"Who says life begins at 40"

My family moved to Cliffside Park in 1911. My father was born in the Russian Empire in what is now Lithuania in the late 1890’s.  He was an early pioneer in the movie business in Cliffside Park as far back as 1912. By the early 1920’s he owned 3movie theaters called “The Star.”  I had 3 siblings - my brother Max was born in 1906, my sister Ann, who became a school teacher, born in 1908, and my sister Rose. Max graduated high school around 1922 and worked with my father as an assistant manager in the movie theater. My mother came from Minsk in Belarus and she never learned to read or write English. My sister Ann brought me up because my father wasn’t well and my mother was not as nurturing. When I was 14 years old in 1937, in the midst of the Great Depression, my sister had a friend whose husband was a supervisor at Palisades Amusement Park. I got a job there for $10/week for 7 days a week working 12 hours/day during the summers. My first job was putting the sticks in the jellied apples. I worked at the park until I completed my first 2 years of college and by then I was a boss at CandyLand where I learned how to make candy.

I graduated high school in 1941 and went to college at NYU School of Commerce. In March 1943 I was called to the draft board and April 7 I was inducted into the army. I was at Fort Dix and then was put on a troop train with no idea where we were headed. It just kept getting warmer every day. After a few days, we got off the train and there is a sign saying Miami Beach, Florida. At that time, the Army Air Force had completely taken over all the hotels on the beach to use for basic training. When I found out I was in the Army Air Force, I signed up for the aviation program to be trained as a pilot.

I was in Miami Beach in April 1943, waiting to be assigned to a CTD (College training Department), when I was sent with 40 other guys to a small college in Reading PA called Albright College for 3 months to brush up on math and other subjects. The best part of the college was that they gave us 10 hours of flying time with an instructor. After 3 months we were all sent to Nashville, Tennessee to take tests and the next day we took tests for coordination. One test was a long box (around 8 feet long) with ropes on the end and you looked through a window to line up the ropes. That evening I was in my barracks when a fellow I knew from NYU, who was marking the tests,  saw my name and found me. He gave me some bad news - he said “I washed out.” I thought it was because I failed the written test but he said I passed that but I failed the depth perception tests which meant I couldn’t fly. I really wanted to fight the Germans.

My next stop was Denver, Colorado at a big base called Lowery Field, where I had an interview with a major to determine what I would do in the Army Air Force. I told him I would like to go to gunnery school but without depth perception that wouldn’t have been a good thing! From there, I spent a year at an air field in Ephrata Washington, was promoted to sergeant, and was an air force supply technician. I never left the US and I came home February 1946.
 
I went back to NYU on the GI Bill and got my degree in business. I continued working at fairs making and selling candy until the age of 24.

A night that changed my life forever was New Year’s Eve 1948. I was “fixed up” on a blind date with a beautiful woman named Marilyn and I fell head over heels in love with her at first sight. We married in January 1950 and settled down in a small apartment in Cliffside Park. By then I realized I needed to support my family and started working as a salesman for a wholesale hardware company. In 1952, our daughter Eileen was born and two years later came our son Steven. As the family grew, we moved to a house in Teaneck where we raised our family. We joined the local synagogue, Beth Sholom, and I was active in Knights of Pythias.

Fast forward many years, I am now 102 years old living in Clifton. Sadly, my beloved wife passed away in 2007. I am lucky that my daughter and son-in-law, Jeffrey, live right across the street from me and I have a wonderful and caring aide named Mercedes. I am blessed to have two amazing grandchildren and 4 great-grandsons. When I was in my 90’s I traveled to many countries with a friend. We went to Cuba, Spain, Israel and Italy and had amazing adventures. My lifelong love of movies and reading history helps me to pass the days and I am grateful for having a long and mostly happy life.  Ira Kaplan

Excerpted from the Daily Record RANDOLPH – “Ira Kaplan brought a little something extra to his film class at the County College of Morris. The 91-year-old Clifton resident took Matthew Jones’ Introduction to Film class at CCM during the fall semester but he was already well introduced to cinematography, given that his father had owned a chain of New Jersey movie theaters during the early 20th century. “They called my father the ‘Movie King,’” said Kaplan. “He was a movie exhibitor and owned five movie houses that I knew of.” Jones said he was thrilled to have Kaplan’s “depth and breadth” of knowledge on the subject of film enhancing the classroom experience for students. “He supplemented whatever subject was being discussed in class with his own personal experiences and things he had learned about movies through the years,” said Jones.”