Early Spiritual Journey
by Annebeth Riles
Repairing the Generations
Chapter 3 - Spiritual Journey before leaving Pompton Plains
Early memories
Praying for:
- My brother's safety at sea
- For a horse
- For Mom and Dad to get along
- For Mom not to die
- For another baby in the family
Praising God for:
- Spring flowers' perfume
- The warmth of the sun
- The feel of cool grass on bare feet
- The colours of the sunset
- The magnificence of the ocean crashing on the rock, where I would sit, hearing, seeing and feeling the power
- The myriad of stars
Two main branches to my spiritual development in childhood were the Catholic Church, as practiced by my Mother, and love of Nature as practiced by my Father.
Catholic Church
Mother would make sure that we had everything ready on a Saturday night, clothes laid out, and collection envelope filled, so that we would have ease in getting ready for Church on Sunday morning.
We would dress and not eat, because we were fasting before communion. Then pack into the car, leaving time for 10 minutes of silence before Mass began. I liked going to church with my Mother. I could snuggle into her big fur coat in the winter. In the summer I enjoyed the cool wooden church pews on my bare legs.
Mass was in Latin when I was a little girl. I would watch intently as candles were being lit, incense floating through the air, and occasionally holy water shaken. I would slip into a trance as Latin was being spoken and responded to. At times it was too much for me, and on several occasions, I would pass out. I felt like all of my energy was heading towards my feet, and boom, I would be down, fainted.
Nuns told me to put my head between my knees, when I got that funny feeling. My mother learned to keep one eye on me during Mass, so as to give me a hand cue to sit down, and put my head between my knees, when my face turned milky white.
The worst time was the morning of my First Holy Communion. We had rehearsed for weeks. Little girls in white dresses and white veils, little boys in suits, church filled with flowers, incense, and lingering mixed perfumes from the mothers, had me light-headed indeed.
I stood as long as I could, clutching the church pew in front of me, but was not able to hold on any longer, and fell to the floor like a rag doll. I guess in these days, parents would take their child to a doctor to determine the cause, and prescribe treatment for recurring fainting.
The fainting was in stark contrast to the Tom Boy attitude that was my childhood persona. I ran, jumped, climbed, wrestled with my brothers, and often had skinned knees, from taking my endurance to the limit.
We went to Mass every Sunday, even when we were at the sea-shore, or on camping trips around America. Mom always found the Catholic Church, and there we were on Sunday. Mom said that it was a mortal sin to miss Mass. I did not know what mortal or sin meant, at that stage, but I thought it must have been important, to catch my Mother's attention to that degree.
Dad, on the other hand, would only attend Church on Christmas and Easter, and occasionally Mothers' Day. Dad would give Mom an orchid corsage for those occasions. He would give me a gardenia corsage. I remember placing those corsages in the refrigerator to keep them fresh and peeking at them often, opening the box to get that fresh whiff of gardenia perfume. Gardenia is still my favourite flower.
When Dad came to church with us, I was so happy and proud, that I kept my eyes on Dad, instead of the altar. Dad was a great singer, so he would sing the hymns loudly. In our church people sang softly, or did not sing at all-but my Dad would sing loud and clear.
Dad would listen to Billy Graham on our round, black and white TV. Billy was conducting big rallies for revival, all over the USA. I went to see Billy Graham at Madison Square Garden with Dad. I could understand the points that he was making, in English, very easily. Mom listened to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, another man of God.
Dad's Church
Long walks in the woods and up Mountain Avenue served as Dad's Church. There he taught me to observe and appreciate nature, seasons, and also to observe dangers such as quicksand, and wasp nests. Dad was a nature lover, and said that he felt closest to God, when walking through His Creation - a Masterpiece.
Dad would wear a flannel shirt and a green woollen vest, corduroy trousers and good strong walking shoes. If we found an egg blown out of a nest, Dad would teach me about life cycles of birds. We recovered baby birds and brought them home to feed and nurse into health. Once we had a bird so young, that it did not have feathers and we could see all of the internal organs. We kept it alive for several weeks, under a high intensity desk lamp. In so doing, I learned how to look after the weak.
Occasionally we would be accompanied by my Uncle Paul on our nature walks. He was an herbalist. He knew every leaf that was edible, bark that was medicinal, and sap that was antiseptic. He talked non-stop, and his knowledge flowed out of his big blue eyes, and strong smile.
