This Sunday (Nov. 4) the Bergen County Audubon Society will lead a nature walk looking for fall migrants, ducks and more at Mill Creek Marsh in Secaucus, a great place for birding! The walk goes from 10 am to noon. For more information contact Don Torino at greatauk4@gmail.com or 201-230-4983.
Many thanks to Bill Frotscher, who was kind enough to share his poignant essay about growing up in the Meadowlands.
The Maywood native with family roots in Little Ferry and current Pennsylvania resident was inspired to chronicle his time in the Meadowlands after recently returning to the region for a 66th High School Reunion.
A professional forester, Bill writes about exploring the newly-formed lakes in Little Ferry, the result of the area’s clay pits being drained, crabbing and fishing, cedar swamps and other eye-opening experiences.
Here is his essay:
Recently I returned from a 66th reunion of my high school class at Bogota High School. A friend, closely aware of my interests brought along an article which had appeared in the Record concerning restoration and renovation of the Hackensack Meadowlands. It was fascinating to read and inspired me to look up your website and read about all that is finally being done to attempt to reclaim a great resource which had been greatly diminished during the past one hundred years.
Although I grew up in Maywood, my parents had roots in Little Ferry. In fact, when I was a child the back of my grandmother’s house faced the meadows and by walking out her back gate and then across a field, we could soon be at Budd’s Lake and beyond it the Hackensack river. Although this was the closest path to the river. usually we would walk down Mehrhof Road to the site of another clay pit from which we would gain access to the dikes which ran along the river’s edge.