Cambridge Ave

About us (CABA)

One fall day, in 1974, Anne Pinsen (246) and Nancy Shams

(226) decided to bring folks together on the street in a block

long garage sale and share the advertising costs. Others

thought that a garage sale was too much work. They

decided to cook and sell home-cooked food. They avoided

organizing, labeling, and hauling things and chose chopping,

blending, and mixing instead. Photos in the Record showed

long tables of food that were labeled with house numbers.

There was also a Shakespeare puppet show for kids but no

mention of music. Closing off the street made it a

pedestrian walk and safe for bicycling. Garage sale

customers could not drive by but had a festive United

Nations feel. Carol Brown (227) recalled yearly Southern

fried chicken competitions, so she only did veggies and

watermelon balls until Colin (227) made giant macaroons.

Each year, the leaders panic; “what if nobody comes?”

Also sorts of new folks came and went. The little old

Tibetan lady carried out her two paper plates covering her

home fried meat dumplings. Suddenly, the zooming, cycling

boys screeched to a halt. They formed a silent line behind

her and followed like ducklings until she put her plates

down. She stood back, turned and smiled. All the dumplings

disappeared. The boys said a polite “thank you” and bowed

down. No adults ever ate her delicious morsels for at least

five years. She never learned to speak English. Those boys

learned to be very polite.

So many other stories! Too many to fit here but just as fun

to recall. 49 years later, we are more ambitious to do more

and to help each other. The COVID pandemic created this

need in us. Instead of paper newsletters to reach out, we

have a website: CABANJ.org. It is your choice to join,

celebrate and work together, to solve problems, and share

ideas. See the office table during the party @ 227.

Now, we have infrastructure, a bank account, website,

budget and a calendar. Now, our leadership includes

president, vice president, treasurer, secretary/editor. That’s

about us. What about you?