AFFORDABLE SUMMER FUN

As we venture forth from our sweatered nests, it’s that time of year to catch up with the playground buzz. There’s a lot being talked about around the swings, but since this is a family newspaper, I’ll stick to a family topic. (Although, there’s some smoking gossip out there that screams “Mom’s Night Out!”)

Okay, back to my column. We all know that it’s really expensive to entertain kids; never more so than in today’s economy. Even a movie has become a major event now that most studios are releasing every kid-friendly flick in 3-D. Taking the family to a movie can cost close to $100, especially if you include snacks. However, here’s my biggest beef: 3-D admission includes a free pair of “Roy Orbinson glasses,” but then they have the nerve to ask theatergoers to “recycle” them into the big blue bucket upon exiting the theater so they can repackage them in time for the next showing. “Yeah, for ten bucks I’ll give them back!” (The 3-D’s to a 3-D movie are: debt, debt, debt!) 

Many people I know actually have a “family entertainment budget.” Thinking back to my childhood, my family’s entertainment budget was: “zero.” Our weekend entertainment consisted of the following choices: either help my father scrape the old paint off the house on Saturday and help him re-shingle the roof on Sunday; or, weed and rake the yard. Occasionally, my old man would throw in an oil change, or a “let’s take the motor apart to see why the ‘check engine light’ is on,” but the general theme of our family entertainment was “maintenance.” A real rare thrill was when we were thrown into the trunk of the Falcon station wagon to take a road trip to Aunt Peggy’s in Pearl River, New York. My brother and I had a ball bouncing around the trunk like a couple of spastic bobbleheads up Kinderkermack Road making faces at the bus drivers who had the misfortune of driving behind our car all the way to the New York State Line.

But I digress. I’m sure you also have fond memories of family outings that cost nothing, or close to it. Here are some ideas for a spring and summer of outings that won’t break the bank and will make for some great memories.

Minor League Baseball: We are so fortunate to be surrounded by some of the best minor league teams, so why not take advantage of it?

Staten Island Yankees: $16/ home plate; $14/reserve seats. Great all-inclusive packages available. SIY is a farm team of the NY Yankees. Stadium right near the Staten Island Ferry with a great view of Statue of Liberty. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t586

Jersey Jackals: NJ Jackals had 19 players sign with Major League organizations since 2006 season. $11/box; $9 reserved. http://www.jackals.com/home.asp

Newark Bears: The Newark Bears rank 3^rd on Minor League Baseball’s top 100 Minor League Teams in history. $10/ticket; $1 discount for all military and first responders. http://www.newarkbears.com/

Brooklyn Cyclones: Farm team of the NY Mets; the stadium is right next to Coney Island Beach. Games frequently have fireworks displays. Tickets range from $8 to $16. http://brooklyncyclones.com/home/

Long Island Ducks: Part of the Atlantic League, they play in the Citibank Stadium in Central Islip. Tickets average $12. http://www.liducks.com/

Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees: This Yankees minor team is AAA, (the highest level of the minors) and a great place to see future Yankees players. It’s worth the 2 hour drive to Pennsylvania. Tickets are $10 to $14. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t531

Membership to New York’s Wildlife Conservation Society: a $124 membership fee ($78 tax deductible) for a family of four includes a year of free admission to these five attractions: Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens Zoos. It also includes four free parking passes, discount cards for gift shops and restaurants, and more.   http://www.bronxzoo.org/become-a-member/family.aspx

To find more affordable fun, and have access to the “Mom to Mom Calendar of Events” that lists just about every event going on in and around Bergen County (Street Fairs, Farmers’ Markets, Craft Fairs, Flea Markets, Outdoor Summer Movies and Concerts, Carnivals, and more!) become a fan of “BERGEN COUNTY MOM TO MOM” on FACEBOOK. It’s a page I created to connect you with everything that’s going on—for free! Check it out.

THE PARK CLOSES AT DUSK...

(Photo courtesy of PalisadesPark.com and the Cliffside Park Free Public Library)

Seems April skies are in her eyes,
A living doll that talks smiling as she walks.

May she stay somehow sweet as she is now. 
Little Miss America take a bow.

