Memories of "Ancient" Riverdale

In 1998 a Riverdale School student interviewed me via email about life in "ancient" Riverdale (when I was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s). She used the interview for a project on Riverdale's 75th anniversary. Here is the text of that interview, in case anyone is interested in learning about Riverdale in "the old days." (I am just 49!) The comments here were not written in anticipation of any Save Federal Hill campaign. -- Cal Deal

1. How long have you lived in Riverdale?

I lived in Riverdale from 1952, when I was about 3, to 1969, when I left to join the Air Force during the Vietnam War. In 1973, after getting out of the Air Force, I moved back for a short time, and that was it. My parents continued to live in Riverdale until 1980. They now live in Hobe Sound, Florida, about 90 miles north of me.

2. Did you go to Riverdale School? If so what sports were you involved
in?
I went to Riverdale School from 1955 until 1962. There were no school-organized sports teams that I recall (I am not exactly a sports nut), but I did belong to the Little League for a number of years.

3. When did you leave Riverdale?
In 1973 I moved to a temporary place north of Piccatinny Arsenal. Later I moved to Clifton, where I was working at The Herald-News as a reporter. Then to Florida.

4. What were some special things that happened in Riverdale when you were presently living there?

NEWS EVENTS:
A. The landslide at the stone quarry on Hamburg Turnpike in 1956. I remember that I was playing behind the school when that occurred. There was this big roar, and I think the ground even shook, and I looked over toward the quarry and saw a big cloud of dust rising. A huge piece of the mountainside had fallen on some workers. Three men were crushed to death in that tragedy. I believe it made national news.

B. In the late 1950s or early 1960s, the gas pipeline blew up somewhere in the mountains behind the school. I was at home having dinner with my family when I heard a huge explosion. It was followed by a loud roar that did not stop for a very long time. This was during the Cold War, when everybody was taking about building bomb shelters and worrying about a nuclear missile attack by the Russians. Believe it or not, my first impression/fear was that I had just heard a nuclear bomb go off. It was THAT loud! An hour or two later they evacuated the town and we went to my grandmother's house in Pompton Plains until everything was under control. We had to spend the night there.

C. Richard Nixon came to town in 1964. He was campaigning for Barry Goldwater, who was running for president. Nixon was the former vice president of the U.S. at the time, and in 1962 had lost the California governor's race. He came to Valley Spring Lake (does that still exist?) where they were holding the Senator Thomas J. Hillary Clambake, a big annual political event. I was about 13 at the time and walked up to the lake with my friend Jim Cucci. We stood along Route 23 at the entrance to the lake, where one police officer was stationed. At about 7 p.m. we saw some police motorcycles come around the bend, followed by a big, black limousine. As the limo turned I could see Nixon and his wife Pat in the back seat. There were only three of us standing out there along the highway, including the policeman, and Nixon waved to us. As he did so, the frame of the car got in the way, so he turned around in the back seat and waved to us again. I thought that was pretty nice of him. After the limousine disappeared from view, the policeman suggested that if we wanted to see Nixon up close, we might just sneak down through the woods ... which we did. I wound up in the crowd between Nixon and the stage, and as he came by, I shook his hand. We stayed and listened to the speech, about which I remember nothing, and that was it. That was the first political event I ever attended, and it was a very interesting experience for a kid.

NICE THINGS:
A. The Memorial Day parades. Those were the nicest, small-town America thing about Riverdale, and I still get a warm fuzzy feeling when I think about them. I marched in a bunch of them, and I used to enjoy going to Borough Hall for the free hot dogs that they gave out afterward to anyone who showed up. I wonder if they still do that. It was always a very special and exciting day, and I've often thought that I'd like to go back there and see one more of them.

B. The Kinnelon vs. Riverdale Marathon Softball Game, Aug. 27-28, 1965. I remember that date because I still have the scorecard! It was 32 1/2 innings long and ended at 2:30 a.m. when it started to rain. Final score: Riverdale 79, Kinnelon 52. I think it was held to raise money for some charity. Someone ought to challenge Kinnelon to another game so you can whip 'em again!

