Growing up as a Kid in RIDGEWOOD
in the late 50's and 60's 
I remember:

My friends Mom wanting to know
why I was off the block.
Not getting caught dead in shorts.
Metal Lunch boxes with a thermos.
The Forest Pork Store & free fresh hot Leberkaese on Saturdays.
My Daily News Paper route with a huge basket on the front of my monkey bars for the papers and a banana seat.
Having a bus pass - but walking to school and checking the gutter for quarters.
Summer days at Rockaway via the subway.
Special license plates allowing Doctors to park anywhere to make house visits.
The Bremen Haus - everything German.
The Movies when the Movie Stars showed up for opening day Saturday matinees.
seeing Roy Rodgers & Trigger live  visiting 
"The Ridgwood" movie theater.
The 5 & 10 Stores - Woolworth & Kresge.
The Sunday Pot Roast and dinner as a family.
Oliver & Hardy and Abott & Costello.
The Three Stooges.
Pizza for 15 cents a slice.
Soda Fountain Egg Creams & Root Beer floats.
Kookla Fran & Ollie.
A hot dog or a "slice" being fast food.
Pink Spaldings.
Learning the words to all the Beatle songs
and singing them with friends.
bottle openers & pop tops. 
Getting milk delivered to the door in glass bottles by the Milkman in funky milk trucks.
The Stoop and stoop ball.
Fingers & Toes so cold and blue after playing in the snow so long that taking a hot bath hurt like crazy.
Soupy Sales and Thing
( I wonder how many adults loved that show? )
Bosco and Coco Marsh with pumps.
Nestles Quick & Ovaltine.
Rudy's Bakery - Bienenstich & Hidaenish.
The aroma from the store a block from Rudy's that roasted their own coffee.
Hearing that President Kennedy was assasinated during a PA announcement in JHS Gym class. 
When very little was wasted or trashed.
When "Hero" meant more.
Mom always being home when I got home.
Beenie & Cecil
Collecting glass bottles & getting a refund.
Stickball in the street with a broomstick and the manhole cover is homeplate.
The lucky guys had a "mitt". 
Mickey Mantle & Roger Marris.
Free dishes & silverware with gasoline fill-ups.
When old horror movies scared us kids.
( esp. the witch in The Wizard of Oz )
Bazooka bubble gum with a cartoon slip.
Satuday morning television.
Beep - Beep !
Sunday School and getting 'dressed up' for church on Sundays.
Free Toys inside the cereal boxes.
Lots of sewing but very little frivolous suing. 
Roy Rodgers, Dale Evans, Trigger & Nellie Belle. 
Using my imagination for entertainment.
My first Texas Instrument calculator for $125
(and all it could do was basic math)
My favorite German Delicatessen.
(the one a block away from 93 would add thin sliced potatoe salad in a light mayo sauce on a hard crust Ham hero. I can still taste it)
Ring-a-leavio - olle olle Oxen free.
One small step for Man.......
White Castle hamburgers and getting served at the car with a tray on the open window. 
Buying with cash or not buying.
The "Cudda" and the "Goat".
Corner Candy Stores.
Two for a penny candy.
Hiding Playboy magazines.
Free towels in Laundry detergent boxes.
Summers without air conditioning and
playing in the street until 10-11 PM.
( our parents didn't worry about abductions )
Little plastic AM radios with a single ear piece. 
WABC AM radio and Cousin Bruuuuucey
Harry Harrison & The WMCA Good Guys and that yellow sweatshirt we all wanted to have.
"Underground Rock" on early FM radio - WNEW
Having "one" 19 inch B&W TV on a flimsy rolling  cart and watching evening TV as a family.
Brylcreem and Dippity-Do.
Not eating in Restaurants very often.
Sky King, Penny and the Songbird.
Dark Shadows in the afternoon.
Smile, your on Candid ......
BIC pens and the smell of certain pen inks. 
Huge Blizzards & digging long tunnels in the street. (There was a safe activity)
Drive-In Movies with the kids in the back of the car in PJs.
short hair, long hair, tall hair - wierd hair.
Bullwinkle, Rocky, Natasha & Boris
Karl Ehmer hot dogs & Leberwurst.
Respecting our 'Neighborhhood Beat Cop".
Mr Softee at night in the Summer.
Good Humor & Bundalow Bar Trucks.
Starting to "notice girls".
Toboganing at Forest Park after it snowed.
Ring Dings, Yodels & Banana Twinkies
( with real chocolate and real cream ).
Choo Choo Charlie.
Taking the garbage into the basement at night.
(That was scary - down & up those basement stairs in 20 seconds flat. )
The Great Blackout. Where were you?
......and heeeeeres Johnny !
Staying out of trouble for fear of having to come home to Dad and non-verbal punishment.
Vacations in the Catskills.
Vacations at the Jersey Shore.
8 Track car strereos & Cassette decks.
Converse High Top sneakers.
P.F. Flyers & Keds.
grass, mary jane, pot, weed, joints.
Mutton Chops.
My Library card and using it.
The cheap flimsy rides that came around on trucks in the summer.
Steel Monkey bars and metal swing seats with long heavy iron chains on a concrete Playground litered with broken glass. 
Carvel thick shake floats for a buck.
Saving Green Stamps.
Being up on the roof at night with a telescope 
exploring the universe.
Loving the original Star Trek.
My Mom and her wooden spoon - ouch!
Bob Hope entertaining the troops.
Not demanding or expecting much and being happy for what I had.
My first browning Instamatic.
Living on the 4th floor in the Railroad flat.
Laundry drying on the clothes line out back.
Nancy Drew & the Hardy Boys.
Going to summer camp.
Hello Mudda, Hello ...... 
School Book covers made from paper bags.
Hoss, Little Joe & Adam.
Eeney, Meeney, Miney Mo.
Everything that become "Cool" was
"Boss" in Junior High.
Sitting on the fire escape watching spit fall 
four stories to the ground.
Jones Beach & Sunken Meadows.
Smoking Pall Malls because my father did and thinking I hid my smoking from my mother.
( After 40 years she told me she used to find a little tobacco in my shirt pockets all the time )
Comic Books and cheap paperback novels.
The Bookmobile.
Little weekly Music top 20 Hit Parade chart booklets with the lyrics to the songs in them.
Walking to all my schools in rain, snow or shine even though I had a buss pass.
Wearing goulashes, pull over boots or rubber boots with the metal clips.
Scrambled eggs with ketchup after school.
See the USA, in your........!
The nasty smell of school locker rooms.
Rubber book straps with chromed metal hooks.
JANS on Friday & Saturday night.
I remember having real Friends.
I remember my Mom and Dad.
I remember love without measure -
and I have passed that gift on to my children.

