the Von Steuben House

New Jersey has plenty of places where George Washington slept and when I was in the Cub Scouts I had the priviledge of going to the Von Steuben House and seeing one of his haunts. Cub Scouts was a good introduction to the world of clubs that would occupy us baby boomers as we descended through life. I was part of Pack 19, affiliated with the Church on the Heights in Hackensack. My pack was led by Mrs. Fontanella. My mother had been a Pack mother earlier and she was tired of kids tearing up her house. It was better anyway, for me, to have a non relative as my leader.

Cub Scouts was okay. I can remember making lanyards. I was also cajoled into doing my Kennedy impersonation at one of the monthly pack meetings. I remember my one joke. "I lost my marbles. But I lost them with vim and vigor".

At any rate a group of maybe six of us made it to the Von Steuben House north of town. I remember there was an older woman who promised us that if we were good boys she would take us to the dungeon. I guess we were good because I remember we saw the jail and rack where they tortured prisoners. A colonial version of Fifty Shades of Grey.