarder or else I would be able to rattle off more stuff that I did keep. A quick look around my office and I spy the first Bible given to me by the Upper Ridgewood Community Church, my high school Yearbook, some photo albums, and a Sportsman flashlight. They are all next to one another on a shelf, as if to neatly remind me of stuff I'm glad I kept.

The Search For Meaning

     As of late when I have had time to ponder my roots I've been using an old copy of the Ridgewood Yellow Book, circa 1975 as a point of reference. It's a little more than 400 pages and contains both the Yellow and White pages of this era and includes the towns of Glen Rock, Ho-Ho-Kus, Franklin Lakes, Waldwick, Saddle River, Midland Park, and Wyckoff. I somehow doubt this same feat could be accomplished today in 400 pages, and I also think people are so programmed to use the Internet that even possessing a Yellow Pages means you like doing things the old fashioned way or don't feel comfortable using the Internet. I consider myself old fashion in some ways but I don't let phone books gather dust in my home any longer.

      While it is true most of the names in my reference have become irrelevant over time there are a surprising number of names I find that still live in the same place some 35 years later.  It makes me feel good to look again at numbers that I once knew by heart because I had dialed them so often. The Warner Theatre, by the way, is still 444-1234.

      My Yellow Book is filled with reminders of how it pays to advertise. Back in 1975 it was taken as a matter of course that a business would take out an ad in the Yellow Pages. Now this is not a certainty, and given the number of different Yellow Books available a potentially costly exercise in Marketing.

      I'd say the biggest difference, besides the overall size, is what wasn't being advertised in 1975 that we now come to expect. By this I mean there are only a hand full of restaurants, and Mama Rosa's Pizza and Renatos are the only two familiar names remaining. The other surprising thing was the number of gas stations which were located in the center of town. Now you have one or two service stations, if my memory serves, and more restaurants than you could possible patronize in a month or two. Though in the case of restaurants we live in an age of eating out so I'm sure some people could probably cover the gamut a bit faster than I'm suggesting.

Storytelling

     It's been said that storytelling is the best protection against forgetting. In our digital age where Google forgets nothing the stories and notices posted to this blog will likely last as long as we do as a civilization. This daunting idea actually inspires me to make the postings as meaningful as I can given the limitations of time and my talents. I may not hit the mark every time but my modest efforts do give me some satisfaction and occasionally hit their mark in ways I can't predict but appreciate just the same. 

      The most recent example was the sharing of my memories of shopping at Perdue's Sport Shop and posting it the same morning on which Walt Perdue passed away quietly in Anna Maria, Florida. It was only the next day when his daughter emailed me that I learned the connection between the events. I was glad they had been able to find and read my story during their time of sorrow, if only to take their minds off their grieving for a moment and to let their thoughts linger around a more cheerful set of circumstances. Maybe all the future postings here won't resonate so loudly in people's hearts and minds, but that will be the aim. I trust that people will let me know when something written here touches their heart or peaks their interest. The stories I collect here are important enough to reside on the Internet for eternity.  I just hope they can accurately depict the people and places which prompted me to write them down in the first place.

RIP Jack Elwood

     Jack Elwood was both my Driver's Education Instructor and my Track Coach. The lessons he taught me regarding driving I still employ today and for those techniques I am grateful to him.  Here is a video shot during the 5K Walk/Run they held in his honor in 2007:

 


Here is the obituary:

Jack Elwood, a much-loved Ridgewood High School (RHS) physical education teacher battling Lou Gehrig’s disease, died on Sunday. He was 59.
Students at Ridgewood High School observed a moment of silence on Monday morning after Elwood’s death was announced.
In May 2003, Elwood was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal neuromuscular disease that causes progressive muscle weakness, eventually leading to paralysis. RHS students, coworkers, friends and family held numerous fund-raisers in recent years to help the teacher and his family, including the well-attended annual Jack Elwood 5K Walk/Run. One of the initial fund-raisers was to build a wheelchair ramp at his home in Oakland.
Elwood, who also was assistant manager at Graydon Pool during the summer months, initially remained teaching at RHS in the early stages of the disease, using a wheelchair. At one of the early fund-raisers, Elwood told the crowd that he and his family were overwhelmed by the community’s support.
"More than [the money], it’s your goodwill, the prayers and constant attention that I get. I can’t walk down the hall a day without someone asking me how I’m doing," he said at the event.
Elwood is survived by his wife, Laura, and daughter Tricia.
Visitation will be held at Feeney Funeral Home in Ridgewood on Tuesday, May 4 from 7 to 9 p.m. and Wednesday, May 5 from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Thursday, May 6 at St. Luke’s R.C. Church in Ho-Ho-Kus.

