Where's your tie

Recently a friend was telling me how cute it was when her older son was showing his little brother how to make a tie for a job interview. It made me think of when I was a kid and my older brother showed me how to tie a tie so I wouldn't get beat up on the first day of junior high school. All summer the rumors intensified. The terrible things that happened to new seventh graders on the first day of school not wearing a tie. Kids who were found dead in the Hackensack River. Kids who had to wear crutches until Christmas. Like most entering seventh graders, I didn't believe the most grisly stories, but was of the prudence is the better part of valor disposition.

On the big day I trudged through the depressing halls of the junior high school and the even more depressing home room classroom. In it there was a loudspeaker with the Principal's voice saying that no hazing was permitted in this school and no special articles of clothing (he didn't say ties) are to be worn to school by any students. All the male students, save one, wore ties that day. It was the best dressed group of students the teacher had seen since the previous September.

Coming home from school, three kids chased after me shouting, "Where's your tie?" Seeing my tie they all shook my hand and wished me the best of luck in my educational experience. It was a quite moving moment and in it I knew I was no longer a boy but had become a man. A man wearing a tie.

Brigitte Bardot

In the early sixties, our family subscribed to The Advocate, a weekly publication of the Newark Archdiocese. A Catholic publication, it always included a column that ended "yours in Christ". The major feature of the paper, however, was the Catholic church's weekly movie ratings. It was this column I would rush to every week. Preceding the film industry motion picture ratings by decades, it listed movies currently showing and informed the laity of the appropriateness of the films for them and their families.

The best part of the list, at least for all the Catholic boys in New Jersey, was the listing of movies that were "condemned". Anything French, for example, was always condemned. Even relatively innocent films like Irma La Deuce, which had a French name, was condemned. Never on Sunday was condemned, perhaps for suggesting the presence of other attractions for that day besides mass, baked goods and dinner.

Needless to say, any film starring Brigitte Bardot was condemned. Perhaps because of this, among the boys in my fifth grade class, there was constant conversation about the French actress. Surprising in a way, since none of us had ever seen any of her movies. For that matter, I doubt if any of them were shown outside of art houses east of the Hudson River.

It was probably the name. Brigitte Bardot sounded so forbidden, so much more alluring than Jayne Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe. These American actresses could never compete with the mystique of le Brigitte.

Today, thanks to Netflix, I am seeing some of her movies for the first time. So far, except for the frontal nudity, the movies are rather dull. They are almost like a Jack Lemmon type movie, but with subtitles and lots more smoking. Oh yes, and of course Ms. Bardot.

Marching band

The first day of high school is one of those times when you feel you are gaining entry to the larger world. Confirming this fact was my class schedule.There, at the last period of the day was band. I would march at football games. I was in the band.

I had been warned that there was this scary man with a glass eye who ran the thing and he took no guff from anybody, especially the new students. Within ten minutes I was told to put that flute away and he handed me a trombone. I had met the bandleader, Mr. McGrath. For the next three falls I would attempt to play the trombone in marching band. And witness one of the more colorful figures at Hackensack High.

Junior year I decided to audition for the school play, Carousel, and who was the director but Mr. McGrath. I was given the role of Mr. Bascombe, the wealthy amusement park owner. In the script, I (125 pounds) was to be the victim of an attempted robbery by Jiggs (250 pounds and a linebacker in the football team). I was to overpower him physically and escape from the situation. My attempt drew guffaws from everyone there that day. Mr. McGrath had the wherewithal to change the script, giving me a gun. Now the script would be believable.

I was also there when he introduced the humanities class to Joe Smith of Smith and Dale. Mr. McGrath died a few weeks ago.

A New Blog

Although I haven't finished with the sixties yet, most of us baby boomers never really got over that decade, I've started a new blog, aimed at the times we are living through now. It's called Hard Times.

Thanksgiving in the Sixties

In the late sixties, many young people suffered major transformations at Freshman year at college. Happy go lucky, polite, well groomed young people the previous June, they went off to college and contracted bad cases of college-itus. Their hair grew long, they sported beards, they smelled like pot.

As was the tradition at my school, the previous senior class wandered the halls of high school the day before Thanksgiving. And look at them! Enough to bring many a high school teacher to tears. "All that work we put in on their educations and three months at State and look what happened to them!"

I was recently listening to the Beatles' Revolver and can see a similar transformation. Young clean cut men, previously loyal to their Queen and Capitol Records, smoked a joint and got sour outlooks on life. It sounds like they ate a meal that didn't agree with them. (Or got their tax bills).

Editor's note: One of the icons of the sixties, the cartoonist R. Crumb, has an interesting show of original ink drawings at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art at on the Penn campus. Throught December 7. Wed-Sun. Free.

Route 80

Northern New Jersey was late in getting the major interstate highways. For years anyone wanting to go to the Pocono's had to take Route 46 through Hacketstown, which was always crowded. Hackensack finally got Route 80 in 1964.

One Sunday afternoon I was traversing my way through the comics in the Herald Tribune. I was past "Peanuts" and entering the more parochial world of "Miss Peach" when my father asked if I'd like to take a bicycle ride. This was a new development in family life up to this point so I said, skeptically, "okay".

I rode my trusty bike and my father rode my older brothers'. He was at college and would never (until now) be the wiser. We headed onto Route 80. Scheduled to open the following day, the highway was magnificent and empty. It had a wonderful view of New York and the Empire State Building. We went as far as Bogota.

In Bogota we visited my father's friends. I had a coke and he drank a few beers. On the way back he swerved a bit on the road but I held up the rear. The next day Route 80 was opened up to the trucks and traffic jams for which it would become famous.

Arnold Constable

Among my earliest childhood memories are being dragged by my mother to “the stores”. At that time, the malls had not

yet arrived in Bergen County New Jersey so people still went “downtown” which in our case meant Main Street in Hackensack. Not yet in Kindergarten, I visited Packard’s, Woolworth’s and that perfume laden place, Arnold Constables. It was what my mother called “a lady’s store”. The whole place reeked of perfume and I can remember smelling like Chanel No. 5 the rest of the day, or possibly until the next day when I changed my clothes. One nice thing about going to school was that I missed out on these daytime excursions in the world of women’s shopping.

As a twelve year old, Arnold Constables re-emerged once in my life as the location of a special appearance by Cousin Brucie aka Bruce Morrow, the disc jockey. I remember the place was full of kids, and most of them did not smell like perfume. This one girl I didn’t know started talking to me about music. I held my own, showing off my knowledge of the Animals and the Stones. My first exposure to the faster set that traveled at will to see music celebrities.

Bruce Morrow showed up. There was lots of screaming. I don’t remember what he talked about. Presumably it was to promote his radio show on WABC and perhaps a few products.

Today long gone, Arnold Constables in Hackensack is now a campus of Bergen Community College. Bruce Morrow does oldies shows for public television “pitch week”.

Editor’s note:  This post is mentioned in the Hackensack Community Message Board. Interesting site for Bergen County history buffs.