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A New Year’s Day Story
NEIGHBORHOOD PROPERTIES 381 Main Rd, Montville 973-334-3341
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973.477.9877
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By Richard Mabey Jr. rom the days of my early childhood on through my senior year of high school, we would always spend a good portion of New Year’s Day at my maternal grandparents’ home in Boonton. The home was a two-story, yellow brick farmhouse that proudly stood on the 600 block of Boonton Avenue. A stone wall proudly stood on the edge of the entire front yard, just about a foot from the sidewalk. It was a most majestic stone wall with a level, concrete top. I so dearly remember the big feasts of New Year’s Day at my maternal grandparents’ home. My mom was the youngest of nine children. The house would abound with aunts and uncles and cousins. It was a joyous time, a time of innocence. It was a time when most people still had black and white television sets, there were no microwave ovens, no laptop computers, and no cell phones. Grandma, Mom, my sister Patti, my aunts, and my girl cousins would all somehow manage to fit into Grandma’s kitchen and would be busy cooking the big New Year’s Day feast. The men would be huddled around Grandpa’s little black and white television set, watching football games. I know how chauvinist this all sounds, but it was just the way it was back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The timing of the feast was always a bit of a puzzling thing to me. We would all eat at about 3:00 in the afternoon. So, the big feast was either a late lunch or an early supper, depending upon how you looked at it. Grandpa Kemmerer and I had a most wonderful and magical bond. We were both drummers. I had started playing the drums when I was in fourth grade. I was in my school band from fourth grade on through all of my time at Boonton High School. Through the years, I had quite a few of drum teachers and band leaders. But, I learned the most about the art of being a fine percussionist from my Grandpa K. There comes a moment in time, in everyone’s life, when they look at the things, the places, then nooks and crannies continued on page 6
My grandfather, Edmund C. Kemmerer, and myself when I was a boy, standing on the sidewalk, just outside of the old Kemmerer Homestead on Boonton Avenue.
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January 2022
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No. 18 Vol. 1
Over 1.5 Acres Parklike Property 5BR, 3 Bath, Culdesac Street
Lovely, Large Tudor Quiet Culdesac Street
5 Acre Building Lot Prestigious Location
2.75 Acre Lot to be subdivided by buyer from 10 acre farm
15 Woodland Road Montville Township
6 Cheyenne Drive Montville
9 Habberstad Court Montville/Boonton
8 Mabey Lane Towaco
$775,000
$699,000
$519,000
$275,000