Here is a Facebook page which was created to honor Jack Elwood.

Perdue's Sport Shop

     The advertisement in the Yellow Pages I possess (circa September 1975) states the Perdue's Sport Shop, besides being Bergen's oldest Pro Shop, was also the place you could buy fishing gear, guns, and ammo. I only mention this because we did patronize Walt Perdue's shop and did in fact buy our guns and ammo from him. Not sure if a store like this still exists in Ridgewood but it wouldn't surprise if they didn't sell guns over at Bernard's, the folks who bought the Perdue name and business a while back. The guns in question were mostly BB guns and one rifle which my older brother and father used to take to the Ridgewood Rifle Club over at 209 Chestnut street.

      We also used to go to Perdue's for the different color baseball caps and iron on letters we required for whatever baseball team we were playing for in the RBA (Ridgewood Baseball Association) Spring league.  

      Perdue's was also famous for the old time car, I believe a Model A which was always parked in front of Perdue's store. Mr Perdue used to drive it in the 4th of July Parade and I believe used it to commute to work. The White Pages of the phone book I am consulting says he lived on Glen Avenue so he didn't have much of a commute. More than likely there wasn't much chance he was going to get stuck in traffic or have to drive the highway. I dare say most men in the community who took the train or bus to work would have gladly swapped rides with him anytime.

      Update 4 May 2010
      This is taken from the tribute paid to Walt Perdue as a member of the RHS Athletic Hall of Fame:

Walt Perdue - Class of 1949

The four-sport athlete was an all-state running back and team co-captain his senior year season when the Maroons had a 6-3 record. He also played defensive back. Perdue capped his career by accounting for 207 of Ridgewood’s 302 yards gained (including two runs of over 60 yards) in the 32-6 Thanksgiving Day victory over Fair Lawn. He scored three touchdowns in the Lodi win.

Perdue played basketball three years, earned two varsity letters in track and one in baseball. He was awarded the RHS Award for Excellence in Athletics in 1949 and also the 18th annual High Y Award. He was offered several scholarships. He sandwiched a stint in the Marine Corps in his college years at Lehigh, playing football in college. He owned Perdue’s Sport Shop in Ridgewood for a number of years.

Bill Lyons Campus Shoe Store

     The first thing you saw when you walked into the Bill Lyons Campus Shoe Store on East Ridgewood Avenue was the fish tank. It was strategically placed, I believe, to grab child's attention while their mother had a chance to check the styles and prices of shoes available. This was another of those old time Ridgewood stores where they recognized you when you came in and they would gladly send you a bill at the end of the month for your day's purchases. No credit cards in this establishment that I can recall. There existed a trust between the proprietor and his customers that extended in my case through my high school years when I could walk in without my mother and still be able to charge a pair of shoes no questions asked. This type of service is long gone in most towns like Ridgewood, sacrificed in order to keep costs under control to compete with the big retailers in the mails. Customer service is expensive to maintain and takes a long time to establish. When you are competing with companies which employ people with little training and at low wages the store proprietor whose motto is "Where Fit Is Important" is at an extreme disadvantage. It is one of Life's ironies: we all like low prices and we all like prompt and courteous customer service, but the two do not always go hand in hand. It takes a skilled retailer who can unabashed tell a customer how the price reflects the value being added by their interaction with store employees. If you add in the ability to shop on the Internet you have an even harder time convincing someone that face-to-face customer service isn't a relic from the previous century.

Mac Hughs Inc. Clothing Store

      A rite of each school year while growing up was a trip to Mac Hughs to buy some new cloths to replace the previous year's school cloths which were either too small or in disrepair. First the Mac Hugh store was in downtown Ridgewood and later they would build their own much larger location across from the Duck Pond. The amazing part were the salesmen who would remember us by face and welcome us back each year. It was even possible to develop favorites among the salesmen since these guys remained at their jobs year in and year out. This was my introduction to what "Customer Service" is all about and to this day Mac Hughs remains a touchstone which I use to discern the relative merit of whatever establishment I patronize. Very few have ever come close to the professionalism and civility which used to be offered by Mac Hughs.

      As times changed and I moved away from Ridgewood my taste in clothing changed to Brooks Brothers and I never returned to Mac Hughs. It's a shame because as I have subsequently learned through experience it is worth the time and effort to go out of your way to receive the kind of attention which the guys at Mac Hughs used to lavish on us. This is true for most things but especially important when it comes to a sense of style in clothing.