-Gladys Shelley

          I clenched it tightly in my hand. So giddy was I with delight that I hopscotched around the perimeter of the crooked columns of puddles that lined the concessioned Midway careful not to ruin my new white patent-leather Easter shoes. With practiced theatrical flair, I lifted the skirt of my yellow-eyelet dress to protect its netted hem from the splishy-splashy-splatters my heels were unintentionally kicking up. A girl had to dress just right for a momentous occasion such as this, you know. Clutched between the fingers of my “Tinker Bell” nail-polished hand was the application to the “Little Miss America Pageant.”

          I have such fond memories of Palisades Amusement Park—Casper’s Ghostland, the Caterpillar ride, the Archie Hot Rod ride, the French fries with vinegar, the games-of-chance, but there are two moments that stand out most. The first is Bozo the Clown bending down as I sat in my stroller, his soft white-gloved hand tickling my chin, and telling me with his zany laugh that he loved my red hair. I remember feeling faint as my idol patted my head like a dog. The second moment is hugging that “Little Miss America Pageant” application to my heart.

For years, I waited patiently to make the five-year-old age requirement so that I could showcase my talent to the world. I had no idea what that talent was. I couldn’t tap dance; I couldn’t sing; and my attempts at cartwheeling resulted in the toe-heel destruction of many porcelain knick-knacks my mother had precisely scattered around the living room.  However, I knew that in order to “win it” I had to “have it,” and I was trying really hard to “find it.” (Four decades later I’m still trying to “find it.”)

          Unfortunately, my father did not share my excitement about the “Little Miss America Pageant.” To put it mildly, he didn’t like the idea of his daughter prancing upon a stage before a crowd of strangers. It didn’t help that my life goal at that time was to be a “go-go dancer” and I routinely paraded around the house in a blue leotard and white knee-hi “go-go” boots dancing to “Chika-a-Boom (dontcha just love it!)” Hey, I was a product of my times. “Laugh-In” was in, man; Goldie Hawn made dancing in a bikini with body-graffiti and boots cool. And Dean Martin’s “Golddiggers” turned T.V. into a party! 

It’s funny how a child’s brain disregards historical timelines. Some of my earliest memories are fractured moments woven together into stories that, in many cases, neglect any accurate historical sequence. For instance, I have no memory of “The Park’s” closing. Nada. None. All I remember is that in April of 1971 I held the application to the “Little Miss America Pageant” in my hand, and the next memory is of the park burning. As ludicrous as it sounds now, I was convinced that my father had a hand in it so that I couldn’t compete in the pageant. The family did nothing to dispel this rumor; in fact, they encouraged it throughout the years with not-so-subtle jabs such as, “The Park would still be standing if only you didn’t want to be ‘Little Miss America;’” and then they’d laugh.

This I remember: The fire started just as school got out. My mother drove me, my brother, and our friends to watch it from the top of Route 5, at the curve where it begins its descent to Edgewater. I stood, one mourner among many, watching the flames lick to ash all that was once familiar and sacred. I remember the resounding hiss and crackle of those icons of pleasure echoing as they collapsed; indelibly burning themselves onto the pyre of our collective memory.

As dusk began to fall, the flames slowed their ascent until there was nothing left but the intermittent sparks of burning embers. Standing there, shivering as night began to fall upon the cliffs of the Palisades, The Park did indeed finally close at dusk, and this almost-Little Miss America watched it take its final bow. 

RE-BIRTH OF A JOY-ZEE GIRL

(Continued)  August 18^th, 1980: “I can’t wait to be gone. Gone from this place; gone from this town where everyone knows everything about everyone. In this place nothing ever changes; people only die.”

I read the words of that teenage girl now from the distance of many years, and I can’t help but shudder. How could I have so thoughtlessly wished my life, and all that would ever hold any real meaning in it, away like that?

Teenagers are a funny species; they crave change while hating change. At the time I wrote those words change was happening to everyone but me. Old friendships were abandoned for new ones; friends moved away because their parents sold their houses to cash in on the real estate boom; being offered $150,000 for a triple lot seemed a once in a lifetime opportunity.  As ties began to unbind, I was beginning to feel lost at home. Finally, I was the only one still here. Leaving is always easy when you’re the last one to go.  