C. Sitting atop Federal Hill. I loved to climb up there. It's about 500 feet above sea level, and you can see the New York skyline and most of the town. Somebody ought to make that into a nice park so the general public can enjoy it as much as I did. Of course, these days I would be overlooking an interstate highway and listening to the traffic roar by, so maybe that isn't such a good idea. I have not seen the destruction caused by that highway, and I'm really not looking forward to seeing it, either.

D. The day the circus came to town in 1955 or 1956. I was in kindergarten at the time and, of course, didn't have a clue that a circus was coming. Because the school was overcrowded, the kindergarten was in the church building across Newberry Place, opposite the ball field. One day we looked out the windows, which look across the rear of the school property. To our 5-year-old shock we saw ELEPHANTS walking around behind the school. A spaceship could have landed and we would not have been more amazed! Huge elephants were right there in our very own schoolyard, walking behind our very own school! None of us had even seen one before, and here they were walking around in our little town. It was just incredible.

E. Speaking of Newberry Place (the name of which I had to look up on a map, I've been away so long), I remember Mr. Newberry himself. (I'm assuming the street is named after him or his family.) I used to go to his house every now and then. It's a big place opposite Parkway Entrance. He had souvenirs from World War I and lots of interesting stuff he had collected. I took snapshots of some of it, which I still have. He had glass cases in a room upstairs. He was an interesting and very nice old man.



5. Was your job in Riverdale? What was your job?
My very first job was in Riverdale. I was ... believe it or not ... turkey plucker! Yup, I pulled the feathers off those darned things and got 25 cents for my trouble. That's 25 cents per afternoon! I used to live at the south end of Parkway, No. 33, and behind our house was a small farm, the remnants of a much larger farm. It extended from Post Lane to the Dedio house, about halfway up Mead Avenue. There were apple trees, and cherry trees and grapevines. A gravel driveway ran up the middle of the property, and there was a little white outhouse in the middle of everything. Directly behind our house was a chicken coop, and there were about four or five other chicken and turkey coops on the property.

Maurice Williams was the owner's name, and his brother Cordy lived on the property too. Cordy had been blinded in an explosion at a Dupont plant, as I recall, and spent his days in a small room off the garage listening to the radio and chewing on tobacco. Every now and then Cordy would call me up and ask me to pick him up some ice cream.

Maurice supplied people with eggs, chicken and turkey, and a few times, when things got busy, he had me come over and help him. We'd go back into the big turkey coop and he'd find a bird that was about the right size. He'd grab it, carry it outside and kill it (I'll spare you the details). In one building he had a garbage can full of boiling water. He'd dunk the turkey into the water several times to soften the feathers. Then he'd hang it up by its feet and I'd take over, pulling out every last little feather.

When I was done, Maurice would put the bird on a table and gut it. I vividly remember one day when he working on a bird and had the innards lying on the table. He reached into the warm pile, pulled out the gizzard ... and took a bite out of it! Yuk! He held it out in my direction and asked me if I wanted some. I said no. (The gizzard is a bluish and yellow thing that the bird uses to grind up food; ground-up meal can be found inside of it.)

My next job was as a newspaper boy for Trends. My route was along Newark-Pompton Turnpike, from Newberry Place to Hamburg Turnpike, and all of the streets on the west side, plus Hamburg Turnpike west to the railroad tracks. The paper would come out on Thursday and Sunday, and I would get up early to deliver them. It was quite a job, lugging 60 heavy Sunday papers all that way on wintry mornings. Sometimes my Dad would drive me around when the weather was really bad.

It was that job that got me into the news business, though. I remember one day when a shopping center in Pompton Plains burned down. It happened on a Saturday, and Trends had a big front-page story and headline the next day. I was quite proud that my little paper was first with the story, and I made sure I placed each and every one of those papers on the front stoop so the headline could be seen from a distance. I was getting the news bug.