      And who can forget the Lucky Bucks we received with each purchase? These could be traded in for various build-them-yourself model kits of cars, boats, and aircraft. Mac Hughs was certainly ahead of its time in knowing that if they could convince children to shop at Mac Hughs by simply rewarding them with the modern day equivalent of the McDonald's Happy Meal, they would build a thriving business via the repeat customers. It certainly worked for a good long time and last I heard the owners retired to Vermont. The Mac Hughs building is now a bank with offices for rent, where kids once used to try on the latest cloths and Lucky Bucks were the coin of the realm.

Innocence and Experience

      Everyone loses their childhood innocence at one time or another, either gradually through the normal course of growing up, or all at once as the result of an unforeseen trauma and disturbance. I count myself lucky to be part of the former group.

      The events I recall which gradually stripped away the vestiges of my innocence and made me come of age:

1. April 4th 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, TN;
2. May 4th 1970 when the shootings took place at Kent State University in Ohio;
3. August 8th 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned as President;
4. April 30th 1975 when Saigon fell and the North Vietnamese took control;
5. June, 1977 when I graduated from Ridgewood High School;
6. June 1978 when my family moved from Ridgewood into Manhattan.

      These events forced me to re-evaluate my untainted, youthful ideas of Life and made me start to realize what the world is really like. Everyone can rightly name their own but these were the ones which stick out in my mind. These events provided me with experiences which hopefully have not made me grow too pessimistic.  There is much to see in terms of joy and wonder in our world. A person like myself only needs to remember the fact that others have been given much harsher introductions to adulthood and have trouble recollecting anything at all which they would care to reminisce about. I am lucky to have been spared such trauma and to feel grateful for my childhood memories.

Graydon Pool Lifeguards

       My pal Kurt created a page on Facebook dedicated to lifeguards who worked at Graydon Pool. Kurt is from the old school of lifeguards, when there were thousands more badge holders than today, before there was an iron fence ringing the pool, and when the guards, in particular his father, knew it was ultimately up to them to maintain order at the pool.

      To say it was different in the 1960s and 1970s than it is today would be an understatement. Back then swimming pools were a novelty, as was central air conditioning, so you had to go to Graydon Pool or the Jersey shore to cool off. "The Pool" or simply "Graydon" was a commons in the traditional sense of the word. It was an environment we all shared in Ridgewood, that no one owned but everyone could enjoy. Graydon was held in trust, and still is, for the current generation as well as future ones. By the very nature of its wide open layout and the fact it was a shared resource it helped promote the idea that we are all part of the same community.

       I'm currently not sure if we can get this shared feeling for Graydon back, even if they construct a concrete bottom for the pool and figure out a way to make it pay for itself. It's not that we don't need a commons any longer. We will always need symbols which promote aspects of our cultural heritage in order to help secure our mutual cooperation in the long-term. The problem here as I see it is we simply don't use Graydon to communicate among ourselves the way we used to do it. We will need a solution which combines the best aspects of Graydon's past with a new purpose which the current generation will understand and thrive within. I believe it behooves us all to re-think the purpose of Graydon and find a way to maintain its central place in Ridgewood for this generation as well as future ones. Graydon Pool is now a beautiful symbol of a bygone era and it would be shame not to give it some deep reflection before we change it irreparably or close it all together.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ridgewood-Graydon-Guards/111923052178143?v=wall&ref=ts

Sweets and Confections

     There was a unspoken tradition among my brothers and I that no pie my mother made every made it past breakfast. It was first come first serve and the pie would be gone, and usually one person did all the damage.

      When I think about and all the candy I ate as a youth it is surprising I was not overweight or afflicted with juvenile diabetes.  I was probably lucky and also living in an era where we burned off on a daily basis all the sugar we consumed.

      As far as pies my favorite has always been pumpkin with whipped cream on top. This was usually associated with Thanksgiving meals but we often insisted having it on other nights when my Mom was baking. Next came cherry, blueberry, and apple, in that order.

     As far as candy I was a Sweet Tart and Milk Dud man, after having grown out of a childhood fascination with Pixie Sticks. Amazing as it might sound for someone from my generation but I never liked bazooka bubble gum and never learned how to blow a proper bubble. Not even the Bazooka Joe comics each piece contained or the act of saving the wrappers in order to mail them away for a prize could change my mind. I did chew a fair amount of other sugary gums, especially that stick which came with a 5 cent pack of Topps Baseball cards. Though I eventually stopped collecting cards and heeded the warning from my dentist and switched to sugarfree gum.

      My tastes have matured as I have grown older but I still love sweets. Though now I am the one who makes them, with my favorites being English Trifle and various types of fruit pies and tarts. Pumpkin still remains my favorite and it always makes me nostalgic. I like to silently reminisce about those first ones I ate after a big Thanksgiving meal in Ridgewood. Also, to show times haven't changed too much I am not above having a piece of my homemade pie for breakfast the next time. Why change a fine tradition?