Uncle Paul's hair was golden blond, and he would comb it straight back, and slick it down with Brylcreem. When Uncle Paul came to stay, he would prepare freshly-picked dandelion salads, with a side of bread and butter leaves, and apple cider vinegar and honey as a drink. I thought that he was wonderful. His inspiration projected me into a study of botany and medicinal plants. His influence on my life has resulted in me sharing plant information that I have learned. Now in 2010 I have well-established herb gardens, and have signage on all stands of trees, and plants, describing medicinal values, and uses of bark, and sap, at Tira Ora Estate. So our forests have become points for education for guests.
Did Uncle Paul ever realise that he would have influenced his niece to become knowledgeable, in this important area of study? I think not. He was living the life that he loved, close to nature. And he was my first teacher in the medicinal value of plants.
Uncle Paul would take my brothers frogging. That is where they make a sound, which sounds like the croaks of a frog. Then plunk a v-shaped stick over the frog's head, to catch him and bring him home for dinner.
I never participated in frogging, because I loved the big green bullfrogs, sitting on lily-pads. I never ate the frog legs, nor did I like the thought of them coming from pond to frying pan so quickly. Mom imprinted me with the song, "Twenty Froggies Go to School, down beside the rushing pool, twenty little coats so green, and twenty little vests so white and clean." So there was no way I was eating frog, but the dandelion salad I loved.
Camping
On our month-long camping trips across the USA, Canada, and Mexico, Mom would find the local Catholic Church in each district. I remember Mexican women walking on their knees through the plaza, in candlelight vigils, south of the border. Hearing choirs of French singers in Quebec, sounding like bells, during Mass in Quebec.
Dad would take us to the Grand Canyon's majesty, raise his hands in the air and say Look at this, isn't this great? Then to the Great Salt Lake, and compare it to the Dead Sea. Rocky Mountains, Grand Tetons, Painted Desert, and Yellowstone National Park were the classrooms where Dad would teach us lessons about our Creator's handiwork.
I loved camping, because we were surrounded by nature, and I felt close to God, as Dad taught me to praise Almighty God for every leaf, bug, bee, strong mighty trees, and endless granules of sand. Dad told me that God knew how many grains of sand were on the beach, and also how many hairs I had on my head.
Night-time lessons were gazing at the myriad of stars. Dad told me about the constellations, and introduced the concept of infinity...which still makes me feel queasy as I meditate upon it while gazing the night time skies. Dad told me the Almighty God hung those stars in the sky, and knows them all by name.
I learned about thunder and lightning in Pompton Plains, because we would have some whopper storms in the summertime. But I was closest to thunder and lightning when we were camping in Red Rock Canyon. A night storm came in and blew down our tent, and all tents in the camp. Dad sat us in the car to watch the lightning strike one side of the canyon, then shoot to the other side. Just like the song, Great Balls of Fire. Thunder is always loud, but the cracks and rumbles we heard that night, amplified by the canyon walls, formed a roaring echo. I was taught not to see it as terrifying, but as a touch of God's Power, over one section of His universe. I was not afraid, or faint...I loved the power.
Mom was quiet that night because her brother, my Uncle Felix, was struck by lightning and killed, while playing golf, in Bloomfield, before I was born.
Dad taught me if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all. Also, that every cloud has a silver lining. There is no rainbow without the rain.
Yoga
Studying yoga in my freshman year of high school began as a way to increase my flexibility for dance classes. The postures certainly helped me to move like an elastic band, instead of the muscle bound calisthenics that we were learning in gym class.
I wanted to swap from being a majorette to being a cheerleader, so I knew I needed some help to jump and stretch and bend like Marylou Marsh, and Renee Riley, and the Quigley girls. Yoga seemed to be just the ticket. Before long I could do the splits, followed by cartwheels or round-offs followed by more splits. I was feeling great with my newly found yoga asana.
The book of yoga exercises also had a section written on vegetarianism. I embraced this concept wholeheartedly, because I loved animals, and could not stand eating them. Now I had a book that talked about the benefits of vegetarianism, to support my point of view.
My mother always kept a vegetable garden, and a composting pit, so in today's language we would say she left a green footprint. Mom was listening to Adele Davis, nutritionist, who talked the same talk, about health, that I was learning from yoga. By the age of 14, I was a complete vegetarian.
