I had never been to Citi Field – the Mets’ home – so when Hurricane Irma was taking aim on Florida, the Yankees/Rays 3-game series was moved from Tampa to New York (where the Rays played as the home team). And when it was announced that ALL tickets would be $25.00 with NO fees, I got online at 10am – the minute ticket sales started – and got a front-row seat right behind the third base (Yankees) dugout.

What a photo op THIS would be!

 

 

I checked the Mets’ site to find out what this ticket would normally cost: $263.00 (plus fees, I would imagine). As Molly Goldberg might have said, “Such a deal!”

Plus, I’d be able to shoot all the Yankees coming into the dugout and get close shots of homer-monster Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez batting.

I picked the third and final game because it was the only day game of the three, which meant more and better light for photos. Plus, I was going to take mass transit – a shaky proposition if you’re trying to get back to NJ very late at night.

It was stressed that everyone use mass transit because a big chunk of the stadium parking lot was taken up by the setup for a large, 3-day music festival that had already been arranged for while the Mets were on the road.

NOTE: The second image is a 4-image photo-stitch that I shot from inside Citi Field. Click the image once. After it takes over the screen, hover the mouse over the image. You should get a + sign. Then click it again. It’s now full-size and must be scrolled to see everything. Click it once more to shrink it back and then use your back button to return to the post.

This procedure applies to any other photo-stitches on this post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took an express bus into the NYC Port Authority building, walked up 42nd St to the Times Square subway station and caught a #7 train, which is underground in Manhattan, but after passing under the East River into Queens…….no more tunnel.

I’m in the front car and shot this through the front window as the train emerged from the tunnel as another #7 headed toward Manhattan.

 

 

This was a tough shot through a side window. The train was moving and every few seconds, something obstructed the view, but I’m happy with this shot. Silvercup Studios – in Long Island City – is the largest film and television production facility in New York City. Behind the sign are these Manhattan structures (l-r): the Citicorp building (slanted roof), 432 Park Ave (the tallest residential building in the US) and the 59th Street (Queensboro) Bridge.

 

 

I’m really disappointed that this shot isn’t sharp. It’s such an impossible jumble of subway tracks, red lights and workers with red flags to stop us and a body of water in the distance. I’ve never seen this before from inside the train, so it’s one I really wish came out better.

 

 

These two shots are the first views of Citi Field from the moving train:

 

 

 

 

Just out of the train, I took this shot while still on the platform:

 

 

As soon as I got out of the subway station, this was the view:

 

 

Street begger (I didn’t see what the sign said until I saw it on my computer). I’m guessing this is a regular sight at Mets home games:

 

 

The whole trip took about an hour and 40 minutes (not a single delay!), so I got here just after 11am………….before they even opened the gates. That’s why there are lines in this pic:

 

 

Inside that bulging front of the previous picture is the Jackie Robinson rotunda. His number (retired throughout the major leagues) is the first thing you see when you get inside and his quote is visible from the top of the escalators and stairs as you leave (the quote is a 5-image photo-stitch).

 

 

 

This is my angled, 3-picture Citi Field photo-stitch. As you’ve seen in my analog Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium posts of 2008 and 2009, I usually went up to the top deck, highest row dead center and took a fisheye shot of the entire stadium.

Digitally, I would have done a photo-stitch from the same place, but the two upper decks were closed off for this series, so instead, I chose this location that was close to where my seat was.

On top of the visitors’ (Yankees) dugout, you can see “WELCOME TO CITI FIELD”. If you look closely, you can see a guy wearing a Yankee jersey standing in front of the “O” in the word “TO”. He’s standing at my seat. That’s where I shot all my game images.

 

 

Since I was there so early – the game was to start at 1:10pm – I had plenty of time to walk around the entire stadium ring and document interesting things.

In case there was any doubt about who the competing teams were, the location and even the time, here ya go:

 

 

It looks like that unless you’re wearing a baseball jersey, you can’t be served at the Shake Shack, but it appears that there’s a line for jersey-less losers on the far right:

 

 

Apparently, nobody bothered to send in the clowns:

 

 

No clue…………….

 

 

The Shea Bridge is a popular place in center field to stand and watch the game (or maybe to reflect on the old Shea Stadium if the game you’re watching isn’t going well).

 

 

On that bridge’s walking surface, you’ll find this large Shea Stadium logo. If you look at the previous picture, you’ll see an X made by the steel framework just above the words “Shea Bridge”. How appropriate that, at this moment, its shadow negates the logo – an Xclamation point, if you will – on the 1964-2008 lifespan of Shea Stadium.

 

 

As I continued toward right field, I saw two other Stadium entry points: the Bullpen Gate and the cleverly-named Right Field gate:

 

 

 

Also seen from right field is part of the National Tennis Center and on the left, part of the 1964 Worlds Fair Unisphere:

 

 

The rest of the stadium ring consisted of crowded food stands, so I headed back to Section 122. It was pretty hot in the sun where my seat was (look to the right of the center aisle, front row and a woman holding a baby – that’s my seat) and I sunburn easily, so since there was still an hour before first pitch, I sat about 30 rows back in the shade in the last row behind some guy who was probably doing the same thing.

 

 

There was plenty of stuff to shoot from there. I turned to my right and saw some Mets legends painted on a wall:

 

 

I saw a cart rolling by with what looked like circular Mets mats. They were placed somewhere near home plate (I never saw the exact placement).

In that first shot, I imagine there was some frustration for the fan with his arms and mitt behind his head. Can’t catch a foul ball with all that netting.

Lots of activity around home plate in the second shot as protective covers are removed, Mets mats get placed and Meredith Marakovits gets help with something before her pre-game report on the YES Network.

 

 

 

I saw the Rays starting pitcher, Chris Archer, in the outfield standing on his hands. It didn’t help. I don’t think he made it through 4 innings and was the losing pitcher.

 

 

I have no idea what the other half of the Rays’ battery – catcher Jesus Sucre – was wearing (was that his mask?) or carrying, but it looked like it might make an odd picture.

 

 

Yankees catcher Austin Romine looked a bit more normal:

 

 

Fan can’t decide if he wants peanuts or a hot dog:

 

 

I decided to go for another stroll and found an open area where I could see the Grand Central Parkway (I think) and planes landing at LaGuardia Airport. BTW – the takeoffs went right over Citi Field low and LOUD during the entire game (just like at Shea Stadium)……………part of the charm.

 

 

 

 

 

Time to hit the head before going to my seat.

I’m not into taking pictures in public restrooms, but when I saw the sign over the urinal, I had to sneak a fast shot

I have no idea what the Mets need my “deposit” for, but I’m proud – I think – to have made two of them that day.

(what genius thought that this sign placement was a good idea?)

 

 

Standing at my seat: I think that’s Yankees Yes Network announcer Michael Kay (center) across the dugout from me:

 

 

Sitting in my seat: Why should I be concerned about flying objects leaving the field when there’s protective netting there?

 

 

MAJOR disappointment of the day: no Aaron Judge in the lineup…………and he didn’t pinch-hit, either.

 

 

Masahiro Tanaka and Luis Severino head for the dugout.

 

 

Meredith Marakovits is the New York Yankees’ clubhouse reporter and also does all the field pre- and post-game interviews. This picture also illustrates disappointment #2 today: the netting that was extended this year to include the dugouts and made shooting much more difficult (but it certainly does beat getting hit in the face with a blazing line drive, as a 2 year-old girl did one week later at Yankee Stadium).

 

 

GAME-TIME! First batter Brett Gardner watches a fastball whiz by his……..uh……..uniform.

 

 

Shortstop Didi Gregorius has a great swing and is a fun guy to watch in the field.

 

 

Catcher (DH-ing today) Gary Sanchez quadruple-play: at bat, sliding into third, after a strikeout and in the dugout:

 

 

 

 

 

Reliever David Robertson:

 

 

Jacoby Ellsbury and Todd Frazier:

 

 

After being stranded at 2nd base, Brett Gardner hands his offensive gear to 3rd base coach Joe Espada (is his watch big enough to coach 3rd?) I think Brett’s scalp got a small sunburn waiting for Didi Gregorius to bring him his glove and cap (it seemed like he was waiting quite a while).

 

 

 

Didi: “Should I stay or should I go?”

 

 

 

Didi: “I think I’ll stay”

 

 

Didi gets to third and chats up Evan Longoria:

 

 

It’s so weird to see completely-empty (security doesn’t count) upper decks when the lower bowl isn’t even sold-out at $25.00 a pop.

 

 

Clint Frazier with the bases loaded and two out: Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3 on a 3-2 pitch with runners going and then explaining it all to Brett Gardner:

 

 

 

 

 

I had to get a shot of recent-Met Lucas Duda’s mighty swing:

 

 

Ronald Torreyes (l.), some guy I can’t identify and Luis Severino:

 

 

Practical joker Torreyes makes sure I know what to shoot, so I zoomed in on the victim and the assault weapon:

 

 

 

Fan Cam! What excitement! (yawn):

 

 

 

 

The Rays’ Kevin Keirmaier hitting the only home run of the game. Since it looks like every other swing I photographed, I made sure to take pictures of him rounding third and heading to the dugout – all on three consecutively-numbered images.

 

 

 

 

Balls about to be hit and hit, courtesy of Gary Sanchez and Didi Gregorius, respectively:

 

 

 

Brett Gardner: at the plate and rounding second………..

 

 

 

Plate taps: after noticing Didi’s semi-squat when he did it, I decided to make myself a mini-project by collecting a few other taps. Besides Didi, here are Jacoby Ellsbury, Lucas Duda, and Evan Longoria.

It got old real fast.

 

 

 

 

 

The day that started out with a cloudless sky got semi-cloudy and a bit darker by mid-game – not dark enough for the lights to come on, but they did anyway.

 

 

OH BOY! KISS CAM! (Check out Sad Sack in the third picture)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Girardi challenged that the couple in the fourth KISS CAM picture shouldn’t have made the cut since kissing cooked cow meat in a bun doesn’t count. Torreyes watched the replay and the umps live and on the screen, while Didi and Castro stood around the on-deck circle and waited for the decision. Eventually, Joe won the challenge and the couple was ejected (yeah, right).

 

 

Replay and umpires:

 

 

 

 

During a pitching change, (l-r) Chase Headley, Starlin Castro, Todd Frazier and Didi Gregorius converse:

 

 

During the pitching change, Luis Severino kept making gestures that indicated that he was going to toss a ball over the 30’-high netting to our section, but – of course – never did.

 

 

Dellin Betances comes in to relieve and is not happy to get the hook from Girardi three batters later:

 

 

 

Aroldis Chapman replaces Betances and gets a 4-out save. The Yankees win, 3-2 and the dugout empties for on-field high-fives and…………..oh, wait – look over on the left…………it’s Aaron Judge (99) making his sole appearance and giving me my only shot of him (a little late, Bud!).

 

 

 

Meredith Markovits does the post-game interview with Chapman (this crappy shot is a video still):

 

 

Showers had been predicted and there were a couple of very minor drizzles late in the game that increased slightly as the game ended (first pic).

After leaving Citi Field and walking to the subway, it started raining much harder just as I got under cover. I took this across-the-tracks picture from the Manhattan-bound side just as a 7 train pulled in. Excellent timing on the parts of the rain and the train!

 

 

 

THIS WAS THE BEST $25.00 I’VE SPENT IN DECADES!

From an historical perspective – at the moment – this is the last game in MLB history where two American League teams played a regular-season game in a National League ballpark and it may be the last time it ever happens at Citi Field.

 

…………………………………………….(ignore the May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on 12-30-17)

 

Very early in the year, I noticed some odd breathing problems that usually showed up when I carried heavy grocery bags up stairs. I surmised that it might be due to a gastroenterological problem I have: silent reflux.

Huh?

You’ve all had heartburn on occasion, right? I used to, but I can’t feel it anymore. I have no indicator that damage is being done. Supposedly, the acid has burned the nerve endings. A few years ago – by luck – it was discovered that some serious damage was being done to my esophagus by stomach acid, but the problem was caught in time and reversed by medication.

But that didn’t address the overall problem: acid was getting up my esophagus and I was none the wiser…………….until my voice started getting a little higher-pitched: it had reached my larynx. More medication.

Overall, the voice is pretty much back to normal, but not always. Then, another problem popped up: I couldn’t clear my throat. Oh great – post nasal drip?

The ENT (Ears, Nose, Throat) doctor said no – all clear in the nasal cavity. The gastroenterologist, however, had an answer: the acid was reaching my throat. And if it got THAT far, it was only a short roll over to my windpipe – and if it was getting in THERE, then shortness of breath was a distinct possibility.

 

Fortunately, I am not one of those men who refuses to go to the doctor when problems arise, so I went right to my regular MD, Dr. Robert (every Beatles fan needs one of those).

Needing to rule out all other possibilities, he handed me prescriptions to see a cardiologist and a pulmonologist. I passed all of their tests, including separate stress tests, but the cardio noticed a heart rate reading that was a little bit low when I was active. Not alarmingly-low, but enough to tell him that there might be a blockage somewhere.