One morning I went out to get my bundle of papers and the carrier boy newsletter was stuck on the top of it. I was shocked to see my name on the cover as "Carrier Boy of the Month." Later they made me "Carrier Boy of the Year" and put my picture on calendars that went all over North Jersey.

One day I saw an ad in Trends for high school columnists (no pay). I mulled it over a little bit and thought it would be interesting, so I applied. Unfortunately, someone else got the job first. Lucky for me, a few weeks later she "pooped out" on them, according to an editor, and Trends called and asked if I was still interested. I was! In December of 1965, on the morning my first column was to appear, I was very excited. I got the newspaper, opened it up and was terribly disappointed  I mean really, really disappointed! They had forgotten to take my predecessor's name off of the "sig," so my first column had a girl's byline on it!

As I got more comfortable with the column, I started to expand it by writing small feature stories. It was a good thing, because the editors at Trends took notice. In the summer of 1966  between my junior and senior years of high school   Trends needed someone to cover Borough Council and Board of Education meetings. They asked if I would be interested. I had never been to a Borough Council meeting and I was too young to drive, but I accepted the job. If they thought I could do it, who was I to disagree? At my first meetings I took careful notes, and I was greatly comforted by the knowledge that the editors would carefully review my work. Everything turned out OK (although today when I read those stories I just cringe).

I'll never forget covering my first Riverdale Borough Council meeting. They were talking about taxes and tax ratables and tax rates ... and I was just lost. It was one of the toughest municipal stories to cover because the subject matter can be hard to understand, especially for brand-new reporters. During the meeting, while I was sitting in the audience, Mayor Al Scaletti stopped everything, told everybody this little kid in the crowd was a Trends reporter, and asked me if I had any questions. I was shocked by the attention and said a polite "no."
In mid-winter, I would spend hours covering a meeting. Then I'd write the story out in longhand because I couldn't type with any speed. I'd hunt and peck the final draft on a little portable typewriter, then at 2 or 3 in the morning I'd walk the finished story down to Trends, which was on the Riverdale Circle. For all that I got what worked out to be about 25 cents an hour! All things considered, it was well worth it. It was an exciting learning experience of incalculable value.

When I got out of high school, Trends offered me a full-time job. Now, instead of covering dull meetings, I was going to fires and accidents and doing exciting things. It was great!! They taught me photography and I started shooting news pictures. I even won a second-place spot news award in my first year! That picture was of a rescue after a head-on collision. I was in Trends' office in Riverdale when the call came in. The accident had occurred way up in Wanaque, north of their Borough Hall. I don't know how many miles it is, but it was a long drive. I got there just as the last passenger was being taken from one of the cars. I got a picture of her grimace as a determined rescuer eased her from the car; a bandage covered her mouth. If I had gotten there 30 seconds later, I would have had nothing to photograph except empty vehicles. (Today I see such pictures in newspapers and think, "I don't need to see this stuff.")

If something interested me, I got to write about it. Once I saw an item in Ripley's Believe It or Not about a blind man who had built a house in Wayne. I thought it was a fascinating story, so I tracked down his family in West Milford, interviewed them, got pictures and put together a full-page package. It was one of my favorite stories. When the big floods hit in May of 1968, I went all over the area photographing the incredible scene, from a man stranded on the roof of his flooded car in the middle of Route 23 in Wayne, to the rushing waters across from Richard's Corner. In Pompton Plains, the water came all the way up to Route 23, flooding what was then a brand-new Grant's shopping center on the east side of the road. It was a pretty awesome scene. When I stopped to take pictures along the river in Pequannock, I returned to my car to find that the water had risen a couple of inches and was lapping at the car door.

I put together a full-page about Federal Hill and the mutiny that occurred up there during the Revolution. I went to a Pompton Lakes museum where I found the diary of one of the mutineers and took down every word. (The text of that story is now in the Riverdale School web site. I think it's a piece of local history that's worth preserving.) And I also got to do some unusual things, like go backstage at the rock `n' roll mecca, the Fillmore East in New York City, when The Doors were there. I was writing a column about the local music scene in addition to my regular reporting.