The yoga book also taught the importance of meditation, or stilling the mind. They gave simple steps to attain a still, quiet, mind, which I followed. So by the age of 15 my art studio (bedroom), also became a centre for spiritual development. I did my asana, outside when ever possible, or in my room, followed by complete relaxation, then a time of meditation, usually staring into a candle.
I began to sleep on a foam mat on the floor, surrounded by fresh flowers, branches of blossoms, and candles. In the winter, blossoms would be replaced by incense. The first time my mother walked in on me sleeping, in this way, she woke me up, because she thought I was dead, but she soon became accustomed to what I was doing.
Pot
By then all fainting in the Catholic Church was over, to be replaced by fainting on the railroad tracks, walking to PV Park, after a puff of pot that my peer group were enjoying. I remember taking a puff, next thing, I was off in the bushes, recovering from what, I could faintly remember, similar to Atava sleep wake states.
Thank God I never tried a puff while actually on the railroad, or the fall could have killed me, if my head got in contact with the cold steel tracks.
I knew I needed to make sure everything was safe and soft around me, before taking a puff. Because of the strong effect pot had on me, I had to be very careful of my environment before use, because I would probably pass out, and I needed to be safe. So I was definitely not a casual user, I was a cautious, occasional user.
I often wondered about my great sensitivity to pot, was it from the same cause that had me fainting, earlier in life, in the Catholic Church?
The next time that I smoked pot was at one of Jamie Orner's parties, in the wintertime, up Sunset Road. Jamie lived far from suburbia, in an area of beautiful country estates.
Jamie was the daughter of our town pharmacist. A very interesting position he held in the 60's. Jamie had a creative house with bean bags everywhere, Indian tie-dyes hanging, big candles, and pottery. This was an environment that I loved! The whole house felt like my room.
I never remember a sit-down meal at Jamie's but there were always plates of interesting food around. Fruits, nuts, pretzels, and cheese were available, and gallons of cider on the wooden table, with plenty of clean glasses around. It was a household as if no one was in charge, but everything got done.
Jamie had a pet monkey that we would let out of the cage occasionally. We would watch him jump, and climb the walls, and swing from the drapes, and spin the chandelier, as he swung on it. That was action that I loved to view and be part of.
I first went on a trampoline at Jamie's neighbour's house. There were horses around the surrounding farms, and Rosinski's big lake became the place to ice-skate, instead of the woods behind Donny Worden's place.
Jamie was having a sleepover, after an ice-skating adventure. I was relaxing on a pile pillows, of thick velvet, and tapestry.
A male came in the room, and offered me a puff of pot. I passed out, and when I woke, I was listening to, for the first time in my life, Here Come the Sun King, by the Beatles, breaking into little darling it's been a long cold lonely winter.
I felt the music coming from that 8 track tape, and saw what they were singing. What they were singing about was beautiful and true in the Abbey Road album.
The effect of that experience was so strong that I decided to no longer accept a puff. Marylou Marsh and I would mix up bags of mixed herbs from Mrs. Marsh's Italian herbs, and smoke and share them at parties instead.
Beatles
The first time I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show was at a family gathering in Hanover, NJ. My cousin Nancy and I, still pre-teen, would imitate the girls in the audience, and scream, and pant, and clutch at out chests, as we listened to the British boys. We became part of Beatle-mania through TV. We were really taken with early Beatles songs, and it was a good chance to scream inside, and get a chance to act out swooning.
Setting an example for hospitality
Around this time period, when visiting my Aunt Sally and Uncle Pat in Bloomfield, I had another pointer to my spiritual direction in life. Aunt Sally and Uncle Pat were a childless couple, therefore a favourite to all nieces and nephews. They told each of us that we were their favourite, as we found out years later, when comparing notes.
Aunt Sally and Uncle Pat lived in a three bedroom house in Bloomfield. A large, green, screen porch surrounded the front door. It was cool and darker than outside. Here Aunt Sally and Uncle Pat could smoke their cigarettes, drink black coffee, or Pap's Blue Ribbon beer, and talk to us about life, when we visited.
Kids knew where the colouring book and crayons were kept. Aunt Sally had a bird named Blue-Boy. One of Aunt Sally's rooms had a big collection of baby dolls, very well dressed. Another room had a vanity, with a middle drawer that opened like a big mirror. It was filled with interesting cosmetics as found in those days. Lipstick was in a gold case with a crystal on top. Perfumes had squeeze puffs, to extract the scents. Compact powder was put on with a brush, and rouge to top it off.
