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<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (this was a t-shirt my mother owned)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What do ’50s teen idol Ricky Nelson and I have in common? (aside from the fact that my job brought me to Madison Square Garden in 1983 to photograph him):<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We were both born in Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck. His family lived in Ridgefield Park. My father – who went to Teaneck High School – used to tell me when I was a kid that he played on the THS football team against Ricky’s father, Ozzie Nelson, who played football at RPHS. It wasn’t until years later that I found out that Ozzie was born 15 years before my father, so Dad must have been about 2 when he went up against Ozzie. I hope he was wearing a helmet.<\/span><\/p>\n I grew up on Cumberland Avenue and had relatives on the street behind us (Sagamore Avenue)\u00a0 and just across the tracks on Cherry Lane, where my cousin Larry Robertson lived. Larry and I share the same birthday – August 17 – but he was born two years before me.<\/span><\/p>\n Here’s a picture that I’m guessing my mother took because I found it in one of her photo albums. It was taken at a party at Larry’s house when he turned 7 and I hit 5. He’s in the foreground and I’m in the back with the sparkling eyes and the palm trees shirt I had just gotten in Florida when we visited my paternal grandmother.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The following month, I started school for my only year of education that took place in Teaneck: kindergarten at Lowell School. Some of the classmates names that I remember were Robert Teitelbaum, whose family ran Parisian Cleaners on Cedar Lane, Stewie Halperin, who lived down the street from me, and Russell Ross, who lived on Sagamore Avenue, a couple of doors down from my relatives, the Mulligans.<\/span><\/p>\n I don’t know if this was a school picture, but it was taken when I was 5, when Mom made sure that everyone knew my name.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n MR. PHELPS PARK<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n When I was around 5 or 6, I wanted to join the summer programs that Teaneck had at all their parks. As you can see from the below map, there is a park at either end of my street, Cumberland Ave. I think it’s the only street in Teaneck where that happens (corrections always welcome). I wanted to go to Sagamore Park because Phelps Park was still kind of raw and swampy-smelling, but my mother wouldn’t let me cross Garrison Ave by myself, so I had to walk up and down the hill and go to Phelps Park every day.<\/span><\/p>\n The only event I can recall there was some sort of contest by the pool (which I think was more like a fountain). I must have looked good at 5 or 6 in my bathing suit because I was named Mr Phelps Park. Maybe I was the only entrant. Fortunately, I was allowed to cross Garrison Ave the following year to get sunburned at treeless Sagamore Park.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n LITTLE LEAGUE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Being a big baseball fan, I tried out for Little League as soon as I could. In the first year, we played in Central Park, a year or so before it was renamed Votee Park. “What the heck is a Votee?”, we all wondered (sorry, Milton).<\/span><\/p>\n Mom had me suit up on the back porch:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The remaining seasons were played at nearby Sagamore Park. You can see the ball field in the above map. Our Western League team was called “F&S”. You can see in the below certificates what that stood for and why “F&S” was SO much easier. Of course, very-mature rival team members substituted a couple of 4-letter words for our abbreviation.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This was our team photograph. I think it was taken in ’59 or ’60. I’m in the middle row trying to perfect my Elvis sneer and Russell Ross is above and behind me. Our coach was the tall man in the middle, Herb McCullough, and the manager was Bob Blackwell on the right…….BOTH great guys:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bonus – we got to march in Teaneck’s 4th of July parade. If I recall correctly, we assembled on DeGraw Avenue by Queen Anne Road and then walked up Queen Anne to Votee Park.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was one game in my LL career whose details are forever burned in my mind. First, some background: I was a pretty good defensive middle infielder – short hops and accurate throws were my specialty. However, unlike most Little Leaguers, who usually bat around .750, I think I was around .245. I DID make the All-Star team, but only as a second baseman and NOT for my bat. I was also……….how can I put this nicely?………the ace right-handed pitcher. Before you start screaming “EGO FREAK!”, you should be aware that I could say that because the absolute best pitcher on the team was left-handed: my old pal Russell Ross.<\/span><\/p>\n Our biggest rival was a team called Rotary, so this Sagamore Park home game was really important. Their best pitcher – a lefty named Jeff Steinberg – went against Russell and both pitched their hearts out. At the end of regulation (six innings), it was a scoreless tie. There was a LL rule that no pitcher could pitch more than six innings, so they brought me in to pitch the top of the seventh.<\/span><\/p>\n I had been pitching well lately, but I just did not have it that day and gave up two runs. In the bottom of the seventh, Rotary brought in Stewie Halperin to pitch.\u00a0 Three-quarters of the pitchers in this game were from my kindergarten class! Stewie pitched like me and loaded the bases, but he DID get two outs.