Eventually, I took a job in Manhattan and lost myself to the gritty intensity of midtown in the days before Mickey Mouse evicted O. Henry from Times Square. The city streets were filled with unfamiliar faces and people who knew nothing about me. Everyone came from somewhere else. And for awhile, that was intoxicating.

Then something remarkable happened. I realized that in my quest to flee everything familiar, I had surrendered all that was really meaningful. Suddenly I began to look upon my past with increasing fondness. The memories I had of growing up in that little part of town creviced themselves into a signifi­cant place in my history and became the stories I would tell.  It seems so important now—all the people and places that populated my small world back then. Sixth Street Park; Jim’s; Stanley’s candy in the back of the laundromat; Monsignor Reilly; Holy Trinity; the Palisades…all of it wished away by a young girl whose firm opinion of time was that it moved too slow.

Had I known in the summer of 1980 that my father would die in six years, I would have never left his side. Had I known that so many of the friends with whom I spent every waking moment with in the summer of 1980 would lose their lives to drugs, car accidents, cancer, murder…I would have never let the distance of time and place consign our friendships to the yearly distribution of Christmas greeting cards.   

There is a tremendous power in the past; meaning that we can only discov­er about ourselves through the passage of time and the loss of those we love, or once loved, most. It’s only when so much has been taken away that we realize how much we really had to begin with.

          I’ve returned to roam the streets I knew so well in an attempt to stir the trace remains of memory; not for the big events, but for those small subtle moments that now seem anything but ordinary. What I find instead are monstrous duplexes on tree-less streets where small shingled houses once stood; stillness where children once ran boisterously through fenceless backyards every hot summer evening while the music of ice cubes mingling in our parents gin and tonics chimed in the background; office buildings where hand-made forts and tree houses were once built.

Look­ing back to those days, those sacred days, as I so often do now, I confess that I carry within me home­sick­ness for those days, that place, all those people, and I remember events that may not, in fact, have happened as elo­quently as I now remember them. I realize with great regret that I spent the first half of my life counting down the days until I could shed my little corner of the earth from my skin only to spend the rest of my life trying to find my way back home again.

I'd like to think that some­where in the dis­tance between memory and truth those days were really as spe­cial as I remem­ber. That in the midst of memory all those people who came of age in that place called Coytesville, are still living and breathing some­where in time. 

BIRTH OF A JOY-ZEE GIRL--PART ONE

I grew up on the Lower East Side.

          Of the Coytesville section of Fort Lee. Coytesville was like the gum on the bottom of Englewood Cliff’s shoe; the Hooterville to their Petticoat Junction. In its heyday, Coytesville’s saloons were like Korean nail salons—one on almost every sidewalk-less street corner. In 1965, I was brought home from Holy Name Hospital to a small house on a street with no name, just a number--5^th Street. To my right was Interstate Park; to my left was the road that led to Jim’s Candy Emporium where my life-long love affair with everything confectionary began.

My father was a union man, and in the ‘70’s union jobs were like Wonka’s golden ticket—the decade before Reagen sounded their death knell; the decade before debt was handed out like lollipops at the bank. Everyone’s dad was a union man—police, fire, postal, teacher, iron worker, teamster, laborer; and everyone seemed to make ends meet. Like most moms, my mom stayed at home; like most families, we had two used American cars parked in our tarred driveway (yes, tarred; pavers were men who paved streets and not decorative driveway bricks); a house with no mortgage; and a week down the Jersey Shore every summer. All accomplished on one paycheck.

          The door­way to my world opened onto Sixth Street Park. If I close my eyes I can still see the sharp prism of sunlight reflecting off the jalousie glass windows of our aluminum porch door distorting the colors of the brightly painted merry-go-round into kaleidoscopic blobs of yel­lows, reds, blues and greens.

