At the Point Somers Point New Jersey USA

Bay Avenue Nightlife Revival?

2012-01-26T07:05:00.000-08:00

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2012

Somers Point Nightlife Revival?

Officials say Somers Point's nightlife is riding on the Route 52 causeway
By ROB SPAHR Staff Writer | Posted: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 1:00 am

http://m.pressofatlanticcity.com/mobile/article_2d517960-4700-11e1-b863-0019bb2963f4.html

Somers Point’s Bay Avenue once served as the backdrop for major motion pictures, such as the cult classic “Eddie and the Cruisers,” and as the venue for live music albums such as Chubby Checker’s “In Person.”

And, like a summer breeze, the music of major acts used to drift down the one-mile waterfront strip, which in its glory days of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s was a premier destination for nights of dancing and drinking.

Gone are those days. The iconic nightclubs have closed or reformatted, and the avenue is now quiet.

City officials expect the upcoming completion of the $400 million Route 52 causeway project will bring an economic resurgence in Somers Point. Some, however, say it will take more than that to make Bay Avenue a viable destination again.

“Without a doubt the bridge being done will help us, and will give us a panoramic view into Somers Point that will really beautify that area and make it look great,” Mayor Jack Glasser said. “But things have changed since the heavy rock and roll days of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. People want a more family-oriented environment, with good places to eat and things to do....That’s what Bay Avenue will have to be.”

Bay Avenue is a nationally recognized historic district that dates to the 1700s, but the more modern history of the avenue is what people most often discuss.

“As automobiles became more prevalent and it became easier for people to drive to Ocean City, especially in the ’50s and ’60s, that’s when the nightlife on Bay Avenue really started to mushroom,” said Sally Hastings, president of the Somers Point Historical Society. “It became a mecca, because Somers Point was the wet town (Ocean City was and is dry) and it offered the kind of music that was very popular at that time.”

“Where’s the action? … Where’s the fun? — At the ‘Point,’” read the back of Chubby Checker’s 1963 album.

“If you were looking to have a good time, Bay Avenue was ‘the’ place, this and Wildwood,” said Pat Pierson, who has owned and operated Bayshores II Restaurant on Bay Avenue since 1987. “It was where the excitement was.”

Atlantic City casinos brought a change and by the mid 1980s, the excitement on Bay Avenue was waning, although the avenue would still remain popular as a place to party.

“(Casinos) ... offered a different kind of entertainment that people were gravitating to,” Hastings said. “That’s when businesses here started to struggle and close.”

Today?

“Bay Avenue used to be like going to a playoff game at the Meadowlands,” Pierson said “Now it’s like going to a high school game.”

Even though Bay Avenue is clearly different than it was during its heyday, some, such as Lou DeScioli, the director of the city’s Economic Development Committee argue it’s still vibrant.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” DeScioli said. “Some people think that it would be good to have that New Orleans Mardi Gras-style atmosphere here again. But I personally think that the Bay Avenue of today is better off, in terms of the economic vitality of the city.”

DeScioli said the expansion of Shore Medical Center (the former Shore Memorial Hospital), the opening of multiple fine-dining restaurants and the construction of more, and better-looking housing have contributed to better residential and economic climates.

Most recent discussions on the avenue have been about its potential.

“Picture that you’re coming from Ocean City and you’re on the crest of the new bridge ... looking down in this bayfront community with a Key West-style boardwalk that follows the bulkhead along all those business and is filled with bikes, baby carriages and people meandering up and down,” said Greg Sykora, the vice chairman of the city’s Planning Board.

Sykora was referring to one of the concepts of the city’s new Vision Plan. The plan recommends the construction of a long pier with boat slips near the public beach and sailable replica of the USS Intrepid to serve as a tourist attraction. The changing of ordinances — such as those controlling noise and outdoor dining — to make Bay Avenue more business friendly were also suggested.

“And once that area is dredged, it will be a place where transient boaters can come to eat in our restaurants and enjoy our bayfront. And there will be a water taxi that goes back and forth to Ocean City,” Sykora said.

That vision — created during about a year of surveying Somers Point residents, business owners and visitors — may be unrealistic.

“I really think that the theater is more important to Somers Point than the bridge,” Hastings said. “The theater will have the ability to bring in 250 people every night there is a show. So while the bridge will make it easier to get to and from Ocean City, the theater will bring them here for a longer period of time.”

Jim Dalfonso, the chairman of the Theater Collaborative of South Jersey, which is renovating the Gateway Theater, said he was a little surprised by how much hope is resting on the Gateway, but said the theater can “absolutely” live up to it, as long as enough money can be raised to complete its renovation.

“Even on a night when we have a light house, there will be 200 people here and a percentage of those people will be going out to eat or drink afterwards,” said Dalfonso, of Upper Township, adding the renovation could be completed in nine months if enough funding is raised.

The currently gutted theater’s lobby and second-floor lighting room were recently framed out and the floor was replaced. And Dalfonso said he expects work on the ceiling trusses and roof to be completed by the spring, so work can then move toward rehabilitating the building’s exterior.

And once completed, DeScioli said, the theater offers the best short-term opportunity to increase commerce on Bay Avenue.

“One of the things that we, as a community, can do if we want to do something to immediately improve that district is support the revival of the Gateway,” he said.

But of everything about Bay Avenue’s history, some say the thrill of simply going there could be the hardest to revive.

“The music is gone forever,” Pierson said. “I just hope they can make Bay Avenue sing again.”

Contact Robert Spahr:
609-272-7147
RSpahr@pressofac.com

Fitzpatrick's Deli Buys JR's Saloon?

2011-12-27T17:38:00.000-08:00

Fitzpatrick's to JR's?

Word on the street in Somers Point is the venerable Fitzpatrick's Deli is buying JR's Saloon, formerly Sullivan's Tavern on Route #9 in Somers Point.

As one of the long established family owned neighborhood taverns in Somers Point, Johnny Sullivan's was popular with the locals, and had a juke box, regulation shuffleboard, dart board and pool table, where weekly leagues would meet to compete.

With cheap draft beer and an inexpensive grill where you could get a quick hamburger or cheesesteak, Sullivans at one time was in the same league as Gregory's, Charlie's, D'Orios and the Anchorage, as long established family owned businesses. When the others upgraded their kitchens and remodeled, Sullivan's stayed the same.

It survived pretty much unchanged into the new century until Charlie Ross, Jr., the local garage owner purchased it with the intention of selling the liquor license to Applebees. But then Applebees purchased the Bubba Mac Shack license from Randy Scarborough, and left Ross with Sullivans. So instead of expanding his garage, he remodeled Sullys, making it a brass and glass saloon with an expanded kitchen and featured live music on occasion. He also changed the name from Sullivan's to JR's.

FitzPatrick's Jewish Deli has been a Somers Point institution for decades, first down Route 9 (New Road) towards Linwood near Bethel Road when it was owned by Brian Fitzpatrick and his father. Brian's Jewish wife added the ethnic fair to the deli, though it wasn't strictly kosher.

Then Bill Hurst bought the place in 1989 and moved to the end of the Groveland Center strip of shops and expanded the take-out with eat-in counter and booths.

Now, with JR's, it is not yet known if they are going to move across the road and down the street or keep both places running, or whether the liquor license is going to go with the location.

There's a possibility that the liquor license will be sold to the Point Diner, another venerable Somers Point institution that has been looking to expand and do something different now that the circle is gone.

Stay Tuned for more updates on this story.

The Mayor & the Dictator - John McCann, Jr. & Manuel Noriega

2011-12-20T02:25:00.000-08:00

The Mayor & the Dictator – John McCann, Jr. & Manuel Noriega

The dictator is Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian strongman who was ousted by an American invasion and spent time in an American prison before being sent to France and home to stand trial for crimes committed there.

As his repatriation home brought Noriega back into the news, it also reminded me of his connection with former Somers Point, New Jersey mayor John McCann, Jr.

The son of John McCann, Sr., a bootlegger who became a legitimate North Philadelphia beer baron after prohibition, at the end of World War II McCann purchased the historic Bay Shores nightclub in Somers Point with his partner McClain, a builder who also owned the General Wayne Inn.

In tight competition with Tony Marts across Bay Avenue, Bay Shores had eight bars and two stages where bands performed continuously, until 2 am, when they had to close by municipal ordinance, so McCann and McLain built the Dunes nightclub out in on Longport Blvd. in Egg Harbor Twp., which could stay open all night and was promoted as “Dunes ‘Til Dawn.”

McCann’s son John Jr., helped manage Bay Shores and the Dunes, and with the support of the Somers Point Beverage Association, was elected Mayor of the strong Republican community.

Although he moved to Pittsburgh for business purposes, he commuted to Somers Point council meeting by helicopter and private plane until he resigned and relocated permanently.

Although his daughters were enrolled in a school and his wife was active in local civic and social circles, the McCanns suddenly disappeared, vacated their home in an exclusive neighborhood, and vanished.

Then it was discovered why, as McCann was being investigated for his role in a multi-million dollar drug smuggling operation that flew tons of cocaine to the United States from Columbia. When one of the planes crashed in Mexico, McCann knew his time was up and he and his family went into hiding.

A local Somers Point man said he ran into McCann in Canada, where he was stocking shelves at a Seven Eleven style store and eventually McCann was arrested crossing the border.

Tried and convicted with one of his in-laws, McCann admitted that he imported tons of cocaine from Columbia to the United States through Panama, where his planes stopped for fuel.

When called before a Congressional Hearing McCann testified that he personally met with Noriega on more than one occasion, including the time he gave him a suitcase with $250,000 in cash in order to allow his planes to refuel without having drug sniffing dogs inspect them.

Another time he visited Noriega in his office and Noriega showed McCann his – McCann’s CIA file, and the fact that McCann was the conservative mayor of a small town in New Jersey impressed Noriega.

McCann said he later learned that some of his pilots were also moonlighting for the CIA in running guns and drugs for the Contras in Nicaragua.

While he was from Somers Point, most of McCann’s drugs went to Detroit, where his brother-in-law supervised the distribution.

As a reporter covering Somers Point at the time I received a copy of McCann’s Congressional testimony and wrote a series of stories about his disappearance from Pittsburgh, surfacing in Canada, arrest, trial and Congressional testimony.

McCann took the rap for his wife, who later married his lawyer, and McCann died of cancer while serving time in a federal prison. We had exchanged letters and I attended a memorial service that was held for him at the balcony of the Waterfront, which had been built on the location of the former Bay Shores.

When it came time to write the history of Somers Point however, the story of McCann, as well as the story of another mayor, George Roberts, who also did time, were both left out of the book.

So now I’m telling the story, so it’s on the record.

Mike Pedicin, Jr. Album Release Party Friday

2011-11-01T02:55:00.000-07:00

Mike Pedicin, Jr. New CD Release Party for "Ballads - Searching for Peace"

Friday, December 2, 2011
Sandi Point Coastal Bistro
908 Shore Road, Somers Point, NJ

New on Jazz Hut Records
Michael Pedicin Ballads – Searching for Peace
CD Release Party – Friday Dec. 2, 2011 8:00 pm

Sandi Point Coastal Bistro

Michael Pedicin tenor saxophone
Jim Ridl piano
John Valentino guitar
Andy Lalasis bass
Bob Shomo drums

Now available through Amazon.com
CDBaby.com
iTunes and
www.michaelpedicin.com

“The cure for everything is saltwater...sweat, tears or the sea.” – Isak Dineson

www.sandipoint.com
Text Sandi 411247 To Receive discounts and event information

From the ocean to your plate – same day.
Celebrate your special occasion – private parties, bridal parties, birthdays, anniversaries or any special occasion. 3 banquet rooms (10-150) Holiday Gift Cards Available
Attitude Adjustment 4pm – 6:3pm Drink specials $5 martinis $5 bar appetizers

Sunday - Dinner at Dusk – Sunday – Thursday – All Night Dinner for 2 - $26
Sunday – Prime Rib Dinner – 3 courses for $15.95 (From 2pm)
Monday - Quizzo w/ DJ Shakedown 7pm
Tuesday - Two Sliders for $1
Fridays – Yvonne & Jack – Live music at the bar.
Saturday – Gabe Staino & Chris Rabb Film Fundraiser for “Borrowed Happiness.”
Saturday - The Frigedaires (7pm-10pm)
Saturdays - Lew London & Bob Mower Live music at the Bar (8pm-11pm)

Sunday Dec. 18- Gina Roche CD Release Party and Performance (“Thankfully”)

MIKE PEDICIN, JR. - Local Sax Legend and Son of One

Local jazz enthusiast and saxophone player Mike Pedicin, Jr. released his tenth recording, “Searching for Peace,” on October 18 and plans on performing a number of album release parties to promote it, including one this Friday, Dec. 2 at Sandi Point (Formerly Macs) in Somers Point.

As a child Pedicin played a toy saxophone on the stage at Bay Shores in Somers Point at the feet of his father Mike Pedicin, Sr., also a sax player whose hit song, “Shake A Hand” made No. 1 on the pop charts in 1957.

"I idolized my dad," Pedicin says. "He allowed me the freedom to learn about music, the saxophone, and life itself -- the way I needed to learn it."

While Pedicin, Sr. played the alto sax, preferred rock & roll and stayed close to home, Mike Jr. liked the tenor saxophone, played jazz and enjoyed traveling the world on tour with the best bands including those led by Maynard Ferguson, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Dave Brubeck and Pat Martino.

When Pedicin Jr. was 13 he says he had heard saxophonist Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson in person and Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on record, and just knew he wanted to spend his life playing saxophone. By the time he was 20 Pedicin began playing with the horn section at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios, working for Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell, playing on recording sessions with such artists as the Spinners and Lou Rawls.

Pedicin made his first album, “Michael Pedicin Jr.” (on Philadelphia International records) in 1980, which included the surprise hit "You,” and then went on tour with Dave “Take Five” Brubeck. After getting tired of traveling he became a performing-executive in Atlantic City casinos, hiring orchestras and playing with headliners like Frank Sinatra.

More recently Pedicin has been an integral part of the Somers Point Jazz Society and has played a weekly Monday night gig in the loft bar at Sandi Point (formerly Mac’s), where he will celebrate his new album with a CD release part on December 2nd.

In the meantime, Pedicin also earned a Ph.D in psychology, opened a practice that specializes in helping creative people, and formed the Brubeck Project (which also released a debut CD on Jazz Hut). Pedicin is also an Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of Jazz Studies at the Richard Stockton College.

In his new role as an educator Pedicin is taking jazz out of the nightclubs and bars, and even out of the schools, as he started teaching a series of jazz history lectures at the Ocean City Free Public Library (1735 Simpson Ave., Ocean City. 609-399-2434), every Wednesday (from 7 pm) through November 9th.

So the release of his new album is just one of a number of things that Pedicin has going on, but it is an important new milestone in a very creative career.

In “Searching for Peace” Pedicin releases seven songs, some standard ballads, a couple classics and a few originals. Among the ballads are “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and a 1962 ballad by John Coltrane. “From the time Train did Ballads, I’ve always wanted to do a ballads album, and I finally did it,” said Pedicin. “There is nothing quite inspiring and satisfying for me as playing a beautiful ballad.” Now we too can be inspired.

Playing along with guitarist John Valentino, pianists Dean Schneider & Barry Miles, bassist Andy Lalasis, local drummer Bob Shomo, they also do Wayne Shorter's "Virgo," McCoy Tyner's "Search for Peace" and Hank Mobley's "Home at Last." Two originals by John Valentino, "Blame It on My Heart" and "Few Moments" and Pedicin’s own "Tell Me" round out the new album.

Pedicin and his band will be playing several CD release shows this fall, with a Friday, December 2rd party at Sandi Point and the following night at Chris' Jazz Cafe, Philadelphia, with others to be announced, and we can expect more.

"I will never put my saxophone down until I can't play anymore," Pedicin says.

“My advice to any young musician, any young person, whatever it is you have a passion for, work hard at it, get good at it and dreams will come alive.”

Charles Carney

2011-10-31T21:12:00.001-07:00

Jersey Shore Loses Striped Bass Record

2011-10-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

Greg Myerson with his new world record 81 pound 14 ounce striped bass.

It's Official - Jersey Shore Loses Striped Bass Record to Connecticut

- By William Kelly

Jersey Shore Loses Striped Bass Record to Connecticut - By William Kelly

After holding the striped bass world record for over a half-century, Jersey Shore fishermen have reluctantly relinquished the title to a Connecticut fisherman who is just as passionate about the sport.

Not your typical weekend fishermen who enjoy being out in the sun and on the water with their kids and a line in the water, striper fishermen are a dedicated lot and serious about catching one of the most prized and delicious fish that’s out there.

At first the former record holder, Albert McReynolds of Atlantic City was incredulous, and didn’t believe it was true.

Having held the record for 29 years, McReynolds knew it was a difficult task, but also knew that there were bigger stripers out there. And after being informed of the details he called Greg Myerson and offered his congratulations.

Myerson, a six foot two, 43 year old, 275 pound former college linebacker and dedicated striper fisherman, caught his monster 81 pound 14 ounce striped bass at his favorite fishing hole near Long Island Sound on Thursday night August 4.

He was fishing from his custom built 17 foot wood skiff with his partner Matt Farina, and like McReynolds, they continued to fish some more after landing the record.

Myerson, a union electrician who lives in North Branford, Connecticut, keeps his boat at Pier 76 Marina, north of the Singing Bridge over the Patchogue River in Westbrook. He fishes every night he can, usually at his favorite spot, a fishing hole with big underwater rocks, best at slack tide at the high water mark when the moon is high and there’s a wind.

Using a Quantum Cabo reel and a short, stout St. Croix six-and-a-half foot rod, Myerson used a three-way swivel rig with a big eel for bait. As they were drifting, Myerson said he first felt a powerful strike, but lost half the eel, so they began to drift again. "I expected the fish would be still there, especially if it was hungry,” he said. Then it struck again and ran the reel. “Crashing the surface, its dorsal fin was so big it looked like Batman's cape.”

As he was fighting the fish, Meyers slipped on some deck eel slime and bruised his ribs on the side of the boat, but he eventually boarded it with a net held by Farina, who also caught a 48 pound striper that night.

A broken leader in the fish’s mouth indicated that another unlucky angler had almost snagged the record but the fish got away.

Since the stripers were running they kept fishing for awhile, and then put the fish on ice and went to a local seafood shack for a meal and to celebrate. Having weighted the fish at 82 pounds aboard the boat, he knew he had a big one and called ahead to Jack’s Shoreline Bait & Tackle shop in Westbrook to let them know he was coming. There was a crowd on hand by the time he got there as the news quickly spread by way of cell phones and twitters.

While Myerson was confident he had the new record, before it could be officially recognized it had to be certified by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) a long and detailed process much like a legal court case. “Approval of a record is a rigorous process," said Jack Vitek, International Game Fish Association (IGFA) records coordinator. The appropriate documents must be completed, and the fishing line and leader used to catch the fish must be tested, as well as the scale on which the weight was certified. Only then can it be certified 60 days from the time it was caught.

Myerson used 80 pound test, so McReynolds still holds the record for 20 pound test for his 78 pound 8 ounce striper caught off the Atlantic City jetty during a storm on September 21, 1982. McReynolds used a Penn 710 reel, a Rebel black back 5 1/2 inch silver minnow lure on green Ande 20 pound test line.

Two days after Myerson's catch, McReynolds said that he was considering legal action for fraud.” But after checking out the details the 64-year-old McReynolds later said that “Myerson deserves the honor of the new world record because Myerson is a real fisherman who earned it.”

Myerson said that he’s talked to McReynolds on the phone about five times. "He's been treating me with nothing but respect. He told me to lay low for a couple of days. Just enjoy it. He probably is the only person who knows what I was going through.” McReynolds also advised Myerson not to worry about what everybody says. It only matters what the IGFA says and they’ve issued their ruling.

On Wednesday, October 19, the IGFA committee officially certified the new catch – the record now stands at 81 pounds 14 ounces, and the title moves from McReynolds to Myerson and from the Jersey Shore to Connecticut.

Maury Upperman's former world record striped bass "Big Ben" at the wake at Gregorys.

Prior to McReyolds, a previous world record 62 pound 9 ounce striped bass was caught off Island Beach State Park by Maury Upperman of Margate, NJ. Upperman was aboard the boat Rascal, and nicknamed his fish “Big Ben” after the brand name of the bucktail lure that Upperman made. Elmer Gregory, who was also on the Rascal at the time, held a wake for “Big Ben” at Gregory’s bar in Somers Point, where the mount hung above the dining room doors for many years.

Upperman’s records was also broken by others, including Tony Stezko, a surf fisherman who caught a 73 pound striper off the Cape Cod beach in 1981.

When informed of the official IFGA ruling McReynolds said "Good for him. Now people in Connecticut have something to shout about."

[William Kelly can be reached at billkelly3@gmail.com]

Atlantic City Road Somers Point

2011-10-16T23:15:00.001-07:00

Looking down Atlantic City Road - Somers Point, NJ (now Shore Road)

New Photo of Tony Marts

2011-10-13T18:04:00.001-07:00

Lynda Van Devenater "Dunes Til' Dawn"

2011-09-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

Lynda Van Devenater – Summer of ’69

Summer of ’69 at the shore, turns into a season on China Beach

Nightbeat – the SandPaper, Friday, June 13, 2003
William Kelly

Lynda Van Devanter spent her last summer before shipping out to Vietnam at the Jersey Shore, but it was another beach – China Beach, that made her famous.

The author of the book Home Before Morning, on which the TV series China Beach was based, passed away recently.

It was sad to read her obituary in the Washington Post last November, dead before her time of systemic coliagen vascular disease, which she attributed to her exposure to the defoliant agent orange while stationed at a MASH field hospital in Pleiku, Vietnam, near the Cambodia border.

Her life, the short time she spent in Ocean City and Somers Point, her military service, post-war experiences, activism and the changes she caused in the way the military and the government treats its veterans should be honored and memorialized.

Writing her book was an attempt to exorcise the demons of war and post-traumatic stress disorder. It also touched the lives of thousands of vets who had a similar experience, and created a firestorm in Washington, where it forced the military to respond to veteran’s medical needs and include the women in the Vietnam Veterans memorial in Washington.

While her book is a gut-wrenching account of her Vietnam war experiences, it is the chapter on the short time she spent here that stands out. It captures the way it was like here in the late 1960s, when I too, came of age at the same time in the same place.

In her last summer of nursing school, before joining the Army and being sent to Vietnam, Lynda Van Devenater and her schoolmates lived in a group rental in Ocean City. They worked in the emergency room at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, studied their schoolbooks on the 14th street beach and danced the nights away at Tony Marts, Bay Shores and the Dunes.

It’s all recounted in the chapter “Dunes Til’ Dawn,” a brief, dreamy summer of ’69 that as she puts it, “we thought would never end.”

She met a local guy from Tuckahoe on the dance floor of Bay Shores, who she still calls Jonathan James Smith, aka, “J.J.,” a Vietnam veteran.

As Lynda tells it in her book, “We went out to dinner together, walked on the beach in our bare feet and laughed at the silliest things. On weekend, we would party with my friends and their newly acquired boyfriends. We’d start out at the Anchorage, a neighborhood bar that offered seven beers for a dollar, and leave there about ten o’clock to go dancing at Bay Shores. When Bay Shores closed around two, we’d head for a place called the Dunes, on the peninsula in Somers Point. It was open until six, and the theme was ‘Dunes Til’ Dawn.’ Those words were on the black T-shirts J.J. and I were given the night we won the dance contest.”

I’ve been unable to find J.J., the Vietnam veteran soldier from Tuckahoe who knew Lynda Van Devanter, but I know somebody must remember him.

Lynda is dead before her time, at the age of 55, though she did indeed make it home before morning.

And we are left with her account of the war, and the time she spent here with us.

Dunes 'til Dawn - By Lynda Van Devanter

Dunes ‘til Dawn – By Lynda Van Devanter (Chapter 4 of Home Before Morning The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1983, p. 51 to 61).

….Everyone who met J.J. – Jonathan James Smith – agreed that he was exceptionally handsome. My mother called him a "pretty boy," and at the beach, I would notice my friends stealing glances at him when they thought I wasn’t looking. With his short dirty blond hair and a face that looked boyish and yet rugged at the same time, J.J. bore a certain resemblance to Troy Donahue if you looked at him from a distance. Up close, he was even more attractive. He had these cute little laugh lines around the edges of his mouth and a cleft in his chin.

The thing that made J.J. most exceptional, however, was that he wanted to marry me, a girl who wore Clearasil to be every night and who still could live up to the nickname my sisters had given me when I was ten. They called me Crisco. It was sort for "fat in the can."

He said he loved me that night in August when he gave me the ring, a third-of-a-carat oval-shaped diamond. We had been lying on the beach, looking up at the stars, and holding hands. It had been the first time a boy spoke to me of love. I thought I was dreaming. But it wasn’t a dream. He wanted to marry me. And I said yes. Now, I was wearing that diamond.

J.J. and I had met two weeks after my graduation from nursing school, when he came up to me at Bayshores, a nightclub in Somers Point, New Jersey, and asked me to dance. He was one of the two best dancers I knew. The other was Barbara. Maybe it was fortunate for me that she wasn’t there that night.

I had gone to Ocean City with five other girls who also graduated from Mercy. Together, we got a house near the beach and jobs at a local hospital in Somers Point, where I worked the seven-to-three shift in the emergency room. Our plan was to spend all our free time during June helping each other to study for the Maryland state boards, which would be given at the end of the month. When the exams were finished, we would spend the remainder of our summer celebrating and waiting for the exam results. It was a good plan.

Each day, as soon as we were through at the hospital, we would grab our bathing suits and books and head down to the beach where we worked on our tans and our nursing fundamentals, quizzing each other on everything that had been covered in the previous three years.

Although Barbara came up to visit on weekends, she spent the summer with her father, who had orders transferring him from the Pentagon to the Presidio of San Francisco in September.

Gina was in Philadelphia, where she and her fiancé were making final plans for their wedding, which was to take place in July. "I’ll give him about one year of fun," she said. "Then we’re gonna start making a whole bunch of babies. None of this birth control crap. I’m going back to being a good Catholic girl."

That first night with J.J., we danced until we were both ready to drop. Then we danced some more. When the band played the slow songs and he gently eased my head onto his shoulder, I had new and unfamiliar stirrings inside. I could small a musky scent from his sweat and I felt both protected and afraid when his strong arms encircled me.

His parents had a house nearby in Tuckahoe, but he was only visiting. J.J. was a soldier, a buck sergeant, who had returned that week from a year as an infantryman in Vietnam.

"What was it like?" I asked.

"It sucked."

During the next few weeks, I saw him every day. He would join us for our study sessions at the beach and he sometimes served as our quizmaster, firing questions at us as quickly as his machine gun must have fired rounds at the Vietcong.

"What did you do in Vietnam?"

"I sweated all the time, took a lot of crap from people, and dreamed about the kind of car I would buy when I got back to the world."

"No, really. What was your job like?"

"I humped the boonies and got shot at too many times."

"But what was it like?"

"I told you; it sucked."