He gave me a choice: have a CT scan that was not sophisticated enough to see EVERYTHING or undergo an invasive cardiac catheterization that would be pretty definitive. This would involve threading a catheter with a tiny camera from my wrist to my heart.

I wasn’t thrilled by the sound of that, but I told him I wanted answers, so let’s go with Door #2.

 

Here’s the microscopic c-cath wrist incision (taken 10 days later) and what they put around it to protect from direct infection into the vein (taken the next day):

 

I went into this procedure on October 6 for only one reason: to rule it out and solidify my belief that the problem was reflux-related. I came out of this procedure by being told that three blockages were discovered and that one of them would be too problematic for a stent, so triple bypass surgery was in my immediate future.

While in recovery, a heart surgeon visited me and told me that there was no time to waste and that he wanted to schedule the surgery for October 18. I knew that I had too much to do beforehand, so I told him I would call his office when I had figured out a date.

Being one of those immortal types, I had never gotten around to preparing the minor things that most mortals had taken care of at a certain stage in their lives, like making a will, a living will, etc.

I had also planned on doing a shoot on the George Washington Bridge that could only be done on November 11 – Veterans Day – when the world’s largest hanging US flag would fly from the New Jersey tower of the bridge.

I’ve photographed the GWB flag a couple of times before, but only from the south walkway – the one that most people are familiar with because the view from there is of Manhattan down to the New York Harbor. The north walkway – which is much more difficult to access – is usually closed.

But because of a recent spate of suicides into the Hudson River, the south walkway was closed in September (to reopen by the end of the year?), so that higher fencing could be installed. The north walkway was opened in its place.

This meant that my only opportunity to do this shoot from a different perspective would be on the one day during this period when the flag would fly – Veterans Day.

I called the surgeon’s office and scheduled the procedure for November 16. Fortunately, I didn’t keel over during that one-month delay and here are some of my November 11 images (I’m glad I waited).

 

As far as I’m concerned, this was the shot of the day (if you look closely, you can see the moon):

 

And if you don’t look closely, you can see the moon better here:

 

Looking toward Fort Lee, New Jersey, you can see two new residential towers – The Modern 1 & 2. When I took this, 2 (far left) wasn’t finished yet and 1 was occupied:

 

This is one of the sets of stairs you must navigate to access the GWB’s rarely-opened north walkway:

 

From the GWB, this shows Ross Dock, the Palisades and the Hudson River, north of the bridge:

 

Looking straight down, I saw a long shadow attached to a tiny man, who was about to walk under the bridge:

 

(left to right): The Modern 2, The Modern 1, a GWB access ramp from the southbound Palisade Interstate Parkway (silver tollbooths are behind the ramp), a sign for the northbound PIP (you thought it said, “PIMP RAMP”, right? “Where are the tricked-out Escalades?”):

 

The view from under the southbound PIP ramp:

 

Selfie in the convex mirror built into the Palisades (“for all the bicyclists that use the walkway”, said the guard in the booth behind me):

NOW do you see why I postponed the surgery? I couldn’t do this any other day.

 

 

Two days before the procedure, I had to spend half a day at the hospital for pre-surgery testing. This involved CT scans, X-rays, blood tests and vascular testing (ultrasounds).

The ultrasounds were the most interesting because they produced something I had never seen before: a line drawn on my right leg from my crotch to my ankle with purple skin marker.

As you may know – in most cases – a long vein is removed from the leg and is used for the three bypasses. The ultrasounds identify the vein and the sonographer makes a dot on the leg every few inches as she goes down the leg and then connects the dots. This tells the surgeon exactly where the vein is and where to cut.

 

This was taken on November 14:

 

 

It used to be that one cut was made along the entire length of the vein to remove it. This made for a much more painful recovery. Now, they use three small cuts and wind up pulling the entire vein out through one of the cuts – actually, more like a small hole – by the crotch.

These two pictures were taken on November 23 – a full week after the surgery. You can still see a bit of the purple marker line and that it looks like they beat the hell out of my leg trying to get the vein out (it’s still sore a month-and-a-half later). The closeup of the extrication hole shows that it’s still oozing (you didn’t just eat, did you?):

 

 

I was told to be at the hospital by 5:30am on the 16th for the 7:00am surgery. My sister Lorraine – my designated angel – got me there in plenty of time.

I remembered being wheeled into the room and expecting to be fussed over for an hour like I was for the catheterization, but my next memory was waking up in the ICU, where a VERY cute nurse greeted me with a huge smile and a question:

“Remember me? I was there when the surgery finished and you practically jumped off the table!”

I have no such memory nor any idea how one could “jump off the table” immediately after having major surgery………….and then sleep in the ICU for a long time.

A sign in the ICU (extubate: to remove the breathing tube):

 

The ICU stay was actually fairly pleasant. The nurses were all very nice and one of them – from my hometown of Teaneck – told me that when she went home, she looked me up on bobleafe.com and was looking at a picture I had taken of my mother. Her father happened to walk by, saw the picture, said “That’s Eunice Leafe!” and told the nurse that my cousin – who was in the Fire Department – once saved his life!

Needless to say, I got even better treatment after that.

One ICU incident went particularly well. You’re told in advance that they expect you to be on your feet and walking on the second day. I had my doubts about that, but they got me up and walking………….and I was walking faster than the nurse!

It felt completely normal (I’ve always walked fast). I freaked one of the nurses out on my next walk. You know those little yellow signs that are put on floors after they’ve been mopped that say “Caution – wet floors”? As I approached one, I decided to lift my leg up over it so it appeared that I was stepping over it (but I was really sort of waving it in the vicinity). It’s possible that the fact that I was wearing a hospital gown made it look more dangerous than it was, but I think that if such a thing existed, I would have gotten the “Best Walker” medal in the ICU.

The only time I didn’t feel normal was toward the end of my stay in the ICU when they told me that a room was opening up for me in the hospital and they put me in a hall somewhere that had me looking through a window back into what I think was the ICU. It began to look like a building and I was sure I saw a UFO hovering over it. This is a closeup shot of what I saw, so you’ll have to imagine it as a small part of a larger picture:

 

I don’t know how they medicated me that day, but I guess it was to keep me from running around the ICU. And I wound up waiting for nothing – the hospital room didn’t open up until the next day.

 

So now I’m out of the ICU and in the hospital proper in a private room and after my first night there, I wanted to go back to the ICU.

Daytime wasn’t too bad, but trying to sleep at night was horrible. My bed was right by the door and you were not allowed to close that door. The daytime hustle and bustle of a hospital was to be expected and it DID slack off in the evening, but that first night was miserable.

It appeared that a room down the hall was being converted at around midnight to some other use that involved machinery. I can’t be sure what it was, but it was quite noisy and involved a bunch of young hospital workers who sounded like they were unaware that there were patients nearby who were trying to sleep. It was almost a party atmosphere.

I mentioned this to someone who I thought might have some say in the matter and here’s the reply: “Hey, it IS a hospital, you know”…………….not exactly helpful.

On the next night, there was a serious problem with a screaming patient. It woke me up and I felt like I was in some sort of altered state…………..and I may have been, but I was never told about taking any medication that would do that.

And – of course – they couldn’t tell me what was going on with the patient, but it was uncomfortable being there at night. And you KNOW something isn’t right when you wish you were back in the ICU because the situation was more comfortable there.

During the day, I could take a couple of pictures out the window, but that was pretty limited, although the third shot was a challenge. Fortunately, I also had my iPad with me and kept myself semi-amused.

 

Amongst the many buildings that comprise the Hackensack University Medical Center, ONE of them has a helipad – the building that I was temporarily residing in. I could hear the choppers when they landed and took off, but could never actually see them. One of the buildings that faced my window had a lot of greenish-blue glass, so I looked for a reflection……..and saw one that lasted about 2 seconds. I captured it, though I have no idea why the helicopter looks like it’s enmeshed in netting – maybe my camera was under sedation:

 

 

The nurses started walking me around and said pretty much the same thing they said in the ICU: “SLOW DOWN!”

They seemed surprised that I could go up and down stairs and decided that it was time to send me to a cardiac rehab facility (CRF).

The way the CRF thing plays out could use some repair. I was aware early on that the next step after the ICU/hospital stay was at least a couple of weeks at a CRF. The cardio told me well in advance that I should visit CRFs to see which one I liked.

“That’s a good idea, but I’m not familiar with any of them. Got a list?”

“No. Call the surgeon’s office for that.”

The surgeon’s office didn’t have one either and told me that a hospital social worker will visit me with a list ON THE DAY BEFORE THE HOSPITAL RELEASES ME AND I HAVE TO PICK A CRF QUICKLY WITHOUT VISITING ANY OF THEM!

Sure enough, on that day before discharge, I was given a list of about 20 facilities to choose from…………..and there’s no information given about any of them! Once again, I’m very fortunate that I had my iPad with me and could check out the reviews on all of them online.

About ¾ of the CRFs were all from one company and almost all of them had terrible reviews…………..except for one, which had reviews that were fairly glowing(!). My choice was made for me – there was no other.

Then it became “but do they have a bed available”? They did.

When I finally got there (after 9pm on November 21), I was brought to a room. While still in the hallway, I could see that the room was occupied.

“This is the wrong room. Somebody’s in there.”

“This is the right room. That’s your roommate.”

I hadn’t counted on that. Richard turned out to be a slightly gruff, 85 year-old man from Brooklyn and we talked for the next hour or two while he straightened me out on what’s what at this CRF.

He forgot to mention that patients got woken up at 3 or 4 in the morning and when it happened that first night, I nearly freaked – not only at the timing, but also at some of the reasons:

“Wake up, Mr Leafe – it’s time to take a pill.” (“Come back later.”)

“Wake up, Mr Leafe – I need to weigh you.” (“I will weigh the same at 9am. Come back then.”)

“Wake up, Mr Leafe – time to take your blood pressure.” (“You mean the blood pressure that you just caused to go up? Come back later after it goes down.”)

 

Sleeping here wasn’t much better than at the hospital, but at least you could get 3 hours here and two more there. My bed was closest to the door to the hallway. You could not close the door if you wanted to – there was no latch. The 6am shift gathered in the hallway and talked (and laughed) loudly. It was as if they had no clue that all their patients were just a couple of feet away TRYING to sleep.

You kinda wanted to just open the door and say, “EXCUSE ME – WE’RE TRYING TO SLEEP HERE”, but you knew you’d pay for it later when it was time for one of them to come in and give you an injection.

Breakfast was brought to the rooms at around 8am. So was a small plastic cup with MANY pills that you were expected to take all at once (is that a medically-sound practice?):

 

After that, you were expected to show up at the gym down the hall for morning (AND afternoon) physical therapy. If you didn’t, the therapists would come looking for you.

But that didn’t happen much because the therapists were pretty nice people and you really didn’t want to disappoint them. Besides, it was required and good for you and meant that you might go home sooner if you took it seriously.

Because I was the King of All Walkers at this place too, I got to go for outdoor walks with a VERY nice physical therapist, who was friendly, funny, smart, but also took her profession VERY seriously, so slacking off was not an option.

At the walk’s midpoint, we’d take a break and sit down and talk – sometimes seriously, sometimes hilariously. And sometimes, those conversations would continue as we walked up a small hill, where I’d begin to run out of breath. We’d stop and I’d quickly recover. Toward the end of my stay there, I wasn’t running out of breath after walking up the hill, so it became obvious that this P.T. was a tremendous help.

Lunch showed up at about 12:20pm and the afternoon was spent pretty much as you pleased (after physical therapy, of course, and outside doctor appointments). It was a good time (for me, anyway) to have visitors. I think my two most memorable lunches occurred on consecutive days – November 23 and 24.

The 23rd was Thanksgiving and they served up a really nice plate of REAL turkey. I was quite surprised to see turkey on my lunch plate on the 24th (leftovers from Thursday?) and was even MORE surprised that they actually served FAKE turkey on the day after serving excellent REAL turkey on Thanksgiving. WHAT were they thinking?

FAKE turkey (and crappy photography):

 

 

Occasionally, the desserts surprised:

 

I guess this counts as a surprise:

 

 

Dinner came somewhere around 5:30pm and the rest of the evening was set aside for the battle of the TVs.

Richard and I each had one mounted on the same wall (his is on the right). Sometimes we’d agree (top) and sometimes we didn’t (bottom):

 

And sometimes I’d watch Jan rocking out Christmas tunes on her slide trombone for Toyota:

 

Occasionally, Richard fell asleep early with his TV on, but it really wasn’t my place to go turn his off. Besides, he’d probably wake up suddenly and take a swing at me.

I’d rather face Jan’s trombone.

 

On a somewhat humorous side note, I had a pretty good time with the therapists. One day, I showed up with a certain t-shirt under a regular shirt and announced that my t-shirt had something on it that would illustrate a generation gap………..unless, of course, they could identify what it was.

Here’s what the shirt showed:

 

Guesses ranged from a stylized swastika to “something to do with penises”. It took a while for some of them to understand about record players, spindles and the CENTRAL differences between LPs and 45s, but no one felt bad about not knowing that it was a 45 adapter because that meant they weren’t OLD!

