"What the Y meant to me"

When I was growing up in Paterson, my parents had the foresight of having me join the Paterson YM-YWHA, or as we called it, the Paterson "Y".  That's where I learned how to swim, play basketball and handball, but, most importantly, I learned the value of true friendship and camaraderie.  As I progressed through my teenage years, I could be often found on Saturday nights at the "Y" dances looking for a pretty girl to connect with and maybe even walk her home and steal a goodnight kiss. Wow, it all seemed fantastic!
 
By the time I was 17, I was looking for a summer job and again and the “Y” played an important part in my life.  I got my first job as a junior counselor at the “Y” Day Camp, Camp Veritans.  It was a fantastic experience for me and my 12- 15 eleven and twelve year old campers.  I began thinking of my future vocation and I realized then that it would have to be something working with children which naturally led to a teaching career.  It would be a perfect fit for me.  I would teach from September to June and that would give me my summers free to do what I really enjoyed the most, being a camp counselor.  Following my graduation from college I served a two year stint in the army. By the way, an obscure army provision enabled me to obtain an early discharge in order to work at Camp Veritans.
 
Soon after, I began my teaching career at Eastside High School in Paterson.  For the next 15 years I had, what I considered, the perfect complement….teaching history at EHS and working at Camp Veritans. Eventually I became Assistant Camp Director from 1958-65.    Let me return for a moment to my experiences at Camp Veritans.  As I have mentioned, it really was the turning point of my life because it motivated me to spend the remainder of my life working with children and eventually the adults they turned into.  At the end of my first year as a junior counselor I wrote a post card to my campers inviting them to come down to the Paterson “Y” to continue the experiences we had had during the summer by forming a boys club.  Almost all of them responded and on a Friday afternoon in September 1951 we met for the first time.  Neither I nor the boys knew what to do during that first meeting so we just talked about our summer experiences. After about an hour and a half we decided to go up to the roof and play ball. For the next few Fridays that became the routine until I said, “why don’t we actually form a club with officers and guidelines, have dances, parties, and maybe go on trips etc.”  They liked the idea and we began discussing names for the group.  At that time there was a popular Brooklyn Dodger sports program called “Happy Felton’s Knot Hole Gang”, and the guys felt that maybe the “Happy Go Lucky Boys” would be an appropriate name.  And so it was said and so it was written that they became known as the “Happy Go Lucky Boys”.  We met every Friday after school, went on camping trips, had cookouts, went to our first Major League Baseball game at Ebbets Field (a story to be told at a later date),and generally had loads of fun, both at their meetings and at après meeting activities.  When the guys all became teenagers they thought that the name “Happy Go Lucky Boys” was a bit too immature and that we needed a more masculine name like Lions, Tigers, Wolves or something that sounded more manly.  It was during that discussion that I mentioned how I once belonged to a club called the Spartans and WHAM, BANG that was it!  Everyone loved that name and the “Happy Go Lucky Boys” became the Spartans.  That was the second incarnation of the name Spartans.  That club remained active at the “Y” from 1951-1962 when, for some unknown reason, it just ceased to exist.  I terminated my role as their leader when I went into the army in 1955, but I do remember it remained in existence until 1962.
 
It was in 1980 that some of the older Spartans began talking about possibly having a reunion whereby we’d get the guys together for a one day gathering and do what we used to do like eating and talking.  A committee was formed with the primary objective of finding out the names and addresses of as many Spartans as could be remembered.  Over 120 names and addresses were found over the next seven years.  Next, we contacted the Veritans Club, who ran the camp, to arrange for its use for a one day reunion.  Thanks to Neil Chessin, an original Spartan and a member of the Veritans, we were able to obtain the use of the camp for our reunion.  May 17, 1987 was the perfect day!  The weather was ideal and over 30 Spartans accompanied by their wives, significant others or “girl friends” gathered at the camp for a day of “remembering.”  As you might imagine, Paterson was the thread that had woven all of our lives together.  That event would also prove to be the beginning of the next chapter of my life.  For the past 37 years, the Spartans and “Spartanettes” have played a most significant part in my, and in my wife Pearl’s lives.  We have shared many, many, happy occasions (“simchas” you might say), as well as experiences saddened by illness and deaths of parents, relatives and friends.  Through it all, we could count on our fellow Spartans to be there for us, as we are for them.
 
 Paterson was, and will always be, the central part of my life.  It is that connection that brought me to the Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey.  One day, while I was in Paterson visiting a friend’s business, I was introduced to the Jewish Historical Society, which at that time was housed in the basement of the Barnert Hospital.  That visit “turned me on” to become involved with this fine organization, its mission and its future.  What began as a chance meeting on the streets of Paterson has become a major aspect of my life going forward.  I became fascinated by the richness of our historical collection and the dedication of its many volunteers and staff.  I feel extremely proud and humble to say that, along with Alvin Reisbaum and others, we had the foresight and “chutzpah” to go out and obtain a mortgage and purchase our present offices in Fair Lawn. Looking back, it probably was one of the best decisions I have made in recent years.
 
Very little of what I have described herein could have been accomplished without the love and support of my “soul mate” (and sole mate!) Pearl and my children Brenda, Jeff, Jaime and my beloved Debbie.  I thank them for always being there both for me and for one another.
 
 Moe Liss, V.P. and member of the JHSNJ Executive Board