We went out to dinner together, walked the beach in our bare feet, and laughed at all the silliest things. On weekends, we would party with my friends and their newly acquired boyfriends. We’d start out at the Anchorage, a neighborhood bar that offered seven beers for a dollar, and leave there about ten o’clock to go dancing at Bayshores. When Bayshores closed around two, we’d head for a place called the Dunes, on the peninsula in Somers Point. It was open until six and the theme was "Dunes ‘til Dawn." Those words were on the black T-shirts J.J. and I were given the night we won the dance contest.

"Isn’t your father proud that his son fought in the war?" I asked.
"I don’t know."
"As soon as I finish my training, I’m going to ask them to send me to Vietnam."
"Don’t do it."
"Why not?"
"Because it sucks."

He had a way of dancing that was wild and flamboyant, yet somehow controlled. He seemed to be not just moving to the music, but a part of it, his body another instrument being played by the band. He would laugh in the middle of a song, get a faraway look in his eyes and then release an energy that would automatically draw everyone’s attention. Curiously, I found myself keeping up with him. It was fun. And exciting.

"What are you laughing at, J.J.?"
"Myself. I never knew I could feel this way about a girl."
"Which way?"
"You ask too many questions."

We made out on the dining room floor while my girlfriends slept in their beds. We used to kiss until it felt like my lips might fall off. I wanted to crawl up into his arms and spend my whole life there. My heart would beat so fast that I thought it was going to pound its way right out of my chest.

"I can’t breathe."
"I don’t care."
"But I’m afraid."
"Don’t be."

When Barbara came up two weeks after I’d met J.J., I couldn’t wait to let her in on the good news. She listened with amusement and then grabbed my wrist. "Three hundred and twenty-eight," she said. "Fastest pulse I’ve ever seen. Let’s see if I have all the symptoms right: heart palpitations, rapid pulse, chills and sweats, clammy palms, loss of appetite, and an overwhelming desire to jump someone’s bones."

"I didn’t say anything about wanting to jump someone’s bones,"
"But you do. Don’t you?"
"Maybe."
"Ah, ha,’ she said, "what is it?"
"Well, nurse," I said, "what is it?"

She furrowed her brow and paced the floor with her hands behind her back. "In my professional opinion, after three years at the best medical facility in the world, studying under the sharpest minds God ever created, I would unequivocably diagnose this rare affliction as a case of love."
"Oh, no," I said in mock horror. "Do you think it’s curable?"

"Curable? No," she said. "In your case it’s probably chronic. However, there is one possible way to keep it under control."
"Please, nurse, please tell me."
"You must jump his bones."
I was genuinely horrified. "What?"
"I can see that the patient doesn’t quite accept my professional recommendation."
I was too shocked to respond.
"There is also another possible way to help this case," she offered. "Perhaps a method that would be more acceptable."
"What is it?"

"Having him jump your bones," she said, "and make him think it’s all his idea. Of course, this is the more effective method, because it will call you to have a strong resolve while he spends some time whining, wheedling, and cajoling. Those elements are absolutely required so that he’s convinced it’s his idea and you’re only going along with it to please him."

"But I’m a virgin," I said.
"Ah, yea, that rare species: American Catholic Virginus. Probably of the type that believes in saving oneself for marriage."
"That’s right," I answered firmly.

Although I may have been sexually naïve that summer, I had the misforture to become known as "the penis expert" at the hospital. The unofficial title didn’t have anything to do with my virtue, or lack of it. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seemed that whenever I worked the ER, I always ended up with the males who had problems with their genitalia. One day I got his guy whose wife had put a wedding ring on his penis. He became hard and the ring wouldn’t come off. With the blood supply blocked, the penis wouldn’t go down, either. Although it may sound funny, any man who has been through anything like it probably doesn’t think of it as a laughing matter.

We tried a couple of different methods to remove the ring, including soap and grease. None of them worked. There was only one solution. I called the hospital’s engineering department. When we walked into the guy’s cubicle a few minutes later with a long-handled tool that looked like oversized cutting pliers, he looked like he would have a heart attack. "What are you going to do with that?" he asked.

"We’re going to cut it off," the doctor answered.

The guy put his hands in front of his private area. "No!"
"Not the penis, dummy. The ring."

Another time, I took care of a kid who had been surfing when he got hit in the groin area after falling off his board. The injury had stimulated his artery to shoot blood into his penis, which had become engorged. The bruise from hematoma had blocked the blood from returning through the vein, so he was in a state of pripism. "Jesus, Van Devanter," the doctor said. "If that’s the way you affect all men, spare me."

….The people who were making the jokes may have thought they were funny, but I began to feel that the real joke was on me. Here I was, a twenty-one-year-old girl who had probably seen hundreds of penises in nursing school and the emergency room, and I hadn’t yet seen a single one being used for its intended purpose. I began to feel like my virginity was an albatross. I had to get rid of it.

However, there was the problem of finding the right situation. When it happened the first time, I didn’t want it to be on the dining room floor while my girlfriends were asleep. On the other hand, I was afraid that if I waited for the perfect circumstances, I would end up being a fifty-year-old virgin, still anticipating "the night." Even at that, I still had to convince myself that the person I was going to make love with for the first time was the person I would marry.

J.J. came to Ocean City every weekend and some weeknights after he started working at Indiantown Gap. I began to notice how different he was from the boyfriends the other girls had. Once, when he fell asleep on the dining room floor, he woke up in the middle of the night screaming. When I mentioned it in the morning, he shrugged it off. Another time, he yelled something about "slopes" and "gooks" in his sleep. When I touched him to wake him out of the nightmare, he was covered in sweat. As soon as he felt my hand, he jumped on top of me, put one hand on my throat and drew back the other hand to smash my face. Then he woke up.

I was terrified. "Is something wrong?" I asked.
"Don’t touch me right now."
"Okay, but what’s the matter?"
"Just a bad dream," he said. "Go back to sleep." He rolled to his side away from me and I thought I heard him crying softly.

He had periods when he was moody and they could come at any time. He’d go into depressions for a few hours and wouldn’t talk to anyone. Maybe I should have questioned these things more than I did, but I figured him for the strong silent type. In a sense, his dark moods made him more intriguing.

Once, when a gas station attendant didn’t have any hi-test for J. J.’s Barracuda, J. J. to this wild look in his eyes and acted like he was going to kill the guy. He screamed obscenities, smacked his hand against the dashboard, and then floored the accelerator, leaving a patch of burning rubber and a perplexed pump jockey. He would sometimes come out of his depressions with a bang and immediately begin partying like there was no tomorrow. He could be a wild bronco – unruly, loud and full of fire.

But he was always gentle with me. I was sure I loved him, which was why, a few weeks after I got the engagement ring, I told him that I was ready to make love with him.

It was Labor Day weekend.

As soon as J.J. got over the shock, we began to search for a nice place. Unfortunately, trying to find an open room at the Jersey shore on Labor Day weekend is about as difficult as locating the Holy Grail. We started in Ocean City at seven o’clock. Next was Somers Point. Then Longport., then Margate, then Ventnor City and all the way past Atlantic City to Brigantine. It was all the same – NO VACANCY. We drove out to the parkway and headed south. By midnight, we had tried motels all the way down to North Wildwood and the only thing we had to show for it was frustration.

"Lynda," please, let’s go back to your house."
"I want more privacy."
"All right, then I know a great spot where we can park and …."
"No! Not in the car."
"Well, I guess we’re out of luck."
"I guess so."

We headed back to the Anchorage to drown our frustrations at seven beers for a dollar. J.J. had such a sad expression on his face that he looked like a little boy who had just seen his puppy run over by a train. We sat in silence, both of us staring into our beers until around two in the morning. Suddenly, J.J. snapped out of his mood. He grabbed my arm, swung me around on the stool, kissed me, and laughed., "How could I have been so stupid!" he asked.

"We’ve got a place we can use right under our noses, or should I say right under our heads."

"What are you talking about?"
"This place," he said. "There’s an old room upstairs. They used to rent it out. What do you say?"
"Well…."
He took that for a yea, because he was off the stool in a flash. A few seconds later I saw him standing in a corner, talking to the owner and nodding his head. He came back to his seat with a key in his hand and a broad grin on his face. "Shall we?"
"Are you positive it’s all right?" I asked.
"Come on, Lynda."

We walked up the back steps to what must have been one of the all-time sleaziest rooms in the world. It had boxes piled all around, a dirty mattress without any sheets, and a single exposed bulb hanging directly over the bed. Outside the window was a neon sign that kept blinking on and off. "It’s not much," J.J. said.

"You can say that again."
"At least it’s private, Lynda."
"Does it have bugs?"
"Bugs?" J.J. repeated. "Don’t be ridiculous. Let’s get comfortable."

I’ve waited twenty-one years for this, I thought only moments before I felt the quick sharp pain that marked the end of my virginity. I think it happened when the neon sign was off. Or maybe it was on. It was hard to tell because the damned thing flashed so quickly. I guess I must have been in love...

BK Notes: Andrew, the owner of the Anchorage at the time, doesn't recall the incident, but said it rings true, and that Lynda sent him a copy of the book when it was published. I was at the Reagan Airport cafe waiting for a plane to Dallas when I was saddened to read the following:

OBITUARIES Thursday, November 21, 2002
Metro.

Nurse Lynda Van Devanter Buckley Dies
By Graeme Zielinski
Washington Post Staff Writer

Lynda Van Devanter Buckley, 55, an advocate for women veterans whose influential 1983 memoir of her time as a surgical nurse near the Cambodian border, "Home Before Morning," painted a stark picture of the horrors of the Vietnam War and its psychological aftermath, died Nov. 15 at her home in Herndon.

Mrs. Buckley had systemic collagen vascular disease, which she attributed to her exposure in Vietnam to a combination of chemical agents and pesticides.

She was an Arlington native and a 1965 graduate of Yorktown High School. She served in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970 in a surgical hospital in Pleiku.

She described herself as an idealistic Catholic girl before she went over who thought, "IF our boys were being blown apart, then somebody better be over there putting them back together again. I started to think that maybe that somebody should be me."

Her illusions were shattered by the ugly realities of war, which she described graphically not just in her memoir, but in several other venues.

One of her letters home was included in a 1988 HBO documentary. In it, she described a Christmas Eve of amputations and death for wounded GI’s.

"This is now the seventh month of death, destruction and misery. I’m tired of going to sleep listening to outgoing and incoming rockets, mortars and artillery. I’m sick of facing, every day, a new bunch of children ripped to pieces," she wrote.

She wrote that she and other nurses and doctors turned to drink and drugs and sexual liaisons to find distraction.

Her book, written with Christopher Morgan, was the first widely published account of the war by a women veteran and among the first to deal with the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, from which she suffered.

By her account, she developed a drinking problem and failed at marriage and nursing jobs n California as she struggled with flashbacks and anxiety. One recurring image was the nightmare of a teenage soldier whose face had been blown off. Returning to the Washington area in the late 1970s, she finally found a counselor who diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder and she began to heal, in part by writing the memoir.

It was a commercial success and still is used as a teaching tool about Vietnam, but it initially attracted fierce criticism from some veterans, including nurses she served with, who claimed Mrs. Buckley was embroidering the experience for profit and to burnish her antiwar stance.

"Lynda’s exaggeration and the negativism of her book distress me terribly," retired Army Col. Edith Knox said in a 1983 interview with the Washington Post. "This book makes us look like a bunch of bed-hopping, foul mouthed tramps."

But still others supported the account. One, a former Army nurse, Lynn Calmes Kohl, told The Post that, "actually, what Lynda wrote was mild."

The book was inspiration for the television drama series, China Beach," which ran from 1988 to 1991.

Mrs. Buckley became the first executive director of the Vietnam Veterans of America Women’s Project in 1979 and retired in 1984. She continued to write articles, edit volumes of poetry, conduct seminars and give speeches after she retired.

Survivors include her husband, Tom Buckley, and their daughter Molly, both of Herndon; a stepdaughter, Brigid Buckley of Raleigh, N.C.; her mother, Helen Van Devanter of Sterling; and four sisters.

Bill McMahon's Point - The History & the Legends

2011-09-07T22:08:00.001-07:00

William McMahon’s Somers Point

The History & the Legends

Somers Point – The Old Town

SOMERS POINT is so rich in historical lore and legends it is hard to determine where the former terminates and the later begins. Like Salem, New London and Mystic Seaport, its background has the salty taste of the sea. Unlike New England ports it has failed to capitalize on these potentials.

The Point is better known as the birthplace of Lt. Richard Somers, the hero of Tripoli, than as the former haven of Blackbeard, Captain Kidd and those other picturesque characters of the Spanish Main. Also lost in history is the name of that daring women who, with the men away in Washington’s Army, saved the Point from shelling by a British frigate through a ruse. Gathering the women and children about her she directed such a commotion and dust storm among the tall weeds of the shore that the British were duped into thinking they were facing a strong shore battery. History tells us the frigate turned tail and was never seen again.

BRAVE WOMEN

Also lost in history and legend is that other gallant women of the Point, Mrs. William Eldredge, who during the War of 1812 aimed a mounted cannon at a longboat of British raiders and sent them scurrying back to their ship.

Legend or history, who can tell? Are the stories of pirate kings anchoring in the harbor and burying their stolen plunder among the reefs of the bay.

At one time a fort stood on Bay Ave., with cannon pointed seaward from the hillock as warning to all unwanted visitors to the harbor. The hillock was removed to make way for Bay Avenue.

FOUNDED 1693

The colony under its first known name Somers Plantation, was founded in March, 1693, by John Somers, whose family was an old and honored one in England. He left that country because of religious sentiments and became a follower of the famed Quaker, George Fox. Somers first settled in Dublin, Pa., later coming to the Point where he purchased 3,000 acres of land. Settling to the life of a country gentleman, he eventually became a representative of the Fourth Assembly of the Providence of Nova Casaria, which met at Pertha Amboy in 1706. He died in 1723 and was buried on the plantation. It was probably his eldest son Richard, who built the original Somers mansion.

Most famous of the clan was Lt. Richard Somers, born at the point in 1775. I n the war with the pirates of Tripoli in 1803 he commanded the Nautilus of Decatur’s fleet (sic. Stephen Decatur commanded the schooner Enterprise). On September 3, 1804 he commanded the ketch Intrepid during the blockade of Tripoli harbor. Commodore Bainbridge’s frigate Philadelphia ran aground and he and his men were taken prisoners. Decatur in a bold stroke destroyed the Philadelphia, and Somers proposed rescue of Bainbridge by exploding a fireboat in the midst of the pirate fleet, to cause enough confusion to accomplish the mission. 1500 pounds of powder were on the deck of the ketch.

Details of the affair were never actually known. It was over in a minute. Flames, bursting shells and reeling ships filled the harbor. It was a death blow to the pirates. Somers and his daring crew sacrificed themselves for the country. All were buried on the beach. A monument to Somers and his men stands in the Navy Yard at Washington. (sic. It is now at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis).

The Point honored its son with a monument in the little burial plot near the New York Avenue school. (sic Actually Richard Somers’ sister Sarah paid for the monument and is buried with it).

FINE WATERFRONT

Somers Point has three fine waterfronts – Great Egg Harbor Bay, Great Egg Harbor River and Patcong Creek. The early town was inhabited by seafaring men who operated four shipyards along Great Bay. Here they built the famous old Clipper ships. Robert Fulton’s steamboat put an end to the shipbuilding activities at the Point. Larger sips could not enter its inlet.

A ferry between the Point and what is now Cape May County was in operation prior to the Revolution.

When the first public road in Atlantic County was laid out in 1716 from Nacote Creek (Port Republic) the Somers Ferry was its terminus. A customs house stood at this point until quite recent years. It was also the terminus of a spur from the old railroad that ran from Camden to Absecon.

The community dates its founding as Somers Point to the year 1750. It was incorporated as a borough in 1886 with a total voting population of 48. A census taken in 1890 revealed its population at 191; by 1900 it had reached 308. It was finally incorporated as a city July 7, 1902, with George Anderson as the first mayor.

Sam McDowell

2011-09-07T19:52:00.001-07:00

Sir George Somers

2011-09-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sir George Somers - Admiral of the Jamestown Fleet
Wrecked at Bermuda - Somers Island and inspired Shakespeare to write The Tempest.
Said to be a distant relative of the Somers family that settled Somers Point a century later.

Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails.
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is dispair,
Unless I be reliev'd by prayer.
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

-The Tempest Epilogue, II, 11-20

Sir George was an Elizabethan privateer, merchant trader, MP, military leader and founder of Bermuda (The Somers Isles), England's first Crown Colony. He was also instrumental in ensuring the survival of the Virginian colony of Jamestown by sailing to their rescue from Bermuda (where he had been shipwrecked) with fresh food and supplies.

Sir George Somers was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, in 1554, the son of John Somers. A friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, his career as a merchant trader and privateer made him a wealthy man and he was able to buy Berne Manor in Whitchurch Canonicorum near Lyme Regis in 1587.

As a privateer he took part in the sacking of Caracas, Venezuela in 1595. In 1600, he commanded HMS Vanguard which captured a Spanish treasure ship. In 1601, he captained HMS Swiftsure during the attack of the Spanish fleet off Kinsale and helped repel the Spanish invasion of Ireland.
In 1603 he was knighted by King James I and became M.P. for Lyme Regis.

In 1606, he became a founder member of the Virginia Company, at the time the largest, most expensive and most ambitious colonial expedition by any nation, financed privately by merchants and noblemen.

In 1609 he was made Admiral of the Virginia Company's Third Supply Relief Fleet, sailing from London and then Plymouth, bound for Virginia. The fleet of 9 ships, with Somers aboard the flagship Sea Venture, set sail from Plymouth with fresh supplies and additional colonists for the new British settlement at Jamestown. Also aboard were John Rolfe (who would become known as the husband of Pocahontas) and the governor-designate of the settlement, Sir Thomas Gates. On 25th July during a hurricane, the Sea Venture was separated from the main fleet and was wrecked off Discovery Bay, Bermuda. Somers and all aboard the Sea Venture were presumed dead by those who continued on to Virginia.

In fact, the ship was wrecked between two rocks or reefs and all 150 crew and colonists were saved. This marked the beginning of the colonisation of Bermuda, England's first Crown Colony. At the time Bermuda was known as 'Virgineola' in tribute to the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. But with King James I now on the throne, the islands were renamed the Somers Isles, still today Bermuda's official alternate name.

To continue their journey to Jamestown the castaways needed new ships, so Somers and Sir Thomas Gates between them oversaw the building of the Deliverance and the Patience from the wrecked Sea Venture and local timber. There was no lack of food on Bermuda, and the castaways were able to live well on fish, sea turtle eggs, fruit and wild hog (which had been landed and left behind on the islands by Spanish pirates). So during their ten months on the islands, the crew and passengers started the Bermuda colony, building a church and houses.

On 10th May 1610 the two small ships set sail with 142 people and some supplies on board. On arrival some fourteen days later, they found the Virginia Colony almost destroyed by famine and disease during what has become known as the "Starving Time". Very few of the supplies from the Supply Relief Fleet had arrived (the same hurricane which caught the Sea Venture had also badly affected the rest of the fleet), and only 60 of the original 214 settlers remained alive.

Sir George Somers wrote to Robert Cecil reporting his shipwreck on Bermuda while on a voyage to Virginia, and telling of a famine at Jamestown so severe that people were forced to eat snakes. He planned to take the colonists by ship to Bermuda "the most plentifull place that ever I came to for Fishe, Hogges and Fowle". However the plan to abandon Jamestown was shelved upon the arrival of the fourth relief fleet commanded by Lord Delaware in July 1610.

It was only through the arrival of the ships from Bermuda and the arrival of the fourth relief fleet that the colony at Jamestown was able to survive.

Sir George returned to Bermuda in the Patience to collect more food, but he became ill on the journey and died "of a surfeit in eating of a pig", on November 9th 1610 in Bermuda. His heart was buried in Bermuda but his body, pickled in a barrel, was landed on the Cobb at Lyme Regis in 1618. A volley of muskets and cannon saluted his last journey to the church at Whitchurch Canonicorum where his body is buried.

The story of what happened to the Sea Venture is known through the work of Sylvester Jourdan, also from Lyme Regis, who was on board the Sea Venture and survived to record what had happened in a small book he wrote in 1610 called A Discovery of the Barmudas which was printed in London.
One of the backers of the Virginia Company was the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare’s patron, and it is possible that Jourdan’s book about the shipwreck on the mysterious island, ‘the land of devils and spirits’, was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest.

Lyme Regis is twinned with St George in Bermuda, however the town is named after St George, the patron saint of England, and not Sir George Somers, founder of the colony of Bermuda.

Somers Family Crest

2011-09-05T08:38:00.001-07:00

Dry Ocean City founded at Point Tavern

2011-09-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

The Dolphin House - on Shore Road between New York and Brighton Avenues, was a hotel, tavern and restaurant where the Lake family met to name the main streets of Ocean City in February 1880. Photo is from the collection of Bill Carr, who is said to be related to Braddock, the owner of the Dolphin House.

The Dolphin House

“Somers Point served as the port of entry for Great Egg Harbor for many years, with a custom's House located there from 1791 until 1912. In 1834, the town consisted of several farmhouses, a tavern and boarding house. By 1850 there were at least two hotels run by Richard L. Somers and Constantine Somers, [2] increased to three by 1872, with W. E. Braddock as the proprietor of the Dolphin House.”

Today there is a street behind Somers Mansion called Braddock Avenue and the island closest to Somers Point on the bay by Rainbow Channel is Braddock Island.

From History of Ocean City New Jersey by Harold Lee

“According to family legend, the patriarch of the family, the Honorable Simon Lake, agreed to place a $10.000 mortgage on his Pleasantville farm and orchard to provide working capital to start the undertaking….The two principal covenants were a hard and fast rule against the sale, manufacture or keeping for sale of alcoholic beverages, and a prohibition against commercialism on the Sabbath. These restrictions have passed down to all deeds currently held by property owners.”

“The first annual report of the founders sounded a clarion call to maintain the observance of Christian ideals on the island, as follows: ‘We cannot pander to vile appetites or propensities, or seek to advance our interests by any questionable proceedings…Let us not falter. A perfect Sabbath must be maintained…. To secure lasting prosperity and preeminent success this place must be run in the interests of our Holy Christianity.’”

“While these preliminary business matters were being organized, work also was proceeding to obtain title to beach properly. The title situation on the northerly part of the island was fairly clear, as all of the land from Oil Creek to Great Egg Harbor Inlet, with the exception of the Parker Miller property, was owned by members of the Somers family. This land was not for sale, but Simon Lake was able to persuade the family to part with their holdings. Title deeds to all of the Somers tract had passed to the Ocean City Association or its agents before the end of February, 1880….”

“When winter weather came the survey work was halted, but it was resumed in February of 1880. At that time the founding fathers came here with the surveyors and fixed a course for the four principal longitudinal streets. Their names were chosen on February 10 around a dinner table in the Dolphin House hotel at Somers Point. Mrs. Harriot Lake, wife of Simon Lake, named the most easterly as Wesley Avenue; Simon named Central Avenue; J.E. Lake named Asbury Avenue, and surveyor William Lake named West Avenue, appropriately, as it was the most westerly thoroughfare laid out at that time.”

When the world is going crosswise....

2011-09-01T03:52:00.001-07:00

When the world is going crosswise,
and things seem out of joint -
Just pack your grip
and take a trip
to dear old Somers Point.

Former Somers Point Mayor John M. Campbell

The Anchorage - 1985 Flashback

2011-09-01T03:29:00.001-07:00

The last working hours of the Anchorage Tavern in 1985 were like many others at the Somers Point bar. A few locals were sitting around, reminiscing over their drinks and a couple of strangers were playing pool in the back. The news had come suddenly, though not unexpectedly, that the tavern’s liquor license would be suspended for over a month for having served minors.

The day which would be the last of the year for the Anchorage began normally enough with Gary Duffy walking the dogs – Ebony and Ivory. But the night ended early the next morning when the door was closed to the public for the rest of the year, possibly forever. At least things there will never be the same again.

The dogs, which a customer had left as pups a year earlier, adopted the Anchorage as their home, just as many of the bar’s patrons later ended up working there. Duffy, resident caretaker, bartender and collector of old and odd things has practically kept the place together just to keep the bartenders working.

Hank, Pat, Tom and Joe would all be on hand at some time throughout the day as friends and longtime patrons drifted in to pay their respects as word of the closing spread through the neighborhood. Odds were given on when and if the place would be permanently closed, uprooted and moved down Bay Avenue to the vacant lot beside the causeway to Ocean City, where Orsatti’s and the Under 21 Club once stood.

That is the plan of a group of bankers and businessmen who want to save the century-old historic structure by moving it and constructing something more contemporary on its present site. It is one project that wasn’t conceived at the Anchorage bar; bankers don’t hang out there.

Andrew, the owner, hasn’t been around lately because he’s busy working on his latest scheme, the reselling of the Schuylkill Expressway. After buying up large ton-size chunks of asphalt, certified as “composed of genuine roadway from Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Expressway,” he’s been reselling them as souvenirs on television. The ads feather a Rodney Dangerfield type characters who is pulled to the side of the road and given no respect.

Little about the Anchorage has been getting any respect lately, and it would be in a much worse state of affairs if it wasn’t for Duffy’s handiwork. A premier scavenger who can be found gathering bottles and debris along the shoreline after most storms, Duffy is responsible for salvaging an array of neon beer signs, gadgets and artifacts that some would consider junk. Duffy however, sees something in these items that deems them worthy of appreciation, like the Anchorage itself.

At one time in recent history, the tavern’s F-Troop of regulars began their own private club across the street and called it Ramblewood Cove that seemed to actually appreciate the value of the neighborhood. When Hurricane Gloria swept through a few patrons who took refuge in the bar watched out the large porthole windows as Ramblewood Cove was swept away. The Anchorage was left intact. Then a full 12 hours later, just when it seemed like everything was okay, chunks of brick from an upstairs fireplace came crashing through the tavern’s ceiling, an omen that the chips may fall when least expected.

Non one is around anymore who remembers when the place went under the names engraved on the silverware Duffy dug up in the basement sand. Only the last 50 years are recalled by living witnesses, and only the last 30 are recalled in the lively stories and outrageous anecdotes that are best told by one of the half-dozen regulars who might sit at the front bar. They take turns buying rounds for everyone, including strangers, and propose a toast, sparking a story that has been told so many times everyone at the bar breaks up laughing as soon as it begins.

Some of the stories are being transcribed for posterity however since the Anchorage figures in three novels penned by Vietnam veterans. Bartender Hank wrote Bars, now being edited for publication. Neighbor John McGonigle is completing a novel about his experiences in Vietnam, and Lynda van Devanter, a nurse and former Anchorage patron, fondly recalls losing her virginity in a room above the bar in her recently published book Home Before Morning.

In the chapter Dunes ‘til Dawn, Van Devanter recalls how, after graduating from nursing school in Philadelphia she worked at Shore Memorial Hospital and met her first love.

“He came up to me at Bay Shores, a night club in Somers Point, New Jersey, and asked me to dance,” she wrote. “We went out to dinner together, walked on the beach in our bare feet and laughed at the silliest things. On weekends we would party with my friends and their newly acquired boy friends. We’d start out at the Anchorage, a neighborhood bar that offered seven beers for a dollar, and leave there about 10 o’clock to go to the other bars where the bands played – Bay Shores and Tony Marts. We were college kids striking out on our own, having one last fling before settling down to a career and family.”