 

Something REALLY odd happened 3 days before I was discharged. A man with white hair – who I had seen in the hallway the day before – walked into my room and asked me if I recalled a certain name. It was the name of a girl I knew over FIFTY years ago!

“Yeah – I remember her.”

“She’s in the next room.”

Slightly astounded, I went next door to say hello and spoke to the two of them for about an hour. The man was her husband. I asked him how he knew that I knew her. He said that she showed him an article about me in a magazine 5 years ago. He remembered the name, saw something similar by my room’s door and asked her how my last name was spelled (“We have a match!”).

 

On my next-to-last morning at the CRF, I was awoken by a nurse and a burly doctor who shined a flashlight in my face – always a fun way to wake up – and told me to open my shirt. He inspected my chest with his beam and said something to the nurse that sounded like either “It’s resolved” or “he’s resolved” and then left without another word.

I later found out that he was the “wound doctor” and I’m guessing that my surgical scar had healed enough to allow me to be discharged.

The facility sent me home after 17 days – a fairly short stay – because both the physical and occupational therapists “had nothing left to throw at me” (their  words). I passed all the tests, including two very important ones that seemed incredibly easy: stepping in and out of an empty bathtub AND sitting down and standing up from a toilet without holding on to anything.

 

So am I cured? Is everything back to normal? There’s no way to know right now. The cardiologist recently put me through a 4-hour nuclear stress test that will help him determine the level of outpatient physical therapy that I will probably still need and it will take months before all systems return to normal function and strength.

It may be that the odd breathing problems will come right back and we’ll have to move on to another possibility, but I can at least be reasonably sure that I will not be interrupted by heart problems while we explore that possibility, thanks to the cardio noticing one ever-so-slightly-off result.

 

I’ve now been home for 3 weeks and have been quite busy. I just finished almost 3 weeks of scanning (on spec!) for the 2018 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and program (fingers crossed). UPDATE: I sold ONE picture (The Cars) to the Hall for the Induction Ceremony program.

I decided 2 days ago that it was important to create and get this post up (I wished I had seen something like this before surgery – it would have answered a lot of questions…………maybe it will help someone else in a similar situation) and I wanted to get it done before New Year’s (I DID – 12-30-17!), so I’ve been hauling ass on that and just realized that I “finished” it without posting the big money shot (taken exactly one week after surgery) – the representation of what this whole thing is all about (and my least-favorite selfie). NOTE: exactly 4 months later, I took another picture, combined it with the original and posted it on 3-23-18:

 

I guess it could have been worse:

 

So I’m now keeping everything together – literally – by hugging a pillow when I sneeze and hoping that no car taps mine and explodes the driver-side airbag at my knitting sternum…………things I couldn’t possibly imagine worrying about 3 months ago.

Life sure is interesting……………and precious.

 

Late addition (1-16-18):

Regarding the above-mentioned 4-hour nuclear stress test, I still don’t have the results yet (end of the month), but I DO have a 4-picture photo stitch that I took from the treadmill room after the test.

As with all photo stitches on this blog, click on the image to enlarge. After it enlarges, put cursor over image. If it shows a + sign, click the image again to make it full size (you will have to scroll from side to side). When finished, click the image once and then hit your back button to shrink it back to this post.

All information is on the stitch:

 

 

 

SO……….after the surgery/hospital stay and and the cardiac rehab facility stay, there’s a third component that’s voluntary, but STRONGLY encouraged:

OUTPATIENT PHYSICAL THERAPY

It took WAY too long to get started on this. It makes no sense to me to have a 3-month gap between the end of physical therapy at the CRF (Dec ’17) and the beginning of the outpatient version (Mar ’18). And if I didn’t complain about the lag to the cardiologist’s office, it probably would have taken even longer.

Eventually, I got started in this 3-times-a-week, 12-week program of one-hour sessions (ALL covered by Medicare) at Hackensack University Medical Center. I was offered a choice between treadmill and walking and took the latter and just whipped around the indoor track, faster than almost anybody (one-hour sessions were scheduled throughout the day and Usain Bolt might have been in one of the other ones, so I have no way of knowing where I ranked).

Who cares? Speed wasn’t the objective. I was moving again.

Various numbers of laps were alternated with sit-down exercise machines that worked my arms and legs. My blood pressure was taken before, after and sometimes during exercises. I wore a monitor that was attached to me EKG-style and transmitted information to the central desk, where attentive nurses and physical therapists kept a watchful eye on everyone.

And all those staff professionals were very nice, knowledgeable and extremely helpful, so I’d like to salute each and every one off them with this gorgeous group portrait I took of them:

 

In my defense, I kept asking when their pictures were going up on the wall and was assured that it would be “very soon”. Two months later, my time ran out. I even went back to shoot the below video a month after that and the wall was STILL blank.

Hey – I tried.

Regarding the video, I wanted to shoot it on my last day there, but privacy laws don’t permit that, which was fully understandable, so I made arrangements to go back on a day when the gym wasn’t in use.

However, I DID manage to take a couple of shots of things that caught my eye during my tenure there.

The first thing I wanted to get was the Privacy Curtain, which I refer to in the video as the “fancy locker room”. BTW, there IS a locker room there, but I never used it – or even saw it – so as far as I was concerned, the privacy curtain must be it:

 

Shapes and colors brought me over to an area of the gym I never got familiar with:

 

I have no idea what the story of this 3-dimensional piece of art is, but it looked interestingly out of place in a cardiac rehab gym, so……….click!

 

When I returned to shoot the video, I took a couple of stills in the half-dark gym, including two from opposite corners of the room and one of the monitoring desk with my favorite nurse at the helm. You might not recognize her from behind, but she’s definitely in those staff shots on the wall:

 

On to the video, which I had to do quickly. I mumbled here and there (I had to be quiet – people were working nearby) and have had some on-and-off voice problems that make it sound a bit higher than normal. And of course, it had to happen on a day when I needed to narrate.

Maybe I should have asked about vocal rehab while I was there.

 

 

.

 

 

20.5 Girls

This girl was a full block away when I saw her from my living room. I have no idea why she was in that spot, but as she moved/danced/gyrated: click, click, click, click……..21 times. Her last move was to walk behind a building that half-blocked her when I hit the shutter and that’s where the 0.5 comes from.

 

 

It must cost a LOT of money to see how fast your heater is if they have to put an ATM next to it.

 

 

In the 2011 post, there’s a shot of a gray-haired woman carrying boxes and the caption says that she was the inspiration for Jimi Hendrix’ hit, “Boxy Lady”.

I think she has some serious competition:

 

 

13 Food/Drink-related photos/composites:

 

 

 

In 1967 or 1968, I was on 42nd St in Manhattan (near 8th Ave.) one evening when I saw someone being mobbed on the sidewalk. It was Muhammad Ali signing autographs!

The only thing I had on me with a flat writable surface was my good old Little Black Book (Volume 4!) in my back pocket. I couldn’t even see Ali when I stuck my arm in the mob’s midst, but the LBB was taken from my hand and put back in it a couple of seconds later and the left page was the result. He had changed his name from Cassius Clay in 1964 and the new name still hadn’t stuck with most of us yet, so that’s why I wrote the note on the right page (and misspelled “Muhammad”).

I had misplaced the LBB and had been looking for it for a long time when I found it in early 2017, so I took a picture in case I lose it again.

 

 

At first, I thought this guy was wearing a partially-colorful shirt, but he appears to be using a vintage folding hand fan – something I’ve NEVER seen anyone do in the municipal parking lot:

 

 

Above an overexposed moon is a plane that just took off from LaGuardia Airport in NY. Having used a slow shutter speed, I would expect some blurring, but I have no idea how it got that corkscrew look:

 

 

This is a piece of art near the entrance to Hackensack Hospital:

 

 

I’ve heard of the Red Hat Society, so I’m guessing that this is an offshoot for kids?

 

 

Forced child labor:

 

 

Sun reflections? One faces east and one faces west…………….maybe they’re communicating:

 

 

Flo from Progressive Insurance visits Bogota, NJ (Flogota?):

 

 

Three horses visit the back of my building:

 

 

American Kestrel – the smallest raptor (on my roof):

 

 

Two new luxury towers have recently been constructed right by the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, NJ – The Modern 1 and The Modern 2 (both are screaming for nouns to modify).

1 is closest to the bridge and is occupied and 2 is neither. However, most of this year saw it acquire a skin. The pictures within the dual image were taken 28 days apart in July (1st and 29th). If you have good eyesight, you might be able to count the number of additional floors covered during that period.

There are a couple of November pictures that show 2 fully covered.

 

 

The invasion of the red camera phones (and why is that guy taking a picture of me taking a picture of him?):

 

 

New Jersey-style cattle rustling:

 

 

Sun-block for Mom:

 

 

There was extensive water pipe replacement work for a couple of months right in front of my building that gave me an interesting shooting perspective: shooting straight down from 7 floors up (though I DID walk around the area for a couple of the shots):

 

 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a complete hydrant – including all the below-ground stuff before – let alone FOUR brand-new ones together:

 

 

And here’s where one of them wound up: it gives the appearance of double-protection for the church………at least for a little while:

 

 

Wow – a whole bunch of something-or-others right at my front door:

 

 

Parking was a bit problematic out front:

 

 

Down in a hole (any AIC fans out there?):

 

 

Usually, there are just cryptic numbers and lines scrawled on the street that I can’t decipher, so I’ll go downstairs/outside and ask questions. One day, I saw – right below my shooting perch – what appeared to be semi-readable…………a sort of “what” and even “WHEN” (never saw THAT before). Was that for me?

Whatever it was, that’s what they did on Thursday:

 

 

And look! Our building got its first bathroom out of the deal!

 

 

This Ecuadorian procession usually takes place on New Year’s Day, but they added one this year on September 30. I don’t know why they did that, but when I see something like this coming down my street, I shoot first and ask questions later (I still haven’t gotten around to the asking part yet):

 

 

I saw this group of fish crows on the roof of a building a block away, looking like they were about to take off en masse.

Sure enough…………

 

 

School buses:

 

 

There was an identical truck from the same company behind this one and from the looks of this picture, it just exploded (and if you believe THAT……..):

 

 

Speaking of destruction, the Oritani Field Club – a 90 year-old, revered building in Hackensack – was torn down in April to make room for a luxury residential project. These are a couple of the pictures I took, but if you’d like to see a much more extensive look at the demolition – including a video I took from the roof of the Johnson Public Library across the street – go here:

http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,2033.0.html

Photo-stitch (you know what to do):

 

 

Where all those quarters go:

 

 

You don’t want the concrete to catch fire now, do you?

 

 

If the clock can be redundant, so can I:

 

 

I took ONE step towards these geese and they all took off (bottom). Three seconds later, I took the top pic:

 

 

I saw these boxes about a third of a block away (and 7 floors down), but couldn’t tell what they said, so I zoomed in and found that they had contained diapers. NINE SECONDS LATER – as I was about to take a second shot – a parking SUV just crunched them, even though there were quite a few empty spaces on either side of this space. It looked quite sadistic.

Almost two hours later (and with a different SUV in the space), I could see what the first one had done while he/she was thinking of his/her own kids and all the diapers that had been changed.

I wouldn’t want to be THAT parent’s kid.

 

 

Stretching:

 

 

I’m guessing that the toddler wasn’t familiar with the concept of high-fiving. I stopped shooting because it looked like it was about to turn violent.

 

 

This is the only girl I’ve ever seen who put fidget spinners in her hair – trend-setter? Probably not, as I’ve never seen another since then (May 2017), though there are lots of YouTube vids showing girls curling their hair with them:

 

 

In October 2011, I shot a live raptor show in Alpine, NJ. Six years later, I returned to do it again. I took lots more pictures than what I’m showing here. Once again, it was put on by Bill Streeter of the Delaware Valley Raptor Center.

The pix:

Bill gets an earful from a peregrine falcon:

 

He walks through the audience with the same bird:

 

This is a Saw-whet owl – the smallest owl. I guess that this is an example of owl photographic red-eye, but I made no effort to correct it – it’s kinda cool-looking, no?

 

A Golden Eagle:

 

 

Forty days and forty nights after my birthday, a slightly-deflated Happy Birthday balloon floated upstairs to my apartment. I sent it straight back down.

 

 

I had to go food-shopping on Halloween and then decided to visit Hackensack’s semi-famous Halloween street, Clinton Place, where almost every house goes all-out with extreme and imaginative Halloween decorations (go to Google Images and check out Clinton Place Halloween).

A Halloween greeting from the cart-collector guy in the supermarket parking lot:

 

 

Some of the sights on Clinton Place:

 

How to assure that your house gets TP’d (or worse):

 

 

A PUNK CLOUD! (Hey – it’s got a Mohawk):

 

 

36 minutes later in the same part of the sky (Hey – it’s got a sundog!):

 

 

On the road to a family reunion on Long Island of 9 cousins from 7 states, I (as a passenger) took the top picture while heading east on 295 before bending south to get on the Throgs Neck Bridge.