Sony TR-63 Transistor Radio

     Like many kids growing up in the 1960s who loved baseball but who had a bedtime which prohibited staying up to watch a game that might be broadcast on TV, I often feel asleep with a transistor radio on my pillow, not knowing how the came ended until I read about it in the New York Times the next morning. My parents would come in and turn my radio off when they were ready for bed.

      I listened to baseball games whenever I could and even listened to games which were re-created for the radio audience. I knew the game had already been played but I was so hungry for baseball news that I didn't care.

      When baseball season was over there was 77 WABC with Cousin Bruce Morrow to keep me company before falling asleep. It's nice to know he still plays the airwaves via Satellite Radio and continues to call everyone cousin. He has a rapport with his listeners which most DJs of our day don't have the time or freedom to cultivate. It didn't matter that his play list of songs was short. We turned him on because of his familiar, friendly voice. His warmth and charisma came through loud and clear, even on a tiny little Sony transistor radio with the volume just barely on so our parents wouldn't hear it and decide to come in and turn it off for the night.

The Black Rotary Phone

     Hard to imagine a time when phones like this venerable Model 500 made by Western Electric occupied prime real locations in everybody's home. We had this model upstairs and it had a cable long enough so that it could be moved between my Dad's study and the hallway outside the master bedroom. We also had a white rotary in the kitchen which was hung on the wall. This had both a limited length handset cable and no easy means for moving it, which meant if you were taking a call in the kitchen you had no privacy at all.

      I dare say when current and future generations look back on our phones from this era they will wonder how we did it. They will wonder about the lack of portability, ring tones, colors, and the fact most houses had a single phone number. And who can forget being on the phone and having somebody mistakenly pick up the phone in the other part of the house and then have to quickly apologize for interrupting the conversation? These sort of things just don't happen anymore. Now we have people who sit in the same room and text one another in order to communicate. I wonder if that is progress?

      I do like all of our new phones and all the tasks like email and searching the web which they are capable of accomplishing. Though I would one day like a working replica Model 500 phone in my future home. It would have to be able to perform the digital tasks required by our modern phones because the phone company as a rule doesn't install rotary phones any longer. I am sure there are some still out there but they are slowly but surely being replaced. My wish for a rotary phone is entirely an aesthetic choice, not that they were pleasing to look at only that I am old school and having one would match my style.

       This is from Wikipedia:

"Originally, the 500 was available only in black and had a rotary dial with a black-painted metal fingerwheel (black remained the most popular color throughout the model's production,[citation needed] and the Model 500 has been affectionately nicknamed by some as "the black brick"[citation needed]). Within a few years the Model 500 was available in a variety of colors, and the metal finger wheel was replaced with a clear plastic rotary dial, by about 1964."

Monetizing the Ephemeral Joys of Childhood

      As some of you may know, I have been in the Information Technology business since the early 1990s. With this much experience you would be correct that I have seen many trends come and go. I have also built up a fair reservoir of knowledge about the nuts and bolts of how the Internet works and how it can be made more secure.

      Though with all this knowledge I still don't understand the intricacies of how companies like Google make money selling ads on the Internet. To try and fill this gap in my knowledge I accepted an offer from Amazon to monetize this blog.

       Here is what Amazon says about this new integration with Blogger:

Once the service is enabled, you can either create a new Amazon Associate account or link an existing account. Then when you go to write a blog post, an Amazon box will appear on the right side of the screen. You can find items on Amazon using the search box, and add them to your blog posts with a single click. You can choose to add just a text-based link, a product image, or a link + product image.

This is going to make it way easier for Blogger users to post affiliate links in their posts, and so there's a pretty good chance we're going to start seeing an explosion of Amazon links on Blogspot sites. If you're worried this is going to lead to an explosion of irrelevant, spammy links, Google is way ahead of you. The blog post announcing the new program points out that "affiliate programs work well when readers trust you," and suggests users avoid posting items simply for the affiliate fees, lest their blogs start to look like they only exist to make money for the author.

      I love the part about how affiliate programs work well when readers trust you. My comeback is, "how much will they trust me in the future when I start inserting ads for Amazon Best Sellers inside posts recalling days gone bt?" How sincere can my postings be, especially ones filled with descriptions of activities we used to cherish but haven't given much thought to as of late? I guess we'll see how it goes and if it just ends up as one more attempt by a writer to sell his soul in order to garner a little attention. Maybe I can keep it more dignified than this and maybe with a little luck I will never be inspired to include an Amazon ad in one of these entries.

      In the end I'll probably just chalk the entire exercise up to research about my chosen profession and if a dollar happens to comes my way I figure out some appropriate use for it.

