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Readers share memories
(by Ed Flynn - September 10, 2008)
This is another column in which Ed Flynn’s readers share their own “Moment to Remember” with other readers. Anyone wishing to contribute to a future column should send their memory to Ed Flynn at this newspaper. Keep it brief and include your name and address.
The art of skipping
My grandson “skips.” Yes, when he’s out for a walk with me, in his own little world, he skips. It’s not walking, it isn’t running, it’s… what?
According to the dictionary, “To skip” is “to bound or trip lightly, especially to take two steps at a time with each foot.” Is that really what I see? And why don’t grownups or older kids ever do it? I know I’d never do it, because first I’d have to think for a while trying to remember how and then I’d drop the idea as being unseemly for a geezer like me.
But little kids obviously don’t have to think about it at all; clearly it’s spontaneous. And how do they know how to do it? Did anyone teach a child to skip? I don’t think so. Parents spend a lot of time helping or at least encouraging kids to walk and running seems to follow naturally but how do kids learn to skip? Clearly the ability is innate so why are some little ones ‘skippers’ and others not? Is it associated with how a child feels at the time? I can’t envision a sad child skipping.
Maybe I’m overdoing the subject but it’s just that I’ve gotten so much enjoyment from seeing our “angel,” out for a walk with his “Pop-Pop,” skipping ahead, enjoying simple things with not a care in the world that I couldn’t help putting my thoughts on paper while I’m still wondering how this charming act of innocence happens.
Clay Bosch
Woodcliff
Lake
Summer on a farm
It was the summer of 1952. I was 6 and my brother Frank was 4. Our parents were in
Philadelphia for my father’s heart surgery. His hospital recovery would take weeks so we got to spend our summer on my grandparents’ farm in
Hackensack . Where? The Shops at
Riverside and the Coach House diner now occupy the land.
I spent the summer playing in the fields, picking veggies, swinging on the swing under the grape arbor, and wonder of wonders, being allowed to cross Route 4 to get the mail! The mailbox was on Hackensack Avenue near what is now the entrance to the Coach House. Holly’s Restaurant with the chicken running across the sign to the basket had already replaced the fields on that side of the highway. The Coach House replaced Holly’s many years later.
I wonder which of the stores at
Riverside is over the outhouse that was once on my grandparents’ farm?
Jane Nocell
Dumont
Thirty days to remember
If there was one incident I remember that overshadowed all others I guess it had to be the first time I returned home from the Pacific war in October 1943.
In July 1941, I had joined the Marine Corps and when war broke out I served in several locations in the Pacific. In October 1943, I returned home from the South Pacific for a lengthy furlough. In the ensuing 30 days I married my sweetheart, Marie Lanteri, spent most nights attending Broadway productions and visiting an untold number of restaurants. Truly a moment to remember.
After 30 days I returned to
California for reassignment.
Leonard F. Cremona
Saddle Brook
A one room school
The year was 1929 on a farm in upstate
New York . The rooster woke me at 5 a.m. The cows needed to be milked by hand and the cans loaded into the wagons. We kids piled in and went along for the trip to the one room, one teacher schoolhouse. She taught all grades from first to eighth. When school was over we walked the few miles through the woods to go home.
Joseph Kalish
New Milford
World War II round trip
My three-year journey began when joining the army late in 1942. My first assignment was to
Camp
Dix for basic training. After that I was off to Atlantic City for extensive physical training; next to Goldsboro, N.C. for obstacle courses and gas drills, then to Tampa, Florida learning to shoot a 50-caliber machine and back to
Fort
Dix ready to go overseas.
I was assigned to the ninth air force unit and arrived in Ascot 10 days later. From the unit moved to on D-Day plus 20. From the unit moved to Luxemburg and then to .
After ’s surrender I had enough points to be shipped home and after another 10-day trip I found myself back at
Camp
Dix , in the same barracks, one bunk away from where I had started. Two days later came my discharge.
Raymond Grieco
Cresskill
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