Van Devanter describes how, on Labor Day, the last day of summer, her and her boyfriend decided to do it, but all the motels and hotels in Ocean City and Somers Point were booked solid, so they returned to the Anchorage to cry in their beers. Then someone introduced them to the owner, Andrew, who gave them a key to a room upstairs, where some of the bartenders lived.

She describes the upstairs as, “One of the all-time sleaziest rooms in the world. It had boxes piled all around, a dirty mattress without any sheets, and a single light bulb hanging directly over the bed. Outside the window was a neon sign that kept blinking on and off.”

“I’ve waited 21 years for this, I thought, only moments before I had the quick sharp pain that marked the end of my virginity. I think it happened when the neon sign was off. Or maybe it was on. It was hard to tell because the damned thing flashed so quickly. I guess I must have been in love.”

The neon light is now off, and the jukebox is quiet. But the songs that played on the last night the Anchorage was open weren’t much different from those that played there over the past 20 years.

It’s one of the all-time great jukeboxes anywhere, with a mixture of Jimmy Buffet tunes sprinkled with classic oldies – Dion’s “Runaround Sue,” the Isley Brother’s “Shout,” and Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife,” offset by the most popular “Penny’s from Heaven” and Springsteen’s “Glory Days.” The last seems appropriate now.

The Anchorage, the last of the Bay Avenue nightclubs, has seen its glory days. It will either reopen briefly in January before being moved, or the move will be postponed until next fall with the bar maintained in its present condition for yet one more summer.

In any case, someday soon, what the owner Andrew calls the dinosaur of Bay Avenue will someday become extinct.

Egg Harbor Township After Hour Joints

2011-08-31T09:11:00.001-07:00

Egg Harbor Township (EHT) After Hour Joints

For many years Egg Harbor Township allowed those liquor licenses within their jurisdiction to remain open 24-hours a day, and some of them did, especially those near Somers Point, where the bars were forced to stop serving at 2am and close by 3am.

Brownies Lodge, a rustic log cabin in Bargaintown was probably the first to become popular with the post-Somers Point crowd, and many old timers recall driving out there to continue the party after Somers Point had closed.

John McCann, Sr. and Dick McLain, the owners of Bay Shores built the most notorious of the after hour clubs – The Dunes, on Longport Blvd. at the intersection of where the roads from Somers Point and Ocean City came together.

Then there was Jack’s Grove, down past Route 9 on Mays Landing Road, just on the other side of the Patcong Creek. Jack’s was a laid back place under a grove of trees, but was renamed the Attic when a guy named Joe bought it and broke it up into two bars – one upfront with two pool tables, and another larger room in the back where bands played.

Joe sold the place to a group of guys who cleaned up the place and renamed it the Boatyard, and continued the live music tradition.

O’Byrne’s was a local taproom just on the other side of the bay bridge at Lousy Harbor on the Longport Blvd, that became the Mug and the Purple Dragon before Andrew Cornaglia bought it and renamed it Mothers, after the bar in the TV show Peter Gunn.

All of these places were either closed during the day or virtually deserted until around midnight when things would start picking up and they would get more crowded as the Somers Point bars let out. By 3 in the morning they were jamming, most of the them with live bands that didn’t even begin to play until midnight and continued to early in the morning. Dunes ‘Til Dawn was the slogan on the T-shirts.

The bands that played these places were special too. The Dunes had the best bands early on mainly because of their affiliation with Bay Shores, so many of the bands from there would go over to the Dunes when they got finished at Bay Shores and continue playing or jam with the band that had the gig.

Airport was the house band at Mothers for a few years, while Bob Campanell and the Shakes also played there a lot. Bob’s brother Gabbo had a band The Flys, whose equipment was destroyed when Mothers burnt down a year or so after Andrew sold the place to Charlie Brown.

Mike’s Towing was the band at the Attic for many years, and Mike and his pals would move to the Pocono mountain resorts for the winter after the summer ended at the Shore.

A lot of bands played Brownies over the years, including Jack Zwacki, Larry Hickman and Back Roads, which included Nancy and Tom, Jack Patch and Billy Mueller.

Today, none of these places even exist. Brownies is still there but after Joe Hoffman died his second wife sold it to some guys who operated it as a bust out joint for a year or two and then went bankrupt, and it now sits empty.

After Mothers burnt down its liquor licenses was sold and moved to the Cardiff Circle.

The Dunes was renovated into a sports bar by the Suttor family from Margate, who also owned, at one time – the Sailfish Café and Roberts in Margate, the Point Pub and the Owl Tree in Northfield.

Then they lost it and the Dunes was taken over by the State of New Jersey Division of Fish Game and Wildlife – and went from one wildlife to another.

Judge Ed Helfant

2011-08-28T03:48:00.000-07:00

Judge Ed Helfant and Flamingo Motel and Lounge (Press of Atlantic City file photos)

Judge Ed Helfant

Somers Point municipal judge Ed Helfant served during the heyday of the Bay Avenue bar scene, and milked it for all it was worth.

Setting up night court the police – Lynn Bader’s Raiders would pick up people for drunk and disorderly, DWI, urinating in public, open containers or any other infraction they could us, and bring the offenders directly to court where they were usually fined whatever cash they had in the pockets.

Helfant was well known in Atlantic City as well, and had the right connections so that when someone needed a legal favor Helfant could usually arrange it, for the right price.

According to Phillip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti, a top underboss of the Scarfo mob family in Atlantic City, Helfant was paid off to arrange a light sentence for Nick “the Blade” Virgilio, but failed to come across. He took the money but Virgilio got a lengthly sentence.

When Virgilo finally got out of prison, he got Scarfo’s permission to wack Helfant, and did so while Helfant and his wife were having dinner at the Flamingo Lounge on Pacific Avenue.

Leonetti was later indicted and convicted for other crimes, and then flipped, entering the Federal Witness Protection Program in exchange for testifying against his former pals – including Scarfo, Virgilio and New York mob boss John Gotti.

John McCann Somers Point Mayor (1972-1974)

2011-08-27T02:54:00.000-07:00

John McCann, Jr.

Before Bayshores was demolished and the Waterfront built, one of its last owners was John McCann, Jr., the son of the long time owner, former bootlegger and Philadelphia beer baron John McCann, Sr.

The McCanns lived in a big historic house on Bay Avenue across from Smith’s Pier where they had built a Olympic diving pool for McCann’s daughter while McCann, Jr. was reared to take over the nightclub business.

John McCann, Jr. grew up working at Bayshores and the Dunes, and could often found sitting on a stool at the front door with a wad full of money in his hands, taking the cover charge to get in.
After college he became a successful businessman and following George Roberts, was elected mayor of Somers Point (1972-1974). He served as mayor while at the same time directing a Pittsburgh company with his brother-in-law. On occasion he would fly in by helicopter to attend city council meetings before eventually relinquishing his local post to concentrate on his Pittsburgh business.

The Dunes after hours club in Egg Harbor Township was sold to State Senator Pat Dodd, who also flew in by helicopter to oversee the Dunes before that too was eventually sold to the N.J. Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, going from one wildlife to another.

Like his father the bootlegging beer baron, John McCann, Jr. became something of a pirate himself, as his financial success, it turned out, was based in part on smuggling cocaine from Columbia via Panama. In Panama, where he refueled, he personally brokered a deal with then dictator Manuel Noreaga with a $200,000 bribe. Once when McCann visited Panama, the dictator showed him his CIA file, which also indicated the CIA’s support for Noreaga. Both appeared to have the Reagan administration’s support to smuggle the drugs, possibly as part of the CIA’s contra operations in Nicaragua.

But after one of McCann’s planes crashed in Mexico, McCann and his wife and two children disappeared, mystifying his Pittsburgh neighbors. After a federal warrant was issued for him while he was on the run, a former Somers Point neighbor on vacation in Canada ran into him stocking the shelves at a convenience store. McCann was later arrested while trying to cross the Canadian boarder back into the USA, and he later died at the Federal Penn at Merion, Illinois where Noreaga is now living.

A local wake was held for McCann at the upstairs loft at the Waterfront, the site of the old Bay Shores, and he is remembered locally as a good guy who got involved with some bad people and paid his dues for his mistakes.

George Roberts - Somers Point Mayor (1968-1972)

2011-08-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

George Roberts and the Sale of the Old Anchorage

One day, as the story goes, a man no one had seen before walked in the front door of the Anchorage, looked around and announced that he had bought the place and would soon be the new owner.

When someone called Andrew on the phone and asked him, and he didn’t know anything about it, everybody laughed and treated the guy like a crank.

Bill Morris however, was very serious, as he had recently arrived from Florida where he had met with George Roberts and gave him a serious deposit on the property.

George Roberts former Mayor of Somers Point (1968-1972) was a local real estate agent whose office was on the north east corner of Shore Road just across the street from City Hall and Charlie’s bar. Roberts had known Andrew’s father Henry Corneglia so when Andrew considered selling the Anchorage he gave the listing to Roberts along with a sale price that he didn’t think would be seriously considered.

Roberts apparently took the money and never reported it to Andrew, and Andrew tried to oppose the deal and took it to court. Even with three lawyers working for him, Morris won the case because Andrew had given the listing to Roberts and Roberts was acting as an agent for Andrew, even if Andrew didn’t get any of the deposit or agreed to sell.

The sale of the Anchorage however, was just the tip of the iceberg, as it quickly become known and other people realized that George Roberts didn’t just suddenly lose his scruples but had been “robbing Peter to pay Paul” for sometime, and had been involved in dozens of real estate schemes that led to many people losing their money and homes.

Roberts was eventually convicted on a number of counts, and served some time, but was released from prison early and within a short time was a free man, despite all the harm and distress he had caused.

The Anchorage was sold, and Morris was the new owner, so as the days and nights went by, there was a sense of doom that settled over the place, as everyone awaited the inevitable end to arrive.

One day a young man in a suit and tie and briefcase came in and he was there to handle some of the sales and tax matters, to make sure everything was on the up and up, and often sat down at the back bar with Andrew. The guy was Irish, a Notre Dame grad, clean cut and straight arrow, at least when he first came in, but after awhile, he was drinking, smoking and gambling with all of us and we became friends.

When the final day was announced, a party was scheduled and word went out that the last day of the Anchorage would be the best.

INQUIRER ARTICLE:

Former N.j. Mayor Guilty In $3 Million Fraud The Somers Point Retiree Admitted Bilking 35 People - Many Of Them Elderly - In Two Schemes

February 11, 1993|By Pam Belluck, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

At an age when most people are living in quiet retirement, former Somers Point Mayor George Roberts - known as "Gentleman George" to some - was a busy man. He was running a scheme that defrauded 35 people, many of them elderly, out of more than $3 million.

Yesterday, Roberts, 75, a real estate agent who was mayor from 1968 to 1972, pleaded guilty to selling fraudulent mortgages and taking money for bogus investments from April 1987 to April 1992, in what prosecutors called Atlantic County's single largest fraud case in memory.

Prosecutors said it was a classic Ponzi scheme, in which new investors' money is used to pay off earlier investors.

In his plea in Atlantic County Superior Court to charges of theft by deception, Roberts agreed to accept a sentence of seven years in prison and to pay $3,612,694 in restitution.

However, Roberts' attorney, Bud Bennington, said his client doesn't have any money to make restitution.

The plea prohibits Roberts from appealing his sentence, which is scheduled to be imposed on March 12.

Roberts' victims included an 83-year-old woman who lost $400,000, and a Catholic church that lost $60,000. The church, the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Corbin City, was told in late 1991 that the loan would help one elderly woman pay for treatment at a cancer research center and another woman pay off bills that had piled up, said the Rev. Henry Lovett. The women never got the money and the church never got its money back, he said.

"He was introduced to us as a real gentleman, a nice old man with white hair," said Father Lovett. "I feel so stupid. I mean, charity is supposed to be personal, and we never contacted the old ladies personally to see if they were getting it. And this was a loan with interest, something the church shouldn't really do."

Most of Roberts' victims were from the Jersey Shore area, but some were from Virginia, Alabama and Florida, said Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey S. Blitz. Individual losses ranged from $6,600 to $647,000. Several victims have filed civil suits that are pending.

Roberts defrauded his investors in two ways, Blitz said. One scheme involved selling fraudulent mortgages on properties that were not actually being mortgaged. Roberts would usually provide a fictitious title insurance policy, a forged mortgage and a fake settlement sheet.

American Heroes at Tripoli's Martyr's Square

2011-08-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

Old Map of Tripoli Harbor shows the sinking of the Philadelphia and the explosion of the Intrepid and the old castle fort.

American Heroes Buried at Martyr's Square Tripoli

Martyr's Square (aka Green Square) - Epicenter of the Libyan Revolution

The Arab revolutions that are sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East center around the public square in each city, and in Tripoli, that is Martyr’s Square, which was renamed Green Square when Mohmmar Gadhafi assumed power in a 1969 coup, but will assume its original name of Martyr’s Square after Gadhafi is gone.

But the only real martyrs actually buried at Martyr’s Square are eight American sailors, three officers and five men who died in the explosion of the USS Intrepid in Tripoli Harbor on September 4, 1804.

Their commander, 25 year old Master Commandant Richard Somers, was born in Somers Point, New Jersey, the son of a Revolutionary War colonel and privateer captain who attended the Philadelphia Free Academy with Stephen Decatur and Charles Stewart.

When President Washington ordered Captain John Barry, the Wexford, Ireland born “Father of the US Navy” to prepare some young men to be officers in the new US Navy, he chose Stewart as his first officer and Somers and Decatur as his Midshipmen.

A reluctant Congress finally approved financing for a Navy when North African Barbary Coast pirates began plundering American merchant ships, ransoming their crews and demanding tribute to stop the practice. Instead, Americans responded with the cry, “A million for defense but not one cent for tribute,” and built a fleet of frigates and schooners to fight the pirates. Somers, Decatur and Stewart served under Capt. Barry on the frigate USS United States, built in Philadelphia, and then were given command of their own schooners.

Lt. Andrew Sterett aboard the schooner USS Enterprise was the first to encounter a pirate ship and won the engagement handily. Lt. Decatur was then given command of the Enterprise while Somers had the schooner USS Nautilas, both capturing pirate prizes, including a ketch they rechristened the USS Intrepid.

Unfortunately, the frigate USS Philadelphia ran aground while chasing a pirate coarser into Tripoli harbor and the ship and its 300 man crew, including Captain William Bainbridge and Lt. David Porter, were taken prisoners and held in the dungeons of the old castle fort.

Under the command of Captain Edward Preble, Somers and Decatur each led flotillas of gunboats against the pirate fleet in Tripoli harbor, and Decatur led a commando team into Tripoli harbor at night aboard the Intrepid, recaptured and sunk the Philadelphia and escaped without any casualties.

The success of that raid led Preble to approve another plan, to outfit the Intrepid with explosives as a fire ship, sail it into Tripoli harbor at night, aimed at the anchored enemy fleet, light a fuse and escape in row boats. But something went terribly wrong, the Intrepid exploded prematurely killing all thirteen men, who were found washed ashore the next day.

Their bodies were identified by the surgeon from the Philadelphia, and buried by a party of prisoners, “one cable’s length” (720 feet) east of the walls of the old castle fort, in two nearby but separate graves, one for the three officers and one for the ten seamen.

Besides Somers, the officers included Lt. Henry Wadsworth (uncle of Longfellow), the first officer, and Lt. Joseph Israel, who had come aboard after they had gotten underway and requested permission to stay aboard, the unlucky 13th man.

They were buried on the shores of Tripoli, and there they remained, until 1930, when an Italian army road work crew uncovered the remains of five of the men. They were reburied about a mile away in what is known as Old Protestant Cemetery, a walled enclosure that also includes the remains of about a hundred others, mainly Christians from various European embassies who died there.

In 1949, the USS Spokane put into Tripoli harbor, and honored those buried at the cemetery site with a formal ceremony, that included a bagpipe band and the mayor of Tripoli, Yousef Karamanli a namesake and a descendent of the Yousef Karamanli who led the pirates two centuries ago.

Throughout the fifties and sixties, the cemetery site was maintained by the Officer’s Wifes Club of nearby Wheelus Air Force base, but the US military were forced out when Mohmmar Gadhafi assumed power in a 1969 coup.

The cemetery site was then forgotten about and was overgrown with weeds and debris when two American tourists stumbled upon it, and wrote about it in American Legion Magazine (May, 1977). The article inspired many Americans, especially veterans and family descendents of Richard Somers and Henry Wadsworth, and they sought the repatriation of the remains of these men and the eight others who are buried in the original grave site outside the castle walls in Martyr’s Square, which Mohmmar Gadhafi had renamed Green Square.

By the 1980s however, the United States was practically at war with Gadhafi, who was held responsible for terrorists attacks against American soldiers in Europe. In response the United States bombed Tripoli, and hit Gadhafi’s tent, allegedly killing his adopted daughter. (She later reappeared after the revolution).

When relations between Libya and the United States later thawed after the turn of the century, members of the Somers family and Somers Point officials personally asked Gadhafi to allow for the return of the remains of these Americans, and he agreed. It was the United States Department of Defense and the US Navy who balked. All of their studies of the cemetery site indicate it was a secured and well marked site, and because the men were honored in the 1949 ceremony, the Navy concluded the cemetery should be the permanent resting place for those men.

Their ruling did not mention or include the original unmarked mass grave sites outside the walls of the old castle fort, which is now Martyr's Square, the epicenter of the revolution, political speeches and public gatherings. The only real martyrs buried there are the eight American naval heroes.

In 2011 however, after the Arab revolution spread to Libya, and Green Square became a rally point for the pro-Gadhafi demonstrators, the original grave site once again came into primary focus, and Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R. NJ) asked for assistance from Rep. Mike Rogers (R. Mich), the powerful head of the House Intelligence Committee.

In April 2011 Rogers, a veteran himself, introduced a House Resolution that called for the Secretary of Defense to do whatever is necessary to repatriate the remains of the American military in Tripoli. And ater the national directors of the American Legion endorsed the measure, Rogers attached the resolution to the Defense Appropriations Act, which was passed by the House in early May and is now being considered by the Senate.

Now that Gadhafi is gone, Green Square has been renamed Martyr’s Square for the tens of thousands of young Arabs revolutionaries who died fighting tyranny, and for freedom, justice and democracy – the same things that Somers, Wadsworth, Israel and the men of the Intrepid died for over two centuries ago.

Now the revolution has made it to Martyr’s Square in Tripoli, remember the officers and men of the Intrepid, and the fact that they are still buried there in unmarked graves, and should be repatriated home so they can be properly buried with full military honors.

The Anchorage Tavern - Historic Marker

2011-08-25T03:29:00.000-07:00

Anchorage Tavern Sold
Morris to Mahoney

Ocean City Gazette
By Bill Kelly

The historic Anchorage Tavern, Somers Point’s oldest continuously operated business has been sold to chef Don Mahoney, who said that he plans no major changes, at least until the end of the summer.

Settlement on the $2.3 million deal was set for last week. That number includes the transfer of the liquor license, which has already taken place.

Originally built for bird gunners and baymen at the end of the last century, some date the building to the 1880s, it was called the Trenton Hotel at first, but the Anchorage name has been maintained for the pat hundred years and it has only changed hands through three families in the past half-century.

Victorian-era photographs show women in gowns and men in suits and ties relaxing on the ornately-trimmed porch during a time when life was lived at a slower pace.

Before St. Josephs church was built, Catholic masses were held in the living room of a private home until 1910 when Father John F. Sweeney, pastor of St. Augustine’s in Ocean City, began taking the ferry boat to Somers Point to say mass in the ballroom of the Anchorage, where there was no shortage of wine for the services.

After Prohibition ended in 1933, the Anchorage was issued liquor license C-5, the fifth legal license and the only one that retains its original name. For awhile the hotel and bar were operated by Judge Larry Brannigan, who was known as the local Judge Roy Bean and “the law east of Patcong Creek.”

From Brannigan the Anchorage was passed on to Charles Collins, “who sold it in 1938 to Lucille Cornaglia Thompson, who sold it to her brother Andrew “Henry” Cornaglia in 1945. From South Philadelphia, Cornaglia and his wife Luci (nee Corcione) made the place famous for good Italian food popular with families. “It was a running joke in the family that she could cook for 120 but not for four,” said Andrew Cornaglia, Jr., who took over the operations of the Anchorage when his father died in 1965.

Although he was only 20 and not old enough to drink, Andrew found himself suddenly responsible for operating the hotel, bar and restaurant. “When my father passed away, I didn’t know vodka from gin, and if it wasn’t for my mother, I would not have been able to sustain the first couple of years.”

While Bay Shores and Tony Marts were famous for the live music, the Anchorage sported a piano that, legend has it, was played by the late, great Nat King Cole, although it was the Seven-for-One draft beers that made the place famous. The Anchorage didn’t originate the idea of serving seven beers for a dollar, but they made it popular and famous with a line of 7 for 1 T-shirts that are colletor’s items today.

Pat Pirano, who worked there during the helicon days recalled that, “I was enthralled to be a 19-year old bartender in a place that was considered a legend to my generation. It was wall-to-wall people and lines to get in, with the fire marshal controlling the crowd at the door. There were 10 bartenders, nine bouncers and two glass-pickers working most nights from 1978 to 1981. Then the drinking age went back to 21, and it took a few years for it go become a local bar again.”

From the days of Andrew’s father the hotel rooms were occupied primarily by bartenders and musicians who worked the other bars and restaurants in town, with the hotel eventually closing in the 1980s and the upper floors shut off.

[See: Lynda Vandevater’s beautiful story of losing her virginity in a second floor room on Labor Day weekend in Dunes Til’ Dawn, a chapter from her book on life as a nurse in Vietnam – which became the basis for the TV program China Beach.]

Andrew Cornaglia, Jr. went on to open Mothers, an all night joint on the Longport Boulevard, and two places in Atlantic City and one in North Philadelphia before returning to operate the Anchorage as a neighborhood saloon in the early 1990s.

Andrew placed the Anchorage on the market with local real estate broker George Roberts, a former Mayor of Somers Point. Roberts apparently accepted a $100,000 down payment on the Anchorage from Bill Morris, without telling Cornaglia about it. Roberts’ subterranean sale of the Anchorage was just the tip of the iceberg, as it eventually was revealed that Roberts had a Ponzi scheme going and was responsible for the theft of millions of dollars in mortgage loans and bogus sales of properties. Roberts was convicted, served some time and was released. Although Andrew contested the sale the courts ruled that he had a legal listing and sold the property to Morris.

Morris didn’t close the Anchorage for a day, but began renovations and restoration efforts immediately, keeping the tavern pretty much the same with the juke box and two pool tables in the back. But he added a fireplace and reopened the ballroom as a dining room. Morris also introduced the then-novel concept of leasing out the kitchen, first to Tyson Merriman, who went on to purchase and restore the Tuckahoe Inn in Beesleys Point, and then to Don Mahoney.

Ironically, Andrew Cornaglia had tapped Mahoney to be his chef when he was trying to purchased the Island Inn on the Longport Boulevrd, but when that deal fell through Mahoney took over the Anchorage kitchen.

With local roots that go back to his early days working in Daniel’s kitchen, Mahoney is a hands-on chef who can be always be found on the job. So, after six years at the held of the Anchorage kitchen, when Bill Morris and his family decided to put the place on the market, Mahoney was already in a position to leverage a deal.

The liquor license changed hands a few weeks ago, while settlement on the property was yesterday, ushering in yet another era for Somers Point’s oldest and most enduring institutions.

“The Anchorage has always been something you could hold on to,” said longtime patron Nace Brenner. “It’s always been the Anchorage. When everybody else changed, the Anchorage always stayed the same. It’s like an anchor.”

As for any major changes, Mahoney said, “I’m not going to do anything until after the summer is over, then maybe we’ll enclose the porch, but if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

Bay Avenue Nightlife - Historic Marker

2011-08-25T03:28:00.001-07:00

300 Years at the Point - Preface & Epilogue

2011-08-25T03:22:00.001-07:00

PREFACE

Three hundred years seems like a long time. 1693 was a time as foreign to us as space travel would have been for the people who lived then. In geological and evolutionary time however, 300 years is merely yesterday, a few heartbeats away. In Europe, 1300 years is old, while 300 year old buildings are quite common. For Americans, three centuries is an old as can be, and only a small fraction of the 10,000 years the Lenni Lenape lived here without any technological changes.

It isn’t just the centuries, the decades, the years; it is the generations and the spirit of the people who lived at that particular place over time. It is the succession of people who made Somers Point what it is today.

“The illusion that times that were are better than those that are has probably pervaded all ages,” Horace Greeley once mused. Yet we look to return to yesterday, the better days that we long for. “Those were the days,” and indeed they were special. However, it is a fallacy, I believe, that today is not as good as yesterday, and that are children can never enjoy life as much as previous generations enjoyed it.

Styles change, times change, but certain variables remain. People still like good music; they like to dance, and fall in love with each other; they like the times in which they live. It is the people who make a community and Somers Point, in 300 years, has developed a sense of community that should endure as long as our civilization.

We must strive to preserve what is historic, remember what is good, and like the Lenni Lenape before us, retell the stories of these lives, so a record of our existence and the spirit of our lives will endure forever.

EPILOGUE

In the end, the treasures of Somers Point are the same today as when they were first discovered by the early settlers. The cool breeze blows off the bay, shellfish and seafish abound, and the small town atmosphere endures.

The legends of the pirates and smugglers, though, are repeated to a new generation, and the myths are carried into a new century. The tales of the secret brick tunnel persist. Some argue the tunnel exists today. It is a passageway, they say, that when opened, will contain the treasure trove of pirates, the Somers’ family jewels and a rum runner’s forgotten stash.

Deeper still are the stone and bone relics of the Lenni Lenape Indians. Beyond that, where the tunnel opens into the sun, are the sparkling Bay waters and the pristine wilderness that existed for hundreds of thousands of years before the first settlers came 300 years ago, just yesterday.

Local Delicacy - Snapper Soup

2011-08-23T04:46:00.000-07:00

Snapper Soup

Snapper soup is a real local delicacy and hard to find mainly because snapper turtles are hard to get, mean to catch, sloppy to clean and complicated to cook properly, but those who have been doing it for decades – say over fifty years, keep doing it because, well it’s really good to enjoy and a fine tradition to continue.

You don’t have to be a connoisseur to appreciate snapper, but if you like it, you know where to get it – Greogory’s, the Crab Trap and the Point Diner are three places you can get it locally.

Although there is a white, southern style snapper turtle soup that’s mixed with vegetables, but I’m talking about the local snapper turtle soup recipe that is of a thick, brown gravey, the origins of which can be traced to Old Original Bookbiiners (125 Walnut Street, Philadelphia).

As Craig LaBan called attention to it in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Sunday, June 12, 2005), “We are famous for preserving every other aspect of our history, but why, I wonder, has Philadelphia let so many of its old restaurants drift away? Our dinning scene is many things – youthful, sophisticated…but we have virtually no connection left to the grand restaurants of yore, those brassy old spots where snapper soup tastes as it did when our grandparents tipped the sherry bottle with extra fervor, but we are poorer the fact, and missing a crucial piece of the family puzzle.”

LaBan described the true bill as tasting like “dark as molasses with a trace of fragrant spices and a citrus zest that dances across the sherry-splashed broth like an exotic trade wind.”