Within the perimeter of the playground sat the shallow hole of the blue-painted kiddie pool lifeguarded each summer of my childhood by Fritz, the ageless ancient German immigrant who lived next door to the playground. I’m not sure how to describe Fritz except to say that he always looked constipated. All summer long Fritz would bullet German-infused commands at us kids from the perch of his sagging nylon-woven lawn chair atop the small grassy knoll above the pool. When he ejected you from the pool, you asked no questions—you goose-stepped to the bench and served out your sentence in silence.

Sitting faithfully beside Fritz was his brown and black German Shepherd who made Cujo look like Morris the Cat. The same commands Fritz shouted at his dog, he shouted at us. When he yelled, I never knew whether to sit, growl, or attack one of the Carney boys. I swear he had to have been a former Scoutmaster in the Hitler Youth. Somewhere there’s a book in me screaming to get out, “Fritz’s Guide to Childcare—Sitz! Platz! Halt die Klappe!” (Sit, Stay, Shut Your Mouth!)

When I was around five, the Kempf’s rented the old Sweeny house across the street. The Kempf’s were the Walton’s without a conscience; at least the boys were. They shaved cats with straight edged razor blades; hoisted them up trees in rusting crab nets; fed spoonfuls of dirt to unsuspecting neighborhood kids; even pushed a Volkswagon Bug down a ditch. My old man swore the Kempf’s were moved in as a way to force us to sell, but eventually they were the ones who left. Oddly, with them went the neighborhood.

The wrecking ball knew no rest back then. Turn-of-the-century houses were replaced by quadrangular brick McMansions; familiar names moved out; new architecture and cultures moved in. By the end of the decade the old neighborhood was well on its way to becoming unrecognizable, and so was I.

Everything changed the summer I turned 15. I bore within me a restlessness that I never felt before, and would never feel again in quite the same urgent way. All that mattered were my friends; being confined at home for any significant amount of time gave me a mental rash. When I wasn’t working, I was sitting on the cliffs of the Palisades imagining the life I would someday live on the sky-lined side of the Hudson.

On August 18^th, 1980, I wrote: “I can’t wait to be gone. Gone from this place; gone from this town where everyone knows everything about everyone. In this place nothing ever changes; people only die.”

To Be Continued…

POWER OUT(R)AGE

12:30 a.m. March 15^th. Phone rings. I answer.

          “This is a recorded message from PSE&G. Due to the recent storm there are power outages in your area. Power will be restored by Thursday. If you have an emergency, call 9-1-1.”

          “Hmmm,” I thought. “That’s funny; if my power was out I wouldn’t have gotten that message. Thank God the storm is over!” Then, as if on cue, my power went out. My husband, whom the family calls “Henry Kissinger” because he is a man of peace and rationality, thought this was a bizarre and uncanny coincidence. Not I. No, I was sure this was a vast conspiracy! The timing was just a little too contrived for my taste.

As Jim stumbled through the pitch-black hallway, tripping over the dog while groping for the flashlight that never gets returned to the closet where it belongs, he laughed our situation off by saying that we lost the powerball lottery. I, however, harbored more sinister visions. I imagined some hairless Dr. Evil-like character clothed in a white lab-coat huddled in the PSE&G plant in Ridgefield with his hand hovering over the “Light Bright” grid of my neighborhood’s electrical pattern laughing sadistically while shouting through the post-storm-of-the-century midnight air from his laboratory deep in the bowels of the basement, “Take that you nasty northwest section of Leonia! Oh, and take part of Englewood with you too!”  

          Ordinarily, a little break from the plugged-in world would be a welcomed relief, and I embraced the silence until my neighbor’s rented generator truck pulled into their driveway. I don’t know what’s worse, the loud incessant pulse of the generator exhaling, “We have power, we have power, we have power;” or watching my neighbors (through the window in the cave I once called my kitchen) eating ice cream from their freezer while watching American Idol. I will admit, they generously opened their house to everyone, but I was too busy opining to be open-minded.

          So I spent the daylight hours sharing stories with other power-less people in town. One woman, whose elderly mother was staying with her through the storm, said that when she heard the hiss of her mother’s inflatable bed deflating like a carnival balloon at 3:30 in the morning, she knew her house had lost power. Grandma handled it pretty well, but the family became concerned when she kept insisting that she watch Channel 2 News. Finally, they sat Grandma down into a chair, pointed her towards the wall, and told her Channel 2 News was on. Grandma sat and watched the wall until dinner.