Aunt Sally knew how to look after people. She would put out a BLT, or a grilled cheese sandwich with a big jar of kosher pickles, and make that meal seem like a banquet, because of her gifts of service.
She taught me to give the best with a smile, but make sure that they ate everything given, zero waste, because wasting food was a sin. Aunt Sally also gave me boxes of clothes. Her home was like a well-ordered depot for supplies, that she was always circulating.
Aunt Sally was a big gal, in a boob tube, peroxide blond, and deep baby oil and iodine tan. She had a big heart, and was a lot calmer, and kinder, than my Mom. She taught me to look after people and have a good time. I remember her dancing on the picnic table at the Ortley Beach clam bake one September.
I also remember her styling my hair with two barrettes, saying that she wished I was her little girl. I did too, because when I was with Aunt Sally, I escaped all the pressure I felt at home. She taught me to give kids a break from their parents, bring them home and love them, and when the family is reunited again, there will be greater peace.
Uncle Pat was a fine Irish gentleman, who was intelligent and kind. He would do whatever Aunt Sally asked him to do, because he loved her. He sang FA the LA LA, and would fall asleep in a chair, while us cousins would cover his head with shaving foam, and tooth paste, and comb his hair into a spike. He would wake up happy, just the way he went to sleep, wash his face and carry on.
Aunt Sally was good-hearted enough to look after Uncle Joe.
Uncle Joe
Uncle Joe lived upstairs in Aunt Sally's house, in a self-contained flat. He was a kind man and, legend has it, he fell into a tub of water as a little boy, when my Bapsha (Grandma) and her daughters were doing the washing by hand, for their big family.
As a result of the fall into the water, Uncle Joe stopped speaking. This was treated by doctors, surgeons, who tried to cut Uncle Joe's throat to make him talk. You can imagine the results. Uncle Joe could only make sounds, sounding like the vowels in Spanish. He made these sounds with lots of hand expressions.
This was my introduction to sign language, and people with physical disabilities, or head injuries who want to express themselves, but are locked into bodies that do not work as well as required.
I really loved Uncle Joe, even though he had to keep wiping the saliva from his mouth as he tried to talk to my mother. He would not talk to me in words, just smile, and I saw love beaming from his face. He gave me a silver watch once that he found when he was walking.
Uncle Joe would help Aunt Sally in her vegetable garden. She grew tall tomatoes up the side of the house. Jersey-Reds had to be the best tomatoes that I ever tasted. Aunt Sally kept seeds from those tomatoes, and every year would grow her new crop from her heritage seed. She used the same seed for 60 years, as did my mother.
Uncle Joe always wore a suit, and kept a job in a factory for 30 years, enabling him to pay Aunt Sally rent, and still have a savings account.
The life of Uncle Joe impressed me. Years later, I went on to be a Field Officer for the Epilepsy Association and a Co-ordinator for Attendant Care, to represent people with physical disabilities.
Uncle Joe taught me to see the potential inside people who were physically challenged, stick up for them, and made sure they had a good time, in spite of their limitations.
Hippy Movement: Love Joy and Peace
Can you imagine the excitement when relatives were all gathered at Aunt Sally's, one afternoon, and in walks my cousin Tommy Pawloski (TP). His hair nearly touched his shoulders, his blue eyes shining like stars. He carried a black guitar case with a PEACE sign on it, the first peace sign that I had ever seen; I quickly made a sketch.
TP's look was very different from our conservative Polish style, or elegant Italian style. Up until that day the only long-haired guys that I had seen were the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five.
TP drank a shot of whiskey, and then played the guitar so well, and so loud, then so soft and tender, I was moved in a way only girls going through puberty can be moved.
The cousins were mesmerized with TP's music, and poetry, and presence.
Then the adults came in, Uncles asking what racket was about, and giving TP a Dutch Rub, and telling him to get a haircut. They warned him not to teach the cousins about all the hippy stuff going on. But it was too late. The cat was out of the bag. TP told us something was going on in America, a new culture was growing for love, joy, and peace, and against the establishment.
After the adults left the room, TP said he wanted to sing a quiet song for Beth. He plucked the strings so tenderly, and paced his rhythm so perfectly...and finished with walking over and giving me a kiss, and said, "Stay beautiful". Then he left.
