Carol Balsamel (Beaver)

Memories of growing up in Basking Ridge

• We moved to Basking Ridge in 1950, just down the street from the Blackburn’s- one of the original four people on Spencer Road! We became good friends, with our mothers being part of the neighborhood “Sewing Circle”, bringing their mending and sewing projects to each house for coffee, cake and socializing. My father, a “modern” architect had designed our lovely ranch with huge picture windows, some of which slid open to let in cooling breezes, before air conditioning. All added to the mid-century architectural philosophy of “bringing the outdoors in”. My mother was slightly put off by the term “Mid-century modern” in 2000- even when I asked her “What could be more mid-century than 1950?” But then to her and her young husband it was very modern and innovative in 1950. And that’s the way she always thought of it, much as I always see all of you, my wonderful classmates, as 18-year olds – even when I look at you now!

• Growing up in the 50’s meant a freedom the kids today can’t even imagine now - we went out to play and were called back to lunch and supper by a neighbor’s camel bell - we all knew it was for us! Hours of wandering through the woods, finding old deer or cow bones, sure we had found dinosaur bones - we would be famous! Trying to dig out the big diamond (quartz) by Joanie Blackburn’s mailbox - we would be rich if we could ever get it out of the ground!! We could ride our bikes all over town and down country roads, feeling safe and secure, delighting in the breeze through our hair! We played baseball and rode our sleds in the streets – shouting “CAR, CAR, C-A-R” if we needed to get out of the way. We also played baseball in our back yard, learning to accurately place our hits to avoid disaster with those picture windows. We climbed up & down a tree to get onto the flat roof of our garage to throw down lost balls, and no one told us not to out of fear of being hurt. We were supposed to be careful!! I remember skating on Southard Pond, chasing my brother and his hockey-playing friends off the pond to skate in the swamp while we “figure skaters” graced the ice with our turns and mini - jumps. We had peace and quiet from the boys on Sue Agoglia’s pond, after her father drilled through the ice to make sure it was at least 4” thick. I remember Parks Butcher store with the sawdust on the floor and free baloney slices. The Parks family in Bernardsville had given the day’s leftover meat to my mother’s family during the depression when my grandfather was in the hospital for months after a near-fatal car accident. My mother wanted us to be grateful to Mr. Parks, and to help people who had less than we did. Food was a family affair in our lives: big Italian and German dinners at my grandparents’ homes, multi-generational family Sunday dinners right after church, splitting a 6-pack of Coke in green glass bottles, family breakfast and dinners every day, the mad dash up the hill through my German grandparents’ yard with 25 cents to catch the Good Humor truck as it went around the curve in Spencer Road! And all the good Jersey corn, tomatoes and other delicious fruits and vegetables from Cox’s and Crane’s farm stands..

• Going to kindergarten ended my idyllic time as a 5-year old – I cried non-stop after my mother attempted to drop me off that first day. She never stopped reminding me that I had ripped her favorite dress in an attempt to stop the inevitable! Needless to say, my parents made sure my brother and sister went to nursery school to avoid that separation trauma. During that kindergarten year I would hide up in the woods to avoid leaving home, but Mrs. Blackburn would send Joanie to get me, cajoling me back down the hill to go to school. What a way to start a 41-year teaching career in Basking Ridge – some days as a teacher I still felt as if I wanted to hide in the woods rather than go to school! Miss Wells was always a frightening/strange person to my 5-year old self. I was very shy and one day she told me that I hadn’t colored correctly – not like Sally Kolding, who carefully drew evenly spaced colored lines within the lines of the picture. That led to many years of intimidation about drawing! When I told Sally about that at the last reunion she attended, we both laughed! Although that may have had something to do with her future excellence playing the flute!

• I started out at Maple Avenue in first grade, but then midyear had to change to Liberty Corner. My Italian grandfather drove me to the new bus stop and made all the boys let the girls go first into the bus! Mrs. Nickerson was tough and finally stopped my crying in school! After returning to class after being home 2 weeks with the chicken pox, I found I couldn’t read anymore. So Mrs. Nickerson sent me to the principal’s office for a private reading lesson. However, not having a clue where it was, I just sat on the steps for a while, then went back to class. At home, I asked my mother what the new funny letter was. It turned out to be a type-written ‘g’ instead of the hand-printed one! Why didn’t the teacher say that? At that time, my mother was home with 3 children who progressively had the mumps, measles and chicken pox. To our horror, the Basking Ridge Health Inspector came to nail a quarantine sign on our house. After 6 months, the poor man died, and the sign remained until my mother tore it off, proclaiming “I don’t care if they put me in jail”!