<\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately for F&S, the game now depended on their “slugger” with the .245 batting average. I thought I heard a few groans as I approached the plate. Stewie quickly got two strikes on me. I’m not sure if the count was full or not, but I knew it could be all over on the next pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n Stewie had a very rhythmic pitching motion that was easy to time. I’m not sure, but I think I closed my eyes when I swung at the next pitch……………and hit it! I don’t recall where in the outfield it landed, but I wound up on second base and had tied the game! Semi-redemption! And the next batter – I wish I remembered who that was – did the same and drove us in for the walkoff win!<\/span><\/p>\n The ensuing euphoric celebration was short-lived for me. I saw Russell and his parents walking toward their car. He had tears in his eyes and I immediately understood why: he had pitched magnificently<\/em> for six innings and didn’t get the win. I pitched like crap for one inning and got the win. It was WAY beyond unfair.<\/span><\/p>\n When I asked Mr. Blackwell about it, he told me that those were baseball’s rules (but it doesn’t make it right), so if there’s ANYONE involved with today’s Teaneck Little League with the power to do so 60 years after the fact, I would urge that person to somehow correct this injustice and present Russell Ross with a declaration stating that he was the winning pitcher of that game.<\/span><\/p>\n I’ve never felt deserving of it and I’m sure Russell’s always felt cheated.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LATE FIND<\/span> – posted July 15, 2021<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This is the 1960 Teaneck Little League schedule (lot of familiar names here). CLICK EACH PAGE TWICE TO FULLY ENLARGE. Use your back button to return:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MY EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n My first premeditated photo got its own post in this blog – https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/?p=249<\/span><\/a> – and while I had my mother’s camera, I took two others that day, so please read the setup in that other blog post and then come back for these two:<\/span><\/p>\n That first shot was taken on Wyndham Rd. I don’t know why I walked from there almost to Queen Anne and Cedar Lane to take this shot………….maybe I had an early inkling that some of the things in the picture wouldn’t be there forever, like the Peoples Trust bank sign, the tall Food Fair sign and the big red oak tree at Cedar and Palisade (“Gee Ma, why didn’t you have a zoom lens so I could have cropped all the extraneous stuff out?”):<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh, look – more stop-action! I should have included this in that blog post: falling tree on Wyndham, dumping leaves on Cumberland (by the Leafe<\/em> house!). This was taken at Cumberland Ave and Helen St. I’m standing in front of our next-door neighbor’s house:<\/span><\/p>\n I do photo walks all the time, so I guess this was the first one.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MUSIC<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The story I went with for years was that I was sick one day and home from school when I was in the 4th grade at Hackensack’s Holy Trinity School, turned on the radio and haven’t turned it off since. That’s probably incorrect on both ends.<\/span><\/p>\n I definitely turned the radio off years ago when music stopped rocking and became boring, but as for the early days, I think I grudgingly accept that I didn’t find all of Mom’s early-to-mid 50s music intolerable. I’ve even put a couple of “house” tunes from George’s aunt Rosemary Clooney (“This Ole House”, “Come On-A My House”) in my iTunes library, along with one or two others from that period that I liked.<\/span><\/p>\n But I was absolutely hooked on guitar-driven rock…………..so much so, that I wanted to learn to play guitar. After much pleading, my parents let me go to some building in Hackensack whose front faced a municipal parking lot and I think had the word “Conservatory” in its name. But they had rules that I was neither expecting nor was interested in.<\/span><\/p>\n “Oh, you have to learn the accordion before we can let you learn guitar”. Oh, goodie – more lessons to pay for! I humored them for a while and then insisted on the guitar. Finally, they gave the OK.<\/span><\/p>\n Here I am on the old back porch with their guitar:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I’m glad Mom took this picture before their next unwelcome rule was revealed. They said that after X number of lessons – I forget how many, but it was in the lower single digits – we had to buy<\/em> the guitar!<\/span><\/p>\n When I (meaning my parents) refused, the company had me take a music aptitude test. Doing well on it was supposed to change everyone’s mind about not buying the guitar and dropping the lessons. I was doing really well on the test when the eagle-eyed instructor interrupted me and played some sound that I had just heard and responded to on paper. He wasn’t happy with whatever it was that was my answer, so he kept playing it until I realized that there was a better answer, so I changed it.<\/span><\/p>\n He promptly marked my paper “100%” and said that I really shouldn’t stop my lessons when I was so musically-inclined.<\/span><\/p>\n Even at that tender age (11), I had fully-functional BS radar and that was the end of my guitar-god dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n I sort of made up for it in other ways (http:\/\/bobleafe.com\/)<\/span>.