Jim Rickey
- No sooner did the school year begin than I found myself seriously smitten with classmate Carol Meeker (later BHS cheerleading captain). I quickly pounced at what I recognized as the perfect opportunity to expose my yearning during a rousing session of Miss Wells' favorite playground game, "When a Bonny Meets a Lassie" ("He goes THIS way and THAT way.") Beneath a deep blue sky, bathing in the late summer's sun, we formed a circle. Directly across from me, there she was: A bit taller than I, her brown locks were tousled by the breeze. She wore a blindingly white blouse above a a long, bright red tartan skirt. About her waist was a wide black belt with a large , square, brass buckle that shone like a miniature sun. Tagged by another lassie, off I sauntered around the inner edge of the circle. When I reached her, with my right hand I gave the buckle a gentle yet firm and lingering nudge. I was sure this was meaningful contact and could only lead to a school year's worth of tingling flirtation. As it turned out, it didn't. But every detail from that encounter sixty-three years ago is still vivid.
- This was a schoolbuilding with character (from which my parents graduated 8th grade in 1927/28, headed off to Bernards High). As noted by Joan Blackburn, it had very long, narrow and dark cloak rooms. We would be banished to these for disruptive behavior. This was not an effective strategy, because alone in the dark we could pull off all kinds of additional pranks. (I clearly remember the Kenny Miletti clay-on-the-ceiling caper.) It had a basement cafeteria where Chef Ethel Kampmier cooked real "home-style" meals from" locally-sourced" ingredients. There was a "gran salon" on the second floor, divisible by a sliding center divider. Principal Miss/Mrs. DeWick had an aerie-like office, a little box at the end of its own little staircase that rose above the second floor. When being sent to pay her a visit for some supplemental discipline, climbing those stairs was like a march to the scaffold.
- This was the year of either our first or second Salk polio shot. Down to the cafeteria we went, where we encountered Dr. Harold Muendel, who sported a menacing mustache. Jimmie Smith (the guy Dennis Ward notes had a red barn) was a very shy, very closed-in, bursting-at-the-seams-with-contained-emotion kind of guy, clearly terrified at the prospect of the scary Doc with the mustache stabbing him with a foot-long needle. All went well until we got back to the classroom. Poor Jimmie took his seat, looked about uneasily, and after emitting a sort of gulping sound, spewed forth with great force the contents of his stomach. Finished spewing, Jimmie, in a barely detectable whimper, asked, "Do I have to get another shot?"
- Little comes to mind here. New kids: [Jeff] Albert, [Rusty] Allen, [Tommy] Foreman
- This year was particularly memorable because of our young, enthusiastic, lively teacher. We learned a bit of Spanish along with the "Mexican Hat Dance. " We also took cover in the basement in drills to practice our post-nuclear-Apocalypse survival skills. This was an old, low-ceilinged dark,dank, dusty place - with bat guano drifting down from the rafters and rodents scuttling about the dirt floor. A coffin or two were propped up in one corner. Great stuff! Given the "All Clear," we shuffled our way back upstairs. BUT NOT ALL OF US! It took a while for Miss M to realize somebody was missing, still down there. Who was it? (Clue: one of his brothers was a Latin teacher). And, we gave each other periodic personal hygiene exams. Have I been plagued with nearly sixty years of obsessive-compulsive disorder focused on my right ear because PENNY PITT found it "too waxy"?
[Penny responds: "Tell Jimmy Rickey for me that I found his memoir hilarious and maybe even somewhat accurate. Please do pass along the news that I have zero recollection of the sort of simian grooming activity he describes in fourth grade. Furthermore if he is still "obsessed" with whether or not his right ear is "too waxy" I will be happy to make the 20 minute trip from my home in Madison to his in Basking Ridge (yes? No? Patagonia? Paris?) and do a quick inspection. That should set his mind at rest, which he deserves after 60 years of doubt."]