          After 18 hours of huffing generators, and no heat in our house, we headed to my mom’s. I was understandably nervous because my mother’s house is pristine. I consider my house to be very clean, but by my mother’s standards the Board of Health should have condemned my house years ago. So here we come – me, Jim, the kids, the dog—with all of our clothes and toiletries shoved into Shop Rite plastic bags. All that was missing was our trailer.

My mother greeted us cheerfully, and like any good Italian mother, she had loads of food prepared and waiting for us on her kitchen table. However, I was consumed with the overwhelming need to levitate. I was afraid we were leaving trails of ourselves wherever we walked. Growing up, my mother hated clutter and never allowed it. Now, here I was, back in her house, except now my clutter came with legs, a leash, and lots of non-eco-friendly Shop Rite plastic bags. I couldn’t sleep. Was the dog drooling on her carpet? Would the kids accidentally take the perfectly folded bedspread from the upholstered slipper-chair and use it as a blanket? Would Jim’s 6’5” frame break the petite frame of her ladies rocker-recliner he was now sleeping in? I tossed and turned.

           Finally, after 43 hours, our power returned, the generator truck departed, and the entire content of my refrigerator was emptied into garbage cans. All things considered, we faired the storm with no real damage, and I’m so thankful for that. Still, I firmly believe that deep within the bowels of PSE&G sits Dr. Evil like the “Great and Powerful Oz” anxiously awaiting the next storm.

TIME OUT: COACHING KIDS

There is no such thing as a mediocre coach. There are great coaches and there are horrible coaches. A woman recently told me that her nine-year old son’s coach quit the team mid-practice by storming off the court while hurling horrible insults at them, and screaming that they were essentially a worthless group of misfits not worth his time. THEY’RE NINE-YEAR OLD’S!!!???!!!

           My seven-year old son plays basketball for St. John’s in Leonia. His team is led by Coach Tom Muir. Coach Muir’s mission is to teach these first and second grade boys the sport of basketball. It’s also his mission to develop these young boys, many of whom have the talents and reputations of older brothers to contend with, into a solid unbreakable team, allowing no individual ego to control the ball or the game.

Supported by the coaches of opposing teams, and referees, Coach Muir has organized games where the refs will interrupt the game to explain where players should be positioned, why a move was called a foul, what it means to play defense, and what it means to play offense. I wish I could have captured the faces of these boys who were soaking up the information of learning how to play the game. It’s one thing to shoot baskets with your child; it’s an entirely other thing to actually teach them the sport while playing the game.

Then there was last Saturday, the final game of the season. In a non-descript school gym in River Edge, I saw the best basketball game of my life. Coach Muir wanted every boy on his team to score at least one basket during the season, and all of them had, except for Nicky, one of the youngest players. During the last seconds of the game Coach Muir instructed his team to pass the ball to Nicky, and then kept calling to Nicky to shoot. Coach Muir halted the game to tell the ref that he wanted Nicky to at least have the opportunity to shoot.

Suddenly, every member of both teams, along with their parents, understood what was going on, and everyone started cheering “Shoot, Nicky, Shoot!” every time the ball landed in his hands. However, Nicky kept passing it off to one of his older teammates like he was playing a game of hot potato. Finally, the ref called a foul. With less than 10 seconds left Nicky went to the line for two shots.

Everyone held their breath. Silence fell upon the court. With the widest smile on his face, he took his first shot. The ball landed perfectly in the basket. The crowd went absolutely wild. His teammates went crazy. Nicky soaked in the moment and the sound of people cheering his name. Silence again fell as the ref handed the ball back to Nicky. Coach Muir knelt on the sidelines smiling, his eyes never once moving from Nicky. Nicky bounced the ball once, lined up his shot, and tossed the ball. The only sound in the gym was this, “Swish.” It went in.