Rolf

+++++++++++++++++++

IN FOND MEMORY OF
FRIENDS GONE
BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

G.C.H.S.

Wolfgang Kresse
Class of 1965
KIA  Viet Nam
Christine Freund
Class of 1968 
4th "Son of Sam" Victim 
Thomas Columbia
Class of 1969
Frank Sansivieri
Class of 1969
Diane Niederbuhl
Class of 1969
Steven Chernick
Class of 1969
Gerald Yung
Class of 1969
Diane Harrington
Class of 1969
Susan Zamojcin
Class of 1969
Joseph Rizzo*
Class of 1969
Mike Piazza*
Class of 1969
Charles Harrington
Class of 1970
Karen Flaherty
Class of 1970
Gayle Klingman
Class of 1970
Gary Senz
Class of 1970
Donald Calderone
Class of 1970
Cara Buttacavoli
Class of 1970

* attended our Reunion in 2009.

J.H.S. 93

 Bob "Schmitty" Schmitt
Class of 1966

TEACHERS

"Frau" Margot Engel
GCHS - German    April/2011
 

You are all dearly missed.

Please e-mail Rolf the names of classmates
no longer with us so we may remember them.


+++++++++++++++++++

#############

A special "Thank You"
to all Classmates that are Veterans.

Steve Madson - Sgt., Air Force 
Stan Stankiewicz - Capt., Navy Seal
Frank Heiselman - Navy Seaman
Tom Famosa - Lt. Col., Army Airborne Res.

Especially all of you
that served in Vietnam

Paul McTigue - Navy
Jim Munson - Sgt., Army

We are also remembering all of the younger
Alum who are Iraq & Afghanistan Vets.....
and all Cleveland Alum, family and friends currently in harms way !

Lest we forget !

UURAH !


"If I Die Before You Wake"
www.flashdemo.net/gallery/wake/index.htm  
Written by a US soldier


Let me know if you served, are serving
or if you have immediate family serving
in combat zones now.
IF youfamWill gladly postililyTHANKSaserving