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BACK IN THE DAY - 05/11/2008
Jesus, the NAACP, Bears and a prankster
NORTH JERSEY – Here’s a look at what was published in Suburban Trends in early-May over the years.
1963 – What Would Jesus Drive?
There’s the old joke that Hindu drivers are less cautious because they believe in reincarnation, but what about Christian drivers? Local teenagers talked about the Christian way to drive 45 years ago.
“‘We want do something about teenage accidents,’ several young people remarked at their Quarterdeck Club meeting last Sunday at the Pompton Valley Presbyterian Church. Today, they are taking up the subject of safe driving from a Christian point of view,’” it was reported on the front page.
A 16-year-old named Jack Casey was in charge of the program, and a lawyer named Paul Smock was scheduled to speak to the Christian teens about the legal aspects of driving and the penalties for driving without a license, drunk driving, and speeding.
“He will also stress driving as a religious matter and how one’s Christian faith would affect the way he handles an automobile. Does the driver think of himself as all powerful behind the wheel? Does he allow his pressing affairs to obscure his attention to his driving? Does he obey the letter of the law or the spirit of the law, with thought to the protection of other lives and courteousness to other drivers?” asked the article. “Smock expects to challenge the young people to use religious discipline in their operation of a car, using their best judgment and most courteous manners.”
Speak up
One of the biggest annoyances about being a reporter is that sometimes public officials don’t realize that people in the audience can’t hear them when they’re talking to their colleagues up on the dais or around a table.
Thankfully, these days almost every town around has sound equipment, even if sometimes public officials don’t speak into their microphones (and then accuse reporters of misquoting them, but I digress). Forty-five years ago, though, at least one public official thought that audio equipment was not needed.
In Wayne, the Township Council voted to purchase recording and amplification equipment for the council chambers at a cost of $2,250 (about $16,000 in today’s money). The mayor recommended it.
But Councilman Richard Marcus opposed the purchase, calling it an “extravagance.” Marcus said that if it would save the taxpayers money, he would be “willing to shout, for the rest of the year.”
Another councilman said that the audio equipment had been needed for some time, and that it would help the people in the audience hear “those councilmen who do not shout.”
Only Marcus voted against the audio equipment.
NAACP focuses on area
Arthur Holloway, chairman of the Paterson Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that his organization was conducting an investigation of alleged discriminatory practices in Wayne’s Packanack Lake – a private, affluent community.
Holloway said the NAACP stepped into the picture after it received a phone call making specific charges against claimed discriminatory practices in the community. He declined to state who made the charges or the precise nature of the accusation.
The alleged discriminatory practices at Packanack Lake came to light the year before when Mrs. Doris Allen, head of the “Friendly Town” program that brought underprivileged children to this area for summer vacations, said the Board of Governors of the community implied that “no colored children” would be welcome at beaches in Packanack Lake.
The NAACP head said his organization did not plan “any organized action at this time,” and definitely ruled our any picketing or demonstrations in Packanack Lake.
Holloway declined to speak further until the NAACP completed its investigation.
Allen said that the “Friendly Town” program would not tolerate racism.
“When any host family specifies ‘race,’ we will put the application on the bottom of the list,” Allen declared.
1968 – The advantages of using soap
“A group of Vietnamese orphans have learned the advantages of using soap, while the nuns in charge of an orphanage in Ba Tri have seen a desperate situation take a turn for the better, and the open hearted generosity of TRENDS area residents has been amply demonstrated to a war-wrecked country,” it was reported.
It began with a letter-to-the-editor in this newspaper from a Mrs. William Ward from the Smoke Rise section of Kinnelon. She wrote in that her son-in-law, Capt. Joseph Painting, had sent her a grateful letter after she sent him soap for the orphans. He expressed hope that she could send more soap.
Residents of our area sent him about 400 bars. The orphans did not even realize that they had to remove the paper wrapping on the soap before they could use it. The nuns had been using coconut leaves to clean the orphans before they got the soap.
Some Brownies from Bloomingdale also sent lollipops to the orphans. Mrs. Painting said her husband was so grateful for the generosity of the people in our area.
The old article is accompanied with some great photographs of Capt. Painting and the orphans.
F. Lee Bailey
The front page of the May 8, 1968 edition is a picture of famous lawyer F. Lee Bailey walking out of Federal District Court in Newark.
Minutes before the photograph was snapped by wunderkind reporter Cal Deal, Bailey was removed from the Kavanaugh-DeFranco murder case for “unethical conduct.”
Bailey, famous for defending “The Fugitive” Sam Sheppard, the Boston Strangler and O.J. Simpson, among others, was in our area defending Harold Matzner – a young newspaper publisher indicted along with four others for being involved in the murder of a young woman.
The case was a muddled mess in which mob ties eventually surfaced, but Matzner and the others were eventually acquitted.