In 1968, after working for more than a year at Trends, I was hired by The Herald-News, a daily paper based in Passaic. The work was similar, but I was now operating in unfamiliar territory farther south. That job, too, had its exciting moments. In December of 1968 I walked down Broadway with the Apollo 8 astronauts during a tickertape parade  until a security guard caught me and handed me over to a cop because I didn't have the proper New York press credentials. (The astronauts had just returned from man's first voyage to the Moon.) I covered a student uprising at Rutgers University and got a great picture of students rushing a building with a telephone pole battering ram. In the dead of winter  after putting in a full day's work   I covered a midnight hotel fire that killed four people in freezing Paterson. After I finished the story, my editors realized they had forgotten to send a photographer, so they sent me back to get pictures at 7 a.m.. Two hours later I drove home exhausted after a 26-hour day.

When I went to do a story about airport taxation, I ran in to a high school classmate who was a pilot. He was flying to Philadelphia and asked me if I wanted to go along. I said what the heck, and we flew to Philly. Unfortunately, I got airsick in that little plane and on the way back deposited my lunch all over South Jersey  not to mention the inside of the plane. When we landed at Totowa-Wayne airport, I was so weak I collapsed next to the plane. "Aren't you going to clean it up?" he said. No way! I couldn't even stand up. As I was lying on the tarmac, it started to rain. He helped me to my car, where I passed out for two hours before driving my wobbly way home.

In another nauseating assignment, I spent a weekend at sea aboard a destroyer with our Naval reservists. As soon as we got out of New York Harbor I got seasick. I stayed that way for two solid, miserable days. I couldn't even take pictures until we got back into New York Harbor.

In 1969, the Vietnam War was going full blast and people my age were being drafted left and right. I signed up for the Air Force, and on the 29th of September I went to Morristown for my induction. They flew me to Texas for basic training. That ended my days of living in Riverdale, except for a temporary stay after I got out of the service three years, nine months and eight days later.


6. Where was your favorite place to go in Riverdale?

When I was a kid, I used to like to go up on top of Federal Hill, which I wrote about earlier. We used to play in what was known as "Gooseyland," which is just east of the railroad tracks and south of Post Lane, by the power station. There was a long steep slope to the bottom, and people would occasionally dump stuff. Once I pulled an old cedar chest out of there and dragged it home to store stuff in. I still have it! A dirt road ran along the edge of Gooseyland, parallel to the tracks, to the sand pit that was down by Riverdale Road. The bottom of Gooseyland was full of very tall, reedy grass. It was higher than a person, so you could play great hide-and-seek games in there. On the east side of Gooseyland there were woods, and a wonderful little stream ran through them. Many times I drank from that stream; the water was delicious and crystal clear. Later they put the artesian well there for the town. We also used to catch frogs down there, near the pump house at the south end of the wooded area.

Speaking of that area, I can remember standing on Post Lane at the end of Parkway, looking down toward the railroad tracks ... and seeing a huge steam locomotive go by! What a sight! That must have been in the 1950s, and I only saw it once. But I still have a clear mental image of that glorious black steam engine chugging by. Blimps used to fly over, too. A blimp would come by to check the gas pipeline every now and then, and it would fly very low  right over my house.

Of course I used to go to the luncheonette at "the corner" a lot (on the south side of Hamburg Turnpike, just west of Mead Avenue). That was the first place I was allowed to go alone as a kid, and I was always running up there for this and that. Once a horse-drawn stagecoach came through town and the owner of the luncheonette -- I think his name was Jack -- made a big deal out of it by staging a mock stagecoach robbery by his store. I don't recall what the story was behind that stagecoach, but it sure generated a lot of interest. [View stagecoach postcard. Thanks to Chris Higgins.]

On my paper route, when I was collecting, I liked to stop at Mrs. Carpenter's service station on Hamburg Turnpike, just opposite Richard's Funeral Home. The building used to be a mill and later became a bar or club of some sort. Old Mrs. Carpenter was a wonderful old woman who used to insist that I stay for a piece of her homemade pie. The dining area on the west end of the building had an L-shaped counter and lot of dark wood in it. It was very old and had seen better days, and you felt as though you had been transported back 50 years or so when you walked in there. I don't remember ever seeing another person in the place except for the frail Mrs. Carpenter.