<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n If you can’t join’em, shoot’em<\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n One very<\/em> tenuous connection to a Teaneck singing star: I never met Linda Scott (“I’ve Told Every Little Star”), but if I barrelled out of my Cumberland Ave driveway in my GTO straight onto Helen St to a point just beyond its southern terminus at Maple Ave, I might have demolished her garage. She lived on Elm Ave on the corner of Maple and the garage was behind the house, facing Helen St………..a literal direct connection (see route map below).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n THE PAPERBOY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, there’s a post about this part of my life on this blog – https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/?p=272<\/span><\/a> – but that’s about the best part of having been a carrier………….and it happened in Washington, DC. THIS part is about my paper route and will only have relevance for those familiar with Teaneck’s streets.<\/span><\/p>\n My route stretched from the railroad tracks to River Rd. The below map is the same as the above one, but I’ve added where my home was, the paper pickup location (Beatrice and the track-side of Windsor Rd) and the red route markers (Beatrice to Garrison to Cumberland to Martense to Lincoln and Martense down to River Rd (and then the uphill walk back home):<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n OTHER JOBS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n I think Robert Teitelbaum got me a job at Parisian Cleaners. That lasted about a week (WAY too hot!). Lasting slightly longer was my job at the Phelps Manor Bowling Alley as a pinboy. Despite the acrobatics you’re taught to keep out of harm’s way, my leg kept getting belted by a flying pin. It wasn’t much fun limping out of there. My only real regret was that I never got to bowl there.<\/span><\/p>\n As a kid in the 50s, I remember going food shopping with my mother at the IGA store on Cedar Lane – a few doors east of Davis Toys. It was owned by Herbert Panzenhagen, our Cumberland Ave neighbor. His son, Billy, was a year-older friend I used to play with at his house. He introduced me to HIS friend, Dickie Kunath, who will be mentioned later on.<\/span><\/p>\n Back to the store. The butcher always cut me a slice of baloney when he saw me with my mother. There were lots of Panzenhagen brothers of both the father and the son working there. In the 60s, they moved to another Cedar Lane location between the two Catalpa Ave sections and became Foodtown, where I worked when I was a little older. In the 70’s, I worked with Werner Panzenhagen at Blue Cab.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of which……….when I worked at Blue Cab, I was the entire midnight shift from ’70 to ’73 while I was a full-time college student. If you took a Blue Cab after midnight in those years, I was probably your driver. The whole story and some pictures can be found here: https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/?p=6541<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n There IS one picture that’s not included there because I recently found it while researching this post. It’s the Blue Cab cat (I don’t think we named it), who I actually taught to fetch a small ball of rolled-up aluminum foil (yes, it can be done). We bonded because it was just me and the cat from midnight until 7am:<\/span><\/p>\n That’s not me in the background – that’s the late Sandy Nussbaum dispatching.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here’s one reason I was so qualified for this job and also my music photography career (Mom must have had a premonition years prior):<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Almost forgot: I worked at Bischoff’s in 1964 for $1.00 an hour. After 9 months, I received a big raise to $1.10. Two weeks later, I was fired for “making too much money”! That’s what I was told. Good old Ralph Brunkhorst……….<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Enough about me. Let’s get to The Collection<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I think this is my favorite piece. I’m not familiar with Cedar Park, but if it’s one block from the trolley, I’d have to guess it was somewhere near where Glenpointe is today. I’m sure some knowledgeable person at the library has an answer to post. I’d also like to know where this “Home Office” actually was located since there’s no Elm\/Washington intersection in today’s maps:<\/span><\/p>\n I found this online under “Corporations of New Jersey”. The columns on the right are titled “Act Under Which Incorporated” and “Date of Filing Certficate”. Given the “prospects of bridges and tunnels in the very near future” statement, I would guess this pamphlet to be from around 1920, give or take a few years:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This pre-1909 item shows a house on 4 acres for sale or rent somewhere in the Queen Anne Road vicinity:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can’t find an address in the West Englewood section of Teaneck for the Roosevelt Military Academy, but it was founded in 1920, sat on 23 acres and was to move to the Washington, DC area in 1924:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The stories within this 1931 booklet are very interesting to those people into Teaneck’s history, as are the ads (a Hackensack house mover relocated the Teaneck VFW building) and the ads from supporters (I recognize the name of a former Teaneck mayor from 1958-1962):<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is this 1870 log about?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I doubt anyone in town is unfamiliar with the name “William Walter Phelps” (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Walter_Phelps<\/span><\/a>). I find this 1875 document quite<\/span> interesting:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was surprised I got it so easily on eBay. Here’s the seller’s description:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here’s another eBay find:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n