I will never, ever, in my life forget the look on Nicky’s father’s face. It was, simply put, priceless. Needless to say, among mothers and fathers from both teams, there wasn’t a dry eye in the gym. We understood the weight of meaning contained in this moment. Nicky’s teammates ran out to him, surrounded him, high-fived him to death. When Nicky’s older brother (and teammate) ran up to him and hugged him, I thought I’d drop a lung from crying. But when Coach Muir went up to him, the look of pride on this little boy’s face said what I will never be able to put into words.

That was a moment. A moment that little boy will take with him for the rest of his life; a moment that a father will always cherish. And all because of one coach. All because one coach never wavered in his conviction that every member of his team is a vital member. To Coach Tom Muir, and to all the Coach Muir’s out there, who selflessly give their time and their talent to our children; who know instinctively that within each child lives a nail-biting two-point moment like the one Nicky had -- I salute you.

CLICKING OFF

I caught my husband “clicking off” the other night. He didn’t think I saw him, but I did. I was walking through the dining room, the room where we both have our laptops, and use as an office until the kids get rid of the stuff they’ve been storing in their rooms and finally move out, only 12 years and counting! Anyway, as I was walking through from the kitchen I caught Jim’s elongated pointer-finger nervously clicking-off as soon as he heard the sound of the martini glasses shaking in the china closet as I walked passed it. I’m sure I’m not the first wife to catch her husband clicking-off, and I won’t be the last. However, it got me to thinking, “What are people clicking-off to?”

          Some men (and women) click-off to porn. My husband’s porn is Google Earth. Every time I catch him clicking-off I see the globe of the earth fade to black on his computer screen. It’s true, he likes to float across the universe and see the earth from the moon; he’s also been known to trip on the Milky Way more times than most men his age with young children should, but his real obsession with Google Earth is the flight simulator that they have. You have a choice of flying two models: a Cirrus SR-22 Propeller Plane or an F-16 Jet Fighter. You know he’s in the cockpit of that jet fighter, goggles and air mask on, looking for the Taliban’s version of the Red Barron. I always feel that whenever I startle him and he clicks-off mid-flight, somewhere in cyberspace his mustached-avatar is bailing out of the cock-pit, free-falling through some virtual universe, waiting for Ground Control to rescue Major Tom.   

          I decided one night to confront him about this. I told Buzz Aldrin that he didn’t have to hide these things from me; he was old enough to discipline himself. If he wanted to be a fighter pilot on Google Earth, who was I to ground him? I explained that everyone clicks-off to something, and it was nothing to be ashamed of. He seemed embarrassed, but relieved that finally, his secret was out in the open.

          I have virtual ADD—I click-off to everything. Whereas I walk through the dining room, Jim continually walks in and out, so I’m rapidly clicking-off Facebook, eBay, the NY Post, TMZ, Amazon, and any site with shoes. Some nights, I Google and click-off so much that my hand hurts the next morning.   

          I decided to tread dangerous waters and ask some of my girlfriends if they ever caught their husband clicking-off. Most of them seemed relieved that their husband’s weren’t the only ones. There was one woman who swore that her husband never clicks-off; he loves her too much and goes to mass every Sunday. My guess is that he clicks-off more than anyone; she just turns a blind eye, or saves it for the confessional.

          One friend’s husband clicks-off to Fantasy Baseball. He used to do it openly until he became so agitated at Disney last year because the hotel’s wireless wasn’t working (it was Fantasy Baseball draft weekend) that she forever forbid him from Fantasy Baseball. She said that he now clicks-off all the time because he doesn’t want her to catch him at it.

          My other friend’s husband is an old-gadget collector; he’s always surfing eBay for old computer boards, orphaned electronic parts, old stereos, you name it. She said he doesn’t do anything with these antiquated purchases, he just piles them in the basement until he has time to rebuild them into something. She said the basement is so cluttered that she warned him if the UPS man left another box she was going to smash it. Now she hears him clicking-off whenever she comes into the room, and she suspects he has a P.O. Box on the side.

          The virtual world has turned most of us into virtual insomniacs; we stay up into the early hours of the morning pursuing different identities—fighter pilot, major league baseball manager, inventor. Yet, we keep clicking-off to keep secret our hidden selves and protect the passions we’re not ready for the world to see.

“Ground Control to Major Tom: Come to bed now!”