1988 – Finger-lickin’ good
These days, a bear in West Milford is no big deal. I saw one myself on the way home from a council meeting last week. It looked well-fed, and was inspecting garbage cans at a residence on Macopin Road.
But before the local black bear population rebounded, black bear sightings were rare and terrifying.
A bear that stole all of the live chickens from a West Brook property a few months prior returned, and upon gaining entry to the chicken coops, proceeded to carry off the feed that was being stored in the coops. The bear also ripped down a couple of bird feeders and knocked over a 300-pound carved wooden bear that stood in the yard right outside the front door of the Westbrook home.
The bear was also sighted stealing livestock at a farm on Otterhole Road and Maple Road. The bear problem started in mid-April of that year when Otterhole Road resident Ed Sanders found the damage left behind by what he thought was a black bear.
“There were signs of bear everywhere,” Sanders said. “He knocked out the window to my chicken coop and lifted himself up inside it.”
There were paw prints in the dirt around the coop and nail marks in the plastic, which covered the window to the coop.
Then on April 23, the bear that had not been sighted since April 13 again appeared at the Sanders Farm. Sanders reported that the bear showed up sometime around 2 a.m. and stole some more chickens. On April 24, the bear, by this time onto a good thing, reappeared around midnight and Sanders took pictures.
“1 watched this bear take my chickens down in the back and when he was done, he’d come back for more,” Sanders said.
Finally on April 25, news of the smorgasbord and fine hospitality at the Sanders farm must have spread. Sanders reported that the same bear came back and brought a friend with him.
Sanders screamed at the bear from his house but the bear wasn’t scared, so Sanders went out and fired one shotgun blast in to the air. With that, the bear look off for the safety of the woods.
Sanders said, “I wouldn’t have shot him. I just wanted to get him away from my chickens.”
The bears continued to visit even after state wildlife officials installed an electric fence around the chicken coops.
On April 29, the bear, after being zapped by Sanders’ fence, killed a 250-pound calf at another farm and carried it off into the woods.
Farm resident Mike Evans heard his calf crying out in the field at about 5 a.m. and went to investigate. When he found the calf lying in the field with a large bite in its neck he went back to the house to call police and upon his return to the field the calf was gone.
State Wildlife Officials appeared at the scene of the attack and placed a large barrel-shaped bear trap. They placed a pile of Dunkin Donuts covered with molasses on the ground outside the trap and a burlap sack filled with the donuts inside the trap. The bear reappeared at the Evans farm, taking the donuts from outside the trap but leaving the donuts inside the trap. Paw and claw marks were found at the scene.
1998 – Internet terrorism
Even before MySpace, the Internet was terrifying and mystifying for parents.
“As the 1990’s wind down, phony phone calls have apparently been replaced by prank e-mail messages. The recent violent events nationwide, however, have resulted in law enforcement authorities taking any prank of a threatening nature seriously,” it was reported.
As the result of a two-month investigation, law enforcement officials executed a search warrant at a Kinnelon home, where they seized a home computer, disk drive and other computer-related material.
Police charged a 13-year-old Pearl R. Miller School eighth grader with making terroristic threats and harassment. He allegedly sent threatening e-mail messages to a student and a teacher.
Capt. Elmer Bott said, “This was an isolated situation. He was sending the messages from home and he said it was only a prank. We have to take into consideration what happened in Arkansas and Pennsylvania recently. We can’t take anything as a practical joke anymore.”
The month prior, a 14-year-old boy killed his teacher in Edinboro, PA. In March 1998, two boys killed four students and a teacher and injured 11 others in Jonesboro, AR.
This local incident was an eye opener to local police, who warned parents to become more aware of what their children are doing on the home computer and to put controls in place.
The boy allegedly signed up for a Yahoo e-mail account using the teacher’s name. He then allegedly sent the threatening messages, said Bott.
When the messages came to light, the teacher whose name was on the account was confronted, but was not aware of the account. The messages allegedly contained threats to kill, said Bott.
The Morris County Prosecutor’s Office was called in for its assistance on the computer investigation. With the help of the prosecutor’s office, a subpoena was issued for computer records and enough information was generated to obtain a warrant to search the juvenile’s house, said Bott.
The search warrant was executed with the assistance of the prosecutor’s office and the United States Secret Service, said Bott. In this type of situation, a child could face probation or community service, he said.
The investigation gave police insight as to how some youngsters were using the Internet, it was reported.
“During the investigation we learned that some Pearl R. Miller School students are very knowledgeable of the computer and a small group of students are sending messages back and forth. We advise parents to supervise young people because there are adults out there who will stalk these young people and talk them into meeting for unlawful purposes,’“ said Capt. Bott.
“We saw profiles on some of these young people using a certain Internet provider, They have listed certain things about themselves. A couple of parents might be shocked to see what’s in these profiles.”
| Comments (1) |
On June 3, 2008 MattyG said:
F. Lee Bailey was representing Harold Matzner, not Carl. |
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