While LeBan was critical of the snapper soup when Old Original Bookbinder’s reopened in June, 2005 under the stewardship of John Taxin, he lamented that“…we are poorer and missing a crucial piece of the family puzzle.”

Well, after over a century, if the Taxin family lost the recipe for their original snapper soup, Gregory’s has it.

Just as the Taxin family maintained Bookbinder’s traditions through generations, the fifth generation of the Gregory family is now running Gregory’s in Somers Point. Headed by cousins Walt and Greg Gregory, sons of the late Walt and Elmer Gregory, the sons of old man “Pop” Gregory, the kitchen today is in the hands of Joe and Paul Gregory, graduates of the Culinary Arts Institute at Atlantic-Cape College.

Few people, other than the above gentlemen, know the family recipe for snapper soup, as it was passed on to Pop Gregory from a Bookbinder’s chef back before the war at the original Gregory’s bar in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. Pop Gregory spiced it up a little bit to make it unique, and put it on the menu when he opened Gregory’s in Somers Point in 1946.

Pop taught his sons Elmer and Walter and Rosie Gregory, and they taught Greg Gregory, who remembers when they used to buy their snappers from a Piney and kill them in the backyard by cutting off their heads and letting them run around headless. Then they hanged them from a clothes line to dry them before cutting off the shell and skinning the meat.

One of the benefits of living in these parts is being so close to the Jersey Pines were there is an almost unlimited supply of snapper turtles that thrive in the fresh water cedar lakes.

Having grown up summers on a Mirror Lake lagoon in Browns Mills, in the heart of the Jersey Pines, I know how to catch snapper turtles, as I did it many times unintentionally. They’re pretty nasty devils with a sharp bite and once they get a hold of something its like a vice and they don’t let go. While they prefer baby ducks they pull down from a mother’s brood as it crosses the lake, they are caught on fishing line or in nets. My former neighbor used to catch them and only keep the big ones – two feet or more. If you get one on the dock you give it the end of a long stick to bit and then you can pick it up by the tail, but must be careful that it doesn’t get a hold of one of your fingers.

Now the snapper turtle meat comes pre-cleaned and cut but is still supplied by the grandson of Pop Gregory’s original supplier. It’s a family thing all around.

For awhile Gregory also let a non-family member in on the secret, and before he went to work down at Dolphin Dock, Jimmy Simmons would go by Gregory’s whenever they needed a new batch of snapper soup and prepare it. Simmons was also one of the most prodigious fishermen on Great Egg bay, who caught his share of stripers, but died tragically when a boat he was working on fell off its mount and crushed him.

In any case, making snapper soup from scratch is a very difficult and complicated process, so much so that it’s not really worth it to make it yourself, and just going out to buy a bowl is easier and you couldn’t possibly make it better than they do.

Gregory’s prepares a large multi-gallon pot two or three times a week, depending on the season, and they spice it up to make it a little bit different from the Crab Trap or Point Diner, and have their regular clientele who come in once or twice a month just for the soup.

Served with bread and butter, crackers and a snifter of sherry that’s added for flavor, you have all the workings of a true local delicacy. And don’t eat the bay leaf, that’s only one of the traditional touches.

Bookbinder's Snapper Soup INGREDIENTS: WATER, TOMATO PUREE (WATER, TOMATO PASTE), COOKED EGG WHITE, CARROTS, WHEAT FLOUR, SHERRY WINE, MARGARINE (SOYBEAN OIL, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, WATER, SALT, LECITHIN, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM BENZOATE AS PRESERVATIVE, ARTIFICIAL COLOR AND FLAVOR, VITAMIN A PALMITATE), ONIONS, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, SNAPPER TURTLE, SALT, SPICES, CARAMEL COLOR, DEHYDRATED GARLIC

• 1½ pounds beef or veal knuckles, 2-inch pieces
• ¼ cup butter melted
• 1 cup chopped onion
• ½ cup chopped celery
• ½ cup chopped carrot
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 whole clove
• 1 small bay leaf
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• ¼ teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 2 10½-ounce cans beef broth
• 8-ounce can tomatoes
• 1 pound frozen turtle, thawed and diced
• 3 cups water
• ½ cup dry sherry
• Dash bottled hot pepper sauce
• 1 lemon slice
•

In a shallow roasting pan combine the first 10 ingredients. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Push the bones to one side; blend in flour.

Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake 30 minutes longer. Transfer to a soup pot, add beef broth and tomatoes. Cover, simmer 45 minutes. In a large pot combine turtle meat and water. Cook, covered, until meat is tender, about 1 hour. Remove meat to cool. Reserve 2 cups cooking liquid.

Add turtle meat, reserved liquid, sherry, hot pepper sauce and lemon to soup pot. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove lemon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

800 Bay Ave. Corleto's Marina Sold

2011-08-23T03:22:00.000-07:00

Sketch of Corleto's by Robert Barnsey "Caveman" Barnes

Ocean City Gazette
Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1996

Somers Point’s oldest and largest unrestored landmark is in the process of being sold, renovated and restored into an upscale hotel, restaurant and marina.

Corleto’s Marina at 800 Bay Ave., on the corner of New York and Bay avenues, overlooks the Somers Point municipal beach and the bay. It has remained pretty much the same as when Ernie Corleto purchased it in 1962 when it was known as the Point Tavern.

Corleto, a former Philadelphia gas station operator, sold the liquor license, which was relocated to the Somers Point Shopping Center and is now the Point Pub. Corleto continued to run the marina. For the past 35 years Corleto’s has been popular with the local fishermen and boaters mainly because it’s one of the last vestiges of old Somers Point.

John and Susan Meyer, neighbors from down the street, have entered into an agreement to purchase the property, a deal contingent on the city approving the plans they have to establish an upscale hotel, restaurant and marina.

That approval was granted Monday by the Somers Point Zoning Board.

Ernie Corleto, now 79 years old, has decided to retire and has moved most of his stuff out, including the vintage 1934 pickup truck with boat crib and derrick that graced the front yard for the past quarter century.

“They were part of history; now they are history,” he reflected during a recent tour of the property.

Whatever the future holds, the place, which dates to the mid-1800s, has an intriguing past.

“When I moved here 36 years ago,” Ernie recalls, “a neighbor came over and told me the building was 112 years old,” which would date it to around 1850.

In previous incarnations it was the Grand View Hotel, when Mrs. M. Cormey was the proprietor, while more recently it was the Point Tavern. For awhile it was run by the Latz family, who popularized the Knife & Fork restaurant in Atlantic City.

Ernie Coleto bought it from two guys – McGeen and Gliven, though he knows it had been operated by organist Bobby Brian. Another entertainer, Bill “Vaughan” Comfort, is also known to have performed there when it was the Point Tavern.

Ernie Corleto has been on the scene daily since 1962.

“They’re all good memories,” he says with a smile from under his old seaman’s cap. “I don’t have any bad memories. I didn’t have any problems with people. All the summers were god ones and no one year stands out, except for the storms. The one thing that really stands out, the only thing that really worried me was the storm of ’62. That was the first year we were here. But we weathered that one.”

And it’s been relatively smooth sailing since then.

“We spent a lot of time sitting on the steps. That’s a daily thing,” he explained. “A lot of fish were caught and a lot of fish stories were told.”

The place has changed over the years, but only a little bit.

From old photos you can see where various additions were added to maintain the structure over the years, where there were wings and rooms that are no longer there. Now additional changes are planned.

John Mayer reached an agreement with Corleto to purchase the property, an agreement contingent on Mayer receiving approvals and variances from the city. Their plans have met the approval of the city Historic Commission, the Zoning Board granted the project a use variance, area and bulk variances plus preliminary and final site plan approval at their meeting on Monday, Dec. 9.

Mayer and his wife Susan told the Historic Commission they intend to refurbish the marina, restore the building and reopen as a Cape May style upscale bed-and-breakfast hotel/marina that will include eight rooms, a restaurant and 100 boat slips.

Renown interior designer Charles Tilly, who the Mayer’s met in New York, will handle the interior decorating, making the hotel and interesting place to visit.

The Historic Commission could only rule on the exterior plans, which include the replacement of the cedar shingle roof with fiberglass shingles and the construction of porches, decks and a turret on the southwest corner of the building. While the Historic Commission approved these plans and commended the Mayer’s desire to restore the historic structure.

Other issues remain, however, including the acquisition of a liquor license which will be harder to obtain in Somers Point, where there are already 20 of them.

Although a license to serve the public was sold recently for approximately $150,000 (Daniels to Doc’s), and there is at least one other license for sale, the cost of a public license would be a small part of the $2 million considered necessary for the project. As the building was the site of the Point Tavern for many years, it has such a previous use. But Mayer also wants to consider the option of obtaining a private club license.

As the hotel will be an upscale one, little off-the-street clientele is expected, but there will be an in-house yacht club and fishing club as well as facilities for special occasions and functions, like weddings and meetings when booze will be required.

“At one time it was a classy joint,” Mayer said. “People used to come here all dressed up in top hats and tails and I want to make it classy again.”

According to Mayer’s plan, “It will have a split personality, with a seashore motif on the water side, where the ballroom and restaurant are, and a Victorian there on the street side, where the rooms and guest quarters are located.”

A new kitchen is planned for the north wall, a small bar on the south side, with glass walls facing the bay. Eight guest rooms on the second and third floors will have their own baths, and bay view or balcony. One will be a two-room suite, while all the guests will share a picturesque lounge overlooking the water.

The marina will accommodate 80 seasonal boat slips at competitive prices, with 20 slips reserved for transients. A barbeque pit is planned for the boaters.

“People come here from all over,” Mayer said. “They buy a boat, they want to go out on the water, they bring in their fish, they want to meet people, they want to eat and drink with their friends and they want to be a part of this area.”

As John Meyer puts it, “We want to take the old Grand View Hotel and turn it into a nice place again. Not just for Somers Point; we want to make it the jewel of the Jersey Shore.”

As the former owner of Maye’s Marina, which is now the Somers Point Marina, Mayer has the background and ability to operate the marina, while his wife has experience in marketing.

Susan wants to utilize her experiences with shopping mall developer Crown and Mary and Hecht department stores. As Susan Meyer told the Historic Commission, “There’s nothing like it on the water, even in Cape May. It’s an unbelievable property that’s always been there, but its been ignored. People ride by and just don’t see it. It’s almost invisible at the moment, but we want to make it a landmark attraction for the area.”

A report on the development of Bay Avenue also featured Corleto’s as the primary attraction.

“We’re very excited about the Bay Avenue project and firm believers that it’s going to work,” Mayer said.

A city sponsored study concludes that the Bay Avenue project, in order to succeed, would have to be a joint effort on the part of the city, state and the private sector. So far the private sector is making all the major moves and it will be hard for the city to hinder preserving, restoring and upgrading historic properties.

Asked what he’s going to do first now that he’s retired, Ernie Corleto said, “I’m going to take Lucky the dog to have a shampoo before I take her home to Longport.”

Nine years of the boatyard will be hard to soak out of the old salty dog.

Ernie and John Mayer at Ernie's Marina

2011-08-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

PHOTOS By Rich McNally

Ernie ran his marina on Bay Avenue next to the Somers Point Beach for decades. Before Ernie it was the Point Pub, a very popular place run by Vaughan Comfort, an entertainer who played the piano. The liquor license was moved to the Somers Point Shopping Center. After he left the Point Pub Vaughn Comfort opened a new joint on the circle, which was up on pilings and featured singing waiters. One of the singing waiters from North Jersey got his job when he auditioned with Frank Sinatra, who didn't get the job because Vaughn Comfort said he couldn't sing loud enough.

Ernie converted the huge dining room into a bait and tackle workshop for his boatyard, and the place stayed pretty much the same for a few decades, as Rich McNally's photo attest.

John Mayer's family owned Mayer's Marina on Bay Avenue, down the street from Ernie. He sold his own marina and bought Ernie's, and took me and Rich McNally for a tour of the place before he renovated it.

Shortly after these photos were taken, John Mayer had the place totally rebuilt at the cost of over $2 million. He tried to establish a private yacht club that could offer liquor to its members, but when that effort failed he sold the place to Dr. Ira Trocki, who moved the liquor license from the old Tony Marts/Egos, which now sits empty.

Johnny Mayer moved to Florida with his wife. For awhile the place was known as Tuckers, and served fine Italian food. Trocki has since leased it to a variety of people who opened it under different names. I think it is now called by its address. Eight hundred something Bay Avenue.

Some of the Regulars at the Old Anchorage

2011-08-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Nick and Kathy on the left and Winnie with the camera on the right. That might be Lisa in between.

The late Great Charles Cox and Barbara

Pat the bartender

Did Jersey Shore Lose Striper Bass Record?

2011-08-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

Did The Jersey Shore Lose the World Striper Record to Connecticut?

For the past five decades South Jersey Shore fishermen have held the last two striper bass world records caught by Maury Upperman of Margate and Albert McReynolds of Atlantic City, both seasoned striper fishermen.

Now however, another seasoned striper fishermen, Greg Myerson of Connecticut, has laid claim to the title.

Myerson, a six foot two, 43 year old, 275 pound former college linebacker hauled in a 88 pound 1 ounce striper bass while fishing with his friend Matt Farina on his wooden 17 foot skiff in Long Island Sound on Thursday night, August 4th.

Myerson, a union electrician who lives in North Branford, Conn., fishes every night he can, usually at his favorite spot, a fishing hole with big underwater rocks, best at slack tide at the high water mark when the moon is high and there’s a wind.

Myerson keeps his boat at Pier 76 Marina, north of the Singing Bridge over the Patchogue River in Westbrook, Connecticut.

Using a Quantum Cabo reel and a short, stout St. Croix six-and-a-half foot rod, Myerson used a three-way swivel rig with a big eel. As they were drifting, Myerson said he first felt a powerful strike, but lost half the eel, so they began to drift again.

"I expected the fish would be still there, especially if it was hungry,” he said. Then it struck again and ran the reel. “Crashing the surface, its dorsal fin was so big it looked like Batman's cape.”

As he was fighting the fish, Meyers slipped on some deck eel slime and bruised his ribs on the side of the boat, but the fish eventually gave and they boarded it with a net held by
Farina, who also caught a 48 pound striper that night.

A broken leader in the fish’s mouth indicated that another unlucky angler had almost snagged the record but the fish had got away.

Since the stripers were running they kept fishing for awhile, and then put the fish on ice and retreated to a local seafood shack for a meal and to celebrate. Having weighted the fish at 82 pounds aboard the boat, he knew he had a big one and called ahead to Jack’s Shoreline Bait & Tackle shop in Westbrook to let them know he was coming in and there was a crowd on hand by the time he got there.

“Approval of a record is a rigorous process," says Jack Vitek, International Game Fish Association (IGFA) records coordinator. The appropriate documents must be completed, and the fishing line and leader used to catch the fish must be tested, as well as the scale on which the weight was certified. Then it can be certified 60 days from the time it was caught.

The IGFA rules for applying for a world record include:
- the fish must be weighed on certified scales;
- an IGFA record application must be filled out and notarized
- photos of the angler and the fish, the scales and the rod and reel must be submitted with the application
- plus samples of the leader and a minimum of 50 yards of the line. They test the line for breakage point to determine line class records.

The current record is still held by Albert McReynolds – 78 pounds 8 ounces, caught on Sept. 21, 1982 during a rainy storm with 25 knot winds and waves crashing on an Atlantic City jetty. McReynolds broke the record previously held since the 1960s by Maury Upperman of Margate, who caught his 62 pound 9 ounce striper nicknamed “Big Ben” in a boat north of Atlantic City, on his own handmade bucktail lure.

According to former Press of Atlantic City sports editor Mike Shepherd “Two days after Myerson's catch, McReynolds called The Press to say that he was considering legal action for fraud.”

But when reached later, the 64-year-old McReynolds said that “Myerson deserves the honor of the new world record because Myerson is a real fisherman who earned it. McReynolds said it is not about the money or honors, but about the joy of fishing. That was his biggest advice for Myerson - just do whatever makes him happy.”

Myerson said that he’s talked to McReynolds on the phone about five times. "He's been treating me with nothing but respect. He told me to lay low for a couple of days. Just enjoy it. He probably is the only person who knows what I was going through.”

Myerson said McReynolds, who spent years defending the catch from others who claimed it was caught by a net and even received hate mail, also advised him not to worry about what everybody says. "Keep fishing, get out of the house, stay focused on fishing," McReynolds said

"Everyone has been pretty cool," Myerson said. "Nothing has changed. I'm just going to keep on fishing. I want to start a company that sells online. It would market T-shirts, caps, fishing rods and maybe reels."

Bill Kelly can be reached at Billkelly3@gmail.com

A Tale of Three World Record Stripers

2011-08-12T00:25:00.001-07:00

From the Top: The latest striper caught last Friday (Aug. 5) by Greg Myerson weighted in at 88.1 pounds, Al McReynolds of Atlantic City and his record 78 lb 8 oz fish and Big Ben, and the wake of the previous world record 62 lb 9 oz caught by Maury Upperman of Margate.

Myerson caught his striper off Long Island Sound, just off Westbook beyond the Outer Southwest Reef with a large eel on three-way swivel rig and Quantum Babo reel and short, staut St. Croix rod. McReynolds caught his with an artificial lure off an Atlantic City jetty in September 1982 during a Noreaster. Upperman caught Big Ben with his own home made bucktail lure in the 1960s.

Levon & the Hawks at Tony Marts

2011-08-12T00:21:00.000-07:00

Spring 1965

Levon Helm & the Hawks, just off the road from having toured with Ronnie Hawkins, left Rockabilly Ron but kept the name the Hawks. They were tired from moving around from road house to road house and needed a place to settle down and be in one place for awhile, so their booking agent, Colonel Harold Kutlets, sent them to Tony Marts in Somers Point, NJ.

Somers Point, just across the bay from the dry - no alochol - island of Ocean City "America's Greatest Family Resort," had nearly two dozen bars, nightclubs, restaurants and liquor stores within a few square miles. Tony Marts on Bay Avenue was one of the half dozen rock & roll bars that lined the bay - and was just across the street from Bay Shores, another legendary rock & roll club.

Dressed in suits and ties, the Hawks - Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel and Levon Helm were considered the House Band and played three sets a night, every night for six to eight weeks in the summer of 1965.

Other bands came and went, as did a number of headliner acts, including Conway Twitty, before he went country.

They lived in rooms above the club, formerly Schicks Hotel - a German Rathskeller bar that Tony Marotta had bought in 1944 with proceeds from the hot dog and sandwich stand he ran at St. James Street on the Atlantic City Boardwalk (where the Irish Pub is located).

Tony remodeled the place a number of times, adding bars and stages each time so eventually there were three stages and eight bars, and they would all be going at once on a Saturday night in the summer when 2,000 people would pass through the doors.

They played through mid-August 1965 when Levon got a phone call from New York. It was Bob Dylan. He wanted to know if Levon & the Hawks would back him for a series of concerts he had booked at Forest Hills and Newport.

Levon later said he had, at that point, never heard of Bob Dylan and asked, "Who else is gonna be on the bill?"

"Just us," Dylan said to the incredulous Helm.

But some of the other guys in the band had heard of Dylan, a folk singer, and the Byrds had made Dylan's song "Mr. Tamborine Man" a hit. Dylan was well known in folk circles, but was not yet mainstream, and he apparently wanted to see what it was like to plug in his acoustic guitar, "go electric" and go with the rock & roll revolution that was in the air.

Legend has it that Dylan came down to Tony Marts and saw the Hawks play, and maybe that happened, but if he did, he didn't introduce himself.

Levon and Robertson and some of the Hawks went to New York and met Dylan and decided that they'd like to try working with him once they met Albert Grossman his manager and Grossman's secretary Mary. Mary was from Canada, and knew the Hawks from their hometown, and when Dylan and Grossman asked her who she thought was the best rock & roll band around, she named the Hawks. Grossman tracked them down at Tony Marts, and though they wanted to play with Dylan they were under contract to play in Somers Point until after Labor Day weekend, the busiest weekend of the summer.

When they explained the situation to Tony, the strict Sicilian grumbled, but he liked the "boys" as he called them, because they were gentlemen who called him "boss," and they played by the rules, unlike the drug-crazed nuts who would shortly follow.

Tony let them out of their contract so they could go off with Dylan, and even threw a farewell party for them.

Tony called Colonel Kutlets and told them that the Hawks were leaving and he needed a new band for the Labor Day weekend, so Kutlets sent Tony a new group - Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, who were running with a new hit song, "Devil with the Blue Dress On."

Levon and the Hawks moved up to New York and got to know Dylan enough to back him at Forest Hills, a large outdoor tennis stadium, where Dylan at first came out alone with his acoustic guitar and played to the primarily folk music crowd. Then the Hawks came out and tuned up their electric equipment and when Dylan donned an electric guitar they began to boo.

Dylan didn't care, and turned up the volume and played, and eventually the crowd came around, but some of the Hawks didn't like it. Especially Levon, who after a few shows, packed it in and went home saying he didn't enjoy being booed.

But other Hawks stuck around, and played with Dylan at the Newport Folk Fest where they were booed again, and they went to England to play a major festival. When they returned home Dylan was involved in a motorcycle accident, so they stopped playing for awhile while Dylan recouperated at his manager's home in upstate New York at Woodstock, which had been a thriving artists colony for decades.

The Hawks followed Dylan there, and liked it, so they took out a lease on a large, pink, split level house they called Big Pink and jammed in the basement. Eventually the neighbors began to refer to them as "the band," and they sort of just took on that moniker as Dylan healed and began to visit and jam with them. Garth Hudson, the organist and best musician of the lot had a reel to reel tape recorder that he used to record many of the basement jam sessions, tapes that would later be bootlegged as the legendary "Basement Tapes."

Now with Grossman's support, The Band released their first LP - "Music from Big Pink," said to be one of the most influential albums of all time.

They also let their hair and beards grow and took on a down home back country look.

Tony Mart's Scrapbook Revisited

2011-08-10T02:27:00.000-07:00

Carmen Marotta - On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City (Photo Press of AC)

Carmen Marotta – Interview with Bill Kelly
Sunday, November 15, 1992
Marotta residence, Gull and Bay Avenues, Somers Point NJ

Bill Kelly: I’m with Carmen Marotta. Carmen how old are you?

Carmen Marotta: I’m thirty six years old.

BK: Your father Anthony Marotta owned Tony Mart’s Café.

CM: In 1944 my father purchased it and began renovating it. At the time it was known as Schick’s Tavern.

BK: What did he do before he came to Somers Point?

CM: He operated a hot dog stand and sandwich shop at St. James Place and the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, and he called it Tony Mart’s Luncheonette. He was the operator, he worked the grill and the counter and my mother was a waitress, counter girl and made sandwiches.

BK: Your father was born in Italy?

CM: He was born on the north coast of Sicily, in the province of Mesina, in a little town on a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean. The town is called Naso, which means nose in Italian because if you look at a profile of the mountain, it is nose like in appearance. It’s near Capo De Lano, the Cape of Orlando, a resort on the north shore.

BK: Is your mother from there too?

CM: No. It’s a funny story about my mother and father. My mother was born and raised in what is colloquially referred to as Ducktown in Atlantic City, near Blake Street and Georgia Ave, but my mother’s mother was from Naso. My mother’s father, my maternal grandfather is from Mesina, the capitol city of the province of Mesina, which is approximately 30 kilometers from Naso. So when my father came to this country he had, as one of his potential contacts, people from Naso in Atlantic City.

BK: What year were you born?

CM: 1956.

BK: What are your first memories of the club?

CM: I would say my first memories of the club were running around there as a child. Do you want me to just sprout off what’s coming into my head?

BK: Yes.

CM: Sitting in a car talking to Mrs. Tattler, who was Tommy Tattler’s wife. He was a talent and booking agent. Running around the front of the bar, playing with the bouncers, being in the bar when it was open and when it was closed, eating cherries and drinking cokes. Being in there. My very first memories go back to, I can recall things from 1961 or 62, when I was about five or six years old. The Fall Guys playing the “Alabama Jubilee” and “Tiger Rag” and doing the Sunday night Showtime when they would do a Dixieland, Southern type show and dance on the bar and play “When the Saints Come Marching In,” in sort of a mummers kind of way.

The Fall Guys were influenced by the Spike Jones kind of comedy groups. They were a lounge group that adapted themselves to the Tony Marts summer scene rock & roll type of thing.

BK: You have a brother and a sister?

CM: I have a sister Tina – Catina by birth, is eight years older than me, and could provide a lot more about the fifties and early sixties, naturally. And my little brother is 14 months younger than me, Tony, Anthony Marotta, Jr.

BK: Lets go through the Book – the Tony Marts Scrapbook.

CM: Here’s a photo of Charlote Kinsten with my mother. This would be circa 1964. she was probably my father’s first Go-Go girl. Now George Naame told me that my father didn’t like Go-Go girls. Now I didn’t realize this. I don’t remember it. Because my dad literally advertised No-Go-Go and George Naame had Go-Go girls at the Elbow Room in Margate, which is now Jerry Blavat’s Memories. George Naame is parenthetically, is one of the few people left still operating a club from my father’s generation. There aren’t many left. I don’t think there’s a handful left. My dad did eventually go with the Go-Go girls, and this Charlotte Kirsten is one of the first that he had. You’ll see her name in some of the ads in the scrapbook here.

CM: Reading the newspaper headline – July 23, 1961 – Thirsty Teen Throngs Besiege Point- Here’s pictures of Mike Calao checking age cards and Lynn Bader the Chief of Police in a white dinner jacket checking IDs. Mike Calao is now a councilman. He was a policeman who became deputy chief.

Lynn Bader. They called the police “Bader’s Raiders” in those days. There’s a wonderful picture of my father. Thinner there than I’ve ever seen him. And who was playing in Somers Point in those days – the legendary and infamous Peter Carroll and Tido Mambo. What’s funny is that Tido Mambo’s bass player is living out in Tuscon now with Dale Stretch, Bruce’s brother. And (my brother) Tony and him kibbutz all the time and talk about the old days.

BK: Whatever happened to Tido Mambo?

CM: I don’t know. Peter Carroll, I don’t know either. These guys just drop off the face of the earth.

BK: It says here capacity 1000. I think it was more than that. You know I have the Tony Marts capacity sign hanging in my garage and it says 1300.

CM: yes, it was 1300. I know dad used to do paid admission of over 2,000 in those days, as far as how many people came through the door on any given night. And that was before the lounge, the 1300 was with the lounge.

BK: Six bars, two stages.

CM: Eventually it became three stages and eight bars. That was in 1966 that he did the last edition.

BK: The caption on this picture says: “Three attractions. This is the corner of Bay and Goll Avenues, some under 21 and conjugate during the summer months. The college crowd likes to come here to Bayshores Café, Tony Mart’s and Steels Ship Bar to listen to their favorite rock & roll stars, dance and drink.”

CM: Evidently this article was inspired or came about because of the complaints from a portion of this community who thought Somers Point was becoming too much of a bedroom suburb to allow this kind of “Barbary Coast” activity. They always resented us, especially after Midnick put the track homes in the area that is now referred to as the Fairways. That’s when Somers Point began to become Bougouis, and these Bougouis people began to look askance at the businesses that were an original part of Somers Point – the Anchorage, Greogry’s, Elmer Blake (Steel’s) and my father, Mac’s, Daniels, the Antolinies and Previties.

