Joan Blackburn (Krist)

Stream of Consciousness Memories of Basking Ridge

• So many memories of growing up on the curvy end of Spencer Road. My parents and Carol Balsamel’s parents built our family homes at 211 (my house) and 188 (Carol’s house) in 1949 so Carol is my oldest friend since we were in twos!

• By 1953 first friends were Carol Balsamel, Sally Kolding, Rory Moelter, Richie Gee, Barbara Block, Jackie Mills, Kathy West.

• Other school years friends included Sallie Utz (seems I spent almost of my growing up years at the Utz’s!), Pam Jones, Debbie Dunham, Susan Agoglia, Margaret Searing, Pat Murphy, Pam Maida, Pam Garrabrant, Mary Carol Moore, Judi Logan, Candy Crater, Carol Meeker.

• Best friends in high school: Sallie Utz, Pam Jones, and Debbie Dunham.

• How wonderful kindergarten was with all the kids to play with and Prescott Belt eating that paste we had in big jars.

• Elation at Ridge High School graduation to be going onto college and adult life.

• Playing dodge ball in the Oak Street gym.

• Running down the hill at Oak Street School after cloud shadows.

• The Kiwanis Fair over Labor Day with Mr. Keeler and Mr. Headington cooking burgers, the rides, hayrides, and old car competitions.

• Swim lessons at age 7 in Palmer’s pool.

• Slumber parties with so much dancing and giggling and so little sleep.     [The girls did that, too? - Editor]

• Sleeping out under the stars in the back yard in the hammock.     [with crickets and lightning bugs - Editor]

• Biking everywhere on long country roads unafraid, exploring the cemetery, woods and fields and ponds, lanes and swamps and ditches; four way stops and circles and sidewalks in Basking Ridge shoved up by old trees roots.

• The excitement of discovering the old abandoned Dana Estate in Bernardsville and returning on occasions to explore the house, orchard, swimming pool, imagining what it was like to live in that mansion on that once beautiful refined property.

• Jockey Hollow to bike and hike and picnic in, and the Searing’s pond for winter ice skating.

• Farms with sheep and cows and what wonderful vegetables and fruit and flowers grown in my mother’s and neighbors’ gardens and local truck gardens that sold their produce at small stands and markets, a few where you just weighed and paid for your produce on the honor system. What a privileged upbringing we had!

• The Astor Estate with its high stone wall and rumors they handed out quarters at Halloween. The family history related to the Titanic and how the estate became the Basking Ridge Police Station.

• Maple Avenue School full of stones and so square. The broad interior staircase creaky and wide and the cloak rooms so long. The playground swing set and getting dizzy on the merry-go-round. How fun to run and push it faster and faster and then hop and hold on!

• The air raid drills.

• Our 1958-59 Cedar Hill yearbook we made in Mrs. Talbot’s class that had the title misspelled “Yarn Book” instead of “Year Book” so we glued yarn onto the cover page crest and thought ourselves so clever!

• Mrs. Pomeroy’s third grade class and her sitting so often at her desk holding her head muttering “I’ve got a headache.”

• Mrs. Mills’ 4th grade class. Having tea with my mother at Mrs. Mills’ beautiful old family home out on Route 202 and getting to put on a miner’s lamp to tour the mushroom cellar where her husband grew a large crop. So often thought of that damp dark cellar as I traveled Route 202 to Morristown.

• The Van Doren Mill. All the old mills and barns, some converted into living and work spaces; the old stone, brick, and clapboard houses, churches, community buildings and businesses, the gorgeous Mountain Colony Bernardsville estates. The modern huge-windowed family home Jim Balsamel designed on Spencer Road. Such beautiful and interesting architecture everywhere in our greater community.

• Truly wonderful we grew up in an historical setting and had a sense of place. If wood and stone and dirt could talk. Some of us found arrowheads on our family properties and discovering a lone very old grave stone or two along the side of a country road.

• Family dinners and celebrations at The Old Mill Inn and the King George Inn.

• Strawberry Shortcake Festival at the Presbyterian Church.

• The Holly Ball and our Junior and Senior Proms. The white moiré gown I made for one prom and the blue and white 2-piece floral linen gown I made for the other—both accessorized with long white gloves and tiny rose wristlets!

