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Ron Farber

Hey 'youze guize,'

Nice to read all the comments and jog memories of those once iconic landmarks of our youth.   What  I remember about the 'Pal's driving range'  was that they had to keep raising the fence since golf balls were often clearing it and going onto their other property, Mayfair Farms.  

Also, their ice cream stand had a 'soft serve' that was even better than Dairy Queen or Carvel!

And Myles, I believe it was 'The Westwood' on the NE corner of Pleasant Valley Way and Northfield where Liberace became famous.   Have seen others write up Pals as the place (particularly when it closed).  However, the Westwood (which underwent many changes and is now a medical building) was the place.  It was owned by the Risse family in the mid 1960's and I was friendly with the son, Walter, who went to Fairleigh Dickinson then as I did.  He had confirmed this fact then.  Also --  some who lived on Mayfair Drive in those 'formative fifties' may remember the Likos family (across from Marlene Cooper).  Robert was a year younger than us and his dad, Andy, had worked as a bar tender at The Westwood.  In the mid '50's when Liberace had a TV show, we all heard about this!

Yeah, most of our 'hallowed' landmarks are now gone.  Remember Bonds with the 'Awful-Awful' milkshake, the bookmobile, The Burger House (on Eagle Rock Ave.), The Claremont Diner, Anne's Clam Bar.  And, until they opened up a movie theatre in Essex Green, the closest to us were the Verona Theatre, The Embassy on Main St. in Orange and The Colony in Livingston.  And ice skating on Vincent's Pond!

Jay Kaplan

I was five when we moved to WO. We lived on Stanford Avenue and so Vincent's Pond was a short walk. At that time it was fed by a slow moving stream (long since piped) and was surrounded by woods. A great place to explore and play, including looking for treasure allegedly buried by old man Vincent. I can't remember exactly when the  building everybody uses for skating was put in. However, i do remember watching them plow the snow off the pond with a tractor so that we could skate there.  Pleasantdale was so sleepy that i could play with my toy soldiers unsupervised on the corner of Pleasant Valley Way and Stanford Avenue under a large maple tree. I also remember endless days playing stickball in back of the elementary school, with the braver amongst us (not me) shimmying up the pipe to retrieve balls that flew onto the roof. One memorable day one of us smashed mouth first into a metal bannister that was next to the school. We all marched our bloody friend to the doctor's house that was nearby on Pleasant Valley Way (Dr. Small?). He fixed our friend up. Through the fog that has become my memories, it seems that the winters were colder, the town more friendly, and times far more innocent than now. Sniff. 

Sandra Bowers (Linton)

Jay, I wholeheartedly agree.  Things were so much more innocent then.  It's sad what little kids now have to deal with and face.  We learned things more slowly.  I miss the good ole days.  I tend to enjoy black and white TV programs and movies - it makes me remember how it used to be.

Sandy

Jeffrey Wagner

I remember sleigh riding down the golf course from where Essex Green was built, down to my house on Hooper Avenue....When I moved to Pleasantdale in 1949, we would go to the woods behind my house, next to Vincent's Pond, and find arrow heads.  

David Belfiore

I remember sleding down Victory Rd. We would wait for the plows to come and when they were done it would leave a thin layer of snow that was perfect. We could ride all the way to Pleasantvalley as long as you you didn't hit a parked car!!

Myles Schlank

Resuming NOSHtalgia posts, here's a photo of Cohen's famous Knishes lifted from a late 1960s Livingston HS reunion video. Also, here's a photo of Pearl Kasoff, founder and owner of Cohen's, taken in the WO eatery (not sure who the men are ... I can't relocate the article from which I sourced the photo).

Reinfeld's hot dogs and their signature snap (missing from packaged franks). Someone brought the Cohen's business to a town near-San Francisco; according to Yelp, the company folded.

Costco has sold Cohen's cocktail hot dogs (in a blanket). Five per serving at 230 calories, 150 of which from fat. 

Feel free to comment.

Sam Fierra

Hey Myles - great picture of Cohen's and a great memory.  Stop me if I've told this story before - I had to gain weight for 10th grade football - I was 125 pounds and wanted to get to 150 (it was much easier a little later in life, believe me).  So I went to Cohen's every day for a knish and an orange drink.  The knish was 15 cents and the drink was 10 cents.  By the end of the summer I had gained 2 pounds and promptly lost it during D'Alonzo's first double session right after Labor Day.  I did, however, develop quite a taste for their knishes.  As a result I have been searching for over 50 years for a good knish and, sorry to say, I have come up dry.  I have a close second near me at Moishe and Itzy's Deli but for $2.75 it just doesn't quite cut it.  Their pastrami on rye and whitefish salad, however, is to die for.  I've had a knish in New York, Philly, Boston, San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas - had one with a reindeer sausage in Anchorage.  Nothing brings it home as I remember Cohen's knishes.  BTW - ask Ed Czekaj about how he used to corn beef the corn beef when he worked for Murray Dyschwald at Cohen's!!

