James A. Crowley Kemble:  

I came to Wayne Valley Senior High School (as it was named when I attended and so imprinted on my high school diploma) after my childhood home burned completely to the ground and causing serious damage to the field stone foundation. Had it not been for that, I would have return to Carson Long Institute (military academy) for my senior year of high school. Had I returned, I would have been on the rifle team again and a second year ranger as I liked both very much. At the Valley, I played alto saxophone in marching band and orchestra. I starting playing the saxophone in Macopin Junior High School (it it was named then) under Miss Lola Bevington. I played in band at Butler High School as West Milford did not have it own high school yet, so we all went to Butler High until the very early 1970s, when West Milford opened it own high school were my younger brother graduated in 1973.. Since high school, I have worked many different types of occupations. Some were short and temporary positions or seasonal (like summer jobs or around the Christmas season), and a few that lasted about three years before I moved on. Only had two that lasted eight years. I tried my hand twice at running my own business; I did not fail; it just came to a point to close up and move on. One first one lasted eleven years and I went out of business with all bills paid in full. The second lasted eight years and was a service-oriented business, which involved very little stock. Now once again, I am trying to make a go of my third run at my own business. It started as CIFIS, but in 2008, got shorten to CFS. From 1963 through 1972, my mother saved for the summer as she was not paid in July or August as a teacher. That money was used to travel across and up and down the entire US, western Canada, to include half a summer in Hawaii and almost a whole summer in Alaska. We almost moved to Alaska. However when my mother learned school in the interior did not close until the outside temperature was down to 20-degrees Fahrenheit, she decided we would not move to Alaska. My brother and I have been in all fifty (50) states, six (6) of the nine Canadian Provinces and extreme north Mexico (long before war wars etc.). I would love to go back and live there for a year. We drove the Alcan Highway up there and it was 75% mud and 25% gravel and mud. Our red and white 1969 Pontiac Catalina Safari station wagon looked tan and brown by the time we drove into Tok, Alaska, the first town past the US-Canadian border. And there were not any car washes in Alaska. You went by the local stream, river, pond of lake with a bucket to get wash nd then washed your car manually. I can tell you much to our mother disapproval, my brother and I were soaked to our skivvies and head to toe, plus Mother get wet too, but that was simply accidentally. WE had a great wet time washing the car and ourselves. Our was aghast when we striped naked to wash out before put on clean cloth and DRY clothes; no one else was around to see us naked, but proper Mother lectured us. And the car did get wash top and all sides to again look red and white. In fact, in the 1969 to 1980 yearbooks showing the front of Wayne Valley that station wagon can be seen parked on the curve by the right side of the school short of where the buses unloaded students. Prior to that it was a 1965 Pontiac Catalina Safari station wagon. And from 1959 to 1964, it was a 1957 Pontiac Star Chief station wagon. All three wagons were red (bodies) and white (roofs). Red and white was a Kemble standard, but I did not know back then that is was the Welsh tribe colors of my Welsh tribe. The Welsh shield is basically white with sable line work and a diagonal broad red band from up left to lower right as viewed facing it with three yellow ". . . . leopard heads of the first." Along the way, I got to become a TASM - Trained Assistant Scout Master in BSA for 6 years and during that time I was also tapped to become the Chief Campmaster of Camp Turrell, which I did for two years before moving to Pennsylvania from New Jersey. Some from Wayne Valley may recall that I owned a horse back then and rode three or more times a week. She was a strawberry roam mare named Blaze. I remember the Packenack Lake Property Owner's Association calling the police as my horse while riding past the tennis courts, she did a dump; thank God there were not any pooper-scooper laws back then. I could not carry a wheel barrow in my pocket. The police just wrote it up as an incident and nothing more happened over it. My horse was once loaned to the Wayne Valley Indian mascot to ride during a home football game. The horse's shod hoofs dig up the field when galloping, so that was a one time deal. All the kids wanted to pet her and get free rides, most got to pet, and a few got led rides. I do not recall which was longer -- the game or kids wanting to pet and get free rides on my horse. I was not a business man back then, I did it free. Back in those times, county fair charged 50 cents to a whole buck (dollar) for two or three short laps. And we posed so parents could snap a picture of there child on a horse. I gave them memories for a life-time if the photographs survived and the memory of it happening. From 1984 to 1992, I was initially a stinger (freelance photographer) for the Suburban Trends (...Expand for more