School Lunches

       I didn't have the option of eating school lunches until I began attending George Washington Junior High School in the autumn of 1971. Until that time I went home like most everyone else at Willard and ate whatever my Mom was offering that particular day. It seems quaint to look back on this time when a stay-at-home Mom would make lunch for her children, and sometimes their friends, too. Some people blame school lunches for the obesity problem we see now with children. They have a point if you consider all the energy we burned during our lunch hour, where now the kids must sit and probably watch TV or play on their computers. It doesn't take a math whiz to calculate the fact that if these same children lived when I grew up then they would be outside much more of the time and burning many more calories than they do now. This is not a slap at these kids in the slightest. They have been dealt a hand and now are being forced to play it, even as the pounds add up at an earlier age. 

     Our school lunches at GW were probably no more nutritious than the ones being served today. Kids then as now could decide for themselves to just eat ice cream and tater tots and throw whatever lunch they brought in the garbage can. The big difference is the seven years of walking home for lunch which I experienced and the children today don't have as an option. This is where the problem lies, and it won't be changed easily because of all the two-earner households we have today. We can't send the kids home to make lunch for themselves so we have to provide lunches in the schools. Here's hoping that we can better educate our kids to make more nutritious choices and save the tater tots for special occasions. English Chef Jamie Oliver has the right idea and if you have a chance to catch his show Food Revolution you will probably become hooked on it like I have. He is literally spending his own cash to promote a campaign to get better food into homes, schools and communities all over America and give our kids a better future. Check it out because I don't see the return of a stay-at-home Mom revolution beginning anytime soon so we better grab what we can and see if we can make it work.

Reconnecting With The Past

     After giving some consideration to all the observations I have gathered these last four years of writing this blog, reading the feedback (privately or publicly conveyed to me) I can categorically say that there is a huge need for remembrance. Even if it is accomplished via a humble blog about growing up in the suburbs of Jersey in the 1960s and 70s. There is a certain psychological wisdom to remembrance. If you need any more proof just take a look at our calendar and you will see that it is filled with days dedicated to this act. We need this time in order to manage the rest of our lives on a daily basis. If we didn't stop and pause once and a while about events long past then our lives would comprise a series of actions done by rote and likely lacking in style or grace. This all begs another question: Should you try to reconnect with your past when you sometimes simply feel overwhelmed just trying to keep up with your present life? In sports lingo, this would be called a "gimme" in my opinion. The answer is most certainly Yes! Of course, reconnect with times long gone and linger in those memories for as long as it is practical. There is no harm remembering a simpler era, like I do with this blog, or in attempting to reaffirm old friendships via the Internet, US Mail, or a simple phone call out of the blue. What is harmful is not making any attempts. Think about things you regret in life, are they mostly things you did or are they things you wished you had said or done? The answer, if you are like most people, is the latter. So go ahead and try to "Friend" people on FaceBook for example. Or use Google and find out someone's possible mailing address or phone number. This is all easier than you might think. Even if you come across someone who just wants to be left alone, at least in your own mind you know you tried. What's more, you still can reflect upon the pleasant memories you once had of this person. You will be the better for it, this I can guarantee. One more thing, if you can supply one jot of writing (you may ask to remain anonymous) which describes our "moments of glad grace" as Yeats would say, then please send them to me, even in their rawest form. I will attempt to give them some shape and hopefully the result will be of use in furthering someone's recollection of a time well spent.

The Corner Store

      It's had countless owners over the last 50 years and more than a few names, but to its customers it was either the "Corner Store" or the Little Store." There truly must be thousands of people who can claim when they walk through its doors today on the corner of Erie Ave and Glen Ave that they can remember patronizing it as a child. Parents would only go there in a pinch as the prices were much higher than in the Supermarkets. This was a lesson lost on most kids until they started earning paychecks themselves and had families of their own to support. 