To put this into context, TP was the son of Aunt Viola the Charleston dancer, and Uncle Johnny, who lived in the cellar doing electronics. TP was very smart, the first man in our family to graduate university - with a degree in English Literature.
TP was married to beautiful Barbara, also holding a degree in English Literature, and graduated magna cum laude. They would visit us in Pompton Plains and lie in front of the roaring fire, and introduce me to Thoreau, Shakespeare and Hemmingway. They had one baby named Johnny, whom they adored.
So the most educated person in our family introduced us to the Hippy movement.
The Summer of Love was gaining media attention, and TP got the urge to go to California and find out what was going on. He loved what was going on in San Francisco. It was upon his return to New Jersey to collect Barbara and Johnny, to follow him to California, that we had this chance meeting, at Aunt Sally's house.
It was the first time in my life that I began watching the news for the unfolding story in California. I was touched by the thought of everyone loving each other, and peace on earth, and lots of music and dancing, and flowers. I wanted to be part of it.
Cousin Barbara did not want to be part of it, so she and baby Johnny stayed in New Jersey. She never married again, nor dated, because she told my mother, "They all want one thing". Barbara was a petite Italian beauty. No wonder they all wanted one thing!
Barbara would still show up at some family gatherings, and definitely funerals, during our decade of funerals. We lost many family member and close friends to cancers, in a very short period of time. Experiencing my loved ones' decline in health unto death, pushed my spiritual quest further. In those days, in the USA, some parents sheltered their children from the reality of death. My Polish family handled death as a family affair.
Death
Death was an undeniable pointer in my quest to find out the meaning of life. Between the ages of ten and fourteen, the main place our family would meet relatives was at Gorney and Gorney's funeral homes. People did not seem to know the effects of toxins in the environment then. Chemicals and pesticides were seen as good things. They were modern things. We were allowed to run after trucks spraying poison to kill mosquitoes, down the shore.
I still remember walking up the steps to the funeral parlour, opening the door to smell the flowers, then walking up through rows of wooden chairs, to the first row. That is where I would catch a glimpse of my loved one, lying still in a padded casket, fully-dressed, with lots of makeup. I approached the body, with nods of approval from relatives wearing black, hats, veils, and gloves.
Then I felt the cold of death. A cold that radiated out from the dead body to chill you, before you even touched the body. One funeral after another for a period of four years really made me wonder about living a healthy life.
The funeral homes were not always quiet. TP marched in and picked up his mother, Aunt Viola from the casket, and said, "Woman, you are coming home with me". We children were ushered out. The adults helped to compose, an emotional TP, who began to howl loudly, in grief. TP still howls at the wind, while standing on rocks out in the sea, with breakers crashing around him.
We would sit in the funeral parlour for days, have a Mass, go to the cemetery; bury our loved one, and pay respects to other relatives buried alongside. Then go to the meeting place, to watch the parents get drunk at the wake. Cousins would play music of the Monkees, Dave Clark Five, Shirelles, Ike and Tina Turner, Sonny and Cher, and Donovan.
In later years, I had the privilege to be lectured to by Elizabeth Kubler Ross, author of the classic "On Death and Dying".
I also had the privilege of learning how the Maori people of New Zealand handle death and dying. It's kind of a do-it-yourself time of dressing the deceased, and sleeping with the deceased, until the time of burial. I introduced this to my brother Tom, upon the passing of Aunt Sally. We dressed her and applied her makeup, much to the funeral director's surprise.
The war was raging in Vietnam, and caskets draped in the American flag were being returned to Pompton Plains.
Vietnam Vets were returning too. The affect of the war could be seen on one of my Brother Tom's friends. When taking a simple mountain walk, he would become agitated and think that snakes and spiders were dropping on him, and that the enemy could be anywhere. This mental state was in contrast to the conservative Pompton Plains pride, that I had known two years before. Made me side with the pacifists.
High-school Fun
In the late 1960s and early 70s, we share high school memories of a changing culture. To the tune of Strawberry Fields Forever, the dress code was dropped. Prior to that, girls had to kneel on the floor to make sure hems would touch the floor, for modesty. We knew how to roll up those skirts at the waist, after inspection-because the mini skirt was the style!
We practiced how to put on eye make-up like Twiggy, and pose like her too.
My mother sent me to Charm School, held at Bamberger's, an hour's drive each way.
The guys were still acting like gentlemen, opening doors for us, and ladies first, (something that I still adore). Eddie Ellis from the South joined us Yankees, and demonstrated good manners and respect at a whole new level.