- This was the "Year of Living Miserably." Never has a teacher unrelentingly shown such disdain for her school, her students -- for her very (chosen) profession! We couldn't even pronounce her name to her liking: "It's not "Kurns", it's "Cairns, Cairns damn it!" (as in terrier).
- We wrote, produced, cast, directed and acted in our own play. It was zany with close resemblance to something the Monty Pythons might have done. Entitled "Death at Sunrise," it was about a group of sixth graders, who either on a class trip or semester abroad, wander off into the wrong part of a pyramid, get captured by an angry mummy, are sentenced to death-------and rescued at the last minute by Zorro, dashingly played by Tommy Foreman.
- Mr. Richard Whitaker, an old-school grammarian, valiantly tried to teach us that the English language can be "diagrammed." This takes a lot of contortion, and is only possible up to a point. I often felt sorry for the words and phrases he tried to bend and twist to conform to a formula that real, living language often successfully resists.
Anyone remember the name of the Aussie (S. African?) girls' phys' ed teacher (M- W--)* my all-time favorite female name.
Mr. Thomas Meys, he who after lo these many years still sets certain hearts pitter-patting, had at times an equally profound, yet different, effect on me. He was my post-Whitaker English teacher/ 8th grade. A young, slender, graceful, keen teacher, he would deftly navigate the classroom's aisles, senses always alert; he was (and surely still is) downright vulpine. On occasion, victimized by adolescent hormonal brainstorms, I would blurt out something nonsensical and disruptive. Mr M- , in a flash, would pivot, and with the same black eyes that sent hearts aflutter, bore his gaze deep into me. My heart was unaffected, but let's just say, other parts of my anatomy froze up real good - until period's end. Mr. M- gave us weekly vocabulary lists; first word, first list was "vicarious."
The perennial Hula performance, accompanied by the throbbing rhythms and suggestive lyrics of "Lovely Hula Hands." Have minimal recollections of the hands.
- We must recognize our classmates all through school who suffered hardscrabble lives and, often, the searing pain of being foster children. These were the Bonnie Brae guys. They stirred the pot, spiced things up in ways we were incapable. Gary Minion, Ricky Charles, Mickey Metcalf..... there were tons more. We should be thankful we had them. Often, they were far wiser than we.
- I always held a special place for the RHS class of 1962. To me, they were the last of the "American Graffiti" generation. Slicked-back, well-oiled hair, white socks and loafers, often closely identified with their beloved cars, flat tops, hunters, fishermen. The solid All-American guys(e.g. Russ Hadley), the more edgy James Deans (Ricky Klein), the super-achievers (Dee Miller, Carl Sayler) They were a good bunch, and we never saw their like again.
In the spring of 1961, at the University of Michigan, President Kennedy announced his plan to start the Peace Corps, appointing Sergeant Shriver as its first director. I was listening, and right then and there knew one day I would sign up.
We put on "The King and I." Some of us, as prop/slaves, got trod upon by Barbara Block, which I remember as a not-unpleasant sensation. Petite little Tup-Tim (C. Crater) could belt out notes that ricochet about in my head to this day. Between scenes, we zipped about in the Rickey jeep in full Thai-monk costume.
Rich Elwell and I were run down in the hall and relieved of our NHS pins by Mr. Dolman.
- All through our school years we surely were always in the midst of gay and lesbian students and teachers. For most of them, those times must have been pretty miserable. Closeted lives had to be very strained, stressful and painful. I hope, after leaving Basking Ridge, they found a place where they could feel comfortable and be themselves.
- AFTER college, in June of 1969, I joined the Peace Corps and lived in a small, remote town in Venezuela and had the time of my life. This led to many years of travel. I took off for South America but a week after graduating from Lafayette ("69 is Divine") and off and on have been on the trail ever since, interspersing semi-rugged outdoor adventure (Patagonia, Tasmania, los Andes, Amazonas, Picos de Europa, Galicia, Provence, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Nepal, Machu Picchu, Auyun Tepui, los llanos Venezolanas, Dominica) with long, leisurely stays in the Irish countryside and Paris - anywhere but here.