     Today the Corner Store is the home of Parkwood Catering. It still serves its "Little Store" function for the neighborhood kids but supplements its income with a variety of catering offerings. To show how times have changed, I can't recall ever going to a catered party in Ridgewood, except for the annual Fish n Chips dinners held on Election Day at the Upper Ridgewood Community Church. These weren't exactly catered affairs as the Moms helped out the two paid professional ladies who fried all the fish and fries. The Moms plated everything and volunteer teenagers would act as waiters and waitresses and bring the food to people at the long tables. There was one other paid job: running the dish washer. This was a task no Mom would ever do for an event of this size so they would find a teenager, like myself, to run the machine and stack the dishes at the end of the night. Of course, this work was completed under the supervision of the Moms in attendance who would still be wiping down the counters like they were their own. I did attend plenty of parties while growing up in Ridgewood but it was a Mom or a combination thereof who were the caterers. Little did they know that the next generation of Moms in Ridgewood would come to rely so heavily upon other people to plan and prepare food for their parties. While much can be said for the certainty and uniformity of the food purchased from caterers, you absolutely lost the randomness that always accompanied events with multiple chefs. For instance, no caterer would ever bring a green jello in a mold to an event, but you could usually count on at least one at a block party, open house, or church social event. Names weren't attached to these dishes so in the likely occurrence that they went untouched there was not a lot of embarrassment or complaining to a caterer as to why they would ever make such a dish. No, the social event itself was the matter of chief concern and the fact food was being offered was a bonus. Since there were a lot fewer professional restaurateurs in those days than there are now, the organization of a typical Ridgewood party was shared and everybody attending always politely asked what they could do to help. The division of labor in that era was fairly straightforward: the men liked to hover around the charcoal grills, if it was summertime, and the party was held outside; the women would usually gravitate towards the kitchen to make sure all the food and utensils made it to the appropriate locations. Cleanup was also a communal activity though by the end of the party the hosts were usually so tired they would try and tell people that they would finish the clean up themselves. This I imagine was said in order to expedite their guest's departures. Though the social custom at the time was for the faithful friends to utter cries of "We'll help" and that they would hear no more about the hosts doing it all themselves. I would imagine this was mostly done out of righteous concern for the hosts and partly by the fact that the next party might be their turn to host.

Drawn to a Larger Scale

     When you are growing up in a town like Ridgewood you are usually too young, and no where near reflective enough, to understand why so few people return to raise a family in Ridgewood of their own after they graduate high school. It's easy now to say how expensive it is and that the taxes can only be afforded by the truly wealthy, or at least a two salary family. Since I grew up in a one salary family and am not a person with an old Wall Street salary the idea of settling down in Ridgewood never really crossed my mind. Though there can be plenty of other perfectly fine reasons like wanting to experience life in other parts of the country or the world. Don't get me wrong, Ridgewood is still a nice place to live in and visit, but I put the idea out of my mind early on in my twenties of ever living there when I started doing the math and ascertained there was a probable need for two incomes to pay the freight. My ultimate rational being that if I was going to raise a family in Ridgewood I wanted it to be one I could recognize, and one which would have at least one parent at home. Call me old school if you like. It just came down to wanting a similar experience, not exactly the same, to what I had while growing up. 

      I reasoned if I couldn't do it based upon my expectations then I figured there were plenty of other ways to lead one's life. For the record I am happily ensconced in Forest Hills, NY with no regrets as to never having had a second act in Ridgewood. Second acts in life are rare to begin with, and many people make themselves unhappy by trying to top themselves by attempting a return to familiar surroundings, even if they do it unconsciously and with no desire to do it better or the same. I actually lucked out by moving here to Forest Hills after I was married (in Ridgewood as a matter of fact). It took some soul searching but it dawned on me that I would have felt a great regret if I had never lived in New York City on my own. I may have been borne in Manhattan and had numerous opportunities to crash in my parent's apartment in Greenwich Village during my college days, but these wouldn't have counted in my mind as having lived in New York City. My wife and I have been here for over eight years and we still delight in the energy and happenings of this city. We understand that this sort of life is not for everyone, but neither is the life found these days in Ridgewood. Both are good, they are just different. It comes down to understanding what is the proper sort of scale and proportion you'll feel comfortable living in and then going out and trying to make it happen. This is the sort of life lesson you can tell to an adolescent but until they are confronted with their own set of choices they won't really understand. One can easily say that much of life is like this, and after a while, if we have adjusted well, we come to accept it.

The Van Sickle Sisters

Judy, Lisa, and Susan

Keepers of the Flame

     All it takes now is a glance down the left side of this blog and you will see a fair number of web sites and blogs all related to Ridgewood and its neighbor Hohokus. There are plenty of others I am sure and they will be added in good time. I'm still not sure this is the best platform to do this sort of accounting of events but it is the best one I have found to date. Of course, I am open to suggestions. All the sites listed have the same intent that this one does: be a bulletin board, web portal, and diary. Some sites emphasize one aspect more than others, while I simply go with the flow and try to chronicle it all. I never sit down in front of the keyboard and try to do anything but what is on my mind or has come to my attention. This serendipitous approach keeps me fresh and interested in continuing this pursuit. It also allows me to explore trains of thought that I might have ignored otherwise. I anticipate this particular blog will continue to slowly grow and will add more regular contributors, including a female prospective. For now, what we have going is fine and I appreciate all the supportive email I receive from old pals who check in to tell me they find this interesting and that I should keep up my efforts. I'll do my best to inform readers of what I see going on, to point them to web sites which might be of direct interest, and entertain them (I hope!) from time to time with a picture or story. This is the least I can do to keep some pleasant memories alive and to help folks who sometimes take their current lives too seriously, myself included. Who knows, we might one day use this platform, or the next generation of Social Networking tools that are created to produce some random acts of kindness. Another way of stating this is that we might "Pay It Forward" as a movie of a few years back intended to demonstrate. I'll end this post with a quote from Albert Schweitzer which I trust is apropos :

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into a flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.