The girls had pyjama parties. I remember brightly coloured plush toys, in the form of 6ft long snakes, accompanying us to those parties. Walking up and down stairs with them, when we greeted each other the snakes would too. We would laugh a lot, sing Be True to Your School, tell each other secrets, skinny dip in pools, curl hair, straighten hair, listen to the Beach Boys, and pretend to surf on chairs.
My family had a Nimrod Trailer, so I was allowed to have sleep-outs, instead of sleep over's. We would dash around the back yard with flashlights, between the Nimrod and the tent. I can remember preparing for our boyfriends, by practicing kissing our own knees, and laughing and screaming as we watched each other's techniques.
We would dream about the boy we loved.
Then as we got older the boys started showing up, which would end in big pillow fights, and the pace of the flashlight game picked up, to kiss catch. If he could catch you, he could kiss you. Some girls ran fast, and some ran slow.
Spin the bottle became a popular game, less exhausting than all the running around, and of course Post Office gave the kissing couple a little more privacy.
Our experimentation with human sexuality was very pure, compared to today's standards, where many teenagers are having babies, and many more aborted.
In New Zealand, they play a game called Drop the Can. Everyone sits in a circle and a person carrying a can walks the perimeter of the circle, picks a person and drops the can behind them. They both run around the circle to try to reach the seat, or be left with the can. Where the can is dropped is always an indication of who likes who.
Eraser tag was a classroom pastime on rainy days. Lance Colerette had a thick blond hairstyle that held that eraser like glue, and always seemed to win.
PTHS was great at team sports, a school to be proud of. Football, fencing, wrestling, basketball, softball, and track - we really had the bases covered.
The music program taught us to sing in the Chorus or Choir for an annual Christmas tour. We also put on the plays Pyjama Game, Camelot, and Oklahoma. I still remember Mr Cromie opening his mouth to put all five fingers in, to show us how we needed to open our mouth to sing. Mr Wileham conducted band.
The band people became a group unto themselves. Sporty people became a tight group. The intellectuals found each other. Arty people worked on the yearbook and the Panther Press. I had friends in all groups, and would go where I pleased.
Party, Party, Party
My parents went on a Caribbean cruise for a week the in March of my junior year of High School. I called them to make sure they were ok. My cousin Nancy Jacobus was turning 16 on Saturday night. Put two and two together, and my house became a perfect venue for a Sweet 16th Birthday party for Cousin Nancy. I had four days to get everything ready, so my girlfriends and I hit the kitchen to do some baking, and the guys were circulating private invitations.
I decided to make cream puffs. Remember I hinted on my ADHD personality previously. Here is an example. I was not allowed to do anything in my mother's kitchen, without her next to me, making sure I had a lot of pressure on me to keep things tidy.
This was the first time I had had the kitchen to myself. I decided to bake something wonderful for Nancy - Big Cream Puffs. I had never made cream puffs before, but I had a few friends to help me. With white flour floating through the air like powder, loud music blasting, if Everybody had an Ocean across the USA, we made 200 large cream puffs. Those cream puffs were whipped up by singing and dancing girls. They were delicious! To this day my kitchen is full of music and fun, and the food tastes great.
We made a large birthday cake for Nancy, using three roasting pans, and a cardboard Sweet Sixteen placed on top. 200 cream puffs sat on heart-shaped, lace-paper doilies.
We were ready to receive party guests.
Word about the party spread, and the guests kept coming, and coming, with invitations, without invitations, every room of our split-level home was occupied, as was the front and back yard.
Windows were opened on that freeing March night to let out the smoke, and let in cool air to refresh the dancers. Popular dances at that time were the boogaloo, the frug, the jerk and the monkey. Everyone was happy, dancing, having fun. My brother Verne was DJ. He had the best stereo available, and record albums without a scratch, because he did not let anyone handle them. He would select tracks from each album and do smooth mixing.
Cars were parked up and down our driveway, front lawn and spilling out on West End Avenue in both directions, and on both sides of the small street. The police came twice and I assured them everything was ok, and all guests were welcomed and well-behaved.
I always liked big parties. At my first year at North Boulevard, I was allowed to invite my friends to my birthday. I made an announcement and invited the entire class, and the classmate's brothers and sisters, if they wished. My Mother almost died when 35 6-year olds turned up for my birthday.