Where else was there to go in town? There was Neil's Restaurant diagonally across from the Borough Hall, to the south. I'm not sure what it is now. Once the Boy Scouts had a spaghetti dinner in there and I collided with someone at the kitchen door. I dropped a whole tray of spaghetti!

There wasn't much else.


7. What was the school like when you were here?

It's funny, but in all the years I went to Riverdale School, every one of my classes was in the "old," original building. That was from 1956 to 1962. I remember a picture of Washington and maybe Lincoln hanging at the front of one of them, near the north end of the first floor, I think. It wouldn't surprise me if the pictures are still there.

It was a very pleasant place to go to school, and not a whole lot stands out about the day-to-day routine  maybe because it was so tranquil and uneventful. So here are some random recollection:

I remember the first time they told us were were going to the "auditorium." I was in first grade, and the word "auditorium" had a fearful sound to it. I immediately got panicky and got it in my head that we were going to get shots. I remember quite clearly walking down that hallway just north of the auditorium entrance and being quite scared. That was 1956. I have since overcome my fear of auditoriums.

The 1950sand early '60s were the height of the Cold War, and everybody was seriously worried that we would be attacked by the Russians with a nuclear missile. People were even building bomb shelters, although I don't know of anyone in Riverdale who did so. They were also getting active in Civil Defense. We used to have "air raid drills" at school. The bell would go off and we would have to stand in the hallway facing the wall and completely silent. We'd stand there for five minutes, then another bell would go off and we'd go back to our classes. That's the only Cold War-related thing I can remember doing in school. I don't remember any of the "duck and cover" stuff that I've seen in documentaries since then (such as "Atomic Cafe").

May 5, 1961 was a big day at Riverdale School ... it was the day that Alan Shepard became the first American to be launched into space. The Russians had already sent Yuri Gagarin into earth orbit, so technologically this was no big deal. And Shepard's flight was to be pathetically short ... I think it was measured in hundreds of miles. He was to be sent to the edge of space and brought right back down again like a human cannonball. At that time the space race was extremely exciting and there was a real competition between the Russians and Americans, so although it was to be a dinky little flight, it would still be history in the making. American prestige was on the line. Because the flight was to be so short, they brought the entire student body into the auditorium to watch the it on one little television perched on a chair in the middle of the stage. That's it. We watched, he flew, we left.

There was a playground directly behind the school (on the north side of the auditorium) with monkey bars, slides, swings and a human-powered "merry-go-round." It's interesting that this entire playground was built on pavement, so if you fell you could get hurt pretty bad. I don't think such a playground would be allowed today.

I used to walk to school from Parkway, and we'd cross Newark-Pompton Turnpike at the crosswalk by Federal Place. On the northeast corner of that intersection was a vacant lot where we would occasionally pick wild strawberries.

The desks in the school were wooden, and many of them had holes in the top where the ink bottles used to go.

In 7th grade my teacher was Salvatore Pacelli. We were his very first class as a teacher, so we were very special to him. He was a very good teacher. I remember that the entire class took a trip to Stokes State Forest and stayed up there for a couple of days in some cabins or something. When that school year ended, we knew we were going to Kinnelon High the next year, and he was saying goodbye to his first class, so it was a bittersweet ending. Kind of sad.

I used to have a great fondness for the Sloppy Joes in the cafeteria.

In the hallway connecting the old building to the north wing, there was a little nurse's office where we'd go to get our eyes checked or to be cared for if we felt sick. They also used to give us polio vaccine, which had just been discovered. That was a pretty regular thing  getting polio shots.

8. Have you visited Riverdale since you left?

Once or twice. I think the last time I walked those hallways was probably more than 20 years ago, because I've been in Florida that long. I'd guess sometime in the mid-1970s was my last visit. It would be interesting to see it again.