BK: They’re calling it a “Mecca for young partying kids.”

CM: Here’s a wonderful picture from 1963 in the Courier Post, this is the real Eddie & The Cruisers.

BK: The Fabulous Fall Guys, The Roof Toppers and the Beanstalks, Jack & the Beanstalks.

CM: The absolute height, I would say the years 63, 64, 65, 66 were the very best years for revenue and attendance. Things were really happening.

BK: Things were different back then though, revenue wise. Like how much was a beer back then?

CM: I recall we used to have a pricing scheme called 60-70-80 meant a beer was sixty cents, a high ball with pouring liquor was 70 cents and top shelf was 80 cents. Then at night we would go to higher prices – 70-80-90. I remember as a kid, my father and Pete Toscano, who was the manger for many years in my early youth, talking to Tony saying, “We’re at 60-70-80, shall we go to 70-80-90?” And like wise, the admission was a dollar to get in or a dollar to get in with a one drink minimum. You’d get a minimum ticket. Then sometimes it was one and one, which was two dollars to get in and you got one drink. Or one and two, three dollars to get in and you got two drinks.

BK: What about the seven for one? Both Andrew at the Anchorage, who made it famous, and Gregory’s, who had it before the Anchorage, say that at least in Somers Point, seven for one started at Tony Marts.

CM: There is some controversy about that. I think that my godfather, Willie Theodore could answer that question. There aren’t may left from that era, other than Willie, Joe Orsini, who we called Little Joe, might be able to shed some light on that era. One person who could talk about that era going back to the 40s, is my uncle Pete Basile, who works for my uncle Tony at the White House Sub Shop (in Atlantic City). If both of us went out and tried to run all of this down we would barely scratch the surface. Unfortunately so many of them are dying.

BK: It’s too late for a lot of people.

CM: It’s too late to talk to Pete Toscano, God rest his soul. He was an integral part of this place, and his brother Harry is gone.

BK: Who was the other manager?

CM: Joe Fiore was the manger in the later years, you’re time – ’72-76. He went from our place to the casino industry. Tony and I really began to run the place in earnest in 1977. Tony and I managed the place from 77 to 82 when we closed it.

Here’s Roger Evoy doing the limbo. On Thursday nights we had a limbo contest on the dance floor behind the stage. That’s what this is (in this photo). Around 12, 12:30, depending on the crowd. Dad gave out T-shirts, gift certificates…because you couldn’t give out cash. There was an ABC regulation about giving out cash in those days.

BK: The dateline on this Philadelphia clip is July 28, 1963, my birthday. I was 12 years old. It says: “Saturday Night at the Point – Youth Capitol of South Jersey – Magic Number is 21 when Boy Meets Girl.”

CM: Notice the picture is of the Ocean City beach. It shows the beach, which tells the story. Together, Ocean City and Somers Point comprised one of the major seashore resorts on the east coast – comparable to Fort Lauderdale.

BK: Well Ocean City has the beach but doesn’t have the booze, so they compliment each other.

CM: Exactly. That’s what this is all about. Otherwise, in other places, like Rehobeth, Ocean City, Maryland, Fort Lauderdale – the bars are right on the beach. But here you have the unique situation of the blue laws in Ocean City. I think that may have factored into the reasoning for my father buying Tony Marts in the first place.

BK: Here’s a headline: FBI Checking Fake ID Cards. Somers Point nets $5,000 from 48 persons found guilty by Judge Edward Helfan t. Ordinance #11.

CM: In this picture is Joe DiOrio. This just goes to show how deeply involved in community government civic associations the taproom owners are. The Licensed Beverage Association the important political force in this town (for many years). It is nothing compared to what it was. There still is one, but its lost its political clout. You don’t have these old characters – maybe you have Elmer Gregory and Joe DiOrio. Mr. Antolini has lost his business (Daniels), Tony Sr. is gone from Mac’s, Buddy Styer (Harry’s) is gone, Elmer Blake (Steels) and McCann (Bay Shores) are gone. My dad has been gone since 1986. You have corporations and Yuppie types running places like Markers. These people were great characters like Judge Helfant presiding over this, and solicitor Naame (George’s uncle Lou).

These stories in the scrapbook are about controversies. You have to understand, I mean there were so many people coming here, there was so much activity, so much booze being sold, there was a controversy simply because of the sheer volume. Between those three clubs in the summer you would average 5,000 people on Bay Avenue. They would be in Bay Shores, Steels, Tony Marts, the Anchorage, Gregory’s Jolly Roger, DiOrios; Your Father’s Mustache was a Dixieland club on the circle.

BK: Here’s a photo of the Fall Guys.

CM: The Fall Guys were one of the greatest groups to ever play at Tony Marts. This is the original Fall Guys – Jack the bass player, Joey Delvecio the drummer, Don the guitarist. Now the saxophone player and the trumpeter left the group about ’62 or ’63. Two other gentlemen, Kenny Koucha (ph) and Bill Laws replaced them and those five in that form have remained the Fall Guys up until the last time I saw them, which was at a casino in Atlantic City about fiver or six years ago (1987). They became a casino lounge act, an excellent group that played a broad spectrum of music.

There was always a broad spectrum of music played at Tony Marts, not just rock & roll, which is the type of music that is so frequently associated with this, but there was Rhythm & Blues, which is tantamount to Rock & Roll in a lot of ways. Ray Charles, Dixieland, Big Band – Tommy Dorsey’s band played here in 1963. Bill Haley played this year here. Jerry Gabriel and the Angles were here with the Fall Guys. Interestingly, Jerry Gabriel’s saxophone player became the arranger for Ike and Tina Tuner, that’s one story I know about this page (in the scrapbook).

The Fall Guys did comedy music. They used to do “Unchain My Heart,” “Peanut Butter,” “My Blue Heaven,” which was a Dixieland classic, and songs that are classic rock & roll, “Runaround Sue,” which was in Eddie & the Cruisers. And the Fall Guys came back and did us a favor by coming back and doing the testimonial on our last night.

The Kit Kats were here, and they were a famous band in Philadelphia. The Fables were a great band from Canada, extremely popular.

Pete Carroll was an excellent showman, singer and guitar player who fronted this band. He was also a Wildman who was notorious for his drunken binges and his outlandish behavior after consuming too much alcohol. A very colorful character. He’s the one that nobody could find when he was supposed to go on stage, and he was out in the middle of the bay in a rowboat, drunk. He probably got fired from Bay Shores and went to Steels. That’s the way it was in those days.

BK: Here you have different dances for different nights of the week – Mashed Potato Monday, Twist Tuesday, Talent night Wednesday, and Limbo Thursday.

CM: Talent night was always on Wednesday and the Limbo on Thursday. This handbill with all of the Ivy League schools reflects the collegiate nature of the crowd. Even though some of the nare-do-well, do-gooders in Somers Point tried to make it out like it was a drunken, rowdy crowd, just the opposite was true. The patrons and employees of Tony Marts were for the most part college students and graduate students, many of whom have become successful lawyers, doctors, engineers – I could sprout off some of their names if you’re interested.

BK: Yea, let’s name a few.

CM: Atlantic City attorney Harry Goldenberg worked at the Triangle Bar (by the front door) for my dad, while Sonny McCullough, the mayor of Egg Harbor Township worked the same bar. Dick Brunswick became an open heart surgeon at Tulane University in New Orleans. Dubie Duberson, another bartender, worked for Dunn & Bradstreet while he moonlighted at Tony Marts.

Ronnie Frey, a school teacher and wrestling coach was the head bouncer in these years, the golden years.

Here’s a picture of Dick Brunswick beating on a trash can from behind the bar, probably to a song like “Alabama Jubilee.”

Here’s the Fall Guy’s song list – “Alabama Jubilee,” “If You Want to Be Happy,” “The Bounce,” “Peanut Butter,” “New Orleans,” “Shout,” “Can’t Sit Down,” “ Do You Love Me?” “Muskrat Ramble,” “Do Run Run,” “Twist & Shout,” Duane Eddie’s “Honkey Tonk,” and he later came here himself. My father said that Duane Eddie was probably the greatest draw of anybody who ever played here. He played one week and he made a lot of money that week.

Other songs on the list include Ray Charles’ “What I’d Say?” “Secret Love,” “Tiger Rag,” a New Orleans-Dixieland favorite, “Movin’ and Grovin’” Chuck Berry’s “Memphis” and “Maria,” from West Side Story. “Melaguana and “I Wish You Love.”

CM: That gives you an idea of what I was saying before, of the vast spectrum of music that was played. Here’s a picture of Bill Haley & the Comets, playing on the same bill as Conway Twitty. One of these guys with Haley now runs a restaurant in Barcelona, Spain, and he likes to remember those days.

Here you have Bill Haley, Conway Twtitty, Del Shannon and the Fall Guys, all in one week. To put this in modern rock terms it would be like having Huey Lewis & the News and Hank Williams, Jr. and……Conway was not so much country in those days. He was rock & roll. After he left here, in ’64 or ’65, he crossed back over to country and became even more successful. I could tell you some interesting stories about him too.

Conway was a hell of a guy, a nice person, great softball player. Conway and his drummer Pork Chop were two of the best player on the Tony Marts (All Stars) soft-ball team. They used to play at the Somers Point ball field. They used to play against Bader’s Raiders, the Somers Point Police team. They would play on Monday afternoons because Sundays were big business, and Mondays and Tuesdays were the days that most of the valuable musicians and bartenders would be off because they were the slowest days of the week.

BK: You had a lot of bands from Canada.

CM: That was the Harold Kutlets agency, out of Hamilton, near Toronto. My father met him through MCA out of New York. They were a promotions, talent, productions, booking company. Kutlets is the man who is eventually credited with picking up and representing the Hawks, Levon & the Hawks who became The Band.

They were with Ronnie Hawkins and were the Fabulous Hawks – that’s where the name Hawks comes from – the rockabilly, rhythm & blues singer. Then when they lost Ronnie Hawkins, they had a fight with them or something, they became Levon & the Hawks. Even though they were a Canadian group they couldn’t get any work in Canada at the time, and they were touring down south, we’re talking about the winter of 1965. They were kicking around the south, some of them were from Arkansas, and Kutlets called dad up and said he had this great band that needed a break. They would work cheap. Dad put them in in April. They played six nights a week, four or five sets a night, for $700 total, plus rooms, they lived over top of the bar. They worked their way up to $1300 a week. Now this is for five guys and a manager, a character named Bill Avis, and of course Harold Kutlets got a cut of that.

Then, as the story goes, and its been corroborated, that they became such a legendary talent, that Dylan himself came here. The way it was told to me was that people from Boston to Georgetown, D.C. were coming here just to hear Levon and the Hawks, and hear Richard Manuel sing Ray Charles and Ottis Redding and James Brown, and see Garth Hudson play the sax and do Junior Walker and the All-Star’s “Shotgun.”

Dylan took them from dad the week before Labor Day. But dad still loved them and even gave them a cake and party for them on their last night, but he was mad that they couldn’t stay that last week of the summer. But of course Dylan didn’t care about that, and he took the band. But dad was able to get Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels to finish the last week of the summer. It was big times in those days.

The Four Fables were here too. A great show band. Another Harold Kutlets Canadian band, Joey D and the Starlighters, who became famous for doing the Pepperment Twist. But they played here in 1961, before the Twist. And my father maintained that Joey D learned to rock & roll at Tony Marts. Warren Covington led the Tommy Dorsey band. Wes Covington was a big name in swing and they came and played a Sunday jam session. Swing, Dixieland, traditional jazz, rhythm & blues, there was all kinds of music on Bay Avenue, it was not simply rock & roll.

The Roof Toppers were a strong second band they supported The Fables and the Fall Guys. They kept he room moving. The Four Fables were an excellent draw, a dynamic group of performers. Notice the bands at this time all wore suits and ties. Even the Furies have their freshmen sweaters and patent leather shoes. All of that was a part of Tony Marts until 1966.

The Blastoffs, The Magnetic Magnatones, Johnny Caswell shows up here as a little second band to the Magnatones, and the third band was Paul and the Profits. May 20, 1964 – this is when Johnny Caswell was just a kid. At this time it was Johnny Caswell and the Secrets. It’s spelled in the newspaper ad – Coswell – that’s my father saying “Coswell” over the phone.

Sean Kelly and the Irish Beatles. He was the front man for the Magnatones. Everybody was doing the Beatles then.

The Skyliners played a number of engagements for dad. “Pennies from Heaven” is still on the jukebox at the Anchorage. In the ad it says, “Stars of the Ed Sullivan and Perry Como TV shows.”

The Rockatones were another band that recorded, “I Don’t Know Why?” for ABC Paramount Records.

The Fireflys, Little Anthony and the Secrets – five white guys, Johnny and the Holidays, The Corvairs, The Temptations – a white Temptations, Jerry Gabriel and the Angels, very talented, almost everybody in Jerry Gabriel’s band went on to noteworthy careers in popular music. One went with Ike Turner.

Len Carey and the Crackerjacks. Len Carey was a legendary performer. Now we’ve made a retrograde move here. These guys were from the fifties. He was gone by ’61. Len Carey, my dad said, started with him in 1954. Carey was a show name. He was really an Italian guy. They did a lot of Spike Jones type comedy, music, swing, Dixieland and were wonderful at dancing on the bars and throwing crackerjacks out into the crowd the way they throw novelties at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. “The Saints Come Marching In” – it was very Dixieland, and it was really important in the history of Tony Marts because it was this band that my father told me, that really made Tony Marts take off. I dwell on the Fall Guys because they were more my era, my recollection, but Len Carey was here before I was even born.

BK: They’re billed as the “Stars of the Spike Jones Show.”

CM: Spike Jones was a famous band leader from the Swing era into the fifties, and known for his comedy music. In fact Levon Helm refers to him in the song “Up on Cripple Creek,” when he says, “I can’t stand the way he sings, but I love to hear him talk.” Spike Jones was a comedian and band leader and Len Carey played with him and was inspired by him and came off like him. It says here, “Jazzmania Simile.” He started with dad in 1954 and played through 1960. I asked dad one day, “Dad, what really took you from being a small piano bar to becoming a showplace nightclub?” And he said
“Len Carey. It was Len Carey.”

He was a dynamic showman who used to perform to the people and project in such a way that he actually developed a big following at the bar, and that’s how Tony Marts became a big club. This guy was very instrumental in the development of Tony Marts. He and dad remained friends and he came back and visited six or seven years ago when dad was still alive.

And Len Carey was till performing as an old gentleman, performing for senior citizens on Staten Island, which is where he was from.

Duane Eddy was one of the best. A great sax player. Dad payed him several thousand dollars to work a week but Duane Eddie was a big name in those days, and dad said he never made as much money in any other week. I think it was in 1964.

Johnny Miestro and the Crests, who became Johnny Miestro and the Brooklyn Bridge, he played for dad a couple of times. A balladeer, crooner and kind of egotistical and dad didn’t get along with him.

Dad had this saying, “The musicians are playing for themselves,” meaning they were playing music with an artistic slant rather than catering to the crowd and keeping the room moving so the people would dance and drink. Needless to say, my father would fire bands that would play for themselves.

The Furies were still here in 1962. Now this (scrap) book is not chronologically accurate. Now it says here that the Carroll Brothers were on tour with Chubby Checker in South America, so Pete Carroll was a very noteworthy cat.

People think that it wasn’t until the late 60s and 70s that rock & roll tragedy was invented, with Janis Choplin and Jimmie Hendrix and Jim Morrision, but this stuff was going on down here on Bay Avenue in the fifties. These people were talented, and crazy geniuses. They carried on, they did drugs, it just wasn’t celebrated. There was cocaine on Bay Avenue, but they were not “social problems” in those days. It was just part of the thing. The kids going into the clubs weren’t doing cocaine, but some of the musicians were.

Conway Twitty worked many years here. He was a gentleman who worked very well with my father. A hell of a showman, dad told of the time the IRS came knocking on the door and said they had a court order compelling him to turn over all of Conway’s salary for the week. And dad argued with them because he wanted to be able to pay Conway. “Look, he’s got to pay his men, he’s got to eat.” But the IRS didn’t want to hear it. So dad advanced Conway half of the next week’s salary, so he could take care of his men and eat. But today it’s ironic because Conway is one of the biggest names in music today.

The Royal Dukes Quintet, just off their Canadian tour. Don Ellis was a big name in the annals somewhere. The Needler was a publication that came out with semi-nude women in it. Bobby Blue, Bobby Comsock, Johnny Preston….

The Fall Guys were the house band. They played for the season for a set rate. Then dad would bring in big names to play overtop of them as the draw. But the Fall Guys were the house band.

The Female Beatles Dad did well with them. The female bands of that era, the thing that I remember, is that they were lesbians. He liked to bring in a female band once in awhile to change the pace. The Kit Kats became famous in Wildwood, Margate and Philadelphia.

Here’s Jeff, who I recently saw in Sea Isle City, Rickie & the Rockets, he first played here with the Lively Ones.

BK: It says Coming Tuesday – Levon & the Hawks – May 6, 1965 With Conway Twitty as the main attraction.

CM: Phil Humphrey and the Fendermen and Damien & the Classics. This is a damn good lineup. This is when Conway Twitty was beginning to get into country. His six man Oklahoma Review with Jackie Apple and the Applejacks

Ted Shall’s Nightly Whirl – he did the display advertising (for the Press of Atlantic City) and did what Dave Spatz does today. This is when Levon and the Hawks first got here, but later on in July when the summer came it really got hot.

Shall wrote: “Don’t forget that tonight is going to be a big one in Somers Point, and at Tony Mart’s in particular. The renown Conway Twitty arrives at the offshore nightspot to join a Canadian group that has rated plaudits for a number of weeks – Levon and the Hawks.”

CM: 1965 and 1966 were the biggest years, the absolute biggest years.

Here’s an article about softball. The Tony Mart’s All-Stars, with South Philly Al, the pitcher, in the Hangover League, when they beat Bay Shores. Sonny McCullough, Freddie Smartly was a big guy who worked for years for dad. Nickie Russo…..

I was only nine years old at the time, fourth, fifth grade, but I remember The Band. I remember The Band being great. I remember hearing them play. They had two keyboards, there was a railing that ran along the stage and they had Richard Manual on the left hand side, looking at it. It was the center stage, which the L-bar was built around. On the right was Garth Hudson’s organ, a B-3, and all his saxophones and accordions – he was always playing different instruments. In the middle was the drum riser with Levon Helm, and Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson were out front.

I remember how great they were. I remember the soulful blues they played. I think that Richard Manuel was the greatest blues singer to ever sing at Tony Marts. I think he was one of the greatest under-rated white blues singers, and he was known for that, as was their music, their jamming, their diversity. They would do, “Little Lizza Jane – I got a girl and you got none….” That was unusual to hear a hillbilly song being played with a rock beat in Tony Marts. They also played, “They Call Me Mr. Pittiful,” “Please, Please, Please,” “Shotgun,” “Blue, Swede Shoes,” “Memphis,” and a lot of the songs on their album, “Moondog Matinee” they played at Tony Marts. Richard Manuel and Levon Helm used to do some of the old southern stuff.

Mitch Ryder came in after The Band was taken by Dylan. Mitch Ryder had Little Huey in the band then.

CM: Here we are (in the Scrapbook) in the New York Times in 1965. This was at the height of our activity, as attested to the fact that even the New York Times is running stories. Tuesday August 24, 1965. “A New Look Slowly Comes To The Jersey Shore – Changes Some Subtle, Some Abrupt and Flamboyant.”

The contrast between the geriatric nature of Ocean City and the action at Tony Marts in Somers Point. “Changes are evident nearly everywhere along the shore.”

BK: Who was the house band at the very end?

CM: The last year we had Fanfare and some other bands – Shotgun from the Villanova area, the summer of 1981. Alien was doing their Doors show that summer. We remained on the cutting edge as far as music went. We had financial constraints and couldn’t fix it up the way we wanted to, but musically we were right there.

The band were doing the music that was happening on the college campuses and radio stations.

One For All was noteworthy – disco year 1978 – they came up from Fort Lauderdale. Joey Powers ’67 – Joey Powers and the New Dimensions. A strange thing happened in 1967 – the drug craze.

The suits and ties came off in 1966.

The Magic Mushrooms were the first psychedelic band to play in South Jersey. The beginning of the British Invasion – the Kinks, the Stones….

Gunther’s Bus played “Indagodadavida” at Tony Marts.

I remember Tido Mambo – a crazy man but dynamic performer. He had long, greasy hair that he used to comb. His band was called Tido Mambo and the Upsetters and he used to draw. He used to give dad fits. People would go to Bay Shores to see Tido Mambo because he was the first long hair. So Bay Shores had that long hair thing with a crazy band. This was a time – 1966, when the Beatles were going psychedelic. So my dad brought in the Magic Mushrooms.

BK: IT must have been hard for him to get away from the suits and tie thing.

CM: It was. But he was convinced, at first they came and it was like a costume thing, with flowerprint and paisley shirts, Nehru jackets and psychedelic garb, so he was just thinking this was a costume, and from the very beginning they did tremendous volume in attracting crows. So the money helped persuade him in that regard.

The Band at Woodstock

2011-08-09T02:06:00.001-07:00

They were known as Levon & the Hawks when they left Tony Marts in Somers Point in late August 1965. They went to New York and some of them played with Bob Dylan at Forest Hills and then took a tour of Europe. When they returned Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident and recuperated at the Woodstock home of his manager Albert Grossman. The band visited him there and liked the small, eccentric artist colony that was already established, so they took out a lease on a pink split level house where they jammed in the basement.

They called the house "Big Pink," and people began to refer to them as "The Band," so when their first album appeared it was called "Music From Big Pink" by The Band.

The album cover art was by Bob Dylan, who also wrote a few of the songs.

When Eric Clapton heard "Music From Big Pink" for the first time he was blown away, and decided to quit his band Cream, because he later said, he realized they were going in the wrong direction. The Band, with their down home bluesy, electric folk was where it was at.

And apparently a lot of others agreed.

Among the songs on "Music From Big Pink" were "The Weight," which was first played over the radio airways by Dave Herman at WMMR radio in Philadelphia on Sunday nights, a show that would later be credited with developing the Album Oriented Rock (AOR) programing style, which he would later take to New York.

Also on the first album by the Band was a song called "Chest Fever," which especially features the organ recitals of Garth Hudson, considered the best musician in The Band.

The words to "Chest Fever" include the line, "She's been down in the dunes and she's dealt with the goons," which some people believe refers to the Dunes nightclub on Longport Blvd., which was an after-hours, open all night joint where a lot of people went after 2 am when Tony Marts and Bay Shores closed. It was famous for its bouncers - the Goons.

The lyrics to "The Weight," include "I pulled into Nazareth, I was feelin' about half past dead. Just need o find a place where I can lay my head. 'Hey mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed. He just grinned and shook my hand and, 'No, was all he said."

Robbie Robertson: "When I wrote ‘The Weight’, the first song for ‘Music From Big Pink’, it had a kind of American mythology I was reinventing using my connection to the universal language. The Nazareth in ‘The Weight’ was Nazareth, Pennsylvania. It was a little off-handed - ‘I pulled into Nazareth’. Well I don’t know if the Nazareth that Jesus came from is the kind of place you pull into, but I do know that you pull into Nazareth, Pennsylvania! I’m experimenting with North American mythology. I didn’t mean to take sacred, precious things and turn them into humour....In ‘The Weight’ it was this very simple thing. Someone says, ‘Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say “hello” to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth, that’s where the Martin guitar factory is."

So while they were set up as the house band at Tony Marts in Somers Point, they probably took a road trip to the Martin guitar factory in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where Robertson was inspired to write the opening lines to the song.

Tony Marts in the 50s

2011-08-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

Tony Marts on Bay Avenue Somers Point NJ

2011-08-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

(Roger Evoy photo)

Actor Tom Berringer, who plays the role of "Wordman" in the movie "Eddie & the Cruisers," starts out as a cleanup man sweeping the floor when Eddie walks in the front door and says, "Tell Tony Eddie & the Cruisers are here."

The scene I watched them film a half dozen times showed Berringer returning to the club to reminisence, driving up and parking his car in the lot next to the front door, but he finds the place closed and boarded up, and can only look in the window.

For some reason that scene never made the final cut and must have been left on the editing room floor.

But that's the way it really was a few months after they filmed the movie, as the place was closed and they held a final, last night party that was a real blast.

Levon & the Hawks advertisment

2011-08-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Summer of '65

Roger outside Tony Marts

2011-08-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

Roger Evoy, who took many great photos of Tony Marts, stands outside the club.

View from Tony Marts Roof

2011-08-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

View from Tony Marts roof, from where the band practiced in the movie Eddie & the Cruisers.
That's Dolfin Dock down the street and the Clam Bar in the corner.

Dobbie - Tony Marts Bartender

2011-08-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

The Clam Bar at Smith's Pier

2011-07-31T12:30:00.001-07:00

Kathy, Nick & Dory Dude

2011-07-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

Nick & Cathy and Dury Dude at the old and now defunct and not even there Bubba Mac Shack.

Nick & Cathy were two of the primary movers behind the "300 Years at the Point" book, and run an art gallery on Bay Avenue. Nick is the primary mover and shaker behind the Somers Point Jazz Socity and all of the great bands that come into town.

Besides coordinating the Jazz Society programs in Somers Point and now extending to the educational concerts at the Ocean City Public Library, Nick also advises on the selection of bands for the Friday night beach concerts and Good Old Days Picnic on the weekend after Labor Day.

Tight End Club at Gregorys

2011-07-30T11:16:00.001-07:00

Art, Nace and Al

Don, Bob, John and Tom the bartender

John Conway

2011-07-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

The late John Conway was a longtime Somers Point resident who had lived an exciting life with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol. For awhile John was assigned as an undercover agent to the Joint Organized Crime Task Force.

He was also stationed on the Mexican border for a long time and went to Cuba before Castro.

A popular regular at Gregory's Bar, after he died his wife came in and bought a round for all the guys he drank with, saying he had made that a part of his will.

So John got to buy the last round.

Caroline's Bay Ave & Longport Blvd.

2011-07-30T09:54:00.001-07:00

Caroline's - Home of the Spinning Tuna

Madeline Vautrinot's Art

2011-07-27T23:22:00.001-07:00

Madeline Vautrinot's Art

2011-07-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

Madeline Vautrinot

2011-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Women at Work, a self-portrait (left) and a photo of Madeline Vautrinot from a school yearbook.

Better known locally as the wife and widow of James "Sonny" Fraser, Madeline Vautrinot was an artist who won her first prize with a painting of the view from her Egg Harbor City bedroom window. Educated at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh her profile in Whos Who in American Art reads:

VAUTRINOT, Madoline (P) Egg Harbor, NJ b. 7 Je 1913, Egg Harbor, NJ. Studied: CI; Country Schl, PAFA. Member Pittsburgh AA. Exhibited: Pittsburgh AA, 1935 (prize). Work: murals, Republic Oil Co., Pittsburgh; Seaview Golf C., Seaview, N.J.; Atlantic City publ schs.; Coll., 100 Friends of Art, Pittsburgh (40).