Once I was on that bridge’s approach (and before the green signs), I turned to my right (looking west) to shoot the not-too-distant (and sort of parallel) Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (bottom pic). Both bridges – as you can see in the last image – cross the East River from Queens to the Bronx and can bring you right to Rt 95, which goes straight to the George Washington Bridge and NJ.

The shot shows a different view – the east side of Manhattan – than what I normally see. I had one shot to get it all in.

I’m happy with it.

 

 

Forget getting close to these guys. Fish crows (smaller than regular crows and sound more like a duck) usually fly away if they so much as SEE me 100 feet away.

This one didn’t seem to care one way or another, so I got lots of interesting shots from different angles. These two are my favorites:

 

 

I took these two shots in my living room about a month apart. In the first one, you can see a framed shot that I featured in the 1985 post that may be one of the best non-music shots I’ve ever taken.

On the left is the lead–off shot in the 2008 post – the former Keef Leafe (see 1998 post to make any sense out of that). He’s standing by the front entrance to my apartment.

When I come in that door, I slip my shades onto his jacket. You can sorta make them out in that first pic, but they figure prominently in the second one, where they reflect back into the main part of the living room (the flat-screen is in both images).

I really like the composition of that second pic.

 

 

THE GREAT SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 2017

The sun was too high in the sky and none of my still or video cameras were capable of shooting directly into a bright sun (why don’t they schedule these things closer to sunset? ). I suppose I could have gotten a piece of filter to hold in front of the camera like some of my neighbors did, but I didn’t because I thought I had one. Obviously, I didn’t.

When it became apparent that I wouldn’t be able to get a good shot of the sun at the time of maximum eclipse – 2:44pm – I decided to get a shot of other people who may have done just that.

Half a block away were some people in the street who seemed to have a small piece of filter. One enterprising duo appeared to team up: I think one was holding the filter over the other’s camera lens and perhaps got the shot at exactly 2:44pm:

 

Seven minutes later, I got my ONE shot of the eclipse, thanks to the filter of…………CLOUDS:

 

There WAS one sequence I captured that seemed to provide a bit of levity………..I think. After taking a photo, a woman who was a block away appears to be looking through a homemade telescope that seems to have started out as a cardboard center from an elephant’s roll of toilet paper:

The middle bottom image shows that the “glass” end looks to be as white as the sides. Is this a prop? And what is she looking at? She’s aiming in almost every direction except where the sun is. Look at her shadow going to the left. The sun would be directly to the right.

All 6 pictures were taken at 2:43 and 2:44. If she’s faking it, why do it at the moment of totality? If this was a functioning telescope, why did she never once look toward the star of the show (and the literal star of our solar system)?

Though the shoot felt like a failure for most of my time on the roof, I DID get an eclipse shot, a shot of someone else (hopefully) capturing the event at totality and a bizarrely odd group of images of a brilliant/crazy woman (take your pick) who made me laugh.

 

 

I look out my east-facing living room window every day to gaze upon the north-south Hackensack River, which happens to have an east-west bend (Kipp’s Bend) directly in line with where I live. This gives me a wider “expanse” of the river to view that most other local people with an eastern view. I’ve treasured (and photographed) this view for 30 years.

But it’s scheduled to vanish soon.

That two-story building that you see in the lower left of the first picture – along with nearly a block of other buildings – will be demolished sometime in 2018. In its place will be a five-story residential building that will entirely wipe out my view of the river (and Chicken Supreme in the second image – horrors!).

I am but one man who rents an apartment, so I have no say in the matter. Besides, it’s progress and part of the city’s master rehabilitation plan. As an historian, I understand and appreciate that. I’m lucky that I got to photograph it and enjoy it for three decades.

Anyway, here are two 2017 shots that involve the river and the sun coloring it, though the second one doesn’t show the sun because it has just risen and is out of the frame:

 

 

On nice Sunday mornings, I go out on the roof to read the paper………..NOT on my iPad, but rather an actual, physical newspaper (unless it’s windy). I position the chaise right by the door and the edge of the roof, so I have a very wide view of the sky and half of Hackensack. My camera sits next to me, ready to capture whatever my peripheral vision notices while reading.

Sort of surrounding me is the old metal framework for a shade canopy that existed many tenants ago. For some reason, that framework also draws attention from flying things with stingers, like bees, wasps, and the like, but they never bother me.

They’ll land on it, walk around, fly off, rinse and repeat. Since I’m RIGHT THERE with a BIG ZOOM LENS, I try to capture a few closeups.

On this particular morning, I got a head-on shot of some cute little thing that seemed to be staring at me. It might have been a bee, but I couldn’t see its body to properly identify it.

Fifty minutes later and four feet to the right, I happened to get a shot of a black waspy-looking creature, but it wasn’t until I saw the image enlarged on my computer screen that I noticed that it appeared to be on top of a smaller creature.

I just hope that the bottom being wasn’t that cute little thing in the first picture. If it was, I’m naming the upper creature Roy Moore, in “honor” of the US Senate hopeful from Alabama, who also liked cute young things.

 

 

Here’s a first: a young girl attempts a sidewalk handstand and then dives into the front seat of a car through the passenger-side window – a shot that I think works well with the third picture.

As I understand it, it has something to do with an aversion to germy door handles:

 

 

These two shots were taken at the beginning and end of the Alpine, NJ, live raptor show I wrote about earlier. The event took place at the Alpine Lookout, just off the Palisades Interstate Parkway (the PIP), high atop the Palisades (and above the Hudson River). This is about as far north as you can go on the PIP before you enter Rockland County, NY.

The views are magnificent, so before the show, I took a photo upriver of something I had shot before, but is now in transition: the Tappan Zee Bridge, which connects Rockland County with Westchester County.

In the picture, the (lower, nearer) bridge is being replaced by the taller-towered bridge, which is named for former NY governor, Mario Cuomo. The new name is not popular and legislation has been introduced to go back to the old name.

Meanwhile, I have a chance here to capture both bridges before the old one is torn down:

After the show, I decided to attempt a long (9 images) photo stitch (click, click, scroll). These are not easy to line up properly – especially hand-held – but luck was with me that day.

Ideally, this would have reached between the Tappan Zee and the George Washington Bridge – a distance of maybe 18 miles (? – online guesses vary from 14 to 21, but those were all driving distances, not as the crow flies……….or the boat sails).

In any event, it would be pretty cool to get that shot……….and I would have except for that piece of the Palisades on the far right. If you enlarge the picture, you can see some midtown Manhattan buildings and those are about 7 miles PAST the GWB, so it’s easy to speculate where that bridge would be in this photo, were it not for the cliff.

(You buyin’ this?)

 

I found these party animals in my apartment two months apart.

This first one seems like a pretty cool guy who brought along his own color-coordinated party streamers:

 

The second one drank WAY too much and acted out this song to the extreme (or maybe the dopey visuals did him in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-hAZM0BEEI

 

 

Originally, all the best shots of the 12,500 or so photos I took in 2017 were placed in folders by month. Those that had stories, used multiple images or required explanation were separated out and posted above, but many remain in the monthly folders.

Here they are and they are all posted sequentially to the minute:

 

JANUARY

 

(I liked both of these):

 

FEBRUARY

Beavis and Butt-head pose for my new camera:

(though I usually see it in color)

 

(It’s all about one guy’s delivery trip up a ladder)

 

MARCH

(no comment)

 

 

APRIL

(Lower buildings in NJ, tall one in NY, fog is ONLY over the Hudson River – never saw that before)

 

(Church next door: Palm Sunday and Easter)

 

(Juvenile red-tailed hawk, my bedroom A/C, windy day)

 

MAY

(I don’t know why, but I like this shot)

 

(calling for more cup holders?)

 

 

JUNE

(I got the better shot – the foot on the post!)

 

(curved stitch from my living room: click, click, scroll)

 

(This is also a stitch – 2 pix (top and bottom) – and made normal size…..no clicking)

 

JULY

(Manhattan rainbow)

 

(Hackensack high-rises)

 

(while wearing a Lacoste crocodile shirt! – a felony in the 70s)

 

Shadows

 

(is the baby rolled up in the………..?)

 

(LOVE the hair!)

 

(click, click, scroll)

 

AUGUST

(“At my baby shower, all I got was this crappy balloon, so……….”)

 

(looks like someone failed her parallel-parking test)

 

 

SEPTEMBER

(Duh!)

 

(not me – whatever he’s aiming at, I shot it already)

 

(I am NEVER getting old! 😉 )

 

(This was originally darker and I thought that was all him.)

 

 

OCTOBER

 

NOVEMBER

 

9 George Washington Bridge images from Veterans Day, 11-11-17 (most of which can be found on the previous 2017 post)

(under the bridge)

 

(see the moon?)

 

(The new Modern 1 and 2 residential towers in Fort Lee)

 

 

DECEMBER

 

(Can’t decide on the next two)

 

 

This stitch is also on the previous post. Click, click, scroll to wrap things up for this year:

 

 

I hope you enjoyed it and special thanks if you actually made it all the way through. As usual, all comments and questions are welcome.

 

 

Students from at least 18 high schools (and a lot of concerned citizens) converged on the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack last Saturday at a rally against gun violence. I’m not a big rally type, but this one was important. Plus – as a local historian and photographer – I wanted to document Hackensack’s part in the national March For Our Lives day.

What I really wanted was to somehow capture the entire scene in one image, in addition to photographically taking the pulse of the crowd and their signs in individual photos.

Here’s what I came up with:

 

Location

 

Signs

 

 

Why is everyone smiling? (don’t look, NRA)

 

This one got her game face back on:

 

State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg:

 

US Representative Josh Gottheimer speaks……..

 

……..a student sings the National Anthem………

 

…….while General Enoch Poor listens. The general – a trusted associate of George Washington – is buried in the cemetery of the church you see on the right. Washington attended his funeral there.

 

You can see all of the above in the background of this crowd shot:

 

A future student worth protecting:

 

Two students addressing the crowd:

 

Two other crowd shots (gotta get at least ONE shot of the courthouse, right?):

 

As I was getting ready to leave, I came across this young girl carrying a much-larger friend that was wearing a #ENOUGH muscle shirt. This has to be my favorite shot of the event:

 

But I think my best “shot” – actually 5 photographs – is this photostitch that captures the entire crowd. To view it full-size, click on the image to partially enlarge it. Run the cursor over the image. You should see it become a plus sign. Click again for maximum enlargement. You will have to scroll from side-to-side to see the whole thing. To shrink it back down, click the image and then hit your back button.

 

The student organizers and everyone else did a great job. With all the other rallies/marches going on around the country, I didn’t see much coverage of Hackensack’s, so I’m proud to do my part for the right team.

 

BTW – after hearing some of the national anthem being sung, I liked her voice, so I recorded the rest. Unfortunately, she had to fight with a Public Parking sign for the attention of the camera’s focus. I was also late in recording a crowd chant of “Vote them out!”, so I only got the last 3 fading seconds of it. So as not to let it go to waste, I tacked it onto the end of the video.

 

                                   (REMINDER: ALL photos and text are fully-copyrighted and I take that quite seriously)

I have a good friend named Eric Leefe (no relation, except for music). Cerebral palsy has confined him to a wheelchair for all of his 55 years, yet he fronted bands on Long Island in the 1980s and continues to record albums.

His father – who was “blessed” with the very suspicious-sounding name of “Bob Leefe” – is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a legendary studio engineer who recorded Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” and countless other early rock luminaries’ hits. According to the below list, he also developed the first color TV. Though I can find nothing online to substantiate that, Eric tells me that his father was involved in adapting the silver-screen Technicolor process to television.

 

Eric hung out at his father’s studio and met people like Carly Simon, the band Chicago and the Rolling Stones, while Bob taught him how to mix songs.

One of Bob’s clients was Tommy James, who befriended Eric and is still a good friend to him. In fact, a few years ago, it was Tommy and his manager, Carol Ross, who rescued Eric from a dire living situation on Long Island and got him placed in a beautiful facility in Hawthorne, NJ , called Van Dyk Park Place.

That’s where I met Eric in 2014 after reading a newspaper story about him. A guy involved in music named Leefe (and with a father named Bob Leefe)? I gotta meet this guy!

I knew Carol Ross from the late 70s when she ran the Press Office in Manhattan and set me up with photo passes for KISS, among others, so I contacted her about popping in on Eric.

“Go for it!”

Without any notice to Eric, I walked into his room one day and announced that “I’m not the re-incarnation of anyone, but my name is Bob Leafe” and we’ve been friends ever since. Here we are at Van Dyk a month after we met:

 

As nice as the facility is, Eric’s the kid in the house, as most of the other residents are in their 80s and 90s, meaning that he’s still kind of alone on an island, so a gentleman by the name of Fred Provencher – another friend of Eric’s (he’s the pastor of the Cornerstone Christian Church in Wyckoff , NJ) – and I try to arrange little trips for Eric, so this New York guy can see some local NJ things he’s never seen before.