• The next year I returned to Maple Avenue in Mrs. Gould’s second grade class and found I didn’t know how to do math their way. They were adding double figures- how could I add 57 and 49 and 36 in my head? I stood at the board, totally blank. Then Mrs. Gould gently and patiently explained how to add one column and carry the tens- so easy! Why wasn’t I ever told this before? The black boards were real slate, sometimes with wavy ridges!



• On to third grade with Miss Schmeltzer, whose class was right on the other side of Mrs. Pomeroy’s, through the famed cloak room. If we were late, we would sneak into class by going quietly up the fire escape! One day, Mrs. Pomeroy became furious with her class and left, slamming the door behind her, causing the glass door knob to fall onto the floor! Third grade was one time I stopped being a good girl in class: a girl name Susie with blond braids bit me, drawing blood, so I punched her in the nose, also drawing blood. Miss Schmeltzer was shocked, because I had always been so quiet. But I knew how to fight, thanks to my brother! Both mothers had to come in with their two delinquent daughters for a meeting, but I always felt I was right to defend myself! I tried to stay out of trouble after that! I remember learning our multiplication tables with color-coded blocks- were the 7s a light blue?



• Mrs. Mills was such a wonderful teacher in fourth grade, bringing in her goat and other animals. I really loved her! Maple Avenue was a real old-fashioned school, with a basement cafeteria with hot food cooked by Mrs. Kampmeir, the center staircase for Christmas concerts, the big windows, the principal’s office up in “the attic”, double Dutch jump rope, flutophones with Mr. Palmer starting in 4th grade, and having so much fun on the macadam playground climbing the jungle gym, swinging upside down on the “Flying trapeze with the greatest of ease”, and getting dizzy on the merry-go-round. I envied the kids who lived near town, and especially Jimmy Smith having his own black pony, Midnight!!! He later became a large animal vet who cared for a colleague’s horse - I hope he comes to our reunion!!

• Our neighborhood summers were simple and fun - baseball games, biking, picnic trips to Hacklebarney for wading in the ice cold Black River, car rides to Lake Hopatcong for swimming, and Point Pleasant for waves and boardwalk food! Some summers we had themes - learning to bake, collecting and identifying butterflies, insects, or leaves, making scrapbooks of them all. How many of you remember the seeds we were given as elementary children in June, then having a contest in the fall for the sunflowers with the most seeds, or the biggest, prettiest zinnias?

• Cedar Hill as such a new modern school, built in the “peach croft. Miss McCartney was so much fun - loved the Blue Steak – Carol Krebs and I were the flight attendants, explaining the planets as we “flew” by the planets (moving scrolls of paper illustrating our solar system)! Known for her bright wardrobe, Miss McCartney answered the question of “Why are there diamonds on the heels of her (seamed) stockings?” with “Why to catch a man, of course!” Well, we HAD heard that diamonds were a girl’s best friend! I loved learning Spanish in her class – so similar to the Italian I heard as a child! We washed our hands at the round, foot-powered hand washing fountain – now they just have antibacterial gel at the door of the cafeteria - not the same thing at all! Mr. Aspinwall was my first male teacher - I came home and told my parents “He yells!” I became accustomed to him and found that he was very nice, although when HE wanted to learn French, we had to listen to a record for 20 minutes several times a week. We all shouted “Mercy” instead of “Merci” toward the end, and I hated French until I took it in high school!