She married James "Sonny" Fraser, a popular amateur golfer, New Jersey state legislator and secretary to "Hap" Farley the political boss of Atlantic County who built the Atlantic City Race Track and introduced the first legal gambling in South Jersey.

Sonny and Madoline lived in the historic house on the hill at English Creek where Sonny remodeled the old Grist Mill as a studio, opening windows and putting in a skylight in the ceiling. The studio was a popular place during Fraser's frequent parties that included Sonny's friends from the golf course and the race track, including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Doris Day, Olympic champion Jack Kelly, and his daughter Grace Kelly.

A prolific golfer known for his long drives, Sonny contracted Hodgkins disease and died in 1950 at the age of 34.

Madoline continued to paint however, and according to her profile, was known for painting murals, though I don't know of any public murals in these parts.

Madoline's studio recently made the news as the Grist Mill, built in 1710, was the only thing left standing from that era when Egg Harbor Township celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2010. See blog entry: The Old Mill At English Creek.

More recently there was a story in the Press of Atlantic City about the mill getting a new water wheel.

Here are some more samples of her art, thanks to Maureen Keillor, her cousin who is compiling a biography of Madeline and her work.

Greate Bay Golf & Country Club

2011-07-23T17:43:00.000-07:00

GREAT BAY GOLF CLUB

The Greate Bay Golf Club has been a social center of Somers Point and Ocean City NJ for over 80 years. First known as the Ocean City Golf Club, the original course was designed in 1922 by legendary Scotsman Willie Park, Jr., and opened in the spring of 1923.

One of the most influential of all the Scotsmen who brought the game to America, Willie Parks, Jr. was a two-time winner of the British Open and the son of the winner of the first British Open in 1860. “The name of Willie Park, Jr. is one of the most respected in the history of golf,” noted local golf writer Charlie Price.

“He was a multifaceted personality, a talented and prolific golf architect, one of the greatest golfers of his day, an entrepreneur and businessman, club maker, inventor and author,” said Price.

According to an October 19, 1922 Ocean City Sentential Ledger newspaper report, Park stayed at the historic Plymouth Inn in Ocean City while he designed the new course, shortly after he revamped the Atlantic City Country Club’s Northfield Links.

“The assurance that the Ocean City links will be perfectly constructed as humanly possible to have them is the fact that Willie Park has a world wide reputation to maintain. His latest effort must be superior to any previously attempted.”

While the golf club was originally built to lure tourists to Ocean City, it became popular with local businessmen and a major focal center of the area’s social life.

Unlike many golf courses of that era, it survived the depression with the assistance of Harvey Lake, who built the original clubhouse, a large, blue and white wood frame colonial that sat on a hill where the new clubhouse stands today. Harvey Lake, who was related to the Lake family, took on two partners, “Doc” Whittaker and Charles Zimmerman, who renamed it the Ocean City – Somers Point Golf Club.

Born in Petersburg in Upper Township on October 24, 1874, Harvey Young Lake attended school in Trenton before becoming business manager of the Ocean City Association, which controlled public utilities at the time. Lake dabbled in real estate, developed the Ocean City Bayou project (creating lagoons between 16th and 18th Sts), and served on the Ocean City Board of Education. He was an accomplished musician and an avid tennis player, but his main passion was golf.

Willie Park laid out the course on the high ground adjacent to the Somers Family cemetery, which overlooks Great Egg Bay over Kennedy Park at High banks, and on the hill Harvey Lake built his house that would become the clubhouse.

Lake also had some regulation tennis courts put in and to maintain the club he took on two partners, “Doc” Whittaker and Charlie Zimmerman. Doc Whittaker owned Holgates restaurant on the bay at 9th Street in Ocean City, while Zimmerman owned a hardware store in Philadelphia. Whittaker and Zimmerman reportedly paid $60,000 for their interest, took the course public and renamed it The Ocean City – Somers Point Golf Club.

Local bayman Buck Lashly recalls working as a caddy there when the green fees were $3. “We used to get $1.10 a round, $2.20 for a double, a bag on each arm, twice a day,” said Lashly, “and if you were nice, a buck tip.”

There were two lakes on the course, one by the pump house and the other, which was called Lake Whittaker, but was later filled in. “You could get a quarter a ball for swimming in and retrieving one for somebody,” said Lashly, who remembers the old caddy shack on the first tee by the 18th hold near the clubhouse. Walt Johnson, the groundskeeper before Butch Shurman, used a horse drawn tractor to mow the lawn.

Charles Nespy, who was a club member for 45 years, recalled the old, quaint clubhouse that was run by Ida and Maria. “They were there when I came and there when I left,” said McNespy. “They lived at the club and if they were up, the club was open. Maria tended bar and Ida cooked the best creamed chip beef, tomato and milk gravy. Everything was home cooked. “ Local bartender Vince Rennich, often recalled visiting the clubhouse after hours, playing cards, darts and pool.

Eddie O’Donnell, for whom an annual golf tournament is named, lived nearby, next to Joe DiOrio, another prolific amateur golfer. O’Donnell served as the pro from 1948 to 1960, and named his street Par Drive when the city finally got around to paving the street that runs along the course. Deer and other wild animals were frequently seen around the course until the 1950s, when they developed the Fairways homes and the Garden State Parkway came in.

“When they put the developments in they ruined one of the best hunting grounds around,” Buck related. “I remember when there wasn’t a home from Route 9 to Mays Landing Road. Buffalo Plastics came first, then a little motel, the oil company and then the Parkway came in. What’s now stores and developments behind the golf course was once all open country, and the best hunting in the world.” Joe DiOrio recalled that, “Deer used to come up to our back door when we built the bar on MacArthur Blvd in 1951.”

Eddie O’Donnell said, “When I first got there they had the last of the great amateur Eastern tournaments,” events that included such legendary amateur champions as J. “Woody” Platt, James “Sonny” Fraser, Billy Hyndman III and a young Arnold Palmer, before he became a professional.

But the most fun was had by a group of golfers that was known as the “Spinach Mob,” a group of locals who played together many afternoons. Some were nightclub owners, like Rickie Rich, who owned the Hialeah Club in Atlantic City, and Elmer Blake, who ran Steel’s Ship Bar on Bay Avenue, next to Tony Marts.

They worked nights and like to play golf all day with their friends – John Cressi, the Linwood Country Club pro, Harry Azzi, Ernie Brown, John Keminosch, Bert English, Alan Meyers, Freddie Curtis and Lou Curcio. They were called “The Spinach Mob” because they enjoyed playing for sporting wagers and gave each other nicknames. O’Donnell was “Lucky Eddie,” Azzie was “Az,” Curcio was “Cooch” and Curtis was “Checkbook” Freddie because he never won and always paid off with a check.

Curcio, the club champion from 1954 to 1958, ran the Tilton Driving Range for many years and was the handicap man for the Spinach Mob. “There were eight of us who played together,” Curcio recalls,” and we had a handicap system. Harry Elwell was the best player , a scratch player, and I could never beat him. I only won after Harry Elwell was gone.” Curcio then won five consecutive years, lost one and then never came back again.

O’Donnel said it was a slow day when the young Coast Guard enlisted man came into his pro shop sometime in 1950 and wanted to play. Eddie asked him if he was an officer, and he said, no just an enlisted man. But he mentioned that his father worked at golf course near Pittsburgh, and Eddie said it was okay, and he could play for free.

O’Donnell introduced the young Palmer to the club champion and local postman Harry Elwell, Sr., who became somewhat of a mentor to Palmer. When there paths crossed again in Florida some twenty years later, Palmer asked O’Donnell about Harry Elwell, who had passed away earlier, but who he remembered as an influential person in his life.

According to O’Donnell, there weren’t many people playing golf back then, and the club only had 50 or 60 members.

One man who stayed around into the early 1950s was Harvey Lake. He would occasionally put in an appearance on the course in his later years. O’Donnell remembered Lake playing with a single club, called a cleek. Before numbered irons were invented, you had different types of clubs for different situations, including cleeks and mashies.

McNespy also remembered Lake well. “I can see him now,…suspenders, glasses, a cap and a garter on his sleeve, just like the old time bartenders used to wear, standing about five foot six, and he’d play five or six holes with one club, a 4 wood.”

Eventually Whittaker, Zimmeman and Lake died. They had a deal with each other where when one died the others would inherit the shares until no one was left, and the last one would leave the course to charity. Trustees for Shore Memorial Hospital and Burdette Tomlin Hospital sold the course to a group of businessmen in 1971. Mr. Eugene Gatti and attorney Art Kania were the primary partners, while the limited partners included Mr. Joseph DiOrio, Dr. Nick Collova, Cas Holloway and Tullio deSantis.

They were also the principle partners with the Brighton Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. In 1981 the Sands Corporation bought the hotel, casino and country club, renaming the country club the Sands. It remained a part of the casino corporation’s assets until Mr. Gene Gatti repurchased the course in 1991 and renamed it Greate Bay Country Club.

They made significant renovations, leveled the old clubhouse and built a new one, upgraded the course, changed a few holes around (The fairways, bunkers, greens and sandtraps remained basically the same, only then numbers changed. The old 18th became the 17th, the old 10 became 1), put in a driving range, built condos around the course and changed the name to Greate Bay Country Club.

It was under the stewardship of prolific amateur golfer Mr. Gene Gatti when the club served as host to the ShopRite LPGA Classic tournament from 1988 to 1997.

In 1998 Gatti sold the club to Archie Struthers, who began working in golf as a caddy at Pine Valley. Struthers renovated the course in an effort to recreate some of Willie Park Jr.’s original design ideas, yet maintain the course’s championship qualities. Struthers also took the course private again, and went on to design and build his dream course – Twisted Dune, which is recognized for its unique, one of a kind attributes.

Although Pat Croce is well known for being passionate about sports and competition, it was his partner Mark Benevento who convinced him that golf is good and Greate Bay a good investment and they have been managing the club with an energy and synergy that’s contagious.

To comment on this story: - Billkelly3@gmail.com

Jeramiah Was A Whooumper! By Barnsie

2011-07-23T12:16:00.001-07:00

Slimetime – The Art of Fishing
By Robert “Barnsie” Barnes (aka the Cave Man)

Jeramiah Was A Whooumper!

My 51 Ford pickup coasted to a quiet stop. The lights had been shut off a hundred yards back as we needed to slip into the swamp without alerting the quarry. Plenty of bug spray applied liberally above the waste, a couple of flashlights with extra batteries, plenty of smokes and extra matches in a plastic bag, and back in those days, there would be a couple of sixpacks of Bud hanging on me like handgrenades.

We picked up our weapons and stepped into the cool water. I was with Frank and we were two of only the six people I met who were fortunate to engage in this great sport – bullfrogging.

There are many better restaurants which feature these fine eating criters as a delicacy and they sell on the street for $30 a pound. At those prices I could capture about $600 bucks worth on an average night. But I’d rather eat them myself.

I’ve never encountered anyone else in the swamp. No crowds, no Shoobies, no competition, no hassles, maybe another crazy like myself, and a hell of a lot of fun. A calm night, a small boat, or maybe a sneakbox, a burlap bag ad plenty of bug spray.

I don’t take small ones, cause the big ones have a lot more mean and are easier to detect. Amid all the other noise that about at night in the swamps, the unmiskabable sound of “Whooump, Whooump, Whooump,” tells me where the big ones are. They don’t “croak” they “Whooump!” I catch them and then they croak.

The stalk begins. They don’t just sit there and let you pick’em off. And even a small wave will send them to the bottom quick. I’ve don’t the best I can, I’ve ignored a couple of turtles that I’ve stepped on. I’ve ignored a dozen snakes and zillions of mosquitoes. He’s sitting on a Lilly pad, looking at the bugs, getting ready to strike.

Quiet, move slow, don’t move at all, then move quick, the hand is faster than the eye, and he’s in the bag. I’ve got my limit. I’ll be pigging out soon. A nice salad, maybe some fries, corn on the cob and bunch of frogs legs.

From The Native Guide Vol. 3 #4 April, 1999

Jumping off the Bridge

2011-07-21T09:39:00.001-07:00

Ebony & Ivory at the Old Anch

2011-07-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

Christmas at the Old Anch

2011-07-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

Sam McDowell Whale Hunt

2011-07-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

Sam McDowells painting of the whale hunt in the West Indies

Sam McDowell was born in Somers Point but is probably best known in these parts as the owner of the Smuggler's Shop on the Ocean City Boardwalk between 13th and 14th Streets. With his beard and odd assortment of merchandise, McDowell was a popular Boardwalk figure when I first arrived in town in the mid-Sixties.

Iron Mike, a deep sea diving suit was one of the attractions at the shop.

Sam is more generally recognized elsewhere as an artist and one of the best contemporary scrimshaw artists in the world.

After selling is Boardwalk shop in Ocean City Sam moved to California where he lives in Carmell, though he spent many winters at his island home at Bequia in the West Indies.

The island natives, as they have for centuries, are permitted to hunt whales, and invited Sam to participate in one of their hunts, which included a Nantucket Sleigh ride once the whale was harpooned.

Besides his scrimshaw, Sam also paints, and has done some paintings of Somers Point as he remembers it from his childhood, including the house on Somers Avenue where he was born and the trolley stop at Christmas time.

Some of the Usual Suspects

2011-07-21T07:51:00.001-07:00

George McGonigle at Gregorys

2011-07-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

The Last Summer at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

Through the Old Anchorage Porthole

THE LAST SUMMER AT THE OLD ANCH

Part 1 – Spring 1993

The last summer at the old Anchorage Tavern in Somers Point began like many others when the morning shift bartender, 83 year-old Ed Margerum parked his grey pickup truck on Bay Avenue by the corner and walked up the steps to the porch to unlock the front door.

As he opened it a rush of stale air, a mixture of cigarette smoke, liquor fumes and a unique musky aroma, rushed out past him into the fresh salt air.

It’s 6:30 in the morning and the sun is rising over the bay. Through the large porthole window Ed sees the bright orange sun reflecting off the calm bay waters at low tide. Just across the street a lone, large blue heron stands out stalking his prey in the tidal pool among a flock of curious seagulls, a dozen lazy duck and some pigeons that roost on the sunny side of a nearby roof, taking it all in.

Built circa 1888, the Anchorage Hotel has stood strong through over a hundred seasons that have come and gone. It was originally built to house visiting fishermen and gunners, bird hunters who came to the Jersey Shore to catch fish and shoot ducks for Philadelphia restaurants and other shorebirds, whose feathers were sold to haberdashers for women’s hats.

The bay, Great Egg Harbor bay, was discovered in 1614 by Dutch sea Captain Cornelius May, whose explorers discovered the banks of the bay lined with bird’s eggs and named it Eryen Haven – Egg Harbor.

When the hunters and fishermen lived there, they slept in bunk beds and were warmed by a pot belly stove.

After being renovated as a first class establishment by Judge Larry Brannigan, the Anchorage Hotel added a ballroom and catered to the society types who came to the Shore in the summer from Philadelphia and New York.

Then, owned by Mr. Charles Collins, it became a summer tourist hotel for those who enjoyed boating, fishing and swimming in the bay waters. Of course, during prohibition, it was frequented by rum rummers, and one old patron recalled a raid when slot machines were thrown into the bay.

In 1938 the Anchorage was purchased by Lucille Cornaglia Thompson, who operated it with her husband until 1945, when she sold it to her brother Andrew "Henry" Cornaglia, from South Philadelphia.

When the Cornaglia family bought it from Lucille, they either kept up or introduced fine Italian food and the place was popular for its good and inexpensive pastas and family atmosphere. Entertainment was not the main attraction, though people still remember a black trio - the Three Keys, which included a piano player who strongly resembled Nat King Cole, and their little piano was kept in the back room for decades after they'd gone.

Henry's favorite songs on the juke box were "On the Way to Cape May," and Dick Todd's "Bummin' Around."

During the rock & roll era, the rooms upstairs were primarily leased for the summer by bartenders and musicians who worked at Bay Shores, Tony Marts, Steels and the other nightclubs down the street. The bar itself however, was primarily popular with locals and seasonal guests until the death of Mr. Cornaglia in the spring of 1965 when his son Andrew took over.

Although he wasn’t yet 21 and old enough to drink, he managed the place. "I didn't know vodka from gin," he later said, "and if it wasn't for my mother I never would have been able to sustain the first couple of years."

Things began to look bleak when his father's friends and the older folks stopped coming in. Then, Andrew recalled, "I was mopping up on a Good Friday when we were supposed to be closed, but I had forgot to lock the front door. These three guys walked in, all bartenders in the area, and they like the place. They just sent me people after that, and it just took off when the young people started to drift in. All of the key things in my life happened by accident. When it's your turn, it's your turn, that's what the Fates are doing. You can make all the wrong moves and they turn out right."

He hired some new bartenders who drew a new, younger crowd that made the Anchorage THE Place to meet before hitting the nightclubs that featured live bands.

By the early 1990s, Bay Shores and Tony Marts were history, and in their place was a restaurant and disco, neither of which attracted the same crowd who enjoyed the Anchorage, which still catered to the young crowds at night, at least during the summer months.

During the day the clientele were mainly locals, while the morning crowd consisted of older, retired men, veterans on disability and casino workers getting off the graveyard shift, still in their white shirts and black vests. That’s the crowd that Eddie the Old Man catered to.

They called Eddie “the Old Man,” and he's one of the few of the old time bartenders at the point who had been through a few of the previous eras. For the most part however, he worked up the street on the morning shifts at Gregory’s and Charlie’s, both a block away on Shore Road. He lasted a couple years at each place and then was fired for being too slow or some reason or another, and drifted down the street to the Anchorage, where nobody else wanted to work the early morning shift anyway.

When Charles Carney heard that Eddie was fired from Gregorys, he convinced Andrew to let Eddie take the morning shift at the Anchorage.

Eddie begins the early morning chores, sweeping and then mopping up the bathroom floors, wiping down the bar, filling up the sinks with bubbly soap and cleaning glasses until his first customer comes in. Usually it’s a regular, a old retired gentleman or casino worker with a pocket full of tips that’s counted on the bar.

Then Bob, the liquor salesman puts his head in the door and asks Eddie if he wants a cup of coffee. Eddie says yes, he always says yes, but Bob still asks him anyway. Then he goes across the street to the breakfast grill Bayshores II and brings back two white styrofoam cups of steaming coffee.

Bob sits at the bar and drinks his coffee, smokes a cigarette and watches the sun rise through the big porthole window as Eddie comes out of the kitchen with a cigar box, the money till that was stashed somewhere in the back room. He counts out $150 from a bag marked "Front," counts the change and gets the cash registers going.

These are mirror sharp metal mechanical NCR registers that recorded everything on thin, white paper rolls, the same ones that Gregorys used.

Jimmy "Ironworker" comes in through the back door, back by the juke box and pool table. He's carrying a newspaper and a hot cup of coffee that he sets on the bar and reads quietly for awhile before ordering a cold Bud.

Bob the liquor salesman leaves to make his rounds when Brian, a casino worker comes in, off from the graveyard shift.

Then in comes Gordon, who puts his cell phone on the bar - he's one of the few who have a cell phone in this time and place - and drinks his beer in a glass with ice.

Kevin the clammer comes in, and has some clams to sell or trade and has a beer.

If it's a rainy day, the work crew will take off early and come in, Jimmy the carpenter, the best of the carpenters, tries to get the other guys as much work as possible, but if its raining, that's a good reason to go to the Anch for the rest of the day.

If somebody asks for a glass of water or soda without liquor, Eddie would say, "This ain't no drugstore."

This day isn’t so unusual except it’s the Old Man’s birthday, and so a few friends who usually don’t come in every day stop by.

A few hours into his shift a small party of old friends come in and after a few drinks everyone is telling jokes and laughing. Ed is all smiles, and someone inevitably asks him to tell the horse story again.

The one where he tells about hitting a horse while driving down the Black Hosre Pike in his pickup truck. He then walks into the bar and says, “I just hit a horse,” to which somebody replies, “That’s great, for how much?”

Then everybody laughs even though they heard it a dozen times, and it is funny in a way since its true.

Then the girl shows up, the dancer they chipped in and hired to do a strip and lap dance for the Old Man on his birthday.

Eventually, as it gets closer to noon, Charles Carney walks in the front door wearing a St. Michael's Marland t-shirt. He's a bit surprised at all the people, all twelve of them, and the party that’s going on. Charles has a newspaper under his arm and comes behind the bar for a changing of the guard, handing the Old Man his top jar and politely refusing to get in a photo of Eddie with the stripper.

While Charles, not as old as the Old Man, is a little haggered and doesn’t really need or want all these customers, but he reluctantly puts up with it.

Then, when one of the casino workers asks Charles if he’s heard the rumors that the Anchorage has been sold, Carney shrugs and says, “Yea, I heard that rumor years ago. I won’t believe it until it happens.”

As if on cue, Andrew the owner walks in the front door, looks around at all the riger moral, laughs and shakes his head. Placing his keys on the bar, he sits down along the side by the kitchen door as Charles sets him up with a drink and says, “If anyone calls, I’m not here.”

Then when its his turn to tell an Ed Margerum story Andrew recounts the time when he told Ed that if any strangers come in asking for him to tell them he's not here, and then he picked up his drink and ashtray and went over to the other side of the room and sat at the bar in the dark by the jukebox. Sure enough two suits walk in and ask Eddie for the owner and Eddie looks over to Andrew and pointed and said, "He's over there." Eddie gave him up without batting an eye.

It doesn’t take long for the phone to ring. The pay phone in the old wooden phone booth in the corner by the door has those swing glass doors, and is answered by a regular customer who, after a moment’s hesitation, says, “No lady, there’s no rooms here anymore, this is no longer a hotel,” and hangs up.

Well into the casino era the Anchorage Hotel was still listed first, alphabetically in the Atlantic County phone book under hotels, so people from out of town often call the number expecting to reserve a room.

The rooms up stairs hadn’t been used in over a decade, maybe longer, and nobody’s even been up there in years. Nor is the kitchen used anymore, and is now used for storage, as is the once elegant ballroom off to the side.

After the Old Man leaves and the party dies down, Charles Carney comes around the side of the bar and sits next to Andrew and opens the newspaper. Charles plays the horses and the stock market on occasion, and is a well read gentleman and professional bartender.

He’s been a bartender in Somers Point since he was young and a ladies’ man, and has a few wives, ex-wives and a number of kids who sometimes check in with him. Although he has a small apartment behind a house a few blocks away, he lives with Carol, his girlfriend, who tries to take care of him.

Carney has worked at practically every bar and nightclub in town, some more than once, and was either fired for insubordination or he quit, and has been known to just walk out on a job if he felt like it.

The afternoon shift at the Anch, from noon to seven, is perfect for Charles, as it is better than the morning shift, tip wise, and not as hectic as the night shift, when all the young people come in and raise hell. It’s also a good shift for his friends who do work at night to come in and visit him, like Vince Rennich and George McGonigle, two other legendary Somers Point bartenders. Legendary is a heavy word to use but it certainly applies to Vince and George.

Although Ed the Old Man is an old timer, Vince, George and Charlie were three Aces on the one hand and the last of the old school bartenders who were young themselves when they first started working the Point bars and clubs in the heyday of the '50s and '60s.

Vince had started off as a barback at Bay Shores when he got out of the Army, a Korean vet, and was hired by John McCann, the beer baron who owned Bay Shores with Dick McLain.

Vince’s mom introduced him to McCann at a Philadelphia dinner party and told him to go down the Shore to Bay Shores and help open the joint for the summer. Living in a room upstairs, Rennich eventually became a bartender and after spending a few winters working in Flordia and summers at Bay Shores, after his wife got pregnant he got a steady, year ‘round job at Gregory’s.

When one of the other bartenders left, Vince called his friend George McGonigle in Atlantic City and got him the job at Gregs. Twenty some years later George and Vince were still a team, each working an end of Gregory’s long mahogany bar.

And sometimes, before going on their regular shift at Gregs, they’d stop by and visit their old friend Charlie Carney and share a few laughs.

THE LAST SUMMER AT THE OLD ANCH – To be continued.

First Mass at the Old Anch Ballroom Bar

2011-07-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Ed "The Old Man" Margerum toasts his birthday at the Anch. Nick sits behind him.

Last Summer at the Old Anch Part II - Mr. Mull Pays His Last Visit

The last summer at the Old Anch was also the summer that I was researching and writing what would become my first book 300 Years at the Point – A History of Somers Point, NJ.

I had proposed the book to the city and they accepted the proposal but when they got back the contract from the publishers, my friend and colleague Tim Cain was listed as the author. He had already completed his book Pecks Beach about Ocean City, and the publishers didn’t trust me so they gave him the job. I complained, and it was decided for both Tim and I to do the book with him doing half and me half and splitting the royalties.

Then Tim went and hung himself, for reasons unknown, and the book deal was called off, but I was too far into it and continued writing, convincing the city of Somers Point to back me and that I would do it on my own.

For beer and spending money I took on two bartending shifts at the Anchorage, the Wednesday and Thursday early morning shifts that nobody else wanted, the worst tipping shifts of the week. But that was alright with me, as I was just looking for something to do and when it wasn’t busy I could read and write away.

I pretty much had the same clientele as the Old Man, and did the same routine, cleaning up the place and then serving the first, early customers. Bay Avenue is pretty nice in the morning as the sun is coming up, and I’d get a cup of coffee from the breakfast grill across the street, Bayshores II, named after the old and now defunct rock club.

Then one morning, while I was by myself, an old man hobbled in leaning on a cane. He had peered through the porthole window, and I waved to him and he came in and sat down, looking around. “I was just passing by and thought I’d stop and come in and take one last look at the old place,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he was talking about one last look for himself, or if he had heard the rumors that it was sold and maybe torn down for condos or renovated.

His name is John Mull he says, beginning to tell me his story, “and I just wanted to see if it’s the same as I remember it.”

Mull is now 86, older than the Old Man, and he wants to look through the closed and locked swing doors that lead to the ballroom, but I won’t let him. “It’s too cluttered up with junk back there and isn’t safe I tell him,” but he insists and tries to persuade me.

“I used to attend mass in the backroom,” he says, taking a swig of beer that I poured him.

“I was just a kid,” he continues, “and there were only about 500 people in town then, and we didn’t have a church. Sometimes we had a mass in someone’s house when there was a priest in town.”

Mull said that his father, Harry Mull, who worked at the Bayview Inn, convinced the owner at the time, Charles Collins, who owend both the Bayview and the Anchorage, to let them say mass in the backroom ballroom, then a dining room of the Anchorage.

As Mull remembered, “Father Blake came over from St. Augustine’s in Ocean City. He came over on the Shore Fast Line Trolley, and walked down Bay Avenue to the Anchorage. The backroom was a big room then, with wire backed chairs, tables and a bar against the back wall. I remember the ladies putting the liquor away and placing a white sheet over the bar, which was used as the alter.”

There was never a shortage of wine for the ceremony, and Mr. Mull remembers his brother Robert being baptized on the bar in September, 1914.

“When mass was over, out came the liquor and up went the bar again,” Mull said with a smile.

After Mass the adults left but the kids would stay for Sunday school with Father Blake.

Mull also recalled attending first grade in the old City Hall and second grade in the old one room school house, which was heated with a pot bellied stove, was located between first and second street on Connecticut Avenue before it was moved to New Road when the New York Avenue school opened. The old one room school house on Rt. 9 became the Little Red Onion bar.