Lately, he’s been atop a mountain with great views, seen the second-highest waterfalls east of the Mississippi, saw the largest hanging US flag on the George Washington Bridge on Veterans Day (and was then wheeled across the bridge on the GWB walkway) and visited the grave of Joey Ramone (he knew Joey, was bummed that he couldn’t attend his funeral and got some closure with a visit to a Lyndhurst, NJ, cemetery).

Of course, I took pictures of these events – some of which have appeared on his CDs – and they appear below.

 

Atop Garret Mountain, as Rt. 80 cuts through Paterson, NJ:

 

If you’re not familiar with the Great Falls in Paterson, NJ, here’s a picture I took in 1987. It was dedicated as a National Historical Park in 2011:

 

If the above picture was taken from south of the falls, then this one was taken from north of them. In other words, they show both sides of the pedestrian bridge…….and Garret Mountain is in the background of this one:

 

Since Veterans Day is not a smiley occasion…………….

 

Eric clearly enjoys being barely back in his home state:

 

A moment of quiet contemplation at Joey Ramone’s grave:

 

Fans left a lot of different things at the grave, including a can of refried beans. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out why we sang “We’re A Happy Family” on the way back:

 

Back home at Van Dyk, Eric got a visit from (and got to sing with) Gene Cornish of The Rascals, courtesy of Carol Ross, who’s in the first picture:

 

 

 

 

But I digress………

This blog entry was supposed to be about the fact that I actually used my little pocket Canon to shoot a concert (I don’t do that anymore, remember?) that featured former big rock stars in the Maranatha Church of the Nazarene in Paramus, NJ, on May 5, 2018.

I got a call from Eric about this show. Through his church connections, he was going to see Rick Derringer play there and asked if I’d go with him to take pictures of him and Rick………..that’s all I was going to do.

I had other plans that night, but they were changeable, so I agreed to go.

I looked online the day before the show and found this odd poster for the event: “Cinco de JESUS”? Egad! I wonder what the people of Pueblo, Mexico, think about that.

 

But that poster held a pleasant surprise for me in the form of a very familiar name: Bobby Messano. Bobby was a local (Ridgefield Park, NJ) musician who I’ve been friendly with since 1976.

His early local claims to fame include being in the very first band (Stanky Brown) to ever play at Giants Stadium (4th on the bill at a Beach Boys and 3 others show in 1978). Go to bobleafe.com and enter 10-056 in the search box to see that.

But a more historic pairing occurred later that year at a “Bill Bradley for Senate” benefit at Rutgers (you remember Bill – he once played for the Knicks…………and then won the election).

The big surprise at this show was the first public appearance of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as The Blues Brothers away from Saturday Night Live. They didn’t even have their own band yet, so the Stankys – who were managed by the show’s promoter, John Scher – became their band for their first gig outside of SNL (this is a WAY-better trivia question than “Who was the first band to play Giants Stadium?”).

Go to bobleafe.com and click on the “Bill Bradley Benefit” link in the scrollable, alphabetical Photo Gallery on the left side on the main page to see other shots of Smiley Messano with Jake and Elwood, along with more original SNL cast members and others, like Gilda Radner hugging Paul Simon. Here’s a tease to tempt you over there:

 

Eric suggested I call up someone from the church regarding some logistical questions I had. I spoke with a friendly sound guy named Todd Rumsey, who informed me about ANOTHER show guest, but this would be a surprise appearance by……….Carmine Appice!

How could I NOT shoot this extravaganza?

Before the show, Rick did a meet and greet and signed a lot of things for his fans. Eric had dinner, courtesy of sound-guy Todd’s wife, Ruthanne, while the M&G crowd thinned out. Finally, he met Rick, who thought Eric wanted him to sign the 2 CDs that Eric handed to him.

“No, I’m giving you two of my CDs to listen to” – something Rick hadn’t encountered from any other fans that night. He seemed impressed and took an interest, especially when Eric told him about his Hall-of-Fame father, but the show was about to start, so I quickly got them together for this picture:

 

Eric was wheeled into the front row, replacing a folding chair, while Ruthanne and I sat on either side of him. After the first song of the opening act, I excused myself to go backstage and surprise Bobby, who was over-the top surprised…………and happy.

“I’m so happy to see you!”, he told me repeatedly as we walked outside to his tour vehicle. I honestly can’t recall ever getting a more joyous reception from anyone.

We’ve communicated off and on over the years, but I don’t know how long it’s been since we’ve actually seen each other in person…………maybe a couple of decades?

It was time to get ready for his performance, so I told him about Eric and he said he would meet with him later. I went back to my seat and caught most of the last song by the second act, Pure Skies, who I was told were high school guys. It was a Journey song and was done (and sung) really well.

Time for Bobby and his band.

He’s now a known blues guitarist/performer, but I hadn’t seen that side of him live before…………….my turn to be surprised and happy.

Here’s a song from that show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmLum-VdlBo

I just noticed that I entered the frame of that vid at the 1:33 mark to take some pictures. I’m sure the videographer was thrilled about that – sorry (but I DID kneel down).

Here’s one of those pictures:

 

Let me state right off the bat that as much as I love this little camera, it should not be anyone’s first choice for concert work, as you can see in this shot:

 

These two shots are semi-passable:

 

As you may have noticed in the show poster, this was a benefit for the C.A.R.E. Addiction Ministry, which is run by Joey Brennan, who was the show MC……..AND is accomplished in music (percussion, vocals, drums, blues harmonica).

Here he is jamming with the Messano band at the end of Bobby’s set:

 

True to his word, Bobby found Eric later on and spoke with him before posing for this shot:

 

Time for the headliner.

The last time I photographed Rick Derringer was 30 years ago at the 30th annual Grammys in 1988 at Radio City Music Hall, posing with Les Paul:

 

After Joey introduces Rick and the band, he heads offstage:

 

Rick tells the audience about becoming a Christian and seeking out the wisdom of a spiritual adviser regarding his conundrum about continuing to play “the devil’s music” while trying to be a good Christian:

He was told that it would be alright because he would now be considered an industry insider – a double-agent for God, if you will.

Um………….OK.

 

Various shots of Rick, Kenn and Charlie:

 

Carmine sneaks in behind his kit. Does anyone else see some Father Guido Sarducci in the shot on the right?

 

Joey Brenner and Kenn introduce Carmine to the audience:

 

I sneak over to front/center to get unobstructed shots of Carmine, Rick & Carmine and Carmine with the band, saying “good night”:

(Rick’s got his pick in his mouth)

 

Guess who got one of Carmine’s drumsticks and had him sign it backstage after the show? (hint: he’s holding it in this picture):

 

Lastly, Eric is greeted by Kenn and Charlie, who both indicate to me how many pictures I’m allowed to take:

 

All in all, it was a pretty good evening, so thanks to Eric for the invite. It was also really cool to see Bobby again – someone I first met in 1976.

Speaking of 1976, as I pulled out of the church lot, I realized that in that year, I actually lived on the same street that the church is on, passed it every day to and from work, but was never aware of it.

I am now.

 

Ignore the above publish date (see main page for explanation). Publish date was June 28, 2018.

I have an almost-30-year-old nephew in Colorado named Brian (courtesy of my sister Geri +1) with whom I enjoyed great email communication as he was growing up, but I hadn’t seen him in person since last century, when he and Geri came east in 1998 and we attended a Mets game (Mike Piazza’s first game as a Met!).

Brian got married last fall in Colorado to a dear friend named Amber in a package deal that included a huge bonus named Charlotte (courtesy of Amber +1). BTW – Charlotte is NOT huge, but IS a 9-year-old sweetheart. Brian’s a doubly-lucky man.

He let me know recently that the 3 of them were coming east to visit NYC and, perhaps, an uncle.

Due to a computer problem on my end, I didn’t find out about their arrival until the night before he wanted to get together, so things were quickly rearranged and a meeting took place at their NJ hotel last Saturday, June 23.

We had nothing planned, but I came up with two possibilities that I ran by the boss and Charlotte picked The Great Falls National Park in nearby Paterson, NJ. It was the right choice for a variety of reasons:

1. History! Everyone’s recent friend, Alexander Hamilton, viewed the falls in 1778, foresaw the hydroelectric possibilities and was the impetus for Paterson becoming America’s first industrialized city.

2. It’s a pretty small national park – 42 acres – and the falls section is a much smaller part of that. You can easily do the falls area on foot in an hour or less. We did.

3. And that included visiting something else of historical importance that’s basically across the street from the park: Hinchliffe Stadium. Built in 1932 and currently in disrepair, it was originally home to teams in the Negro Leagues. Some future Major League Baseball players played there. Here’s an informative video:

Ever hear of Larry Doby? If not, you should have. Everyone knows who Jackie Robinson was and that he was known for being the first African-American to break the color barrier in the Major Leagues when he was signed by the Dodgers of the National League in 1947.

Doby was “the Jackie Robinson of the American League”, signing with Cleveland less than 3 months later. He endured all the racial epithets, etc., that Robinson did, but hardly anybody knows who he is.

Larry Doby was from Paterson, so his legend is pretty large around here. Here’s the lowdown on him: http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/larry-doby-cleveland-indians-second-black-major-league-baseball/16meya6khdy6e12zhulm8f6dtj

 

I’ve posted pictures of the falls in a couple of different posts here (including the previous one), but one tends to see different things on different visits and it was my first visit with family. I also hadn’t photographed Hinchliffe previously, so here we go:

There’s a lot of work being done in the main entrance/reception area (Overlook), so Hamilton’s statue has been boxed (to be temporarily moved?). However, since my visiting family members didn’t get to see it, I’ve faintly superimposed a picture of the statue that I took a few years ago on the box. It’s even facing the correct direction. I hope they all come back soon to verify that.

I told Charlotte to look beyond the unsightly construction to the pedestrian bridge above the falls and that we’d be there soon.

 

I led the group around the corner and up the street to a you’d-never-know-it-was-an-entrance entrance that would lead us to the bridge over the falls. On the way to that bridge, there were things to shoot as we followed the Passaic River to the falls.

I don’t know how these “pre-falls” came to be, but I find them interesting. Some people who come here for the first time ask, “These are the Great Falls? Pretty puny!”. Then they come upon the real falls and are impressed. Fortunately, I didn’t hear that on this trip.

By the way, the bridge you see here over the river is on that street that we just walked up (Wayne Avenue). It’s also the street that we’ll be coming down when we finish our counter-clockwise trek (and shoot the same “pre-falls” from the opposite angle).

One more thing – as I was shooting this through the wrought-iron fence, Brian came up somewhere to my left and did the same. Unbeknownst to me (and probably to Brian), Amber was somewhere behind me and to my right taking a picture of uncle and nephew doing the photographic waltz.

I was given a quick glimpse of her shot and hope that she sends it to me (along with others) to possibly add to this post (with full credit, of course). Better yet, maybe she can post them here in a comment (is that even doable?).

Never mind. A fourth member of the Colorado Contingent – who didn’t make the trip (Brian’s mom/my sister) – sent me the shot:

 

When I first saw it, I thought it looked like Brian was trying to bend the bars, which reminded me of a shot I took in the same area that’s in the 1991 post (and below):

 

I saw something else in Amber’s picture. If you look closely, you can see part of a third person in it. PhotoShop carbon-dating tells me that that part is about 9 years old.

 

Almost to the pedestrian bridge, I looked back over toward the Overlook construction area (Hamilton’s box is on the right), but couldn’t read the sign, so a closeup follows:

William Carlos Williams, by the way, is another local guy (Rutherford, NJ) and one of his more famous poems is “Paterson”. The pictured quote is from another of his poems, “The Botticellian Trees”.

 

Almost there……………

 

Partially there…………….

 

THERE

 

Views from the other side of the bridge:

 

Me and the Bri-guy (taken by Amber):

 

By height: Brian, Amber, Charlotte (who likes to vary her facial expressions):

 

I was going for a shot of the mist, but I………mist.

 

Cinderella loses her slipper. In the animated film, Cinderella loses her left slipper. In the live-action film, she loses her right slipper, so this couldn’t possibly be a live shot.

That means that Charlotte is a cartoon (but don’t tell her). OMG! – that also means that Amber’s +1 is Walt Disney!

 

Re-slippered, Charlotte slides down the hill and nearly crashes into her mother.

 

We escape from the Park, but the only one of us who looked graceful doing so was Charlotte, so here she is (you wouldn’t want to see me or Brian doing this – trust me).

 

We made our escape all the way across the street to more history…………

 

Two layers of fencing couldn’t keep SOMEBODY out. She got in and took shots that I wanted to take (the field!) and got out (I hope she sends me that shot):

 

SOMEBODY ELSE wanted to emulate Mommy, but only a little bit:

 

I was content to shoot a football scoreboard that I could see from outside and a couple of interestingly-painted nearby buildings, but I WILL get inside eventually:

 

Stop-sign pole theft is apparently a problem in this area:

 

This is a corner of the stadium at the intersection where that stop-sign was. SOMEBODY looks like she really wants to be on the other side of the fence:

 

SOMEBODY gets her wish (and looks like a hardened jailbird):

 

Crossing the street to head back into the Park, I pointed out the bent sign (maybe someone tried to steal its pole too) and the lack of proper punctuation that changed its meaning. Placing an un-slow child in front of it provided the perfect contrast and made it a better shot.