• The Erie Lackawanna with its rattan seats and the picturesque stations. Walking the tracks sometimes from Oak Street School.

• The A&P in Bernardsville with its wilty winter vegetables.

• The excitement of the Bernardsville Plaza opening with Woolworth and Acme Grocery Store at each end — the first modern shopping center in the area.

• Mastro Shoes, Rizzo’s Optical, Batti’s Department Store for scout uniforms, and Salmon’s where you could find anything from mundane to odd in Bernardsville near and around Olcott Square.

• The lunch counter at Woolworths for sodas, the Corner Cupboard fries and banana splits, the Minuteman for lunch or on dates, Pistilli’s for pizza and meatball sandwiches, and of course the Dairy Queen.

• Digging and digging with Carol, and my sisters, in our younger years trying to release the huge quartz stone that rocked itself by our mailbox.

• The jingle of the Good Humor Truck and the strategy of one or two sisters running towards the truck and one running into the house for nickels to buy ice cream treats.

• Carol and I making a John Kennedy scrapbook of news articles thinking he was so cute! Still have the scrapbook!

• Winky Dink interactive TV show using plastic on our TV screen and using crayons to draw on it.

• Mr. Rodeman’s biology classes, dissecting frogs and getting to dissect a second frog!

• Mr. Stein, how much he cared about his students, who taught us something intimate about the greater world and the impact of world events on the individual, and sadly going to his viewing in Jersey City after he died during the school year.

• Mr. Eisenhart and Mr. Pederson’s history classes giving me understanding and curiosity to ponder where we and the peoples of the earth come from historically and the events and choices and beliefs that make us who we are.

• Loving all my English classes throughout school years.

• Learning to type on manual typewriters using music to get the rhythm.

• The amazing foot-operated hand wash sprinklers in the new Cedar Hill school.

• Square dance for gym class on rainy days in the gym; the ugly green bloomer gym suits!

• The Village of Basking Ridge with old houses converted to stores and Olcott Square in Bernardsville with its shops; Far Hills and horse country; Hacklebarney State Park, and High Point, NJ.

• Being permitted to ride the bus 77 from Morristown Square into New York Port Authority with friends and sisters from age 14 years-old on to shop or attend Broadway Show matinees on Saturdays.

• The Square in Morristown and the huge rocking horses and Santa’s hut at Christmas. Epsteins and Bamberger’s for shopping.

• English Class trip to see “Spoon River Anthology” in New York.

• Mid 1950s class trip to the Bronx Zoo seeing the duck-billed platypus and some uniformed men we later learned were members of Castro’s army visiting New York; Learning in Social Studies what a popular vacation spot and playground for the wealthy Cuba was; The Cuban Missile Crisis.

• Walking and biking everywhere until we got our drivers’ license and then we were free.

• Cars
  • Linda Stoecker’s Corvair
  • Linda Jacobsen‘s VW
  • Pam Jones’ little red wagon and mom’s convertible
  • my old hand-me-down smoky gray VW with a choke (I named her "Greta") (and running out of gas on more than one occasion)
  • my boyfriend’s 1953 Pontiac Chieftain hunky “red Indian” convertible
  • a 1959 Dodge with push buttons
  • the 1961 BRG TR4 (named Paul McCarthy)
  • the brand new 1965 Midnight Blue Mustang 289 convertible with white leather upholstery
  • Miss Murray’s Corvette

• Driving the TR4 taking tight turns around the windy Bernardsville mountains.

• The explanation of why Ridge High had the Red Devil mascot chosen: George Ludlow Lee, Chairman of Red Devil Paint Company who lived at what was known as Cedar Hill donated the 60 acres to first build Cedar Hill School then Ridge High.

• Cruising around Bernardsville on hot summer nights with Ritchie, or Pam and Sallie, and Debbie. Stopping at the Dairy Queen and Pistillis’s and the bowling alley to see who was out doing the same thing.

• Spending a couple of summers swimming and playing at Mill Ridge Swim Club with its old wooden cabanas on that pocked and puddled road past the airport and Nudist Colony, then the remaining summers at Pennbrook Swim Club sunbathing, playing tennis and shuffleboard, picnicking and occasionally eating hot dogs (Sally’s sister Rae worked at the concessions a summer or so). Even after spending some entire days at Pennbrook, returning in the evening with my dad to swim into the night when the “headlights” in the pool would come on and it felt like 20,000 leagues under the sea!