• Thinking about Oak Street brings such good memories - I loved the sledding and tobogganing down the “big” hill, the Kiwanis Fair - going with friends on rides, watching the pet shows, fair food, and the Used Book Fair in the cafeteria, enjoying the last days of summer, anxious to see what the new school year would bring. However, going to Oak Street for 7th grade also brought me back to the dreaded place of my ill-fated kindergarten class, now transformed into the home-ec room. Where we sometimes threw away food right after Miss Jackson checked it in, where she took out my carefully measured 1" pleats and put them back in unevenly, where she held up my muffin and declared “Class, this is exactly how a muffin should NOT look!” I knew that room was cursed! Thankfully, I eventually learned to enjoy sewing and cooking despite it all! Girls were not allowed to take Shop, and building a bookcase is now on my Bucket List!! I remember Mr. Koza’s challenges (math quizzes), young Mr. Meys for social studies, Mr. Whitaker for English (I passed notes to Susan Hein and when he found them, he told the class the next day- “and they had the stupidity to sign their names!” Gah!) Actually, his ability to arch one eyebrow at us was worse than the sentence diagramming! I remember having crinolines under our skirts, laughing with my friends, riding my bike all over town, playing tennis on the courts, being outside for lunch, washing the cafeteria tables with vinegar water when it was our turn, taking Algebra and General Languages with Mr. Moody, playing in the band, taking ballroom dance lessons, Girl Scouts, and having our 8th grade graduation in the beautiful old auditorium.

• Going to Ridge as its first freshman class was an adventure! Although I was always shy in groups, I loved being with my friends from my childhood, and then many new ones from the band. What could compare with Band Camp? Laughing in our bunk beds, freezing mornings in our cabins, going to unheated latrines, marching under the hot sun with Mr. Birnbaum in his pith helmet, drinking “Bug Juice”, swimming and boating in the lake, pulling pranks, laughing and having so much fun with each other. All the dances, basketball games, football games where we marched and cheered together, marching for Memorial Day parades and the Bicentennial! High school ushered in pajama parties with more laughing and mothers getting upset with our frying pans on fire from our pancakes to go with ice cream breakfasts, 50 cent bus rides to shop in Morristown, trips to Pistilli’s restaurant and bowling alley, and freedom with driving. Also new teachers: Mr. Greenfeig for Biology – Susan Hein was my lab partner and we bribed him with his favorite cake (white with coconut icing) to use our cow’s eyeball as the model for the class since we couldn’t imagine putting a scalpel into an eye! Mr. Birnbaum for band, chorus, and English, bringing depth to my understanding of literature, Mr. Brasher and his Chas-o-gram, Mr. Meys who made me work harder for an A in history, Mrs. Hull and our memorized “Flower in the Crannied Wall”, Mr. Taylor who questioned “my scientific integrity” when I used the “fudge factor” with my partner to make our experiments’ equations work, Mr. Shepard and physics classes - working on physics lab reports with Rae Jean Braunmuller over pizza and grape juice (am I remembering this correctly?) , Mr. Moyer for history and Drivers’ Ed, calmly talking me into first gear on a snowy Lake Rd at the stop sign at S. Finley, and sometimes checking the radio – WOR- to see if Basking Ridge had school on days when we went out early in the snow. Mr. Eisenhart who was amused/horrified by the “dirt you(I) dug up” about how World War I changed the mores of society (!!), and who was truly horrified by Jeff Albert and Larry Dancy’s foray into a John Birch Society meeting just to stir things up, and who always had a way of making history interesting and relevant. Being in Mr. King’s math class with the non-math phobic kids was always a challenge for me: I was madly trying to copy his work off the board before he erased it while the ones who loved math kept nodding their heads with intuitive understanding. Mr. King never saw my panic! When I dropped math after an A+ on my trig exam, he asked me “NOW? You’re dropping out NOW?” To which there was only one reply: “Haven’t you heard of ‘Quitting while you’re ahead’? Mr. Paulsen saw my interest in languages before I did – so much fun – this I could like! I still remember his open windows blowing snow onto my papers! He was formidable and demanding, but a really nice person who taught me to love Spanish and French, which led to my hosting Consuelo, a girl from Chile during our AFS weekend, and later, to spending my junior year abroad in Spain, and visiting my roommate in France.

We couldn’t wait to graduate, but then on that warm summer night my friends and I surprised ourselves by bursting into tears - “It’s never going to be the same again!” Which was and is so true - and I wouldn’t change a thing! How grateful I am to have had you all as classmates!! I can’t wait to see you again!