....Last week, my wife and I
took our kids to Lake George for a vacation. It
was the first
chance
we had to spend time up in the mountains with
everyone together, and it couldn't have
been
a nicer experience. It was also the first
opportunity I’ve had all summer to read an
entire
book.
My wife bought me a copy of 1776, by David
McCullough, and after looking over the
first
few pages, I knew it would become a big part of
my vacation plans. I found myself sitting
out
in an old Adirondack chair every morning, with my
first cup of coffee, reading as much as I
could
before the kids got up and we started our day.
In one of the chapters, Mr. McCullough describes
Washington's retreat across the Hudson
after
the British invaded New York, and quotes a letter
from one of the Loyalist troops who
described
New Jersey as the "Garden of America."
I had to stop and re-read that in light of
what
we call it today; "Garden of America,"
"Garden State," the historical
connection made me
imagine
what Bergen County must have looked like in the
years when farming was such an
important
part of life in our area. I remembered reading
somewhere else that Paramus was
known
as "The Celery Capital of the World,"
and that on both sides of Sprout's Brook, the
farms
of the Dutch and German settlers ranged anywhere
from 20-50 acres. It's hard to imagine
that
now, because most of the farms were sold to
developers after World War II, and the rural
quality
of northern New Jersey quickly disappeared in the
race to build houses, factories,
shopping
centers, and highways.
From what I've heard, there were also farms in my
home town of Rochelle Park, but most of
them
had disappeared by the time I was born, and the
only two that I remember from my
childhood
was Behnke's Farm on Paramus Road, and Eugster's
Dairy on Passaic Street.
We used to have milk delivered to us back in the
50’s, although I'm not sure it came from
Eugster's.
A small aluminum "milk box" sat outside
of our back door, and sometime during the
early
morning hours, "the milkman" would
drive up and deliver 2 or 3 quarts in heavy glass
bottles.
As kids, we rarely saw him, so he became a
mythical character of sorts, and finding a
couple
of quarts of milk on the kitchen table when we
woke up was like finding a dime under
our
pillow when the tooth fairy came.
In those days, milk and cream were not separated,
so the cream would rise to the top of the
bottle,
and be poured off or scooped out as needed. The
earliest bottles had a small bulge in
the
neck which made it easier to pour the cream
without diluting it with the rest of the milk,
and
when
the bottle was empty, it had to be washed out and
placed in the milk box to be picked up
during
the next delivery. It was probably one of the
earliest examples of recycling.
Eugster's barn ran perpendicular to Passaic
Street, along the west side of where Fairfield
Drive
is today. There was a parking lot for people who
bought their milk directly from the farm,
and
at one time, there was a coin-operated "milk
machine" at the entrance to the lot, where a
gallon
of milk could be bought in the same way soft
drinks are sold today. Next to Eugster's,
between
the barn and the pond on Passaic Street across
from the Municipal Building, was "The
Swiss
Chalet, a large resort inn known for lavish
wedding parties and special events. The pond
was
part of "the Swiss," as we used to call
it, but was bigger back then, and was a favorite
spot
to
fish in the summer and ice-skate in the winter.
One particularly cold day, my buddy Frank and I
had a "date" to go ice-skating with
Bonnie
Evans
and Carol Sue Morrow. I didn't dress for the
occasion, and I doubt if I even wore a
warm
coat, let alone a hat, or gloves, because my
hands and feet began to freeze up soon after I
got
there. Not wanting to let on that I was cold, I
tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, but
after
a while, even I had to admit that the tears in my
eyes were not just from the wind.
Seeing that I was in trouble, Frank led all of us
over to Eugster's in the hope of finding help. I
remember
approaching the counter where the milk was sold,
and then being brought into the
room
next door. One of the men from the farm had me
sit on a stool, or maybe it was a milk
can,
under a huge heating unit that was blowing hot
air directly down on me. It was probably 80
degrees
or more in the room. I sat there feeling a
mixture of embarrassment and relief, but as I
began
to thaw out, my tears turned into laughter as
Frank and the girls cheered me up with
jokes
about turning blue and learning to dress myself.
I guess if we didn't have our own farm in town
when it was just one of many in The Garden
State,
I would have had a difficult time making it home
that day, but thanks to a few good
friends,
and a dairy barn, the only thing that hurt when I
did get home was my pride.
*
* *
Copyright 2009, Skip Van Lenten
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e-mail: skipvanlenten@gmail.com