 We moved to Saddle Brook from the Bronx in 1958. The only people in town that we knew were the Murphys on Oxford Avenue. Hanna Murphy was my mother's sister and the main reason we ended up moving to town. The Murphys had moved to Saddle Brook from the Bronx too, but a few years before we did. It was only natural for me to start hangin' around with my cousin John Murphy. We both lived on the north side of town. We were the same age and in the same grade, but went to different schools. John went to St. Philip's, and I went to Cambridge. John had lived in Saddle Brook for several years and had friends from both sides of town and I quickly fell in with them. We were the kids that never stayed after school to clean the blackboard and erasers, and I don't believe that any of us were ever inducted into "The National Honor Society" while in High School or made "The Dean's List" in College. We were the rebels. We lived for adventure. If something was dangerous, we did it. We had been raised on Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power movies and loved the idea of living like Robin Hood and his band of cut throats, and the woods were the ideal place to do that. There was a wooded area just south of the RR tracks at Saddle River Road. If you headed down the tracks toward Rochelle Park a couple of hundred feet there was a path on the right that took you into the woods. If you followed the path it took you to a huge oak tree that had a rope tied to one of it's upper branches, and a large lower branch that was broken, but wasn't completely detached from the tree trunk. The other end was resting on the ground. We would climb up the broken branch (which we used as a platform) and someone on the ground would toss the loose end of the rope up to us. The loose end had a huge knot tied in it, and we used it as a seat when we swung on the rope, one by one, each taking a turn in the order that we had ascended the broken branch. We did this for hours on end every day after school and weekends. After a while we grew tired of this fascinating activity and decided that it might be much more fun to jump from our platform on to the guy that was swinging back and forth on the rope as he approached the platform. Well, this turned out to be quite a challenge and a lot more fun than flyin' solo. One of us jumping on to the moving rope with someone else riding it kept us happy for a while, but then someone suggested that we try to have two people jump on to the rope as it approached the platform, and then three people and then four people. Well, it's been almost sixty years and my memory fails me as to what became the record number of jumpers we achieved on that fateful day, but I'm thinking that we were up to around 8, all clinging to the swinging rope at the same time causing the rope to reach its breaking point. Unfortunately, Karl Grambo happened to be the man on the bottom of the pile when the rope came crashing down. Everyone faired well except Karl. He sustained a broken leg and ended up in a cast for the next several weeks. It wasn't too long after that the state took the land that our rope was on for Route 80, along with all of the river front mansions on Saddle River Road between the RR tracks and Market Street. Things were changing for us guys at that time anyway, so we probably would have given up our swashbuckler lifestyle in the woods within the next year or so. With our teenage years approaching and our hormones kicking in, we discovered that it was much more fun to go to the Friday night dances at Washington School and spend our time with the young ladies. It was a fitting end to our youthful innocence and the end of an era for the small town of Saddle Brook. With the Route 80 Interchange in place and companies like UPS setting up camp in our quiet town and the huge amount of traffic that came along with it, we lost that small town feeling that we knew as kids. Any of you out there from Saddle Brook reading this story that are under the age of 70 probably never heard of "The Rope", but us older guys will never forget it....... © Jimmy McKee SBHS '65, December 20, 2016 |
The Hut | Saint or Sinner | Brother John's Unusual Request | Wasn't Cut Out To Be A Boy Scout | A Friday Night Party at Mike's
A Brook Tale
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