So Nancy's Sweet 16th was just a continuation of my love of hospitality. When we woke up the next day, my girlfriends and I cleaned the house, and welcomed my parents home from their cruise, quite late at night. They asked why the windows were wide open...
Nancy and I decided it would be a good idea to let them have a meltdown on their own, the next day, and went to the NJ shore for the day. We sneaked out the bathroom window, and we were temporarily free of the tension that would break like thunder when my parents received reports on the previous night's party from neighbours.
Nancy and I sang and I did the drum beat to INAGODAVIDA, on the roof of the Ford Pinto that we were driving in. When we got to the boardwalk, I bought a pound of maple walnut fudge, and ate it over the course of the day.
When we returned to Pompton Plains, all smiles, there were 37 bottles of whiskey, gin, rum, wine, and beer bottles galore, all neatly set out on our picnic table.
The guys were meant to take care of the empties, while the girls cleaned inside. The guys thought that throwing the empties into our backyard trees would do.
My Dad recovered the bottles from the trees, and said, "Beth, looks like someone had one H...of a party here while we were gone". At that stage Mr Petty delivered a few more bottles found in his back yard.
Mom appeared at the back porch with ten soggy cream puffs and said, "What's this?" She reminded me that I was not allowed to cook without her being present. Then she ate one and said, "These are delicious, how did you make them Beth?"
I started including my children with food preparation and clean up before they were the age of three, and they are all wonderful cooks and bakers with a smile.
So the tension of Nancy's Birthday Bash, where we did the Monster Mash, was soon followed by another point of contention. Woodstock!
Everyone was heading to Woodstock, and I wanted to go. It was only a three hour drive from Pompton Plains. My Godfather, Uncle Eddie had a farm in Woodstock, New York, so I would even have safe accommodation.
Dad did not see it this way. He saw it as a bunch of crazy hippies taking drugs, and rolling around in the mud. He did not acknowledge that all the modern musicians filling the airwaves were going to be there! Jimmy Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Donovan, Joni Mitchell and so many others.
Janice Joplin's song, Take another piece of my heart Baby, was the best way I could describe my feelings. Dad was breaking my heart.
After many arguments, silent treatments, and tears on my side, Dad finished the conversation with, "If you walk out that door, to go to WOODSTOCK, you are never coming back".
Dad was very strict when it came to BOYS. I was not allowed to date until I was 16. Two weeks before my 16th birthday, I was invited to the senior prom by Howe Hess. Dad kept strict to his rules, and I sat on the front steps, with the fireflies, when other friends were dressed up and dancing at the prom.
Mom made sure that I had work experience. I worked as a waitress on the boardwalk, and in the Willowbrook mall. I also worked at Capezio, which was owned by my friend's mother Mrs Shellburg. I picked up modelling jobs when I could.
I saved up and bought my first surfboard, a Love, by Dusty Rhodes. I joined South Shore Surf Club competition team. I dated a lifeguard named Tommy Maurski.
Marylou Marsh and I became very close friends. We would ride out bikes to the sandpit, where the teenagers were hanging out, to PV Park, and to Alderney Milk Barn, in Pompton Lakes, for big pistachio ice cream cones.
Marylou was not a drinker or druggie, so I found a good healthy friend. We would go to parties, and help look after the sick found there. The pot was coming in from Vietnam, and was so strong that it made people sit still in chairs and say WOW.
That was not Marylou and my idea of fun. We chose to design and sew clothing on my mother's Singer, and go to clubs in New York State, and New York City, dancing, to the tunes of Carlos Santana, wearing our new creations, gaining entrance to the clubs with fake ID.
Marylou's sisters were professional ballroom dancers, so we would help them sew sequins on their ball gowns. Our Catholic mothers always thought we were safe, at each others houses. Marylou drove a Volkswagen Beetle - bright orange-with a sun roof. We saw many sunsets and sunrises from that Beetle.
By the time I graduated High School, my family structure had changed. My brother Tom was attending Massachusetts Maritime Academy. We would drive up to visit him in Cape Cod once a month. He became nautical after Dad found my brothers jobs on cruise ships leaving from New York. In this way my brothers saw much of the world while still in High School. Tom was of a conservative point of view.
My brother Verne was attending college at Steubenville University, in Ohio.
I guess there is a time in your life when it seems like your parents have taught you everything they can, and it is time for some new teachers. That time had come. My next chapter will reveal my vocation and college life in New Jersey and California.
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