Doug Perkins

One of the best parts of graduating in a class of over 550 students, as we did in 1977, is the randomness with which former classmates sometimes re-enter your life. Combine this naturally occurring phenomenon with the search capabilities of Google and the living scrapbook which is FaceBook and you can begin to see why people spend loads of time on the Internet. Today I was told the whereabouts of an old gradeschool pal from my Willard days, Doug Perkins (pictured on the left). We used to kid him in grade school by calling him "Nature Boy." This was for his prolific memory and love of the outdoors. Who would have thought that he would have decided to settle in Vermont? The link below is to the musical group, the Jazz Mandolin Project, he has primarily played with for the last 15 years. Way to go, Doug. Doug Perkins of the Jazz Mandolin Project

Faith in the Future

      A mainstream theme while growing up in the 1960s and 1970s was our collective faith in our country's future. We had elegant symbols like the World's Fair in Flushing Meadows (Queens, NY) and exciting moments like when we had men walk on the moon. These two alone suggested future prosperity and a common sense of community. Who can forget waking up early to watch space craft launches? It took precedence over getting ready for school and for work. We all stood around in our PJs and bathrobes while we waited for the countdown and eventual combustion of the propellants which would launch the craft into outer space. Today we are unquestionably a richer society in the aggregate than in those earlier days. The faith in the future we had was certainly justified and has borne fruit beyond our wildest dreams. What's more, it is still justified in my opinion. Yes, those were simpler times in many respects, despite the technological advances represented by our space flights. There were fewer distractions than we have today, no I-Phones, countless TV stations, and the vastness of The Internet to consume large amounts of our collective time and energies. Though one question continues to make me wonder, "How does our sense of community today compare?" 

     I am going to assume collective experiences and our inter-dependency are good things, and by sharing them they help us through difficult societal transitions. For instance, like ending segregation by race, and allowing women to have options in addition to being a stay-at-home Moms, to name two. No doubt there are issues, large and small, today which we still must face. These current problems will likely require the same sense of duty and commitment, if not more so, than that we mustered in the recent past. This is really no surprise to anyone who keeps up with world affairs. The follow-up question is, "Do we still possess the expertise and capacity to solve our current problems?" As an optimist, I will answer yes. Though the pragmatist in me realizes that a personal investment will need to be made by everyone involved. These efforts will be aided, as they usually are, by easily identifiable common symbols. This is where my grounds for optimism requires some clarity, because I can't see which common symbols people will feel compelled to rally around. Maybe the answer is that the symbols will be smaller and more localized than in the past, and there will be more of them to choose from. The end result will hopefully be the same as in the past when we were doing the highly visible space exploration projects. People saw themselves then watching those early morning space launches as members of a group who were intent on producing positive, lasting changes. Their efforts, however tangential, felt significant and like they would long endure. This is the sort of feeling which will need to be re-created for us to continue to have a justifiable faith in our future. The efforts I know are going on as we speak. All it requires is for each one of us to look around and see how we can best help.

Stephanie Jones Strategies

      Here is a plug for a fellow RHS 1977 graduate, Stephanie Jones. She always has had a can do it attitude so it came as no surprise to see her make this announcement today on FaceBook. "Stephanie Jones Strategies, LLC empowers businesses, non-profits, industry associations, government and individuals to bridge the gaps between here and wherever they need to be. Blending bedrock knowledge, keen-eyed insight, concrete credentials and solid contacts - attained through more than 25 years in policy, government, law, education and the media - Stephanie Jones paves the way for clients to advance from objective to success! Stephanie Jones Strategies launches on May 3, 2010."

Earth Day 40 Years Later

       It's hard to imagine that 40 years have sped by since the first Earth Day. On the first one there was much less rancor than there is today whenever the environment is mentioned. The first Earth Day was designed to be a Teach-in and I remember it as a time when we all were learning about things we could do like not litter and to be more conscious of things we tossed in the trash like batteries. 40 years later those are minor points and now there are two sides to issues concerning the environment, both sides with their feet dug in deep. Here is the link to the official web site. Here is a tidbit from Wikipedia: "On 22 April 1970, Earth Day marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Approximately 20 million Americans participated. Denis Hayes and his staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values." I like the part about "shared common values" the best. If only we could begin and end our debates these days about topics like Global Warming with a statement that says we realize that we share common values and that the goal of our discussions should be to unite, not divide; the goal should be to respect one another's opinions, not make fun of Al Gore; the goal should be to teach each another what can be done by us all no matter how small and insignificant it might appear.