Her pose was entirely her idea and it was the right one. I didn’t have to say a word…………she gets it.

 

Back in the Park, we came across the prosperous-looking Great Falls Development Corporation building. You can tell that Charlotte was impressed.

 

Behind the building, I did a 3-photo stitch that shows (l-r): the area where we did the family shots, the pedestrian bridge (with the lower Overlook area under it), the falls, the pre-falls and the Wayne Avenue bridge. Garret Mountain is in the background.

To view it full-size, click on the image. Once it enlarges, run the mouse over the image – it should become a plus sign – and then click again. You’ll need to scroll from left to right to see everything. To return to normal size, click on the image and then hit your back button.

 

We could hear a lot of noise on our short, inclined walk back to Wayne Avenue………..a parade? When we got there, we saw a crowd of THREE guys waving Mexican flags and yelling at passing cars. Apparently, Mexico had just won a game in World Cup competition.

On a nearby pole, I found a bright red Blocking Tag, but wasn’t sure what it was for. Maybe it was a penalty card for a catcher for blocking the plate and keeping a runner from scoring when he didn’t have the ball yet? Whatever it was, it made the whole background tilted.

 

Various angles/views of the pre-falls as we walked down Wayne Avenue:

 

AND THE WINNER IN THE 9-10 AGE GROUP IS………………

 

After a bite of incredibly-slow fast food – courte$y of some chick named Wendy – we were happily ushered out of Paterson by another of its famous sons………….an appropriate ending to a nice visit:

 

The Overview:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I accidently helped.

A couple of my pix appeared in birder Jim Wright’s blog on Monday, July 23 and Tuesday, July 24, 2018:

http://www.celeryfarm.net/2018/07/monday-morning-mystery-072318-fish-crows.html

http://www.celeryfarm.net/2018/07/fish-crow-week-part-ii-opening-a-letter.html

 

Jim also writes “The Bird Watcher” column for The Record (NJ) and this appeared today, Thursday, July 26:

 

It’s not quite like shooting the Byrds, the Eagles, the Black Crowes (except that these ARE black crows) or any other birdbrained band, but I can now make up stories about the birds without worrying about my next photo pass request being denied.

 

 

 

 

(Ignore the stated publish date – this was published on August 25, 2018)

 

It’s been raining a LOT lately and whenever that happens, the Falls flow can be pretty tremendous. I keep telling myself I’m gonna go there the day after downpours, but something else always comes up.

On the morning of August 15 – after a couple of days of tons of rain – I took a look at the Great Falls cam (https://www.earthcam.com/usa/newjersey/paterson/?cam=patersonfalls) – dropped what I was doing and drove the 10 miles out to Paterson.

It had only been 7 weeks since I visited there with the Colorado Contingent, but, boy, was it worth it. The flow was average on June 23 with very little mist kicked up, but it was a different story on this day. Plus, the sun was out – unlike last time. That meant rainbows in the mist.

Speaking of the Contingent post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6333), you may need to jump back and forth a bit to compare the then-and-now pictures.

Before I start the tour, I want to show you an item I picked up on eBay 16 or 17 years ago. It looks like an egg with a nipple and “Passaic Falls Souvenir” is painted on it, along with some artist’s depiction of the Falls.

 

I don’t know its age, but I do know that the shown red tower isn’t there anymore, so that’s gotta be a clue. I found an old Falls convention patch/pass/something online that was dated 1919 and showed that tower, so that was my starting point…………..and ending point, until I emailed National Parks Service ranger Miguel Ruiz, whom I had met at the Falls gift shop the morning of my visit.

He checked around and while nobody could nail it down, the general consensus was that it might be from around 1914 or 1915 or sometime in the late teens, so it’s an antique.

 

So let’s start the tour:

This sign wasn’t there last time, so I have to put this picture up first, so you can all change your Labor Day plans ASAP.

 

I wonder how many people recall this: September 3 will be the 44th anniversary of famous French high-wire artist Phillippe Petit strolling across the Great Falls (https://www.reddit.com/r/newjersey/comments/3jiqr1/philippe_petit_braves_the_great_falls_of_paterson/). He became famous less than one month prior (August 7) when he did the same thing between the towers of the World Trade Center (without permission – http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/philippe-petit-twin-towers-balancing-act-remembered#slide1)

No guarantees this year. I attended this Festival in ’76 or ’77 and all I recall was that parking was horrible, but if you parachute in – without permission, of course – you too might become famous.

So after crossing the street from the gift shop. I saw the same rehabilitation work going on in the Overlook section (off limits, Hamilton in a box…………lotsa stuff going on, but it’ll be gorgeous when it’s done).

 

Just after entering the park on Wayne Ave. I immediately saw this scene, which I don’t recall seeing before, probably because of the angle of the sun, the bright white water going over a couple of Falls sections, the pump station building (you’ll see a photostitch of the inside of that later), and especially the right-side balance of the orange shirt on the guy taking a picture:

 

This scene (fence and pre-falls) has already become mini-folklore in the CO/NJ part of the family (see the Colorado Contingent post), but the reason I took it was because I saw it live a couple of days earlier on a TV news segment about the flooding caused by the Passaic River. This was the exact background the reporter chose. She must have seen it in my post (uh-huh):

 

The big sign at the Overlook is now missing the William Carlos Williams quote. Maybe they have a winter-themed one to replace it? (You’ll have to jump over to the previous visit’s post to make any sense out of that):

 

Approaching the pedestrian bridge: you can see part of the Falls chasm on the left and 5-time Emmy Award-winning videographer from NJ.com (the Newark Star Ledger) Andre Malok on the right. Here’s what he produced from his Falls shoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARVANknuzys

After viewing his professional video, I’m tempted to delete my mishmash of multiple little QuickTime videos.

 

Love locks in Paterson! (Tin Tin + Tanisha)

From Wiki: A love lock or love padlock is a padlock which sweethearts lock to bridge, fence, gate, monument or similar public fixture to symbolize their love. Typically the sweethearts’ names or initials, and perhaps the date, are inscribed on the padlock, and its key is thrown away (often into the nearby river) to symbolize unbreakable love.

 

The main Falls and rainbow, as seen from the pedestrian bridge – the shadow of which can be seen at the bottom:

 

Heading north(?) – a left turn off the bridge – I made a 3-image photostitch with a glitch (for all photostitches, click once to enlarge to fill the width of the screen. When your pointer is on the image, it should turn into a + sign/magnifying glass. Click again to get the full size of the stitch. You’ll then have to scroll from left to right to see the full-size image, which is usually wider than your screen. The pointer’s + sign will now be a minus sign and you can then click to bring it back to full screen width. Hit your back button to bring it back to where it started).

 

A couple with an umbrella as storm clouds approach…………on a sunny day?

 

Nah – it’s just the hyperactive mist, which you may recall I “mist” last time due to lower water volume.

 

Geese swim near the edge of the Falls:

 

On the left is the pumping station building that I mentioned earlier. On the right is the Great Falls Development Corporation building that was shown is the previous visit’s post. I’ll wait while you go back and look……………….(is he serious?):

 

This is a 3-pic stitch that shows the interior of the historic pumping station, which was built in 1896. Entry was not permitted, but the door was wide open, so I stood in the doorway and took 3 pictures, which, when stitched together, let me capture the majority of the room (I think). Click, +, -, back button – you know the drill:

 

Right across the street is Hinchliffe Stadium – one of the last Negro Leagues stadia (3 years of high school Latin pays off!) in existence. It fell into disrepair decades ago, but is now starting to benefit from rehabilitation project money.

There is a TON of baseball history associated with this stadium. If you’re not familiar with it, go to the previous visit’s post and check it out. You may be quite surprised.

If you recall from that last visit, one of us got inside and one of us said, “I WILL get inside eventually” – mission accomplished………….from TWO different entry points.

One was on the Falls side: a completely-open entry point for vehicles. I walked up to a mid-field barrier and shot this multi-image stitch, but it really doesn’t show much:

 

I DID, however, get a better shot of the football scoreboard than I got last time:

 

With so much asphalt replacing grass – not to mention the mid-field barrier – there really wasn’t much else to shoot from this (disad)vantage point, I went back outside to walk around the perimeter.

It was nice to see work being done:

 

When I got around the corner, I saw the perfect shot to illustrate that Hinchliffe was, indeed, on the way back: a worker was painting the exterior by the left-side entrance that you can see in this last-visit 6-23-18 screen shot:

 

As I approached the man to tell him what I wanted to do, he started saying “No photos, no photos”. I explained that I didn’t want to include his face – in fact, it would be a better shot if he turned his back to me and just continued painting, but he adamantly continued saying, “No photos, no photos”.

Maybe his ass is on a Wanted posted somewhere.

 

I continued around to Amber’s last-visit entry point, which now had a clear path inside (taken from inside):

 

I imagine there were turnstiles here:

 

Going back three pictures, see the tower on the left with the two boarded-up windows? This is a shot of the inside of another tower’s similarly-boarded-up windows…………ticket windows:

 

This is the photostitch view I saw after turning around 180 degrees after taking the above shot – a great improvement over the previously-shown Hinchliffe stitch from mid-field. It shows a nearby tower’s ticket booth and contractors’ vehicles, etc., on the asphalt field:

 

After coming out the way I came in, I saw this painted on a nearby wall:

 

Jump back to the last visit to see a shot of two sides of this L-shaped building. I wanted more detail this time, so I did a stitch of the one visible wall (the other wall was blocked by parked cars). I WILL get that other wall eventually:

 

Having exited Hinchliffe, I walked back by the Falls and took a couple of shots. Hey – the rainbow’s arc changed a bit and its colors are better than they were 40 minutes ago. Compare this stitch with the earlier similar photo:

 

Another one to compare (last visit jumpback required): Check out the nearly-identical image taken in June with this one, whose falls are yellow. I don’t know if that’s due to the sun or pollution. The other differences are volume-related, i.e., the force of the flow and the river’s height (check the higher level on the bridge abutments vs. June’s).

 

Getting back to my starting point, this pic shows the downriver flow after the Falls and part of the Overlook area rehab, including the aforementioned Hamilton in a box.

 

This photostitch is an overview of the whole area. The building on the right isn’t really tilted – that’s due to the stitch program trying desperately to line up photos that I’ve fed it, but I wasn’t able to maintain EXACT horizontal precision while extending my arms out and moving them from left to right for four shots.

 

Below is a screen capture of the end of the third shot and the beginning of the fourth, which contained the whole building (and where I really screwed up). That little bit of the third couldn’t overcome the large bit of the fourth and the program did what it was supposed to do.

 

Time to say goodbye to Paterson and its shady……….oops!………..shaded people.

 

Oh, yeah………….the video:

https://youtu.be/0fzRh2o1Ag8

 

 

 

 

…………………………………………….(Ignore the stated publish date – this was published on September 5, 2018)

 

This is strange.

I woke up on Labor Day – two days ago – with an urge to write about some past labor………a nearly 14-year segment of my life that was supposed to be my career – my purpose in life – chemistry.

I’ve alluded to it here and there (briefly) both in this blog and on my site and there may be only a couple of family members who would give a fudge about it, so I guess I’m writing this mainly for me (but I DID include lots of pictures to make it tolerable to the rest of you).

I attended an all-boys Catholic high school (big mistake) in which high achievement was expected. I did OK in everything but chemistry.

It seemed like every other student by junior year knew what he wanted to become and, in some cases, which aspect of their professions they wanted to specialize in. I barely knew what I wanted for lunch.

I just could NOT get that interested in anything. By senior year, if you held a gun to my head, I might have expressed an interest in pharmacy, though I don’t know why – especially considering my ineptness at chemistry.

It was a big deal to get into this school and almost a must for a Catholic grammar school graduate. You had to take a test and you could only list three high schools. If you didn’t do well on the test, you were SOL (look it up in your Urban Dictionary).

I made all three schools, but instead of picking the co-ed one in the next town, I picked the “name” one that was three or four towns away. I had to take their school bus, which meant I could not participate in any after-school activities.

As enticement, the school recruiters told me that there were all sorts of girls hanging around the school, but they failed to mention that none of them were under 50.

I did get a decent education there, but nothing else. I graduated still not having a clue as to my future.

“You HAVE to go to a Catholic university!”, said the parental bill-payers. Seton Hall was 25 miles away and had been all-male, but recently went co-ed. Once again, I fell for the enticement, though this one was ever-so-slightly less dishonest.

There were 825 kids in my freshman class. Of the 825, SIX were female! And if that wasn’t bad enough, two of those six were NUNS!

Since I had no career goals, they put me in a liberal arts program, which included religion and philosophy – things I had absolutely NO interest in. To add to the misery, Army ROTC was required!

I’m sure there was some classroom work involved, but all I remember was that we had to march in a field every Wednesday afternoon………….in uniform! To add insult to injury, there were no locker rooms available for changing, so I had to wear the uniform all day long through every class.