“Mrs. Leeds, the teacher at the one room school house,” recollected Mull, “had a daughter with blonde hair.”

After a pause for reflection, Mull said, “Isn’t it strange what you remember after 80 years?”

Then he remembered he left his wife in the car parked out front, and as he slowly made his way to the front door he explained that they were heading home from the supermarket and the ice cream was melting.

At the front door Mr. Mull stopped, leaned on his cane, turned around and said, “I liked it better as a kid. The bay was full of fish, the mosquitoes were the only problem, and I used to get a kick out of this place.”

Andrew and Vince at the bar

2011-07-17T09:44:00.002-07:00

Vince Rennich

January 9, 1932 – December 18, 1999

Vince F. Rennich, “Vin Vin” 67, died Saturday at Shore Memorial Hospital. Born in Philadelphia, PA he was an area resident for 46 years and local bartending legend at Greogry’s Restaurant and Bar for 42 years. He served in the Korean War in the First Calvary and was the recipient of the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Clusters and two Purple Hearts. Mr. Rennich was a graduate of the school of hard knocks, loved to travel and had a zest for life. He lived each day as his last.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Wednesday at 10:30 AM at St. Josephs Church, Shore Rd. Somers Point. Interment Seaside Cemetery, Palermo. Friends may call after 9:30 AM at the church.

Just out of the Army from the Korean War, he was hired by John McCann, the Philadelphia beer baron, and sent to work at Bay Shores, a Jersey Shore resort nightclub that catered to seasonal tourists.

“Where’s Somers Point?” Vince Rennich wanted to know, and McCann told him, “Throw away all your books, now you’re going to get a real education.”

“And he was right,” Vince said to me from across the bar. “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve learned behind the bar.”

Driving into town for the first time around Easter, 1953, Bay Shores wasn’t a hard place to find. The first thing was to get the place in order to open the weekend before Memorial Day.

Opening the closed and shuttered front door they found the place just as they left it last Labor Day.

“There’s still be beers and glasses on the bar as they left them,” said Vince, who explained that in that era, all the seasonal employees – cooks, waitresses, bartenders, even the bands all relocated to Florida for the winter, taking jobs at the seaside hotels and then returning around Easter to work the Jersey Shore in the summer. They preferred Miami, Boca and Fort Lauderdale.

Vince was shown a room upstairs where he could live, or sleep, and he said that it was, “the biggest dump with the nicest view in the world.”

Downstairs the bar that had a dance floor that extended out over the bay, was divided according to age lines, with the old timers in their suits and ties listening to their staid pop bands, while the younger crowd hung out on the other side of the room where there was another stage, where they played that loud, crazy music they hadn’t even give a name yet, but would become known as rock & roll.

The main acts at Bay Shores, at least among the young crowd, was Mike Pedicin, whose song “Shake A Hand” was popular and getting radio airplay, and another Philly band that included a teenager on trumpet, Frankie Avalon, and another kid Bobby Rydell, both sidemen who weren’t old enough to drink legally.

At the end of the summer, Vince visited friends in Florida, then got a job across the street from Bay Shores at Steel’s Ship Bar, which also featured live music, but then he was hired away by old Pop Gregory, who offered him a steady, year ‘round job up the street.

Vince would work at Gregory’s Hotel Bar & Restaurant for nearly a half century, taking seasonal vacations to Florida and maintaining his network of friends, especially his comrades George McGonigle and Charles Carney.

Typical Day at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:44:00.001-07:00

Bill "Boo Boo" Saylor reads a paper with John "Wolfman" McGonigle, both local neighbors sitting with Charles Carney, whose pouring a draft at the front bar.

Although this photo was taken during the day, the tap beer was still flowing, and it was the tap beer - seven beers for a dollar that made the Anchorage famous.

Although other bars had tried to used the gimic earlier, it really caught on at the Anchorage and that's one of the things that made the place popular and famous.

The Anchorage began serving seven beers for a dollar in 1966, Andrew's sophmore year in the school of hard knocks. Although it was a concept Andrew appropriated, he took it beyond the bar by making it a slogan and putting "Anchorage 7 for 1" on Tee shirts that were seen all day long up and down the Ocean City boardwalk and beach, giving the place unprecedented publicity, until the T-Shirts were banned by the ABC - NJ State Alcohol Beverage Control.

"Seven for one" seemed to roll off your lips so naturally, and was served up by bartenders with such flowing, poetic motion to the tunes of "Pennys from Heaven" or "Runaround Sue" that it was almost like a ballet. Set before you in a circle of spilling white topped foam they were never enjoyed alone, and had to be shared, and only cost a buck.

Passed around like a sacrament and toasted in a communion honoring the moment, it was a ritual that baptized more than one generation through the rights of passage that signaled the transition from youth to adult, and the best buck you ever spent.

"No one ordered just seven," Andrew reflected after it was all over. "You would get your orders for seventy - a hundred, and there would always be a bar full of beer, a backup of people who wanted beer, and two bar boys collecting the empies at all times. It was a great scavenger hunt."

Saturday on Labor Day weekend 1970 was the best day ever recorded, when they went through 44 half kegs, which amounted to someone figured out 17,556 beers. They continued to serve the draft beer until 1980, when the cost became prohibitive. It wasn't the cost of the beer however, but the glasses. The beer, either Piels, Black Label or Ortleibs was the least expensive beer on the market, the six ounce pilsner glasses that cost four cents each in 1966 cost 34 cents each by 1980, so another distinctive era came to an end.

For Andrew, it wasn't just about the Anchorage. They say he had a golden touch with turning places around, and before long had interest in five establishments. He bought the old Mug, which had been O'Byrne's and the Purple Villa, and converted it into Mothers, an after hour joint just across the bay bridge on the Longport Boulevard. Named after Peter Gunn's favorite hangout, Mother's featured live bands, had walls and ceilings that were lined with shag carpets and a backroom bar that was Charlie's Carney's private domain. He even had a separate door that you could get in without paying a cover if Charlie gave you a key.

Mothers gave the Dunes some stiff competition and often had the better bands, like Hit and Run and Bobby Campanell and the Shakes.

Andrew didn't stop there, but also had interest in the Bottom Line, an attempt to create a fine Italian restaurant on Pacific Avenue right across the street from Convention Hall. Andrew's family had lived in the neighborhood, and the Bottom Line was strong for as long as Andrew was there.

Just down Pacific Avenue on the corner near the casino was the My Way Lounge, which didn't have any windows, was dark as it could be and only had Sinatra tunes on the juke box.

Then there was the Yorkshire in Jenkentown, in North Philadelphia, which was a local saloon that he made popular.

"The key things that happened to me in my life were basically working hard, lucking out and knowing my brother-in-law Joesph Trecheck."

Trecheck ran the Anchorage for a couple of years while Andrew took care of the other places, but Andrew got rid of them one by one until he was back at the Anchorage, where he started out, and where he met with his motley band of friend, associates, workers and former workers who strayed in on occasion.

Scotty and Buck the Bartender

2011-07-17T09:43:00.001-07:00

Flashback to the summer of 1975, or was it 1976, the Bicentennial Summer?

In any case, Scotty worked nights and Buck the bartender worked during the day most days, and sometimes there was Charlie Brown, and also a guy whose name I can't recall, but it might be Bill.

Bill recalled that early one summer a guy came in and got a beer and went into the back by the juke box and sat up on the pool table that ran against the back wall, that had a hard mahogany wood cover that could be lifted up and fastened to the wall to play. With the top down, people sat on it like a raised bench, and this guy sat on it with his back to the wall, writing furiously in a little notebook.

Bill said he talked to the guy and he was a college student from Philly, like one of the thousands of college students from Philly, but this guy was different. Bill said he talked to the guy for awhile, as he was waitin' on a friend. It wasn't until the guy became famous that he could even tell the story of Jim Croce sitting in the back of the Anchorage and writing one of his songs, suggesting that it was "Time In A Bottle."

Another day, Tito Mambo came down from Bay Shores and discovered the little piano that was left behind by the The Three Keys decades before. It still worked, except for a couple of keys, and he banged out a few tunes for all of the few customers in the place on a quiet, sunny afternoon at the Old Anchorage.

Then one afternoon Buck the bartender had to do something else and he asked Scotty to work his afternoon shift, and I joined him, and since there were no customers, me and Scotty played a game of pool. While we were shooting, two guys walk in the front door in suits and ties, lose around the neck, and carrying suitcases.

Barney and Marty, direct from Irleand, just off the plane, caught a bus from New York City to Atlantic City and took a cab to Somers Point where they were told by someone at the bus terminal that it was a place where they could get jobs for the summer.

Scotty gave them each a cold beer while he listed to their story and called over to me and asked if I thought we should call Brian, our Irish friend who came to America under similar circumstances a few years earlier and was now working as a bartender at Zaberers, a big dinner joint out on the Black Horse Pike by the Race Track.

While I gave Brian a call from the Anchorage pay phone, Scotty asked them what kind of work they wanted to do.

When we discussed the fact that the guy who ran the Anchorage kitchen was not coming back this year, Scotty asked the two Micks if they wanted to run the kitchen right there, and they looked it over.

There was a grill with an overhanging umbrella and a deep fryer, as well as a refrigerator and freezer, and plenty of pots and pans, it was just a matter of cleaning things up and getting some supplies, and oh, yea, what's the rent?

The rent, according to Joe Trichek, Andrew the owner's brother-in-law, was to pay the electric bill for the entire summer, which came to between five hundred and eight hundred dollars. No problem.

I had gone back to making pizza on the Ocean City boardwalk that summer, and couldn't leave that job, but I became Barney and Marty's partner by bankrolling the first couple food accounts - hotdogs, hamburgers, blocks of cheese, onions, tomatoes, french fries and fresh Formica rolls from Atlantic City. We got some fresh clams from a clammer. But that was basically the Anchorage menu that summer.

I explained to Barney and Marty what a Cheesesteaks was by making one, and it became the best item on the short menu.

They moved, at first, into the apartment at my house that wasn't rented out until Memorial Day, so they had a few weeks to find new quarters, and Brian got them a car from a waitress at Zaberers - a white 65' Mustang convertable, for a couple of hundred dollars.

I owned a '57 Chevy that summer so we had two classic cars between us.

During the day the Anchorage was pretty quiet, but at night, it filled up with young people and had three bartenders, all busy, all night long.

The enticement was the seven draft beers for a dollar that were lined up along the bar, and people would come in and drink for an hour or two and meet their friends before walking down the street to the rock & roll bars, Bay Shores and Tony Marts, where the bands played.

Juke Box at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

The Jukebox at the Old Anch

When Andrew Henry Cornaglia owned the Anchorge it was famous for its pasta and Italian wines, and Henry's favorite songs on the juke box were "On the Way to Cape May" and Dick Todd's "Bummin' Around."

Later, after Johnny Caswell and the Chrystal Mansion began playing at Bay Shores, his songs were the local hits, along with the Skyliners's "Pennies from Heaven" and Dion and the Belmont's "Runaround Sue."

"Got an old slauch hat got my roll on my shoulder
I'm as free as the breeze and I'll do as I please just a bummin' around
I've got a million friends don't feel any older
I've got nothin' to lose not even the blues just a bummin' around
Whenever troubles start to bothering me
I grab my coat my old slauch hat and hit the road you see
I ain't got a dime don't care where I'm goin'
I'm as free as the breeze and I'll do as I please just a bummin' around
[ piano - fiddle ] I've got an old slatch hat...
Just a bummin' around."

TOP 10 SONGS ON THE OLD ANCH JUKEBOX

1) Pennys From Heaven - The Skyliners
2) Runaround Sue - Dion & the Belmonts
3) Beyond the Sea - Bobby Daren
4) Mack the Knife - Bobby Daren
5) Hallaluja - Johnny Caswell & the Crystal Mansion
6) Country - Johnny Caswell & the Chrystal Mansion
7) Just Bummin' Around - Dick Todd
8) Charlie Brown - The Coasters
9) To the Moon - Frank Sinatra
10)On the Way to Cape May -

Also rans: Quarter-to-Three - Gary U.S. Bonds; Ain't Nobodys Business - Billie Holiday; Up on Cripple Creek - The Band; Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley & the Comets; Expressway to Your Heart - Soul Survivors; Time in a Bottle - Jim Croce;

Phone booth at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:41:00.000-07:00

Bartending on the Last Day at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

Scanning the room at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:39:00.002-07:00

Billy Boyd on the Last Night at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:39:00.001-07:00

Billy Boyd, another legendary Somers Point bartender, lived upstairs when Andrew's father Henry owned the Anchorage.

Boyd went to Florida where he opened his own bar - the Parrot in Ft. Lauderdale, which became somewhat of a winter haven for Somers Point bartenders and patrons and is still a hangout for Philadelphia Eagle fans.

Billy Boyd came back to the Anchorage for the last night, as did a number of other old timers who wanted to pay their last respects.

Last Summer at the Old Anch

2011-07-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

Nace, Lisa and Michelle. Michelle, a Gregory's waitress, would marry Don Mahoney, who now owns the Anchorage.

Last Summer at the Old Anch Part 1

2011-07-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

THE LAST SUMMER AT THE OLD ANCH

Pirates at the Point?

2011-07-16T07:37:00.001-07:00

Bones Uncovered Behind Somers Mansion

2011-07-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

BONES DISCOVERED BEHIND SOMERS MANSION

NJ State road workers discovered bones while excavating around the 17th century Somers Mansion in Somers Point.

The Somers Mansion, the oldest building in Atlantic County, was built by John Somers, the founder of Somers Point, and sits on a bluff overlooking Great Egg Harbor bay and the barrier island of Ocean City.

The road work, part of the rebuilding of the Rt. 52 causeway between Somers Point and Ocean City, includes the replacement of drawbridges and the Somers Point Circle with a traffic light, and requires extensive excavations, especially around the historic building.

Many precautions were taken to prevent damage to the structure, including the use of sensitive electronic monitors that measure vibrations to ensure the building isn’t damaged.

Lat month, when the excavation went ten to twenty feet in front of Somers Mansion, the project’s supervisor said they uncovered no signs of any bones, artifacts or a tunnel that was rumored to be there.

That changed Friday when shortly after 1 pm, workers uncovered bones that may be human or of an animal, in the area behind the Somers Mansion, just beyond where the Pearl restaurant used to be located on MacArthur Boulevard near Braddock Avenue.

There used to be a house on the hill there that had a wraparound porch and overlooked the harbor, though it didn’t have a deep foundation, basement or cellar.

It is also the area that newspaper accounts from the 1920s mention a tunnel, as well as pirates and buried treasure, though persistent inquiries have failed to locate the tunnel or any treasure.

A 1923 New York Times report was headlined,: “‘Pirate’s Cave’ Not Yet Opened Much Interest in Somers Point Concerning Mysterious Passageway.”

“Efforts have thus far failed to open the underground sealed vault recently discovered by workmen on the Jeffe Braddock property at Somers Point,” the article continues. “A few days ago a posthole digger’s spade struck an iron-bound covering of wood. The wood, decayed, fell apart and beneath was found a solid lid of brick. These brick, when bought to light, proved to be the antique type imported from Holland by Richard Somers, who founded Somers Point in 1740 under a grant from the British king. Picks broke a way through the bricks. Below there opened a small square chamber of brick. Out from this chamber ran a passageway. It was lined with bricks and mortar most carefully laid, thick and solid and strong.”

Then pirates are brought into the story: “The old Braddock property is the commanding spot of all this section of the coast. It stands high and overlooks all the bay. It was here by all the laws of logic that the willful wreckers of vessels must have lighted their false beacons to lure the sips to destruction and loot. It was here that any pirate scanning the horizon for pursuers would build his hut, or execute his work of concealing treasure.”

This article apparently stimulated other reporters to visit the scene, as another news paper reported in a story headlined, “Picturing the Pirate’s Cave,” that, “Philadelphia newspapers rushed staff photographers to Somers Point this morning to get pictures of the mysterious cavern uncovered by heavy seas which dislodged a section of the bluff along the bay front during Sunday night’s storm.”

“While the phantasy that the bricked passageway was used as a storage place for Capt. Kidd’s ill-gotten gains sounds well, it is not treasured for an instant by the adult inhabitants of Mayor John M. Campbell’s balliwick.To the contrary is the general belief in Somers Point that the cavern in an underground passage that two centuries ago extended form the bay front to the old Somers Mansion which was for many years one of the show places of the bay resort. It is known that the old mansion had such exits for use in the event of an emergency but their location had not been known for at least 75 years.”

“The work of excavating the cavern is proceeding rapidly today and many old-time coins have been found. About 35 years ago during the progress of a land and real estate boom at the Point, workmen uncovered a foundation, the bricks of which were identified as being manufacture of an early date, certainly of a pre-Revolutionary period.”

“Immediately great excitement prevailed, as a story appeared in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and newspapers of other cities to the effect that this had been used as a ‘cache’ by Capt. Kidd during the times he put in this section of the Jersey coast. Shovels and picks appeared and a good deal of soil was turned over. But, alas, romance and mystery were dispelled when a member of Capt. Jesse’s family remembered as a child having seen her father’s cattle watered at a well in that vicinity.”

“However, it is a matter of record that an underground tunnel, made of similar brick, and existed, running parallel to New Jersey Avenue from the bay. Workmen excavating for cellars of houses built on New Jersey Avenue found portions of this tunnel well preserved.”

The Tunnel at Somers Mansion?

2011-07-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

Somers Mansion, Somers Point, New Jersey (Photo by Dan Drake, Press of AC)

With the reconstruction of the Somers Point Circle the land around Somers Mansion was totally excavated, right up to within a few yards of the building, yet there were no artifacts found or any signs of the legendary tunnel.

The Somers Point tunnel, according to myth and legends, ran from the basement of the Somers Mansion south to the Highbanks, where it let out near the water. It was said to have been used by smugglers, and was supposed to be a secret exit for those in the house if visited by pirates or the British during the Revolution.

Living persons claim that they have seen the tunnel, and there are news reports of it being found, but then again, nobody can find it today.

Ask anybody born and raised in Somers Point and they will tell you about the tunnel.

In 1923, a report in the New York Times wrote about the discovery of a brick tunnel that began in the old Braddock House, that sat on the hill behind Somers Mansion (now a paint store).

“Pirate’s Cave” Not Yet Opened

New York Times - 1923

Much Interest in Somers Point Concerning Mysterious Passageway

Efforts have thus far failed to open the underground sealed vault recently discovered by workmen on the old Jeff Braddock property at Somers Point. The property is now owned by Magistrate Lewis B. Mathias with Elmer Steelman now directing the excavations as life tenant.

A few days ago a posthole digger’s spade struck an iron-bound covering of wood. The wood, decayed, fell apart, and beneath was found a solid lid of brick. These brick, when brought to light, proved to be of the antique type imported from Holland by Richard Somers, who founded Somers Point in 1740 under a grant from the British king.

Picks broke a way through the bricks. Below there opened a small square chamber of brick.

Out from this chamber ran this passageway. It was lined with bricks and mortar most carefully laid, thick and solid and strong.

The passageway bored straight toward the present Mathias house. And for the time, the house holds the answer to what lies at the end of the passage. For the residence, built thirty years ago, has no cellar, and its foundations lay flat upon the ground.

But it will be necessary to cut away some of this foundation work before the excavators can go further. So far, they have thrust an iron bur as far as it will reach into the unexplored part of the passage. The bar does not touch the end. The passage from the square chamber of the house wall in about nine feet long, and three feet high, so a man can crawl but not stand in it.

The old Braddock property is the commanding spot of all this section of the coast. It stands high and overlooks all the bay. It was here by all the laws of logic, that the willful wreckers of vessels must have lighted their false beacons to lure the ships to destruction and loot.

It was here that any pirate, scanning the horizon for pursuers, would build his hut, or execute his work of concealing treasure.

From 300 Years at the Point - A History of Somers Point, NJ (p.31)

Picturing the Pirate’s Cave

Philadelphia newspapers rushed staff photographers to Somers Point this morning to get pictures of the mysterious cavern uncovered by heavy seas which dislodged a section of the bluff along the bay front during Sunday night’s storm.

While the phantasy that the bricked passageway was used as a storage place for Capt. Kidd’s ill-gotten gains sounds well, it is not treasured for an instant by the adult inhabitants of Mayor John M. Campbell’s balliwick.

To the contrary is the general belief in Somers Point that the cavern in an underground passage that two centuries ago extended form the bay front to the old Somers Mansion which was for many years one of the show places of the bay resort. It is known that the old mansion had such exits for use in the event of an emergency but their location had not been known for at least 75 years.

The work of excavating the cavern is proceeding rapidly today and many old-time coins have been found.

About 35 years ago during the progress of a land and real estate boom at the Point, workmen uncovered a foundation, the bricks of which were identified as being manufacture of an early date, certainly of a pre-Revolutionary period. This was on the Jesse Somers property, about where Higbee Avenue passes through. Immediately great excitement prevailed, as a story appeared in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and newspapers of other cities to the effect that this had been used as a “cache” by Capt. Kidd during the times he put in this section of the Jersey coast. Shovels and picks appeared and a good deal of soil was turned over. But, alas, romance and mystery were dispelled when a member of Capt. Jesse’s family remembered as a child having seen her father’s cattle watered at a well in that vicinity.

However, it is a matter of record that an underground tunnel, made of similar brick, and existed, running parallel to New Jersey Avenue form the bay, to where the Shore Fast Line crosses, which land, was of course, at that time, all forest. Workmen excavating for cellars of houses built on New Jersey Avenue found portions of this tunnel well preserved.

[Thanks to Sally Hastings and the Somers Point Historical Society for the news clip)

Old Mill at English Creek

2011-07-07T05:31:00.000-07:00

In my article on The President and the Prodigy, the golf prodigy was James "Sonny" Fraser, who I mentioned lived in the house on the hill above the old grist mill at English Creek in Egg Harbor Township, where he had many parties. In the mill pond, Fraser kept lobsters alive and the champagne cold.

When EHT celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2010, the only thing left standing from 1710 was the old grist mill at English Creek.

Here's a story about the mill from Wallace McKelvey in the Press of AC.

By WALLACE McKELVEY Staff Writer |

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/year-old-egg-harbor-township-mill-gets-new-water-wheel/article_f5ec236a-a82d-11e0-9396-001cc4c03286.html

EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — Like the generations of mill keepers that came before her, Audrey Foster has developed a keen ear for the waters of English Creek.

When the retired civil servant hears the water pounding into the spillway, she knows it is time to adjust the locks that control the flow of water to her neighbors downstream.

“During a rain storm, I will get up in the middle of the night to check on it,” she said. “The one time I didn’t, there was big trouble. If I hear it too late, I’d go ‘uh-oh.’”

Luckily, the “uh-oh” moment has only come once. Last year, she said, the fire department had to come help relieve the pressure of rising water on the floodgate. If the water flows out too fast, people downstream end up flooded; if it flows too slowly during a storm, people upstream are flooded.

Foster will have to retrain her ears.

For the first time in more than a decade, the historic mill on English Creek — which Egg Harbor Township founding father Joseph English’s deed shows dates to 1709 — has been fitted with a waterwheel. Since Foster and her partner, Ventnor attorney Frank Ferry, purchased the property from an elderly couple in the mid-’90s, the old mill has had no wheel.

“The previous owners sent it out for restoration and it never came back,” Foster said. “I guess someone wanted it more.”

A relic of EHT’s agrarian past

Township Historian June Sheridan said the grist mill is the oldest known structure in the township. While the main building has been rebuilt and renovated several times in its three centuries — the last time after a devastating 1919 fire — its foundation dates to the area’s first settlers.

Sheridan said the English Creek mill was part of a bygone industry that — together with shipbuilding — formed the backbone of the county’s agrarian economy. At one time, there were as many as five mills along the creek using the force of flowing water to cut lumber and pulverize corn and grains into flour and meal.
“Everything had to be located on the water, because that was their (power) source and transportation for materials,” she said. “It was a whole different system.”

A ledger preserved by the Scull family, prominent in early township history, documents a typical day at the mill. On Jan. 6, 1887, Lewis Smith, the last miller, paid a farmer $1.25 for 100 pounds of bran. Five days later, he paid $1.20 for 100 pounds of meal.

“(The mills) were the only way they could get grains ground for family usage, so it was one of the major things they needed at that time,” Sheridan said.

Into the 19th century, Sheridan said families would trade crafts or produce for the miller’s processed goods.
Gradually, the mills were abandoned, destroyed by fire or torn down. Of the seven or eight mills that once operated in the area, Sheridan said the English mill is the last one standing.

A secluded retreat

Historical documents show Smith stopped operating the mill in 1900. But it wasn’t vacant for long.
Documents Ferry — a self-described “house historian” — collected in an assortment of binders indicate that the mill’s next owner, Armand Nichols, wanted to use the waterwheel to generate electricity. That plan was foiled by the 1919 fire, which also destroyed Nichols’ vast collection of antiques and equipment that he had stored there.
While serving as director-general of the Miss America pageant in the 1920s and early 30s, Nichols incorporated the mill, as well.

“He’d bring the girls out here and take (portrait) shots of them around the spillway,” he said.

The mill’s next owner, James “Sonny” Fraser, a professional golfer and state assemblyman, became known for throwing raucous parties at the old mill. Foster said he renovated the building, taking out part of the roof to allow in light for his artist wife. He also installed a well-appointed bar.

“That was the main house,” she said, pointing to the two-story, white building up the sloping hill. “And this was the party house.”

Musicians, politicians and vaudeville performers visiting Atlantic City regularly made the trek into the woods for Fraser’s champagne and lobster parties, drawing attention to the old mill from the social columns.

Fraser died of Hodgkin’s disease at age 34 in 1950, after which the estate was inherited by Fraser’s manservant. But the mill continued to attract celebrities, including Bob Hope, Grace Kelly and a young Cassius Clay.

“It’s so peaceful, but I can imagine what it was like back then,” Foster said. “There’s history all around here.”
The history is literally in the walls. It’s most recent owners found a bundle of love letters between Doris Day and one of her beaus. For propriety’s sake, Foster said she couldn’t reveal the identity of the man.

Sheridan said the old mill’s status as a celebrity retreat was an anomaly in the mid-1900s. Back then, she said the township consisted of a few scattered residential enclaves amongst the farm fields and forests.

“There weren’t many Sonny Frasers in Egg Harbor Township,” she said. “It was like a pass-through place people from Mays Landing went through to get to Atlantic City or Pleasantville, which were more urban centers.”

While most of the roads were paved by Fraser’s time, it was still a sleepy, rural area, said Sheridan, a 75-year-old lifelong township resident.

“English Creek Avenue at that point in time didn’t even have electricity from School House Lane to Ocean Heights Avenue,” she said. “There were no poles because there were no houses to run electricity to.”
A village for a wheel

Today, the mill along English Creek still attracts the attention of drivers speeding down Zion Road toward Mays Landing. If they don’t miss it completely, Foster said many people stop to take a photograph. However, the mill wasn’t complete without a water wheel, she said.

Since she and Ferry bought the mill in 1996, Foster said she’s been looking for a wheel that could move the water from the locks down to the spillway. That search ended last year at the township’s 300th anniversary celebration, when organizer Lynn Wood pointed Foster toward an unused waterwheel just miles from the mill.

