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Messages - semafore

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Hackensack History / Re: Kiddie Wonderlands (River Edge)
« on: June 28, 2019, 04:22:43 PM »
In the summer of 1954, the year before I turned 14 (and would be legally allowed to work), I learned that Kiddie Wonderland would "hire" underage boys to work the pony track. My mother insisted I find some work and it was she who learned about the jobs. In addition to walking the ponies around a dirt track when Kiddie Wonderland was open, we were responsible for grooming and feeding the ponies and mucking out the stables. It was hard work, but we had a lot of down time to screw around. On one rainy day, when KW was closed, all us boys went to the movie together and discovered that no-one would sit near us because we smelled like horses! We were NOT paid an hourly wage but paid according to what the owner thought was fair (???), based on how crowded KW was over the week. . It was a fun summer. The owner liked having young boys around (?) and even took a bunch of us to a pony farm when he was purchasing ponies. Since there were usually 5 or 6 of us, with a lot of down time, it was like working on a farm in the middle of Hackensack.

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Hackensack Discussion / Re: Anderson Park 360º photo
« on: March 30, 2011, 07:33:23 AM »
Great image! Now that you have adopted 21st Century digital photographic methods, you should consider making stereo (3D) photos using your new Canon camera. These are absurdly easy to take (identical photos taken by shifting the camera the distance between your eyes by taking the first image on your left foot and the second on your right foot, the cha cha method, or a tripod using the slide bar method) and viewing the images either as prints (2X3, 4X6, 5X7, 8X10) or as stacked images on a flat screen computer using View Magic viewers.  (http://www.berezin.com/3d/ViewMagic.htm). Smaller prints can be viewed using antique stereopticons found in many antique shops. If you can get people to sit still for the few seconds it takes to take two photos (adults are worst than children) you can really get some fun images of people. Formally boring photos (like decorated Christmas Trees) come to life when you can see every individual decoration jump out at you. Professional photographers I know often take stereo photos of scenes that they publish as single images. You can even take 3D panoramic images. Enjoy!

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Hackensack Discussion / Re: North Hackensack Pathmark to close
« on: February 19, 2011, 04:40:23 PM »
Another icon of my youth disappears! I worked as a cashier at this store in the late 1950s when it was an A&P. I was there during the 100th anniversary of A&P. It was a great job, the people were great and the company allowed me to work weekends while going to college. The union was strong then and I continued to get yearly raises even working just on Saturdays.

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Hackensack Discussion / Re: Louis's Barber Shop
« on: February 05, 2011, 09:56:06 AM »
 Louis was my only barber from when I started kindergarden at Fairmount  (in the 1940s) until I went off to college. What I remember most was watching his TV while getting my hair cut, always tuned to baseball games which were, of course, played in the daytime.  In all those years I don’t remember Louis ever talking to me.

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Hackensack History / Re: Carmen's Old Stein Restaurant
« on: November 28, 2010, 07:13:45 PM »
Carmen's Old Stein Restaurant was the place to go for pizza in the 40s and 50s. I still remember the taste of the birch beer served at the bar. It was the only place our family ever "ate out".

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Hackensack History / Re: The Record's mini-nod to Packard's
« on: November 17, 2010, 06:59:57 AM »
I have an additional, but different, memory of the wine department at Packards. In the summer of 1952, when I was 13 and too young to get “working papers”, at the not-so-gentle urging of my mother to do something useful I joined a group of local boys at Packards who carried out groceries for tips. It was a very lucrative summer, the highlight of which was getting a trunk load of returnable soda bottles as a tip (75 cents worth). Packards turned a blind eye to the practice until some of the boys injured themselves on broken bottles in the storeroom of the wine department (I wasn’t involved and can only guess why they were there) and banished the practice.


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Hackensack History / Re: E. Frederick Morrow
« on: October 24, 2010, 09:13:36 AM »
I, too ,ordered a copy of he book “Way Down South Up North” from Amazon and found it a fascinating read. The title is apt. The Hackensack I grew up in was very racist and I grew up assuming that that was the way things were supposed to be.
 I attended Fairmount School from 1944 to 1954 and I don't remember ever seeing one Black student. During Thanksgiving conversation with our relatives, the fact that the catchment boundaries for attendance to Fairmount were frequently shifted to exclude certain neighborhoods (wink, wink) was widely applauded.
I was surprised to read that Frederic Morrow’s sister, Nellie Catherine Morrow was the first Black teacher in the Hackensack school system and the uphill battle she had just to be able to practice teach to get her teaching certificate. Also disturbing was how the Black community failed to support Nellie Morrow’s quest to become a teacher in the Hackensack school system. There were some White “heroes”, albeit reluctant heroes, in this book. Dr. William Stark, Superintendent of Schools, who helped Ms. Morrow get a practice teaching assignment and, again, helped her get a teaching job in the Hackensack School System. John Steinhilber, athletic director in the 1920s (and still there in the 1950s) encouraged him to concentrate on doing a good job and ignore the taunts, Black and White. The most disturbing aspect of the book were the attitudes of Black students in the 1920s (and, unfortunately, still today) that education is a White thing and Blacks who seek to study are trying to be White. I tutor at a Charter school in Indianapolis and still find this attitude is still a roadblock to getting Black students excited about competing academically.
Dr. Morrow was very pessimistic in 1973 about whether anything would ever change in Black/White relationships.  I hope, if her were still alive, that he would be more optimistic today.
 

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Online Auctions/Local Images (Moderated by BLeafe) / Re: Thanks Bob
« on: February 13, 2010, 08:43:14 AM »
Bob's photos of the minutia of Hackensack life today is one reason I logon once a day. I really enjoy the commentary accompanying the photos as well. Maybe we should have a Bob Leafe Appreciation Day,  meet at the White Manna and buy him all the hamburgers (?) he can eat in an hour. 

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Thanks! I'm sure you are right. I did remember that she had an unusual name (for the time). Now I can unrack my brain.

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I have been racking my brain to try to remember the name of the hardware store near the above location. In the 40s and 50s it was owned and run by a woman who knew where every nut, bolt and nail was in the store. She seemed very old to me then but was probably in her 50s. Does anyone remember the name of the store?

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Hackensack Discussion / Re: The 2009 Columbus Day Parade
« on: October 09, 2009, 08:19:42 AM »
To answer my own question, there are two photos of the white fire engine among the images on the Hackensack History site which seem identical except for the lettering on the door.

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Hackensack Discussion / Re: The 2009 Columbus Day Parade
« on: October 09, 2009, 08:06:03 AM »
Columbus Day parades are much rarer in the midwest and are a fond memory of my youth in Hackensack. Thanks for the great photos. BTW, is the white fire engine photographed the same vehicle that the Hackensack fire department had in the 40s and 50s, which was called Snow White?

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Hackensack Discussion / Bergen Academies
« on: March 03, 2009, 02:18:31 PM »
I just discovered that Bergen Academies was located at the site that was formerly Bergen Tech (I've been away a long time!). When did this happen? Is BA a college prep school now? Where is vocational training carried out?

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Thanks for the photo of the Hackensack Pool. Although I only went a few times in the 1940s, I still remember the Mexican Hat candies that were sold at the refreshment stand and the skin-peeling sunburn I got in those pre-sun block days.

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Hackensack History / Re: On a lighter note...food nostalgia
« on: March 01, 2009, 06:16:45 PM »
For all those lovers of B&W Crumb Cake, Road Food singled out B&W's crumb cake on their website.
http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overview.aspx?RefID=5020

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