Gary Caronia

I too remember Cohen's knish's.i loved those things.I would get a MK(mustard&kraut) hot dog with the knish.

Then Murray took me for a ride in his new 409 chevy.I'm surprised i didn't bump into Sam,of course i didn't have to worry about gaining wt.It was great two italian guys eating that great jewish food.

Jay Kaplan

Thanks to Sam and Gary for these memories. Living in North Carolina is a bit like living in a delicatessen desert with one exception - we have a bagel maker in Winston-Salem who does NY style water bagels. As for the rest, no luck. However, our son lives in Houston and when we go there we never fail to grab a meal at Kenny and Ziggy's. I agree that a good knish is hard to find. However, it is similarly hard to find good kishka (stuffed derma). Kenny and Ziggy's has it all - from soup to whitefish salad to potato pancakes to huge pastrami and corned beef sandwiches. But, like Sam and Gary i miss the real NY thing. By the way, i also miss real pizza. We do have two good Itlaiian restaurants in Winston-Salem that do a great job with pastas and sauce (or 'gravy' as they say in the Soporanos), but nobody makes a decent thin pizza. I remember (and might have said in an earlier post) that my father used to take me to a place in Newark called Falcone's Tri-State Pizzeria. I learned how to eat slices by watching Old Man Falcone tear away a piece of pizza, cover it wtih crushed red peppers, fold it, and then chew away with a big smile on his face. 

Barbara Goldstein (Lenny's Sister) (Davis)

Myles,

Wow! I just saw all the photos from Lincoln.  So many memories, with pictures of Lenny.  Thank you for including me.

Barbara

Myles Schlank

Hi, Barbara, glad you enjoyed seeing the pics and happy you joined us. If you know anyone else who might like to become a guest member, please ask them to email me at womhs64@yahoo.com. We have a few other guests and I'm a guest on womhs65.com   Myles

Barbara Goldstein (Lenny's Sister) (Davis)

Will do, Myles.  Thanks again.

Myles Schlank

Back to hot dogs, and equal time: Jimmy Buff's, "Originator of the Italian Style Hot Dog." You have to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMRtcyQMX1k

More about hot dogs: Nora Ephron, who scripted the 1989 rom-com, When Harry Met Sally, and in it the memorable line "I'll have what she's having," was quoted in an NPR interview: "You do get to a certain point in life where you have to realistically, I think, understand that the days are getting shorter, and you can't put things off thinking you'll get to them someday," she says. "If you really want to do them, you better do them. There are simply too many people getting sick, and sooner or later you will. So I'm very much a believer in knowing what it is that you love doing so you can do a great deal of it."

"For Ephron, there was a moment that helped bring that realization vividly home. She was with friends, playing a round of "What would your last meal be?"

(Her pick, by the way: a Nate & Al's hot dog.)

You can order the makings for a Jimmy Buff's hot dog (or sausage) here: http://www.jimmybuff.com/display.php?page=delivery1

What would your last meal be?

David Belfiore

Myles, I am sitting here drooling after watching that, I called my wife and made her watch it and what most amazed her was the grease.

Sam Fierra

A light comes on when it's time to change the oil, just like your dashboard.

Myles Schlank

Moving from what was to what will be, what effect do you think autonomous vehicles will have on society? - please post your predictions, serious, otherwise. TIA.

But first, here's a 1950s ad for a Driverless Car of the Future, for “America’s Electric Light and Power Companies,” Saturday Evening Post, 1950s. Credit: The Everett Collection. Below that is a photo of an autonomous beer truck.

There are a lot of recent journal and news articles on the subject. I heard Jim Kramer, on Sqawk on the Street, talk about some effects. What do you think?  

Rich Galen

From an email chat with Myles last night:

Hey, Myles.   Self-driving cars have progressed far faster than anyone – even industry experts – every conceived possible.  

I understand that the first question raised by some is:  Should the cars’ computers be programmed to swerve out of harms way to save your life, even if it swerves (to make the starkest possible comparison) into the path of a young mother walking her twins in a stroller on the sidewalk outside a kidney dialysis clinic?

We can ask that same question of the pilot of a loaded 737 who has the choice of attempting to save his 135 passengers by crash landing on a farm that is adjacent to a small town in Iowa or steering into a tree-covered hillside that will surely kill everyone on board.

Both are over my paygrade.

The technology is certainly available to put into a massive amount of cars today.  That technology (to include hardware, software, cameras, mapping capabilities, GPS improvements, etc) will be upon us by the end of this week, relatively speaking.

That said, we needn’t apply every available technology to every conceivable project just because we can.

Very few auto accidents are cause by a mechanical failure.  30,000 people are killed in auto accidents every year (10,000 of which involve alcohol).