• Going down the shore!

• The Liberty Theatre in Bernardsville and the older exotic couple who owned it. The large silvery bun on top of her head and big glasses looking like she belonged in the circus sitting in the pay booth. The large array of candy in the lobby case that cost a whole quarter each. The owner walking up and down the aisles telling kids to be quiet.

• Bubble haircuts, skirt and sweater sets; crinolines in younger years.

• Worrying about what was happening in Selma, Alabama and announcing to my parents I wanted to go there to march for Freedom (of course they said absolutely no and I didn’t go).

• Our dads dropping us at the movies in Bernardsville then afterwards walking across the street to Russ Soda Shop where grumpy old Russ made individual sodas and phosphates with syrups from the fountain.

• The butcher shop in Basking Ridge with its saw dust floor and the butcher slicing bologna and giving slices to us kids as a treat. The cold room with the meat carcasses.

• The Washington House Restaurant and their delicious hamburgers and steaks.

• The dentist that Mrs. Garrabrant worked for in Basking Ridge who came up from the city once or two a week (?) and had his practice upstairs from the Village Fountain and gave out certificates for free candy downstairs at the Fountain. What a marketing tool! And who didn’t love Mrs. Garrabrant --such a sweetheart with cheerful smile and soothing voice trying to calm us over the high-pitched whine of that huge loud drill, and who chased those little silver balls around the dental tray stuffing them in the instrument used to insert a filling. It’s a wonder we are all alive and well today with what they used to cram into our mouths.

• Being in Driver’s Ed class in the Home Ec. room when the inter-com came on and Mr. Keeler announced President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.

• My mother’s beautiful large flower gardens. The long row of Peonies brought from my Dad’s parents in Kansas City, MO and moved to Seattle in 1979 when my parents joined their three daughters in Washington State-- those long-lived plants are alive today in our gardens. Our long driveway bed with a large variety of Iris given to us by our beloved older German friends in Gillette, the wife of the couple made many of our pretty dresses and skirts over the years.

• Years of piano lessons taught by Mrs. Wert at her Mount Vernon studio. Scheherazade her Siamese cat for whom I named my first Siamese kitten.

• Homecoming bon fires and the Bernards rivalry games. Cheering in the stands at home football and basketball games.

• The sultry nights, fireflies, and in young years the naps in white sheets drifting off with white batiste curtains gently blowing in the rare summer breeze; the sleepless nights and restless days of high humidity!

• The dismay at my mass of long curly auburn hair reacting to the Jersey humidity after spending so much time sleeping on three rows of giant mesh hair rollers and relentless styling time coming to naught.

• Sky watching and cloud watching and day dreaming on broad green lawns.

• Birdwatching, climbing trees (especially the huge Willow on our side property), clipping small branches to make playhouse “rooms” within a stand of small trees; making mud pies and crabapple soups.

• How the sky would turn dirty yellow, the air would hold its breath and then the crashing of thunder and the spear throws of lightening and that rain—that pouring down of almost solid rain—total soaking rain. Then just as quickly as it started, it all stopped, the sun came brilliantly out. Watching the HUGE earthworms slip sliding away trying to get back to dark silent loam.

• The whine of lawn mowers, the smell of fresh mowed grass--Those were the Grass Days, and how brown the grass could get in the dog days of August, dying but never dead.

• The years we bagged and jarred tent caterpillars to bring to school to be burned as a community service before they completely ravished the trees.

• The roads so hot the tar would bubble and how fun to stomp the bubbles flat.

• Praying mantis in the garden and how wonderful and strange that insect was.

• Learning to drive in the Somerset Hills Cemetery!

• Sleigh riding down our little hill in the back yard, at Oak Street School, and on the curves of Spencer Road! Having winter with lots of snow and gorgeous blue sky winter days. The soft sound of snow falling and the crunch of boots walking. Snow forts and random snowballs thrown at cars while driving, especially on the straight part of Spencer Road those snowballs flew.

• Pea soup fog days.

• The parades around the village square on Memorial Day and Halloween. The excitement of marching in those parades either in Halloween costume or in a Brownie or Girl Scout uniform.

