![Caption: MERRY CTRISTMAS. [Inside] from Dorothy, Bill, Little Bill, Kyle and Garret Toffey. *arrived June 2, 1954.](../../Story_of_My_Ancestry/My_MomAndDad/Lg/dad_christmas_inside_1954_Paramus.jpg)
Birth - 1961, Paramus, NJ
"June 2, 1954, 1:30 am"
382 Terhune Avenue
I was born five days late at the Englewood Hospital in New Jersey on June 2, 1954, 1:30 am. I came home to two big brothers in a house that was three lots down from the end of the street. My arrival made that small two-bedroom starter home in New Milford a bit of a squeeze, once you factored in all our toys and child-rearing equipment of that era.
It wasn't long before my parents decided to move to nearby Paramus. There they bought a two-story three-bedroom home on Terhune Avenue that was perfect for a growing family, complete with a basement, playroom, enclosed patio and backyard trees that were perfect for climbing, swings and forts. I grew up playing on a dead-end street.
Dad soon removed the two first trees in the front yard and painted the white house red!.
Home in Terhune Avenue, three door south, dead-end. The elementary school was one blocks away, but the kids on the street had to across the stream at the end of the street to get to it by the shortest route. I remember lots of kids on the block.
Google Map: Terhune Avenue & Van Saun Park
First time, Bill Peterson and I...
Nancy, across a street
One minute commercial, Great Garloo!
Big Deal as a kid...
Winter and cold, walking to my grant parents in Oradell, NJ
First time TV, 8 pm, "The Flintstone's"!
Map of Toffey, Birth - '61
Google map: 382 Terhune Avenue, & Van Saun Park, Paramus, NJ in a Large Map. My First Home. Van Saun Park, 1972, John Cornell an I, summer, women! My bicycle to tennis, 1965 to 2006, Sport, Tennis!
Bill Peterson and I, first best friends
When you reminisce about your childhood neighborhood there are certain endearing memories that remain fresh, as if they happened just a few years ago. I can still see myself playing up and down the street.
On my fifth birthday in June 1959 my parents threw me a big neighborhood birthday party: Six little boys on my back PAtio, all playing together. It was fun.
One of my first closest friends was Bill Peterson, three house up, across a street west. We did everything together. Bill lived three doors away from me and for six years we were inseparable, playing across the front yards as often as we could get away. Bill and I attended Spring Valley School Kindergarten together on Third Street. We were notorious for playing in backyard streams and ponds. I am sure our mothers did' t appreciate the added boy dirt.
Our family moved away in the summer of 1961, bringing to a close the story of my first best friend.
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Nancy Kannegiese & I, across a street, one house down
One of those friends was Nancy Kannegiese (Walsh), a childhood friend who lived across the street and up two houses. We went to kindergarten together.
We reconnected online in 2009 - thanks to Facebook - and started exchanging finny emails and stories about the silly little things we did as kids. She still corresponds with my brother Kyle, too. See, right, Nancy and I a home in a living room.
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Mom and I, nighttime commercial..
In the spring of 1961 my brothers started swimming lessons at the YMCA at night with my Dad. My mother and I would sit in the living room on Terhune Avenue and watch the televisions show. And one minute commercial, Great Garloo,
I loved that show so much, including all the minute-long commercials, that my parents bought me a two-foot tall motorized Great Garloo action figure, complete with my first remote control, for the next Christmas. YouTube, Great Garloo, by Marx!
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Tricycle to Bicycle!
Learning to ride a bicycle is a big deal as a kid. It's represents freedom, mobility and speed on a pint-sized scale. I was about three years old when I got my first Tricycle. Art for Sale; right, Tricycle. Dad and I would go outside and wheel around on the sidewalks for an hour, rolling the bike up and down the street in front of neighbors.
Dad helped transition me from my tricycle to a bicycle again in 1959 or 1960. I was a bit bigger and it was time to master the power of two wheels. Dad stood beside me, walking along the side of the bike as I steadied it and forced two nervous feet on petals to move forward. It took a few tries before I got it.
In 1968, Tenafly, NJ, Saika Takahashi and I, bicycle north to Tallman Mountain Park, two days!
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Dorm out too my grandparents house in Oradell Road, but winter, snow..
One night when I was five I got made about something, mad enough to set off a little boy's temper. My parents and I had an argument about something. Who knows? So I decided to walk out and go to my grandparents' house. They lived 20 minutes north by car and somehow I thought that I could master walking there at night in 20 degree weather. It was freezing. I got about one or two blocks away when I decided it was just too cold. So I walked home. Apparently freezing to death wasn't worth being mad.
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First TV Show
Television show! But first TV series, 1960 to 1966, 8 - 8:30 pm - The Flintstone's cartoon! The Flintstone's, 1st Opening, 1960. Mel Blanc, voices, Warner Brothers. And after,
The Jetsons! TV show, The Honeymooners.
First comedy - The Lucy Show was on CBS weekdays from September, 1968 to 1972. Lucy Ball, before, dancing. And Lucy Ball and Russell Markert, N.Y. City, Radio City Music Hall, 36 Rockettes!
First drama one hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., 1964 to 1968, NBC, spy spoof, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.
In 1972 television show, drama, two men, I Spy – 1965–1968, NBC, adventure/espionage, Bill Cosby and Robert Culp. The Avengers, classes tv, Britain spy-fi in 1960. John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Emma Peel (Dianna Rigg). And Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York (1964–69), Dick Sargent (1969–72).