Did I mention that this was the fall semester of 1965 when a highly-unpopular war was being fought in Vietnam? The uniform did not enhance our chances with the four available women on campus (If I remember correctly, that was no big loss).

This is the only picture of me in an Army uniform: me at 18 and Army Sgt. Dad at 24 (he served in the Pacific during WWII):

 

It got so bad, that I started to change clothes in my car in the school parking lot – something that we were expressly forbidden to do.

SO……….you can imagine how thrilled I was with Seton Hall when that semester finally ended. I was not a centimeter closer to finding a career and I was NOT looking forward to putting up with 7 more semesters of this and then graduating with a B.A. in Nothing and STILL not knowing what I wanted to do.

Plus, Seton Hall wasn’t cheap. My parents could barely afford it. I felt like I was wasting their money and my time. It would be a different story if I was progressing toward a desired goal, but I just hated the whole situation. And driving 50 miles each day for the pleasure of doing all this certainly didn’t help.

I decided to quit, find what I wanted to do with my life and then go back to school with that goal to strive for.

I thought they would be relieved that they didn’t have to continue to throw so much money away, but they were FURIOUS!!

They were so angry that they said that if I ever decided to go back to college, I would have to pay for everything (as if that would get me to change my mind).

I told them I didn’t do this lightly. I would be losing my college deferment and would be exposing myself to the draft, so it must be a really bad situation for me to do that.

So now all I had to do was find a career. Working at McDonald’s – which I was doing at the time – would not be it.

One of my friends was working in a chem lab (he didn’t know anything about chemistry) and used to tell me about some of the experiments he did there, like taking a flask of clear liquid that looked just like water and adding one drop of another clear liquid, which made the flask contents suddenly turn a bright pink. Sounded interesting.

One day, he told me he was going on a job interview at another lab that would pay him more and asked me if I wanted to come along. I thought that was a strange thing to ask, but I had nothing better to do that day, so I went.

The weirdest thing happened: he didn’t get the job, but somehow, I DID! I really have no idea how that happened.

It turned out to be a big company called Ciba (later Ciba-Geigy) in Fair Lawn, NJ. I got this on eBay years ago:

 

This division made dyes and pigments. The job wasn’t exactly glamorous. It consisted of dyeing skeins of different materials using both a competitor’s dye and ours and comparing the results. I had to work over a large boiling salt bath that had about 20 metal cups in it with various skeins and different concentrations of dye solutions. The skeins had to be almost constantly turned – difficult to do when there are 20 of them – or else they’d dye unevenly.

After X amount of time, they were hung in a large oven to dry and then presented to the bosses. It sounded weird at first when they were comparing two jet-black skeins and said, “This one’s green and that one’s red”. WHAT?

The work was super hot and many of my results were uneven, which meant I had to do them over (which pissed off the bosses…………and me).

One of them took me aside one day and gave me the “Maybe you’re not cut out for this type of work” line. Much to my (and his) surprise, it worked and I became pretty good at it.

But I really hated it and wasn’t learning any chemistry, so after a year, I followed my friend’s example and started going out on interviews. I found a job in a real analytical lab. I’m not sure why they hired me, having no analytical experience, but I’m guessing it had something to do with the fact that I appeared to be a quick learner and was willing to work rotating shifts (ugh!).

The company was called UOP (Universal Oil Products) on Rt 17 in E. Rutherford, NJ and later became well-known as being a major polluter of Berry’s Creek, a tributary of the Hackensack River……………..but nobody knew that in the 60s.

Just added (August 2019) – me at UOP:

 

One of their more interesting products that I had to analyze was something called buquinolate, which prevented diarrhea in chickens………..always good for a laugh at parties.

I did really well there and became quite proficient at wet analysis (not using sophisticated instruments to get results), but the rotating shifts were really getting to me. I told them I needed two weeks off to visit my ailing grandmother in Florida (which was true), but because I hadn’t been there for the full 12 months yet, they refused. In turn, I refused to work there anymore. How DARE they treat my Nana that way!

So now I had no job and no money for Florida (sorry, Nana). Now what?

Another friend to the rescue! He was some sort of professional (a draftsman, I think) and worked for something called a job shop in Newark, NJ.

The job shop got requests from all over the country from companies that needed professionals for short-term projects, but didn’t want to go through the process of hiring, giving benefits, firing and unemployment. Instead, for 6 or 12 months, the companies paid more to temporary subcontractors than their own employees got, but paid nothing else.

“Do they take lab technicians?”

They did. I went to Newark with my resume and was interviewed. I wondered how long I’d be sitting around waiting for a call.

Not long, as it turned out. They sent me to IBM in East Fishkill, NY for an interview, telling me that if accepted, I would be hired for a 6-month period. At that time, I would be reviewed and maybe stay for another 3 months and then repeat the process for a potential total of one year.

It was NOT a dinky facility:

 

“Call us right after your interview”, they said.

The following Friday, I found my way up to East Fishkill, had my interview and then found a gas station two blocks away that had a phone booth outside. I called about 5 minutes after my interview and told them I just got out.

“We know – they already called and said they want you. You start Monday.”

Omigod!

Where would I stay? (too far to commute)

I spent Saturday gathering whatever I could jam into my car and left Sunday afternoon for my first big adventure: finding a place to live before I started work the next day.

Fortunately, I had passed the Route 52 Motor Inn on my way to and from my interview. It was on the same road as IBM and only about 2 miles away. Perfect!

It was $35.70 a week (!) and I wound up staying there for 3 months:

 

Side note: In a slightly ironic twist, my parents had met at IBM World Headquarters on Madison Ave in Manhattan in the early 1940s and if they had been hippies, they would have thought it rather cosmic that fate would bring me to the same company in October, 1968.

Side note #2: I’m sure you’re all familiar with the IBM ThinkPad and maybe some other IBM “Think” things. “Think” and “IBM” go back pretty far. When my parents died, I found two wooden desk signs that simply said “THINK” in big letters. The smaller one was my mother’s and sat on her desk. The larger one – about 16”x6” – was my father’s, which, I imagine, sat on his:

 

Mom’s youngest sister asked me – the executor – if she could have her “THINK” sign. “OK”. I kept Dad’s.

You know that expression about where a man does his best thinking? Here’s where his sign has been for the last couple of decades:

 

This is a picture of my mother (second from right) at her desk in 1944. Her sign is sitting on it. It’s the only picture I have of it:

 

But what makes this picture doubly-interesting to me is on the left side. During WWII, lots of men who worked at IBM were off to war. What you see on the left side of the wall is part of the IBM Military Roll of Honor (Dad’s picture is circled). Mom headed the company’s Men in Service Committee. This is the only picture that I’m aware of that shows my mother and father at IBM (sort of).

Anyway, they were happy that I was now going to work at IBM, even if it was only as a sub-contractor.

The job was great. I picked up everything very quickly and got along really well with the rest of the lab personnel. I had to work second shift, but that was to my advantage because traffic on two-lane Route 52 was terrible for the multitudes of first-shifters, both coming and going. It was a breeze for me.

My job turned out to be related to IBM computers. In another part of the building, they grew long tubes of silicon that were about 3 or 4 inches in diameter and these would be sliced into super-thin discs that would then each be cut into hundreds of tiny chips. Various micro-electronics would be added to each chip and these microchips eventually went into their computers.

My job involved analysis of various batches of a dangerous chemical: hydrofluoric acid. HF was used to etch each chip in advance of the added micro-electronics. If the acid wasn’t in some exact concentration, I would fail it and they’d have to re-work it.

The problem with HF is that it doesn’t burn your skin like most other acids do – it goes through your skin and attacks the calcium in your bones. It’s agonizing and it’s too late to wash it off with water. Of course, gloves were always required and I never had a problem with HF.

I found a company “Wanted” board of notes by employees looking for roommates and found a nice situation in a garden apartment in Wappingers Falls with two other IBM guys who went home on weekends. I usually did that too, but when I didn’t, I had the place to myself.

I spent my last evening in the motel watching Joe Namath and the Jets beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. When the game was over, I hopped into my packed car, drove up to Wappingers Falls and spent the next nine months there.

Because I did so well at the job, when it came time for my 6-month review, they just gave me the whole other 6 months instead of the usual 3+3 process.

Yet another side note: During my time living in Wappingers Falls, Woodstock happened. You can go to https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=2864 to read all the details of that, but one of my prized possessions relating to Woodstock also relates to Wappingers Falls. It was an envelope that contained a reply to a question I asked in a letter to the show’s organizers a month before the event.

The envelope wound up in a 2009 reissue of one of the Woodstock albums. Here’s the envelope (and the usage), complete with my name and address and one ridiculously-obvious error that I attributed to some buzzed hippie in the show organizers’ mailroom:

 

 

All the guys at IBM were older and married and I seemed to be the young hippie freak of the lab, so they were very interested in my Woodstock adventures, so that was fun.

Near the end of my year at IBM, my boss called me into his office. He praised my work to the high heavens and then shot me back down to reality: “You’re a great pair of hands (doing wet analysis), but you have no idea why anything is happening chemically. You will never advance or be anything higher than a lab technician if you don’t go back to school to learn all the theory.”

There it was! The kick in the pants that pointed me toward a goal in college – a chemistry degree! It was also confirmation that I had made the right decision to quit Seton Hall when I had no idea or direction. It was also kind of funny, considering that the one subject that I didn’t do well in high school was chemistry.

But then “success” started trying to get in the way after my time at IBM was up.

Via the job shop, I started getting all these offers from companies all over the country (Western Electric in NC, General Electric in San Jose, CA, some company in Nashville, TN………even another one from IBM! – probably a different location in NY [I’m guessing Poughkeepsie]).

I kept some of the telegrams:

 

I know I also heard from Texas Instruments and some major university in CA, but can’t find their communications.

The most persistent of all was Xerox in Rochester, NY. I told them point-blank: “NO! I’m going to college in the fall” (and I really didn’t want to be in snowy Rochester in the winter).

They insisted. “Let us fly you up and we’re sure you’ll change your mind”.

So I let them fly me up on the late, great Mohawk Airlines on 12/9/69 and I wasn’t even close to changing my mind. But I did have a bit of fun and almost saw a great show. As I was walking around Rochester in my double-breasted bell-bottomed suit, someone walked up to me and asked if I was in Grand Funk Railroad. It turns out that GFR was opening for Janis Joplin at the War Memorial on December 10:

 

Having seen Janis 4 months earlier at Woodstock (and loving Grand Funk), I extended my stay at the hotel for one night so I could go to that show. Janis got sick and the show was cancelled. But then I found out that she was staying at my hotel, so I spent the evening trying to figure out where she was and how I could meet her – ignoring the fact that she was “sick” (whatever that meant).

Waste of time, but almost a cool evening.

Here are the Xerox telegrams with my flights info on the back of one of them, including the change, so I could stay an extra day to see a great concert that wound up being cancelled:

 

So anyway……….I told everyone, “Thanks, but no thanks” and prepared to go back to school.

Since my parents kept their grudge and still refused to pay my tuition, I had to start out at Bergen Community College in nearby Paramus, NJ. It was all I could afford. And since I didn’t want to risk giving up by going part-time (7 years? No thanks.), I had to find a job that paid enough and was off-shift.

I found one in my hometown. I became the entire midnight shift at Blue Cab in Teaneck:

 

It was based in a Chevron gas station that was closed at night. The owner kept a capuchin monkey named Cappy in the front room of the station. The cab operations were run out of a tiny room in back, where I could sometimes sleep on the floor when it was slow and I didn’t have schoolwork to do, so yes – I slept with a monkey in a locked gas station for a year or two.

 

These 3 outside pictures were taken in 2009. This is the old, abandoned Chevron station:

 

This shows the interior of that big, round, front room. It’s pretty easy to figure out where Cappy’s cage stood:

 

Photo #3 shows the distance between me and Cappy. The front room is on the right and way in the back on the left with its door open is the little windowless room that was Blue Cab (and my) HQ after midnight:

 

I worked there from September 1970 to July 1973. In 1971, Teaneck and next-door neighbor Hackensack decided that drivers needed to be licensed in their towns.

Teaneck gave us badges. Hackensack gave us a 3×5 file card with a driver-supplied photo (mine was taken in a Hackensack Woolworth’s photo booth) stapled to it with typed and stamped information on it. Teaneck wins (though the picture on the Hackensack one is good for a laugh).

 

I did my last run at 7am and was in class by 8. That last run provided me with sustenance for the entire day. I had to pick up a man who first made a stop at a bakery two blocks away, where he bought pastries for all the people in his office. He would always offer me one and I always accepted. That was breakfast and lunch. After I dropped him off at work, it was off to BCC.

I tried to sleep in the late afternoon and early evening. By necessity, I discovered room-darkening shades.

There was one oddly cool incident while I was driving the cab in the middle of the night that turned out to greatly enhance my concert access, but you’ll have to go to http://bobleafe.com/ to read about it. When you get there, enter 16-006 in the site’s search box. The actual story starts a couple of paragraphs in. It’s pretty amazing.