• The boom of Gun and cannon fire on Memorial Day and the Bernards Township Bicentennial Celebration.

• Christmas caroling in neighborhoods and at our village green. The sound of Church bells.

• All the rabbits running through our gardens! And deer! Oh the deer eating apples in our back garden, jumping out suddenly across roads while driving, and roaming in the fields and at Great Swamp!

• The tomatoes! I truly miss Jersey tomatoes!! How could we not love vegetables growing up in the Truck Garden State and having so much fresh produce available from our own gardens and local farms?

• Zinnias, lilacs, roses, and hydrangea; Dogwoods, Crab Apples, Maples, Hickory, Peach, Apple, and Oaks. Spring, summer and autumn robust in the Basking Ridge landscape.

• Wild flowers: Black-eyed Susan, Daisies, Butterfly Weed, Milkweed, Queen Anne’s lace, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Dutchman Breeches, Harebells, Cardinal Flow, Bishops’ Cap, Solomon’s Seal, Violets, Meadow Rue, Foamflower, Goldenrod, Joe Pye weed, Swamp rose Mallow, Lobelia, Trillium.

• The Library with its narrow balcony and loving to climb up there to observe the rooms from that perspective. Our unsinkable librarian Miss Dunham and her determination to keep the sanctity of her library, her bell and the way she stamped our books. Playing outside around the stone wall waiting for my mother to finish her perusing.

• Suffering through infectious childhood diseases: measles, mumps, chickenpox and even a bout of scarlet fever and hepatitis.

• Cousin Brucie On the radio!

• All the pop music and Broadway tunes from my Grammy’s and parents’ generations plus all of our wonderful 1950s and 1960s music. Dancing and singing and knowing all the words.

• Receiving the Polio sugar cube vaccine in April 1964.

• The time I was sick and couldn’t go with my Brownie troop to Newark but saw them televised on the Farmer Grey Show.

• Mr. Keeler standing in the high school hallway with his arms folded across his chest watching us as we changed classes and how we could be sent home if our skirts were too short, or we had too much make up on, or if the boys’ pants were too tight! Don’t know if that really ever happened to anyone, but classmates, what a memory about our dress code!

• Tri-Hi-Y and our youth in government trip to “take over the government for a day” in Trenton and then the trip to Washington DC as part of the press corps.

• Going to the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows NY with family and school friends.

• School sewing classes, first in 7th grade when we bought 3 yards of cotton, made stencils to apply decorative borders and sewing the fabric into gathered circle skirts! We had two excellent Home Ec. teachers Mrs. Jarvis and Mrs. Utz who taught me how to sew and tailor expertly well. I remember the Home Ec. teacher who gave us a recipe to make a cake using ½ of an egg! And the Home Ec. rooms at Oak Street and Ridge High.

• With regret didn’t take Shop class but don’t think it may have been offered to girls. We went to high school on the edge of bras being thrown up in celebration and liberation in place of hats. It was an interesting time looking back how we bridged both worlds.

• The cool thing about being the first class to go through all four years of high school at the New Ridge High! My older sister’s class had the bummer of having to come back to Basking Ridge for their senior year and leaving their friends from Bernards High.

• Seventh grade English class year when to my shock we started to read books without happy endings and the startled awakening to this possibility. It seems looking back the message was clear: Go straight to Sartre, do not pass go, this is the beginning of reality, kids.

• The Chas-o-gram. I loved the diagram structures and have continued to use his concepts.

• The plays and choral concerts both in Basking Ridge and at Bernards High.

• Singing in many of the school choirs and attending choir practice at the Presbyterian Church.

• Ballroom and Ballet classes in the Methodist Church Basement.

• 7th grade when I was in the talent show singing “I’m a Redhead” not realizing the stage was so high above the audience so when I twirled around in my (yes) circle skirt it produced quite a laugh from the kids in the audience and quite a red color on my face! In 8th grade I inadvertently got the lead female role in a comedic class play “My French Toast” class because when I auditioned I horribly mispronounced “Oui, oui!” pronouncing it instead as “Oye, oye!” which made everyone laugh so the teacher thought I was a natural but I was again bright red when I was learned the correct pronunciation!