9. Do you have any family still in Riverdale?

No, we all moved out. My folks moved to Florida, my sister is in west Jersey, and my brother is in Pennsylvania.

10. Why did you decide to move to Florida?

I was the terrible winter of 1978. One of the worst I can remember. There were 19 inches of snow outside and I was offered a job in sunny, warm Fort Lauderdale as assistant Sunday editor of the Fort Lauderdale News & Sun-Sentinel (now the Sun-Sentinel). I said "yes," and moved a couple of weeks later. I had been to Fort Lauderdale briefly in 1971 and had a very good impression of the place, so I was happy to move. At the time I had already left Riverdale and was living in Clifton, which is where I worked as an editor at The Herald-News.

11. How is Florida different from Riverdale?

Hoo! How isn't it?

First of all, if I want to go to the beach, I can be there in less than 10 minutes. And it is called "the beach" and not "the shore" here.

It's almost always warm. In the winter, it rarely dips into the 30s. This year I've only worn a jacket a few times, and I can't remember the last winter when it actually got below 40. It was years ago. In 20 years, I've never seen a "freeze" in Fort Lauderdale. My father lives 90 miles north of me, and he once had to defrost outdoor water pipes with a hair dryer during a cold snap, but that's as bad as it gets. And that only lasted a day or two. In 1977, they spotted snowflakes near Miami. Not many, and they didn't stick, but there were enough to say that it snowed in Miami. That was front page, big headline news. It even made the national news!

Our worst weather is in the summer. It gets hot and muggy in the afternoons, and there is frequently a thunderstorm. But in the summer there are pleasant mornings and evenings when you can enjoy the outdoors. That's what's great about it ... you can enjoy the outdoors all year.

We also have tornadoes, which I had never seen until I moved here. I'd say that in 20 years I've seen about 15 or 20 tornadoes and waterspouts, which are tornadoes over water. I remember standing on the top of an office building in downtown Fort Lauderdale and watching a tornado cut through a residential neighborhood less than a mile away. That same day, from that same spot, I saw a waterspout move in off the ocean and hit a park. What really struck me was the dark cloud overhead. It was a mile or two across, I would guess, and almost perfectly circular and very black. As it passed by, the wind would completely shift direction. Flags blowing north would begin to blow south.

About 18 years ago some friends were having dinner in a Commercial Boulevard restaurant when a tornado hit across the street and knocked out the power. They went home, thanking their lucky stars that the tornado had not hit the restaurant. When they got home, they discovered that it had hit their condo and sucked everything out of it, including my friend's book manuscript. Their furniture was found in a nearby canal. That same storm hit an aviary and sucked out all the birds. In Pompano Beach, a woman heard a strange noise outside her 9th-floor condominium. When she went onto the balcony to investigate, the tornado hit and knocked her off the balcony. She was the only fatality.

I used to work in Miami and on several occasions I was driving to work on I-95 and could see waterspouts over the ocean. Once, on a cruise ship, I saw three waterspouts drop out of a cloud at the same time and dance in the water next to each other. That was a strangely beautiful sight.

Thunderstorms here are impressive. They are much more powerful than in New Jersey because the weather is so much warmer. You get spectacular thunderheads that rise 50,000 feet into the air, creating beautiful cloudscapes. Often, in the summer, the nighttime clouds will be alive with lighting. It's a spectacular show.

Then there are the palm trees and tropical plants. I remember when I first came to Florida and saw them. It was pretty amazing for a Jersey guy. They were so exotic looking and beautiful and different. Now they are part of the woodwork because I'm used to them, but I still enjoy the beauty of palm trees against a blue sky or sunset.

Alligators. They live about 15 miles west of me, in the Everglades. Sometimes they're also found in canals in the county, but not often. Once, about 25 years ago, a gator was found on an Interstate 95 exit ramp! Five or 10 years ago a gator attacked a boy in the Coral Springs area, about 15 miles northwest of here. The gator killed the boy. In Jonathan Dickinson State Park, just north of Jupiter and just a few miles from where my parents live, a family was returning from a canoeing trip and a gator attacked and killed a boy. Down in the Keys there is a pond, just north of Key West, where the gators are wild and you can walk right up to them, if you're dumb enough. Of course, in the Everglades they are all over the place. Usually they just sit there and snooze in the sun, but if they're hungry they can run very fast for a short distance, so watch out!