Ironies in Our Lives

      Growing up, if you are fortunate, you are surrounded by people who know all your faults but love you anyway. We notice the inherent irony of this situation many years later when we are surrounded by people who know our faults but who treat us less than kindly. What is it about all the accumulated education and experience that routinely causes this occur? One would think we would become more compassionate regarding everyone's faults, including our own, as "we grow old and grey and full of sleep" as Yeats would say. The bitterest irony is that our harshest critics are sometimes ourselves. Again, with all the education one would think we could at least cut ourselves some slack. I am as guilty as anyone of this character trait and am working to change it. To this end I resolve to surround myself with reminders of my idyllic childhood growing up in a home with a stay-at-home Mom, and a baseball field I could see from my bedroom window. To make this easier I took an idea from Bill Nolan and had this picture framed and placed in my office just like he did. You will notice him kneeling in the first row. I realize I have posted this picture more than once but it does have a certain positive energy emanating from it well worth the re-posting. It also shows many of the people who knew me best as a youngster; those people whose affection was genuine, and whose presence in my life will likely never be replaced.

Complexity and Aging

     Remember when your friends were a bike ride away? I sure do. While I like to reminisce about those carefree and halcyon days, I understand that its therapeutic value is its most important aspect. To recall the times when both parents were alive does my heart good. If an occasional recollection worth blogging about comes to mind then all the better. It is a complex process this aging we all go through. We all adjust to it differently and approach it with our own individualistic mindset. My view after more than 50 years on this planet is that we need to be grateful for what we have and not rue the fact that we don't have more money, power, and expensive diversions. I would personally take having my friends a bike ride away once again rather than have all the power and luxuries in the world. Maybe we will all ride together again in some retirement community. Hopefully we will all be communicating via some form of Social Networking when we have gone to live in a retirement community or have simply retired. The reunions we have every 5 years or so are truly not enough to nurture our long standing friendships or knock the deposits off of friendships which long ago become rusted. Yes, I believe in the power of the Internet and the ability of Social Networks to be the WD40 for our generation and those to come. Give it a try and you might see what I mean.

Ho-Ho-Kus Stone Fort Train Station

Photos by jlechner201

I had never heard the Ho-Ho-Kus Train Station called a "Stone Fort" until I googled a picture of it today. It does look like a stone fort now that I think about.

My Dad, along with many others, did the commute to New York City from this station. I don't know how he did it for 17 years but those were different times and a different generation's way of doing things. I'm sure the current group of commuters from Ho-Ho-Kus have the same things in mind: college tuition, retirement, and a bit of money to hand down to the next generation.

I rode this train into Hoboken many times myself. Now the ride has a new stop in Secaucus which allows for a transfer to a train which goes to mid-town Manhattan. My favorite part of this trip is the Water Taxi, which is an alternative to the Path Trains under the Hudson. It is akin to the Ferrys which were used as early as 1775 to move people from Hoboken to New York, only now it is quite a bit faster and much less dangerous. Here is an undated photo of what is described as "The Old Hoboken Terminal"















Here is a shot of the restored Hoboken Terminal Waiting Room


This is a bit of history courtesy of Wikipedia:

"Designed by architect Kenneth M. Murchison in the Beaux-Arts style, the rail and ferry terminal buildings were constructed in 1907 as the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The terminal building is listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places (added in 1973 as #73001102 as the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad and Ferry Terminal). It has been undergoing extensive renovations which are projected for completion in 2011.

The large main waiting room, with its floral and Greek Revival motifs in tiled stained glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany set atop bands of pale cement, is generally considered one of the finest in the U.S. aesthetically. The terminal exterior extends to over four stories and has a distinguished copper-clad façade with ornate detailing. Its single-story base is constructed of rusticated Indiana limestone. A grand double stair with decorative cast-iron railings within the main waiting room provides an entrance to the upper-level ferry concourse.

A 225-foot (69 m) clock tower was originally built with the terminal over a century ago, but was dismantled in the early 1950s due to structural damage and deterioration from weather damage. A new clock tower, replicating the original, was constructed during the terminal's centennial year of 2007 and was fully erect that November. The replica tower has four foot high copper letters spelling out "LACKAWANNA", which are lit at night."