Update 10-16-12
Hi,
News about a party, a short conversation about fish, a quick memory about Green Acres, and a longer one.
First, from Barbara Blitfield Pech: "The Jasmine Lane Girls" cordially invite anyone in South Florida to join us for lunch in the Ft. Lauderdale -- Sawgrass -- area on or around November 3rd or 10th. Please RSVP to: plan18 @ hotmail . com or message me on Facebook at: Barbara Blitfield Pech
From Andy Dolich: Based on Barnet Kellman's boyhood recollections, here's another memory from our childhood in the environmental Eden that was Green Acres. I've been lucky enough to fish in many top spots around the globe, but nothing will equal the thrill of catching white perch, yellow perch, pickerel, herring, killies, and blue crabs pulled from "The Creek" Does anything finny still live in it?
P.S. Spurious Fiveson on the railroad question -- classic!
P.S. Spurious Fiveson on the railroad question -- classic!
From Rich: I had no idea that anything had ever or still could live in the creek. But here's some quick research from hookandbullet . com: Hook Creek is a stream located just one mile from Inwood in the state of New York, United States, near Valley Stream. Fishermen will find a variety of fish including brown trout, largemouth bass, and brook trout here. So grab your favorite fly fishing rod and reel and head out to Hook Creek. If all goes well, the bull trout will be hooked by your spawn sacs, the speckled trout will be biting your alewives, and the largemouth will be grabbing your crustaceans.
And from Andy: Hook Creek is an estuary of Jamiaca Bay. Hard to believe, but it was a aquatic nursery.
Another hidden jewel of our childhood.
Another hidden jewel of our childhood.
From Amy Miller: Mr. Chanin, the developer of the new section of Green Acres, gave out presents to the kids at the July Fourth parties. But my memory is that the parties were held in the field off Flower Road, just past the left-hand turn onto Forest Road, not at the Mill Road entrance. I don't recall any field at the entrance to Green Acres, unless Barnet is referring to the area across from the office, but I think that wasn't a field, but full of vegetation.
We too had a phone booth near us, along with party lines, and mounds of dirt in which to reenact Flash Gordon adventures on Darewood Lane. Some of our houses on Darewood Lane had patios in the front. I remember the Okins did, as their door faced sideways. Still, my favorite memories are of the bike paths that were a way for us to get to the Old Section.
Finally, from Judy Hartstone, notes from the Old Section of Green Acres: On November 1, 1950, the Hartstone family -- consisting of 30-year-old Lee, 28-year-old Marcia, 6-year-old Jane -- still called Jane Ellen in those days -- 3-year-old Judy, and 5-month-old Roger -- moved from the bosom of their extended family in Boston to 2 Catalpa Lane in the Old Section of Green Acres. To get to the Old Section, take the first right off Mill Road after turning right off Sunrise Highway -- coming from the city -- and bear right onto Woodland Road. Woodland was four blocks long, with each spur having a dead-end block to the right and to the left, each block named, in alphabetical order, for the trees that lined it: Ash, Birch, Catalpa and Damson.
If you didn’t veer right onto Woodland but instead kept going around the wooded island, the next right would be Flower Road, the entrance to the New Section, which had started to be built by then, if I remember correctly. And obviously, if you kept going past Flower Road, you’d end up back on Mill Road. I wonder what the original plans were for that island -- probably some kind of community park that never quite happened. Was that where the sales office was for the New Section?
Our two-story brick house was approximately 25 years old when we moved in. Interesting note: at the time of the 37th reunion, I visited the house, which is still inhabited by the couple that bought it from my parents in 1964 when we moved to California. The stairs to the basement were covered in the same carpet that was there when we moved in, in 1950. Amazing! Ah, the memories that basement holds.
But back to the 1950s… Woodland Road dead-ended at the fields, or as I later learned, Locust Field, from where Lindbergh was supposed to take off. A couple of years after we moved in, I went into the fields with the boys in my neighborhood who convinced me we were all going to jump into the swamp on the count of three. Guess who was the only one to actually do it! I still remember plunging into the thick, chilly water and walking home, winter coat, mittens, and hat all drenched and dripping.
Shortly after that, the fields were cleared, and the shopping center sprang up. I’m sure there was some consternation among the homeowners along Woodland that the white wood fence at the end of the road might come down, opening up our quiet street to public traffic. Who knows what went on at the city planning level, but you all know that a few years later, the back road went in, paralleling Sunrise Highway, and Woodland remained “private.”