Wildlife  In addition to gators we have lots of exotic-looking birds, like long-necked and long-legged herons and egrets. We have storks. Green parrots fly wild in big, squawky groups. I remember going into a parking lot in downtown Fort Lauderdale one time and there was a tree full of parrots eating the tree's nuts. Shells were dropping everywhere. In the Everglades you can see the rare Roseate Spoonbill, which is pink, about the size of a duck, and has a long beak with a round "spoon" at the end of it. They use the spoon for getting food out of the muck. Pelicans are funny. They fly along the beach and divebomb the water as they hunt for food. When they hit the water, the pouch on their lower beak balloons out really big to scoop up whatever is in the water. The Anhinga is a bird that swims UNDERwater looking for food, then sits in a tree with its wings spread to dry them out. Everglades kits are a bird that circles the sky looking for food on the ground. And every year in Miami, the coming of winter is signaled by the arrival of the buzzards at the Courthouse.

Everywhere you go down here you see little lizards. Geckos, they're called. The look something like the salamanders I used to catch in Riverdale, except they are a bit bigger.Sometimes they sit around and spread a big red flap out from under their chin and do little pushups. That's what they guys do when they are looking for girlfriends.

Then there are the dreaded and yucky Palmetto Bugs  cockroaches about two inches long. I hate those things. Turning on a light scares them away. So does any noise. But I don't even like to think that they're around. The good news is that, with pest control, they're largely been eliminated from homes and things. The last time I saw a Palmetto Bug in my home was years ago; it was impolite enough to scurry across the floor when I had company. My Palmetto Bug policy is very simple: Search and Destroy.

We also have manatees, an endangered species known as "sea cows." They are big, not terribly cute, and they live in the Intracoastal Waterway and adjacent canals. The only place I've ever seen a wild manatee is at the Florida Power and Light power station near here. In the winter they like to swim in the warm water that comes out of the plant. Manatees are big, like walruses, and they have a funny snout. They eat veggies. Boats are a big danger to them; they get hit by the propellors and die sometimes. Some waterways have manatee areas where boaters have to go very slow.

Another big difference here is that Florida is flat. Very, very flat. I think the highest point in Florida is about 345 feet above sea level, and that's far from here. (Federal Hill is about 500 feet above sea level.) The highest point in Broward County, where I live, is Mount Trashmore, a garbage dump about 10 miles from here. The effect of this is to create a "big sky" feeling because the sky goes from horizon to horizon in all directions with no mountains to block the view. And because the state is so flat, there aren't many winding roads.

Then there are the tourists. Lots of them, from all over the world. It was delightful to move to a place that people consider to be a desirable vacation spot. Every winter the population of Fort Lauderdale increases enormously. Restaurants get crowded, highways get jammed. It is a very, very noticeable change.

12. How are they the same?

Well, there are lots of people from New Jersey here. Yesterday I was at the Spring Training opener for the Baltimore Orioles here in Fort Lauderdale. They were playing against the Dodgers, and a friend of mine who is Vice Mayor was throwing out the first ball. We were in the stadium offices chatting with the staff and "where are you from?" came up, as it often does down here. Several people in the room were from New Jersey. Usually I have to tell Jersey people that Riverdale is "near Pompton Lakes and Wayne." They are more familiar with those towns. (It was fun being out there on the field with Cal Ripkin and company  the same field where Mickey Mantle used to play with the Yankees year after year. I took pictures of the opening ceremonies, then we went up to the "owner's skybox" to watch the game. The Orioles won.)

I once saw an interview with Mantle on TV in which he was talking about Fort Lauderdale. He was standing with Yogi Berra on the steps of the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel (which has been torn down and is being replaced by condominiums). Yogi, who is famous for the way he misuses the English language, was wearing some fancy new clothes. A woman fan walked by and saw Yogi's new duds.