I just found one site that claimed mechanical failures were the cause of 12-13% of accidents.  It didn’t mention how many fatalities that involved.

Add to alcohol-fueled fatalities, talking (or worse yet, texting) in a cell phone while driving, driving outside safe limits of snow, ice, rain, etc, or just general driver error and you can probably make a pretty good case that for every woman-with-her-twins fatality, thousands of lives would be saved by having a car drive itself – or NOT drive itself is weather conditions are too bad.

Not sure that’s what your looking for, Myles, but that’s what I’ve got.

Allen Horn

I just became very hungry reading the comments of Jay Kaplan, Sammie, and Gary.

Since I live in Tulsa, OK we do not know from Deli or Italian food.

Barbaque is about the state of affairs out here in the wild west.

But, since I, too have a son in Houston we just LOVE Ken and Izzky's  Every time I go there I make sure to get my fill of half sour pickles, soup, good rye bread, and such. BTW, there is a movie titled, "Deli Man" which talks about the lost of deli restaurants across the country, at this point in time we are down to less than 150 true delis in the country. At the turn of the 19/20th Centurn there were 1500 deli restaurants in NYC alone.

My favorite for Italian was Solano's at the foot of Northfield Ave in lower West Orange. Chicken solano and their eggplant parm still make my mouth water.

We just recently returned from Florida. Spent some time in Lake Worth with my sister and husband. Went to a real deli in Boca Raton, BEN's. Worth a trip if anyone is in the area.

Stopped in Palm Beach and hooked up with Merril Dewitt, who was visiting his sister. We met at a Mediterrean deli and had tabouli, pita bread and great veggie salad. I have become a real fan of Lebanese restaurants out here in OK.

As for AI vehicles, I enjoy the driving experience, but I do recognize that with cell phones, Sirus radio, and all the distractions maybe I will be allowing a robot to direct my future travels.

Jay Kaplan

Great post from Allen. So much food, so little time. If i am not going to eat Lexington (NC) pork barbecue, then my favorite would have to be the Southside Market, just outside Austin. Brisket! 

Re autonomous cars: My brother-in-law works for GM and says the technology is ready now, people not so much. They are looking for millenials and old farts as the first adopters. He reminded me that autonomous vehicles would keep old people mobile and independent longer than otherwise might be possible. 

David Belfiore

My opinion is that I hope I'm dead before driverless cars become the norm. Also these driverless cars will run be a computer which is open to hacking, imagine wat that could cause. Also, my experience with computers is that when they decide to screw up there's no stopping it. Just imagine being on a crowded interstate and some car's computer decides to go haywire it would be like one of those wrecks like we used to see on that show Chips that was on a while back. So my answer is a big no.

Myles Schlank

Thanks to Rich for catching this Axios report on driverless cars: click  here

     The "article" seems to agree, on a percentage basis,  with comments from David B, Jay and Allen.

     About the effects of autonomous vehicles, would there be the same kind of social/economic class distinctions in cars -- would they be seen as less of a status symbol and viewed as more utilitarian? What accessories, upgrades or amenities would be preferred (see Allen's comment)?  Would ownership decline in favor of on-demand use? Would auto companies own on-demand businesses and have their own mechanics? If electric cars replaced the internal combustion engine, would the air become cleaner in cities, for example, and dirtier in areas that are the source of electric generation? Would people still restore old cars and bid high dollars for them?

     If accidents decline in number, would there be reduced need for collision repair businesses, hospital beds/emergency rooms; might this increased safety lead to a drop in auto insurance costs?

     On the other hand, the TV show "Cash Cab" might not be as much fun with Siri asking the questions.

Any other changes come to mind?

     By the way, I thank Rich for mentioning Axios.com several months ago in a tweet. Been reading it nearly every day since for a quick overview of key info.

Debby Timins (Snowman)

Thanks for all the flashbacks.  I have been away from our site for awhile....the losses of classmates over the last few years really got to me.  I am so glad I opened up the page and my heart again. It is so good to read about all of your memories.   I hear myself laugh and find pictures pop into my mind of home.....thanks ...you guys Are and always have been the best part of good old west orange

Allen Horn

I am one who remembers Joe McCartney very well.

He was a classic overachiever in every sporting activity he participated in.

A tough, always in your face, football player with GREAT HANDS.

An awesome basketball player  who played ABOVE  the rim with guile and determination.

As a unerclassman he actually  made me feel I should stand at attention when he came close to me, but, I truly will cherish having the opportunity to watch him play ball for the Rams.

May he rest in Peace

Myles Schlank

Obituary for Joe McCartney (born April 12, 1944), NJ Star-Ledger, March 15:

Deborah Flax (WOMHS Class Of '68)

it  was    always rumored that judith reese (female gym teacher in the mid 1960's) family owned the westwood.