I remember the construction of that back road clearly because of my second dumb “follow the boys” mistake. Before that road went in, that area was called “the woods,” and we were forbidden to enter it. However, at some point, many months prior to actually clearing for the road, there was some preliminary clearing done, and a group of us decided to explore, now that there was a whole lot more daylight coming through the trees. I can still recall us standing around a huge crater -- who knows how big it really was -- and one of the boys picking up the narrow trunk of a felled tree. As in the game Pick-Up Sticks, that made another thin limb fall down -- right on my head! The injury didn’t bother me as much as the fear that I was “going to get it” for having gone into the woods.
After the road went in, but before it opened, my brother and I played tennis on the paved surface.
The Old Section had some great features. Just north of the Damson dead-end was a pond that froze almost every winter, and we often ice-skated there. Perhaps Lynn Treinis and Paula Ignatow, my sister’s friends, remember doing that. The Treinises lived on Damson, the Ignatows lived on Birch, and up on Ash were the Greenes -- Jimmy in my sister’s class, and Bobby in ours. There were also the Fellers. Next to them lived Mrs. Hummeston, my kindergarten teacher, and how weird was that! Teachers actually lived in houses and were regular people. I could never quite get over that.
The other great feature of the east side of the Old Section was the playground with iron monkey-bars, swings, a seesaw, and a little merry-go-round. But by far the best part of the playground was the gazebo, a little log structure with a picnic table and benches. I remember sitting in there with my neighbor, Jay Sengstacke, scraping out the “gunpowder” from a roll of caps -- remember cap guns? -- into a little pile and then lighting it. Kaboom! How did we survive?
Next time: Forest Road School opens.
If you didn’t veer right onto Woodland but instead kept going around the wooded island, the next right would be Flower Road, the entrance to the New Section, which had started to be built by then, if I remember correctly. And obviously, if you kept going past Flower Road, you’d end up back on Mill Road. I wonder what the original plans were for that island -- probably some kind of community park that never quite happened. Was that where the sales office was for the New Section?
Our two-story brick house was approximately 25 years old when we moved in. Interesting note: at the time of the 37th reunion, I visited the house, which is still inhabited by the couple that bought it from my parents in 1964 when we moved to California. The stairs to the basement were covered in the same carpet that was there when we moved in, in 1950. Amazing! Ah, the memories that basement holds.
But back to the 1950s… Woodland Road dead-ended at the fields, or as I later learned, Locust Field, from where Lindbergh was supposed to take off. A couple of years after we moved in, I went into the fields with the boys in my neighborhood who convinced me we were all going to jump into the swamp on the count of three. Guess who was the only one to actually do it! I still remember plunging into the thick, chilly water and walking home, winter coat, mittens, and hat all drenched and dripping.
Shortly after that, the fields were cleared, and the shopping center sprang up. I’m sure there was some consternation among the homeowners along Woodland that the white wood fence at the end of the road might come down, opening up our quiet street to public traffic. Who knows what went on at the city planning level, but you all know that a few years later, the back road went in, paralleling Sunrise Highway, and Woodland remained “private.”
I remember the construction of that back road clearly because of my second dumb “follow the boys” mistake. Before that road went in, that area was called “the woods,” and we were forbidden to enter it. However, at some point, many months prior to actually clearing for the road, there was some preliminary clearing done, and a group of us decided to explore, now that there was a whole lot more daylight coming through the trees. I can still recall us standing around a huge crater -- who knows how big it really was -- and one of the boys picking up the narrow trunk of a felled tree. As in the game Pick-Up Sticks, that made another thin limb fall down -- right on my head! The injury didn’t bother me as much as the fear that I was “going to get it” for having gone into the woods.
After the road went in, but before it opened, my brother and I played tennis on the paved surface.
The Old Section had some great features. Just north of the Damson dead-end was a pond that froze almost every winter, and we often ice-skated there. Perhaps Lynn Treinis and Paula Ignatow, my sister’s friends, remember doing that. The Treinises lived on Damson, the Ignatows lived on Birch, and up on Ash were the Greenes -- Jimmy in my sister’s class, and Bobby in ours. There were also the Fellers. Next to them lived Mrs. Hummeston, my kindergarten teacher, and how weird was that! Teachers actually lived in houses and were regular people. I could never quite get over that.
The other great feature of the east side of the Old Section was the playground with iron monkey-bars, swings, a seesaw, and a little merry-go-round. But by far the best part of the playground was the gazebo, a little log structure with a picnic table and benches. I remember sitting in there with my neighbor, Jay Sengstacke, scraping out the “gunpowder” from a roll of caps -- remember cap guns? -- into a little pile and then lighting it. Kaboom! How did we survive?
Next time: Forest Road School opens.
The South '65 e-mail addresses: reunionclass65 . blogspot . com
The South '65 photo site: picasaweb . google . com / SouthHS65
Rich
No comments:
Post a Comment