"Yogi, you look cool," she said.

"You don't look so hot yourself," Yogi replied.

Sorry, I just had to tell that story.

I guess Florida and New Jersey are very similar in the people sense, that you've got neighborhoods and organizations and people working together. But other than that, they are very different.

13. What high school did you go to?

I was in the first group to attend Kinnelon High School. In fact, it wasn't even finished when we started. We had to attend classes in nearby Kiel School for a month or two, as I recall. I think we were on split sessions, too. When we finally were able to use the high school, the front driveway area was not done. They would drop us off waaaaaay up behind the school on what I think is Kiel Avenue, and we would have to walk through the woods on a dirt road to get to the school. The bell system was not working, so the principal used to walk through the hallways ringing a cowbell to change classes. It's true; I swear it! I graduated from Kinnelon in 1967.

14. Did you graduate 8th grade in Riverdale school?

No, there was no 8th grade. I left Riverdale School in the first year that they started sending the 7th and 8th grades to Kinnelon High; I did 7th in Riverdale and 8th in Kinnelon. When I left Riverdale, there was no real "graduation" that I can remember. No special ceremony, nothing much out of the ordinary that I can recall. Maybe we had a class party or something, but that was it.

15. Were you on the Student Council or the newspaper or the yearbook, or
any other activities?

Well, there was no Student Council, there was no newspaper and there was no yearbook at Riverdale School when I attended. At Kinnelon I was the vice president of the Student Council, and I wrote for the newspaper, but Riverdale had none of that. I went to school, and went home. That was it. For a while I played trumpet and was in a trumpet quartet (really!). That summer I was in a regional band that practiced at Butler High. That was exciting. There is nothing like sitting in the middle of a band that is playing a John Philip Sousa march! But I don't remember much in the way of after-school activities. My biggest after-school activity that was not school-sponsored was the Cub Scouts and, later, the Boy Scouts. Of all the things I have done in my life, the Boy Scouts was one of the best. It was full of fun and terrific experiences, from camping on a mountaintop in Pompton Plains, where there's a gorgeous nighttime view all the way to New York City, to traveling to New Mexico by way of Canada to go to a Scout ranch for a week. I saw Niagara Falls, pulled a wagon through the woods, learned first aid, climbed mountains, made a lot of friends and had a wonderful time. My Scoutmaster, John DeGraw, was like my second Dad. It was great, just great. I can't say enough about it.

16. Do you like Florida or Riverdale better?

Florida. When I first got here, I was amazed by the slower pace and how much friendlier the people seemed to be. Of course, a friend from Iowa thought just the opposite; compared to where he came from, the place was crowded and unfriendly. It's all in your perspective. In the 20 years that I've been here, Fort Lauderdale has grown a lot. There used to be one tall building downtown, and now there are seven or eight (tall being 10 stories or more). Broward County has grown too, and now has about 1.5 million people. That might be double what it was when I got here. In the three counties of South Florida  Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach  I think there are about 5 million people.

But when you combine the natural beauty, the great weather, the easy access to cultural activities (I can walk to the Performing Arts Center from here), the beach, the boats, etc., Fort Lauderdale has got Riverdale beat. Sorry.

But although this is my home now, I will always carry the sweet memories of the years I spent growing up in Riverdale. I will always smile at the thought of those Memorial Day parades, and remember the hours I spent atop Federal Hill soaking in the view, and the taste of those great apples from Maurice's tree, and the sound of roosters in the morning, and the sight of mountains full of ice-covered trees. Riverdale is where I lived when I was young. It is the one place that reminds me of the happy years before war, assassinations, riots and adulthood wrenched me and my generation away from the blissful ignorance of youth. It is a place that evokes powerfully happy memories. Viewed through the forgiving filter of time, those memories fill me with a warm feeling and bring a smile to my face. But because they are memories of good times and good feelings and dreams forever gone, they also bring a tear to my eye.