At BCC, I carried a full course load and took various Chemistrys (I, II, Organic I & II), Instrumental Analysis, Quantitative Analysis, Physics I & II, Advanced Algebra, Calculus, Technical Writing and one easy one: Statistics………….and Phys Ed.

There were ALWAYS weekly chem and physics lab reports due and they took up my weekends. If you go to https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=2764, you can read about how those were handled (and how I wound up shooting my first concert).

Surprisingly, I did really well (I liked this school) and still managed to go to a lot of concerts with two friends I made at BCC (one of whom I tutored). I was awfully busy, but everything just fit in the right spaces and I got it done.

To belabor the point, it went so well, that I wound up with the school’s award in Chemistry for having the highest grade point average at graduation.

These are from the 1972 yearbook. I superimposed the picture from the awards ceremony onto the listing page for the awards winners. I’m shaking hands with the head of the Physical Science and Math Department, who would become my boss 14 months later:

 

The next stop was Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ. It was a state college, so I could still afford it. I was still working for the cab company, but out of the gas station and into an office across the street, so no more Cappy.

Remember the guy I said I tutored? He worked at Blue Cab for a while and produced this surprisingly mature masterpiece about my relationship with Crappy the monkey. You’ll have to look at what I’m feeding him (if you can’t read it, it’s LSD and meth):

 

I wasn’t as fond of Ramapo as I was of BCC. It was a longer drive on a busy highway, so I was more tired and cranky. After my first year there, I got a surprise offer from Bergen Community to come work there and run the physical science labs for the night classes. It was a faculty (non-teaching) position! And I was still a year from getting my degree! This was practically unheard of.

Of course, I jumped at it. It meant that I wouldn’t have to work a lot with my former (daytime) instructors who still saw me as a student. Instead, I would be working with adjunct faculty who had no idea about their new working environment and depended on me to guide them. I would truly be running the show on the second shift.

I was to start on 8/1/73, but 3 days earlier, I shot my first concert, so my early rock photography career (at the time, an avocation) ran parallel with my chemistry career until I dropped the latter at the end of 1979, when the avocation dropped the first “a”.

Back at Ramapo for my final year, I didn’t do as well as I did at BCC, but I did OK and got my degree in 1974. For that one year, I was faculty at one college and a student at another, which I already wrote about here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=275

And if you go to the bottom of this post – https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=377 – you can read about my last day in chemistry.

Wanna see my graduation formal wear? Bear in mind that this is a picture that was taken 34 years later after finding this item jammed in a bag with other old clothes. The reason I wore them at graduation was that the music note was visible below the bottom of the graduation gown:

 

So there you have it: my other career that – by design – doesn’t get mentioned much. I’m proud of the effort I put into it and what I accomplished, but I’m still absolutely amazed at the subsequent unexpected and unbelievable turn my life took during and after it.

What a ride!

 

 

(Ignore the stated publish date – this was published on September 26, 2018)

 

NOTE: Mike Kelly’s original article is in black and my notes/comments/clarifications are in red. I obviously didn’t take any of the event photos included here, but I, um………..did help them come into being.

 

 This was the headline:

 

 

And this was the article:

 

Kelly: Hackensack student in 1955 was among first to get polio shot

Monday, April 12, 2010
Last updated: Monday April 12, 2010, 7:30 AM
By MIKE KELLY
RECORD COLUMNIST

 

Photographs tell stories – that’s a fact of life.

But sometimes photos also go beyond the people whose smiles or frowns are captured on film.

Such was the lesson Bob Leafe learned when he scoured through his parents’ home in Teaneck after their deaths and found several grainy black and white photos of himself in another time.

Actually, there WERE no photos – found or otherwise – of this event, which was filmed by an NBC News film crew and on the air that evening. What happened was my mother wrote to NBC right after the inoculations and what I found was the NBC reply envelope and letter from the NBC News Film manager:

 

Inside the envelope were the actual newsreel film strips that showed me before, during, and after the shot. The film strips were very small, skinny, a bit grainy, and not super-sharp. The longest strip is 8.75″ and the shortest is just over 3.25″. They were REALLY tough to scan. I made some large files and sent them to The Record.

Under the group of 3 strips is the NBC letter plus a hand-written copy of my mother’s profuse thanks to Mr. Juster at NBC:

As far as I know, there are no other images around of this event. If my mother hadn’t written to NBC or documented the event in her diary, there would be no story (she would have made a great historian).

 

Leafe found himself a part of history.

The photos capture him on an April morning in 1955, as a second-grade student at the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic elementary school in Hackensack. Leafe is only 7 years old. He is wearing a white shirt and a neatly knotted tie and sporting a bushy cowlick and a frown that betrays a none-too-subtle hint of apprehension.

He was being vaccinated for polio.

He remembers he got a lollipop.

In the public-health history of America, there is a clear dividing line – before polio vaccinations and afterward.

Before the vaccine, invented by Jonas Salk, thousands of American kids caught the crippling disease, including a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who went on to become president. After the vaccine few kids got polio.

That dividing line was 55 years ago today – April 12, 1955 – when the federal government gave its stamp of approval to Salk’s vaccine. Eight days later, on April 20, 1955, Robert Leafe’s second-grade class received its vaccinations in the Holy Trinity school auditorium, making them among the first schoolchildren in America to get the drug.

“Newsreel cameras were there,” Leafe’s mother, Eunice, wrote in her diary that day, in a graceful penmanship that featured tight loops on her “L’s” and “S’s.”

“They followed Bobby all the way through,” she continued, “from his entrance through his shot, and even to the huge lollypops all the kids got.”

 

My mother’s April 20, 1955 diary page. OK – so it’s not really a diary page, but it sounds better than “her daily planner page”. She also made a notation that it was a classmate’s birthday (very thorough, Eunice was):

 

The “after” shot. The Lollipop Brigade (NOT in alphabetical order – we probably got punished for that). Left to right, we are: Christopher Bonwit, Robert Leafe, Margaret Cassidy, Virginia Thorpe, and The Unknown Inoculatee. (“huge?” “lollypops”? Mother!)

 

Leafe has no memory of the cameras or even watching the news footage on an early version of the television news that night, even though his mother’s diary mentions that the Holy Trinity vaccinations were featured at 6:45 p.m. In fact, Leafe, who went on to become a widely respected rock-and-roll photographer who captured Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon and other music luminaries, recalls nothing of his brief moment in health history.

“I just don’t remember – it was over half-a-century ago,” he said the other day from his Hackensack apartment. “I’m sure I didn’t smile.”

If pictures tell the story, Leafe definitely did not smile.

One photo shows him standing in line with seven classmates. A girl, her hands folded in front of her school uniform, seems stoic and intensely curious as she gazes ahead. A boy rubs his pinky finger and also looks ahead. Another boy glances at the camera, his brow furrowed.

No one is smiling.

The “before” shot. Lined up (in alphabetical order, of course) from left to right are: Geoffrey Devon, Kathleen Higgins, Robert Holden, Robert Leafe, James Lynch. The two Roberts don’t look very well.

 

In another photo, Leafe is sitting in a chair and receiving his polio vaccination in his right bicep by a man – presumably a doctor – who wears a suit. Another man – perhaps also a doctor – looks on, as do three nurses in starched white hats and uniforms.

No one is smiling.

The “during” shot. Mike Kelly says I’m sitting down…………..that would make me pretty tall for a second-grader. Only the doctor is seated (he’d better be so his hand is steady). Someone asked me if they made me remove my coonskin cap suddenly and if that created the cowlick. Uh, yeah – that’ll work.

 

Perhaps everyone would be smiling – cheering even – if they understood what the Salk anti-polio vaccine meant for the health of children in the coming decades. But of course, no one could know on that April day in 1955 that Salk’s was nothing less than the first step in the virtual eradication of polio.

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, which Salk founded in 1960 near San Diego, reports that the last known case of polio in America occurred in 1979. But at its peak in the early 1950s, polio was being diagnosed at a rate of 13.6 cases per 100,000 people.

Compared to the current incidence of cancer in America – 566 cases per 100,000 people – the rate of polio may not seem like much. But to families with a child who contracted polio, the impact was often devastating.

Suddenly, strong, vibrant children were rendered almost motionless. Many were eventually able to walk with the aid of steel braces. Many had to resort to wheelchairs.

There was no cure until 1955, when Salk, then a 40-year-old physician and medical researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, developed a safe vaccine. Salk, who died in 1995 at the age of 80, is now celebrated as one of America’s foremost scientists.

The vaccine that bears his name, however, could not have been introduced at a more fearsome moment. The post-World War II baby boom was in full swing. Only three years earlier, in 1952, the United States had endured its worst polio epidemic, with nearly 58,000 cases reported.

Many children recovered, but more than 3,000 died and another 21,000 were left paralyzed.

That was just one year. Many other years featured equally devastating statistics of death and paralysis.

As Bob Leafe, now 62, studies the old photos of his vaccination, he ponders the irony, too – how he was unable at the time to fully comprehend what this momentarily painful pinch of his skin would mean.

He wonders if his class was the first to be vaccinated. The Salk Institute confesses that it doesn’t know.

“My research shows 9 million doses of the vaccine were ordered by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (later know as the March of Dimes), it may be impossible to identify just what place in the vaccine timeline the Holy Trinity kids held,” said the Institute’s librarian, Carol Bodes, in an e-mail. “In all honesty, I get calls every year from people claiming to be ‘the first’ and wanting their vaccination records.”

Unfortunately, says Bodes, the institute does not keep those records.

“It is my understanding,” she said, “that school-age children were vaccinated en masse, across the country to halt the vicious spread of the disease. I found no reference to the school [Holy Trinity] in the Salk papers, but that’s not unusual, as they are not highly detailed.”

 

I always thought we were the first in the US to get the shots. Why else would an NBC News film crew in NYC be sent to cover the event? Unfortunately, the Hackensack Health Department, Holy Trinity, and even the Salk Institute were no help. I was very surprised to be told by the Health Department that their records “didn’t go back that far”. 55 years doesn’t seem “that far” in a city that’s over 300 years old.

 

I went to Hackensack’s Johnson Public Library and looked at some microfiche of The Bergen Evening Record from April 16-23, 1955. I was sure that they would have pictures of the event and a story stating that Holy Trinity was the first in the ? to receive the Salk polio vaccine.

There were mentions of the vaccine on almost every day – how the shipments were delayed and that Bergen County students wouldn’t be getting the vaccine until May (how did Holy Trinity slip under the radar and get it when no one else could? Divine Intervention?).

The only enlightening article I found was from April 20, 1955 – the day of the shots and a day before I expected to find pictures and a big writeup that would answer all my questions. Then I remembered………..this was The Bergen EVENING Record. The event happened in the morning and was in that evening’s paper.

It was on the front page and said, “BERGEN BEGINS VACCINE SHOTS”……..”Holy Trinity Students Start Program Here”, but there were no pictures. The Record photo department must have been asleep at the wheel:

The article identified the doctor as the school physician, Howard Rosenbauer, and said that Clyde Newell – the district health officer – was also present (I’m guessing he’s the other man in my “during” image).

Hmmm………….wouldn’t the Hackensack Health Department have records of him and his whereabouts that day – especially since the event rated a big headline in the paper?

One other person in that same image was identified to me after the paper was published. The story’s writer, Mike Kelly, got a request that morning from a Thomas Hyer in Fair Lawn, who asked how he could get a copy of that image because the middle nurse was his mother, Dolores “Dody” Hyer.

I sent him a scan.

 

As for Bob Leafe, he wishes he had been more aware of what was happening to his second-grade class when they were summoned for their vaccinations. “I wish I was older at the time so I could appreciate the significance of it,” he said. “But I was just a 7-year-old kid who was told he was getting a shot. I didn’t appreciate it as much then as I do now.”

None of us did.

 

SO………I learned that day that there are no other pictures of this event (corrections always welcomed) and that  – at the very least – Holy Trinity was the first school in Bergen County to get the Salk polio vaccine. I can’t help but think that there’s a higher “first” involved – one that would attract an NBC news film crew – but that might just be wishful thinking.

Lastly, I have no idea why The Record chose that grumpy-looking shot of me to put in the paper (see opening headline image). The photographer they sent to take my picture commented on how much he liked the smiley shots, but it’s not up to him or me what gets used. He submits all the images he took and someone makes the selection………..someone I must owe money to, I guess.

 Here’s the shot I wished they picked:

 

 

 Odd parts of the story got picked up in a couple of distant places:

 (The India Times site):

 

 

 A very mixed-up Korean-to-English translation (highlighted in blue) on Facebook:

 

And my ABSOLUTE favorite comment of all (the last one):

The sudden urge is to cue up the Stones’ “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)”, but the lyrics don’t exactly fit the intent. At least I still have my favorite do/‘do/Dew:

                                           Yahoo!

 

 

 

THAT STORY CAME OUT IN 2010. ELEVEN YEARS LATER, HERE’S AN UPDATE:

http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,1474.msg14186.html#msg14186