Witch Way You Going, Joey?

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By Joe Haller, Groovy Reflections Team Member

I grew up in the suburbs of NYC. Not Lawn Guy Land. Rockland County, NY bordering Bergen County, New Jersey. To get from Monsey, NY to Pearl River, NY it was easiest to cut through Montvale, New Jersey along Summit Avenue. Really nice area, but one house stood out. There was no fine-trimmed lawn like all the rest. It was a jungle of brush, small trees, and weeds. The house itself looked haunted. It needed paint. The shutters were hanging off. The driveway was dirt. But the place was occupied. 

Rumor had it that a witch lived there. It was 1971. Dark Shadows had just gone off the air. But we half believed in ghosts, witches, séances, parallel time…..all that stuff.

The Sunday News had an article that summer, about a witch in Montvale, New Jersey. She called herself Witch Hazel. Her photograph was stunning. She was a fox, in the vernacular of the day. Too old for me, however. I was only 19 and she had to be old, like 33 or 34.

Fast forward to the summer of 1972. We figured out that the “haunted house” on Summit Avenue had to be Witch Hazel’s house. I filled up my 1971 Duster with friends and my brother Eddie. We were going to meet Hazel. I parked at the corner of Summit and Terkuile, just down the road from Hazel’s house. The five of us walked up Summit and started up Hazel’s dirt driveway. The “haunted house” was pretty far off the road. About halfway back, we heard sirens…..saw flashing lights. 

The cops were there! We split up and ran through the jungle, back to the Duster. No good….it was boxed in by police cars. They made me follow them to the station. Witch Hazel was going to press charges for trespassing. She was fed up with gawkers and gapers. We were going to be an example, according to the fuzz.

After about a half-hour of cooling our heels in some waiting room (at least we weren’t behind bars) Hazel showed up at the police station in full witch regalia. All dressed in black, a flowing cape, a black hat but not a pointy one. Since the Duster was mine, I was the driver and ring leader. How was I going to get us out of this mess?

Hazel ranted about how she just wanted to live her life without “unannounced visitors”. She asked me “Why were you there? What did you hope to gain?” I told her I had seen her picture in the paper and was hoping to get a date with her. Then I said “You are even more beautiful in person”. She really was breathtaking, and I meant what I said.

She turned to the police. “Let them go” she said. It wasn’t quite that easy. Otis, Louie, and Bruce could only be released to their parents. So three unhappy parents had to come and get their sons. When the cop called my mother she played the widow card so he released my brother in my custody. End of story? Not quite.

The Montvale police station wasn’t far from Friendly’s in Park Ridge. Hazel said to me “Follow me to Friendly’s. I am going to buy sundaes for you and Eddie.” We followed her, and walked inside with her, She was a stunning sight! A beautiful woman dressed like a witch. She WAS a witch!! EVERY eye in that place was on her, and us. We sat and talked for an hour, enjoying our ice cream. She gave me a ring with a glass enclosed spider. She also said “That was your date. I hope you enjoyed it”. I said “Hazel, I surely did. Let me leave the tip”. 

I never saw her again. Took Eddie home, and got screamed at by my mother for being a bad influence on him. He had a blast that night, and saw ME in trouble. A perfect night for Eddie, and a damned good one for me.

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Eddie and the Radio Skaters

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By Joe Haller, Groovy Reflections Team Member

Remember the days before global warming? Long, long time ago, back in the 1960’s it would actually be cold in December. It seemed every second year even brought us a “White Christmas”. By the way, I grew up in Rockland County, NY, about 30 miles northwest of the big city. My parents were Rockland County natives, as were two other sets of parents in our neighborhood.

The rest of the neighborhood consisted of New York City cops. The moms were the kind of stay-at-home moms that sent us outside to play while they watched soap operas and/or “kawfee klatched”. I had one brother, Eddie. He passed away in 1976, but that’s not what this story is about. It’s about a time when we could go out all day and our parents didn’t have to worry about us. We respected each other’s parents because we knew if we didn’t, our own parents would kill us.

AM radio ruled in those days. Everybody had transistor radios, the ones that took the rectangular 9 volt batteries. You knew you had a good battery if it jolted your tongue before you put it in the radio…the battery, not your tongue. We had two great AM radio stations. 77WABC had a powerful signal and great DJ’s. 57WMCA had “The Good Guys” as DJ’s but a much weaker signal in the suburbs. There was fierce competition between the two stations over us baby boomers. 77-W-A-Beatle-C!!!, they would call themselves.

WMCA would get Beatle records from London before they were released in the USA and play them first. 77WABC would play songs AFTER they were proven sellers in NY area record stores. The exceptions were of course The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, Herman’s Hermits and other major acts.

WMCA would take chances and play The Young Rascals, The Critters, The Turtles, or The Byrds before anybody ever heard of them. 77WABC had Cousin Brucie. WMCA had Harry Harrison, until he went to WABC in 1968. 77WABC had the great Dan Ingram. WMCA had Dandy Dan Daniel.

WMCA’s Good Guys “toured” together, wearing matching suits and haircuts like the early Beatles. You were REALLY cool if you managed to win one of their “Good Guy” sweatshirts. I never did. 77WABC lasted as a pop/rock music station from 1960 until 1982 while WMCA was only around from 1960 to 1970 as a music station.

So, WMCA was a bit hipper than 77WABC.

However, 77WABC did one thing that WMCA didn’t do. Beginning in 1964 they had a top 100 songs of the year list you could send away for. The last week of every year they would play only songs off that list in random order. That week was of course part of Christmas vacation as it was called back then.

The un-named pond behind Kreider’s house was always frozen. We would spend that week ice skating around with our transistor radios, trying to fill in the Top 100 list because we didn’t want to wait until mid-January for it to arrive in the mail. There was always one song that they didn’t seem to play, like #91 or #96 or one of those. If we finally heard it, there would be a huge celebration that we completed the list.

One other thing happened every year during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

The pond wouldn’t freeze over where the stream came in. You know how still waters run deep, and freeze? Well flowing waters don’t freeze unless it gets extremely cold. So there would be a half circle of open water at the mouth of the pond with thinner ice blending into thicker, safe ice.

My brother Eddie would always have to test the limits. Every year he would skate out closer and closer to the water. Every year he would break through the ice. Fortunately, the pond wasn’t deep and he always got out alive. My mother would threaten to kill him each time he walked home soaking wet and freezing cold, but she never did.

It’s my favorite memory of my brother Eddie….dripping wet, cold, and in trouble again! If I had the whole Top 100 it was a perfect day!!