“It’s like it took a village making this project happen,” she said.

Loretta Maul, 65, of Cardiff, keeps busy doing carpentry and crafts projects for spending money.

“People come to me and say, ‘Can you do this?’” she said. “If I think I can and I want to, I do it.”

One of those projects happened to be a water wheel for a Lake Lenape homeowner. When that client sold her house before the wheel was finished, Maul put the wheel up for sale in the newspaper.

“I ended up taking orders for 13 of them,” she said.

The latest batch of Maul’s Jersey red cedar waterwheels, however, had sat unused for more than a year when Foster came calling.

“It’s just amazing,” she said of her handiwork becoming part of the historic building. “It’s a thrill to be a part of it.”
Farmington contractor Scott Warner moved the large wheel — 8 feet in diameter — into place on the side of the building. But when Ferry and Foster realized it was more historically accurate to place the wheel in the center of the building, Warner was tasked with figuring out how to move it 12 feet forward, toward the road.

“To get it as high as it was, we had to build a ramp to get it up there,” he said. “Took three of us out there to lift it.”
Unlike the first settlers, Warner and his crew had fast-setting concrete to build the bog iron piling that held up the wheel’s axle. They stemmed the flow of water and dammed the area around the piling with with blocks and drop cloths while the concrete cured.

Even though it won’t help grind any wheat, Foster said she’s glad that the mill finally has its wheel back.
“The day we moved in we wanted a waterwheel,” she said. “It took some 15 years, but we finally have it.”

Contact Wallace McKelvey:
609-272-7256
WMcKelvey@pressofac.com

Egg Harbor Township NJ 1710-2010

2011-07-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

1700s (circa) Deed for property in Egg Harbor Township written on sheepskin.

300 YEARS - EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP HISTORY 1710 – 2010

Crossroads of the Jersey Shore – Lacked Recognition, Until Recently.

The area has changed tremendously over the three hundred years that Egg Harbor Township has been in existence, especially in the past fifty years when it went from a rural to a suburban to an almost urban community.

Before the European settlers came, everything had stayed pretty much the same for the previous ten thousand years, as the Lenni Lenape Indians lived in close harmony with nature, but the changes came swiftly when the settlers moved in and made the area around Great Egg Harbor their home.

While the Indians are gone, they left behind some of their language, especially place names that we’ve adopted, like Patcong Creek that sets the legal boundaries of Somers Point, and Absecon Island.

The name Egg Harbor stems from the name given to the bay and river by early Dutch explorers, who were impressed by the huge numbers of bird’s eggs that lined the marshes. The name was placed on early maps and was incorporated by the early settlers, mainly Quakers related to the Somers, Steelman, Scull and other families that have towns named after them and still have relations living in the area.

Since Egg Harbor Township once incorporated most of all Atlantic County, local historian June Sheridan calls it the “mother” township of the entire area. In 1964 the Egg Harbor Township Tercentenary Committee erected an historic plaque that reads: “In 1710 Egg Harbor Township encompassed the entire section known as Atlantic County Since 1744 many townships and cities have been erected out of its original boundaries.”

“It’s not unique that people settled here,” says June Sheridan, “but we have a unique history that predates the founding of the country that few people are aware of, like the shipbuilding industry, and all the schooners that were made here.”

If broken into historic time periods, the Indians lived in the Woodland era before the colonial period, which included many local Egg Harbor Township patriots who fought in the revolution. Then there was the industrial shipbuilding period during the age of sail, when over a hundred schooners were built along Patcong Creek and Egg Harbor River. When the last schooner was built in the late 1800s, the area slipped into a quite, rural community until the dawn of the automobile, when it became host to traveling tourists on the pike and along the bay and river.

Then, with the casinos and the spread of the suburbs, and designated a growth area by the Pinelands Commission, Egg Harbor Township quickly became a major urban area, but still got little recognition, until recently.

For former mayor John Heinz, it is a bone of contention that Egg Harbor Township didn’t get any recognition, with the Atlantic City Airport, the Atlantic City Race Track, and the old Atlantic City Speedway for auto racers, they all held the Atlantic City moniker but were all in Egg Harbor Township.

Now that’s all changing and Egg Harbor Township is getting the recognition along with the development that was targeted by the Pinelands Commission. According to Heinz, “The nature of the township changed from a rural, clamming, fishing, farming community to a modern one very quickly and for a number of reasons, not only because of casinos.”

“Even in the pre-casino era,” says Heinz, “four out of five Atlantic City access roads went through EHT, and along with the airport and NAFAC, EHT was always the crossroads of South Jersey.”

The Atlantic City Race Track, which opened in EHT as the first legal gambling in New Jersey in 1945, wasn’t really that big of a deal, as most of the patrons went to Atlantic City afterwards. The only time the track impacted the township was in 1969 when they held the Atlantic City Pop Fest at the track, and the hippies came and camped out all that weekend.

But the changes came slow at first. When Heinz came to office in 1977, the police department was run out of a basement off the Black Horse Pike where prisoners had to be handcuffed to a pipe and since it didn’t have a toilet they had to use the bathroom at the nearby diner. It was during Heinz’s administration that the police got their new home and a K-9 unit that was used to handle some of the mainly tourist crowds at the after-hours bars that were on the outer fringes of the township when they were legally permitted to remain open 24 hours.

The first municipal meetings in 1710 were held at the local public tavern in Bargaintown, which was officially licensed to dispense liquor and provided the first taxes for the government.

The bars, nightclubs and restaurants in Somers Point had to close by 2am, while just across the Patcong Creek the bars in the Township stayed open all night. Of the old after hour bars in EHT, there were the Dunes and Mothers out on Longport Boulevard, and Jack’s Grove, which became the Attic/Boatyard, that’s now the Elks Club. “Those places were problems when they got jumping after midnight,” said Heinz, “and not only with the college kids, but with bikers. When some of the police got beat up by the bikers, we started the K9 unit.”

Then they rolled the bar hours back to the more reasonable three and four in the morning, “so that made the college kids go home and not stay the entire night.”

At the time the government was run out of the Old Grange Hall that was falling down and eventually had to be raised a year before the new municipal hall was built. Heinz recalls getting a phone call from the guy contracted to demolish the building, and since he was performing a marriage ceremony, he asked him to call back. Resuming the ceremony, the room shook as the contractor began the demolition with the mayor and bride and groom inside.

They found some old books in the old Grange Hall that were hidden by a false ceiling among them ledgers from previous administrations and a “Book of Bastardy,” which listed all the children born out of wedlock in the township, and is now on display at the new EHT Historical museum, which is located at 6647 West Jersey Avenue.

The rapid change in the nature of the community and the development of residential neighborhoods not only saw the end of the Old Grange Hall but also the old mill that was still standing on Mill Road until the 1980s when nobody wanted to assume responsibility for the damn.

Today there isn’t much left standing from 1710. Architectural historian Joan Berkey, who also has a new book on historic Cape May County homes, put together a booklet of the historic buildings in the township, the oldest she dates to the 1790s.

The only historic structure left from 1710 is the damn and foundation of the grist mill at what is now a private home in English Creek that used to belong to James “Sonny” Fraser, the former amateur golf champion and state legislator who founded the Race Track.

While the township takes pride in its revolutionary war heroes and shipbuilding past, there was also the Sunshine Park nudist colony, the KKK meetings in Bartaintown and Price’s Pit, one of the nation’s most serious toxic waste dumps. Discovery of Prices’s Pit forced then Mayor Heinz to get new water for the residents who lived near that area, and it still remains a serious issue with Heinz today. “They discovered that problem in 1977 and nothing was ever done, and it sits there the same way today.”

While the dramatic changes are self evident to those who witnessed it, as June Sheridan says, “If someone left and came back here after thirty years they probably wouldn’t recognize very much.”

But the history is still there if you look for it and the 300th anniversary of the township is being taken advantage of to call attention to and educate people about the history of the area. Marilyn Gallagher, who was the chair of the 300th Anniversary Committee, gave the year-long program a lot of enthusiasm. “Our 300th anniversary was a wonderful opportunity to reach all our residents - old and new - and let them know about our rich past and all the positive future possibilities,” says Gallagher. “They can be proud to be a part of EHT - and our growing community.”

Besides opening the new Historic Museum on West Jersey Avenue on the actual date of the anniversary, over a thousand people were on hand to open a 'Celebration Shoppe' at Shore Mall where information as well as commemorative items like Berkey’s booklet of historic EHT homes were purchased throughout the rest of the year.

According to Gallagher, “the 'high growth' designation we received from the Pinelands Commission is a point of reference for the exploding population in EHT. Another, possible point of reference could be our withdrawal from the Greater Egg Harbor Regional School District, and we now have a student population of over 8,000, above many North Jersey school districts, and with the 2010 census, EHT is expecting to topple well over the 40,000 mark in total population.”

The only thing certain after 300 years is that Egg Harbor Township is a different place than it was three centuries ago, and in 300 years, very little will be left of what we have today, especially since we live in such a disposable society.

[William Kelly, author of 300 Years at the Point, can be reached at billkelly3@gmail.com or 425-6297 ]

Somers Point Ghost House

2011-07-03T04:30:00.000-07:00

Somers Avenue, Somers Point (NJ) Ghost House

Gregory Young and other people who have lived in the old house thought they were going crazy, or at least some crazy things were happening to them.

The house on Somers Avenue in Somers Point doesn’t stand out among the other quaint bayside cottages, but what happens inside has spooked residents and visitors alike.

When the current residents began to experience some unlikely events, and began to think the house was haunted, they learned that a previous owner thought so to, and even wrote a book about it, that’s now a series of books.

Gregory Young’s “A Father, A Son and A House Full of Ghosts” was first published a few years ago, but since that was published, he’s also written, Book II, “the continuation of a true story of the paranormal events that a father and son experienced after purchasing a house which was occupied by ghosts.”

And now we have book III to complete the trilogy, and compliment his other books, “Kindred Emotions: Quotes of Wisdom,” “10 Holiday Plays for 4th,5th and th Graders” and “Over 100 Reasons Why Men Should Never Marry,” all privately published and available from Jetty Books (http://www.jettybooks.com/events.htm) or Infinity Publishers (http://www.buybooksontheweb.com/peek.aspx?id=3329).

The strange events began when he first bought the house in 2000 and began renovating it. As the bizarre occurrences began to add up, he investigated, and learned more of the history of the 100 year old house and who had previously lived there. Giving the accounts of others as well as his own experiences and those of his son, his books document the events while he speculates on the possibility of reincarnation and of angels watching over us.

As Gregory Young puts it, “The unexplainable occurrences in this house were happening more and more frequently. I couldn’t go on living like this. No matter where I was, I would be thinking about it. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. None of it made sense. I would tell these stories to people and they would look at me like I was crazy. I Must Be Crazy. They thought something was wrong with me. I began to think it myself. Was I losing my mind? Was this all in my head? Or, was I going through something extraordinary, something so rare and unbelievable that there just isn’t anyone to talk about it with. I was becoming more and more confused. I constantly though about it and I never knew what was going to happen next or when. I needed some answers.”

“The stories were adding up,” says Young. “There was certainly something in this house. There had to be. Both my ten year old son and I were becoming increasingly convinced. This is nothing that I would have ever wanted to expose him to, but he was here a lot of the times when these strange occurrences occurred. He witnessed them too. He could see the fear in my face and hear the panic in my voice. He and I would talk about it and try to come up with explanations, but just couldn’t.”

Lucky for them, the ghosts appear to be friendly, and only play with the electric, appliances and moving inanimate objects about. “With the many strange occurrences that have happened in this house, I don’t remember a time when either one of us were truly scared. It was more a case of being shocked, shocked at what we saw or what had happened. I didn’t have any answers, but I had a lot of questions, and the most formidable question was, is there something living in this house with us?”

Young says he eventually figured out, with the help of psychics, there are at least four ghosts, including Danielle, a fifteen year old African American slave from the 1700s and two mischievous children, Sarah, a four year old girl from the 1920s, and Jonathan, a ten year old boy who died of measles, and is dressed as a Boardwalk Empire extra.

Young has actually seen Agnes, and who hangs out primarily in the kitchen, and based on her behavior, wasn’t too keen on the recent renovations.

“Actually, I’m flattered,” noted Young. “I feel blessed to have such an extraordinary experience happen to me. It was nothing I was looking for, nothing I had planned. I guess I can say I enjoy it. It’s very friendly, nothing mean going on. It’s very good natured.”

“I was documenting all of the occurrences,” said Young. “I just kind of kept quiet and kept moving forward. Then I thought the best way to get this out would just be to write it all. I realized I had a great story here and I decided to publish it.”
With the complaints of strange events by the current occupants of the house and the publication of the latest edition of his book, Young has embarked on a local book tour of the area that includes the Cape May Farmer’s Market (July 12, 19, 26, Aug. 2, 9, 19), Cape May Tomato Festival (Sept. 3) and Jackson St. Fair (Oct. 1), Absecon Historical Society (Oct. 3), the Cape May Lima Bean Festival (Oct. 8) and Atlantic City Teacher’s Convention (Nov. 10-11).

Certified Historical - The World Famous Anchorage

2011-06-26T02:07:00.000-07:00

Brief History of the Anchorage Tavern from the back of the take-out menu.

The World Famous Anchorage Tavern Est. 1888
823 Bay Avenue, Somers Point, New Jersey 08244
(609) 926-1794

The Anchorage Tavern is the oldest, continuously operated business establishment in Somers Point. Built (circa) 1874, it was first known as the Trenton Hotel and catered to seasonal visitors, mainly fishermen and bird gunners who took on the hunting of birds as a sport. Ducks were sold to restaurants while the feathers of other birds were used to adorn hats that were a fashion in those days. The sheer numbers and variety of the avian species produced the bird eggs that inspired early Dutch explorers to give Great Egg Harbor its name.

Known as the Anchorage Hotel since 1888, Victorian era spindles once lined the porch, and at the turn of the century the ballroom was built as an addition. For a time the hotel catered to the New York and Philadelphia society, when men dressed in tuxedos and women wore long gowns to dinner and strolled on the porch to enjoy the summer breeze.

In August 1905, as can be seen by the newspaper clipping on the wall, Daniel Reagan, the proprietor at the time, advertised “cheerful rooms,” for $8 and $10 a week, with “fish, boating and bathing” being the primary attractions.

On a Sunday morning in 1910 the pastor of St. Augustine’s Church in Ocean City took the steam ferry to Somers Point, walked down Bay Avenue and served the first public mass on the bar in the ballroom of the Anchorage Hotel. Charles Collins was the owner of record at the time.

The Anchorage was not always a saintly haven however. Prohibition rum runners used the same small inlets and side creeks that were once used by pirates, smugglers and Colonial revolutionary militia. The rum runners found Great Egg harbor a friendly port and the Anchorage Tavern a popular watering hole. At times the Anchorage was known to sport slot machines and its patrons were known to enjoy games of chance.

For awhile the bar was owned by Judge Larry Brannagan, who was known as the local Judge Roy Bean and “the law east of Patcong Creek.” Hannah Somers, a descendent of the town’s founding family, was also a proprietor for many years. Her longtime bartender, John Coyle kept a parrot named Teddy, which picked up an atrocious vocabulary from the locals at the bar.

After prohibition, the Anchorage was issued the fifth city license C-5. In 1938, the hotel was purchased by Lucille Cornaglia Thompson, who operated the hotel and bar until she sold it to her brother, Andrew “Henry” Cornaglia in 1945. The Three Keys, who once performed before the Queen of England, were the house band for many years when the Anchorage was known for its find Italian pasta and sauces.

With the death of Mr. Cornaglia in 1965, his son Andrew assumed the business and he attracted a new, younger clientele who enjoyed playing pool, shuffleboard and the juke box. The younger crowd made it a tradition to meet at the Anchorage before heading out to Bay Shores, Tony Marts, Steels and other establishments that featured rock & roll bands. The Anchorage became famous for serving seven beers for a dollar and the 7 for 1 T-shirts are now collector’s items.

The William Morris family acquired the Anchorage in 1993, restored the building, upgraded the kitchen and kept the nostalgia alive.

Don Mahoney, who had previously ran the kitchen for a number of years, purchased the Anchorage in 1999, and continues to serve good food and drinks to a new generation of patrons as well as those who return to remember the good old days.

The Anchorage Tavern, a Jersey Shore legend and tradition for over a century.

(By William Kelly, author of “300 Years at the Point” – a history of Somers Point, NJ)

Charles Carney pours a beer at the old Anchorage

2011-06-26T01:59:00.000-07:00

Charles Carney pours a draft beer for John "Wolfman" McGonigle and Boo Boo Saylor at the old Anchorage Tavern.

Legendary Somers Point Bartender Charles Carney

2011-06-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

Legendary Somers Point Bartender Charles Carney

Charles Obit simply read:

Carney, Charles F. 77 of Somers Point, died peacefully on February 18, 2006. His daughter Colleen, a son-in-law David, Carole and his pal Andrew were at his side.

Charles was a legendary bartender in the Somers Point area. He began his career at Steel's Ship Bar, went on to Mac's, Gregory', Mothers's, The Med., The Shangra-Laa, Crab Trap and the world famous Anchorage.

Charles is the brother of the late Frank. He is survived by his brother George (Violet)of Collingswood, NJ; his childrean Charles and Sean of Miami Beach, Fl. Colleen (David) McIlroy of Sunset Beach, CA and his partner and soul mate Carole Rubino of Somers Point. Relatives and friends are invited to his viewing Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006 from 9:30 to 11 Am,m St. Joseph Church, 612 Shore Raod, Somers Point. Followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 11AM. Interment Seaside Chemetery. In lieu of flowers the family requests memorial contributions to the DOn MacBeth Memorial Jocky Fund, P.O. Box 18470. Encino, CA 91419. Arrangements by Terranova Funeral Home Inc. www.terranovafunderalhome.com

But the last time I saw Carole I promised her that I would write more, and now I'm fulfilling that promise.

More to Come - BK

Last Call at the old Anch

2011-06-26T01:45:00.000-07:00

Some of the last bartenders at the old Anchorage Tavern in Somers Point.

From left, James Dean, Boston Rick, Ed Margrum (age 88), Bruce the beard and Charles Carney.

This photo was taken on the morning after the last night party when everyone drifted back and helped clean up the mess. Boston Rick was last known to be tending bar on South Street in Center City Philadelphia. Bruce, Ed and Charles have passed. James Dean disappeared.

77 pound 4 oz Striper - one lb Short of Record

2011-06-22T01:58:00.000-07:00

Caught off Block Island Rhode Island by Peter Vican, this striper is one pound short of McReynolds record.

McReynold's World Record Striper Mount

2011-06-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

Albert McReynold's World Record Striper Mount - Riptide Bait & Tackle, Brigantine, NJ

Carmen and Nancy Marotta on the AC Boardwalk

2011-06-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

Carmen and Nancy with the late Herman "Roscoe" Ernest.

Read Carmen's tribute to Roscoe in the AC Weekly : http://blogs.atlanticcityweekly.com/ac-central/tag/carmen-marotta/

Carmen and Nancy Marotta are back on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, helping produce a series of concerts at Kennedy Plaza this summer.

While the Chicken Bone Beach shows have been going on for a few years at the same location, the Mardi Gras Marotta is promoting is relatively new and successful because of the exceptional talent brought in by Carmen and Nancy.

Carmen literally grew up in the music business since his father was the legendary Tony Mart - Anthony Marotta, who took a small Somers Point rathskeller and made it into the "Showplace of the World."

At the same time the best acts played Steel Pier, Tony Marts nightclub in Somers Point featured top flight hit acts in a much more intimate setting.

After Tony Marts was sold, Carmen opened The Classic American Cafe in New Orleans with Levon Helm, of the Band fame, where he made the acquaintance of all the jazz greats. He then dabbled in politics for awhile, but kept his fingers in the music business by helping to book good shows for the annual Good Old Days Picnic and Friday Night Beach concerts at the Point's municipal beach.

Although there's still some bars, clubs and cabarets that feature live bands, most of the best action this summer is taking place out doors, in public, and they're also great places to take the family. Plus they're free, thanks to the local institutions (Like the Somers Point Recreation Dept. and Atlantic County freeholders, and other sponsors), who picked up the slack to make these shows happen.

Carmen and Nancy aren't new to Atlantic City either. Actually they are coming back to the old Hood, err Wood, since Tony Mart got his start selling hot dogs and hoagies on the boardwalk, and his wife's family started the famous White House sub shop.

"Some of the hottest, new cutting edge music in these genres is coming out of New Orleans," says Carmen. "You have these big jam bands, like Dave Matthews and some of the other bands that are playing at the Dave Matthews Caravan, and they are influenced by and their mentors are people like the Neville Brothers and George Porter Jr."

"We're starting earlier, and we were able to build on the success of last year's shows. Last year was our first season, and we were only able to do eight, but this year, we felt confident enough to plan 13."

There's a good mixture of classic bands, like Commander Cody, Fabulous Thunderbirds, Otis Clay and Roomfull of Blues, really good local acts - (ie. Danny Eyer and Billy Walton) and some real Louisiana Legends like Cyril Neville and Terrance Simien & his Zydeco Experience.

■ June 27: Commander Cody Band.
■ July 3: Battle of the Guitar Heroes — Jersey Shore Champ Billy Walton versus Mississippi Challenger Vasti Jackson.
■ July 11: The Fabulous Thunderbirds featuring Kim Wilson.
■ July 18: The Music That Made Tony Mart’s Famous performed by the Tony Mart Allstar Band including Danny Eyer and others.
■ July 25: Cyril Neville and Tribe 13.
■ Aug. 1: The Otis Clay Band.
■ Aug. 8: Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone and his band, with special guest Susan Cowsill.
■ Aug. 15: The Soul Rebels Brass Band, The Billy Walton Band.
■ Aug. 16: Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers, The Soul Rebels Brass Band.
■ Aug. 17: Terrance Simien & the Zydeco Experience, Lil’ Martha.
■ Aug, 22: Bonerama.
■ Aug. 29: The Curtis Salgado Band.
■ Sept. 4: Roomful of Blues, Honey Island Swamp Band.

Then there's the Chicken Bone Beach jazz shows, that pick up where Kentucky Avenue left off. While Carmen tends to bring in the New Orleans style jazz, the kind that were featured at Tony Marts back in the heydey, the Chicken Bone Beach shows are more of a Big City jazz.

Chicken Bone Beach is what the locals affectionately called the beach patronized by blacks during segregation, and was popularized primarily by the bar tenders, waitresses, cooks and musicians from the Kentucky Avenue Clubs who had been up all night. Sammy Davis Jr., his mom, Dizzy and Duke were all there, and the chicken came primarily from Jimmy's Joint, just across the street from the legendary Club Harlem, now a parking lot.

Date / Time HEADLINERS 8:30 to 10 PM ARTIST 7 to 8 PM

July 7 Bootsie Barnes & Friends Dahi Divine Legacy Quintet
July 14 Dave Valentin ZAMAR featuring Keith Hollis
July 21 Barbara Walker Eddie Morgan REK'D 4 Jazz
July 28 Monnette Sudler Tony Day Quartet
August 4 Dominick Farinacci CBB Youth Jazz Ensemble
August 11 Tia Fuller Budesa Brothers Trio
August 18 Helen Sung Dwain Davis Quartet

Concert funded in part by the NJ State Council of the Arts/Department of State through the Atlantic County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs, Comcast, Harrah's Entertainment, PNC Bank, Kinematica Inc, Kramer Beverage Co. COORS, Atlantic City Electric, Just 4 Wheels, Atlantic City Convention Center, City of Atlantic City and ZEO Brothers - Tune in to Stockton College Radio Station WLFR – 91.7 Wednesdays Chicken Bone Beach hour 7 to 8 PM Phone: 609) 441-9064 or (609) 841-6897 Email: chickenbonebeach@juno.com Visit our websites: www.chickenbonebeach.org Atlantic City Free Public Library or www.acfpl.org 609-345-2269 http://www.chickenbonebeach.org/schedule-summer.html

Then there's the Somers Point Beach concerts, which start at 7pm every Friday night all summer long. Don Kinsey and the Kinsey Report kicked things off last Friday. Just bring a beach chair and sit back and enjoy.

19th Annual Somers Point Beach Concert Series

June 24 The Eric Lindell Band:
National recording Artist Singer Songwriter, Guitarist Hot from New Orleans!

July 1 The Jeremiah Hunter Band:
Premiere Rock ‘n Roll Party Dance Band featuring members from The Soul Survivors and Fullhouse

July 4 (Monday) The Bob Campanell Band with Danny Eyer:
Our own Jersey Shore Rock ‘n Roll Pop Icon with his favorite lead guitarist

July 8 Jim Morris & The Big Bamboo Band:
Caribbean Key West Melodies from Radio Margaritaville

July 15 The Billy Walton Band:
Searing Rock Guitarist from South Side Johnny’s Asbury Jukes

July 22 Edgardo Cintron Band with Dane Anthony
Latin Sounds with a Tribute to Santana

July 29 Dr Bobby Fingers with “Ernie T” Trionfo:
Popular Music Sing a Long Party with sizzling lead guitar

August 5 Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone with Special Guest Susan Cowsill:
New Orleans Rhythm & Blues & Louisiana Rock 'n Roll

August 12 Kenny Neal and His Band:
World Renown Award Winning Blues & Roots Recording Artist

August 19 Curtis Salgado Soul Band:
The Man who taught the Blues to the Blues Brothers with his World Class 9 Piece Big Band

August 26 The Reba Russell Band:
Tennessee Country Blues Diva from Beale Street

September 2 The Terry Hanck Band:
World Class Honky Tonkin’ Roots Rock Saxophonist/Lead Singer

September 9 Ed Vezinho/Jim Ward Big Band with Rosemary Benson:
16 Piece Contemporary Big Band with Sensational Vocal Styling

Begins June 17th At The William Morrow Beach / Municipal Beach Park, Located Between Higbee And New Jersey Aves On Bay Ave in Somers Point. Free shows Fridays Start At 7PM, From The Third Friday In June Until The Second Friday in September. Hosted By: The Somers Point Recreation Department.

Visit www.somerspointbeachconcerts.com for photos, video clips & more.

Somers Point, New Jersey USA

2011-06-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

SOMERS POINT, NEW JERSEY – “Small town charm on the bay.”

As it has for centuries, Somers Point has provided fine fishing, boating, sailing, dining and entertainment for both area residents and visitors alike.

Situated just across the bay from dry Ocean City, Somers Point has been allocated more than its share of liquor licenses, and boasts many good bars and fine restaurants, and is known especially for locally caught, fresh seafood.

It has been said that “Somers Point is a drinking town with a fishing problem.”

Founded by Quaker families as a self-sufficient plantation over three hundred years ago, Somers Point is located on Great Egg Harbor bay, a safe harbor that takes its name from the large numbers of bird eggs found by early Dutch explorers. The inlet, bay and Egg Harbor river waters have continually served sailors, fishermen, hunters, crabbers and clammers since colonial times, and for the local Indians, for 10,000 years earlier.

Natural attractions include the High Banks at Kenney Park, overlooking the bay and barrier island of Ocean City, which provides a public boat ramp, picnic tables and other facilities and is where the annual Good Old Days picnic is held on the weekend after Labor Day. Greate Bay Golf Club, a championship course designed by the legendary Scotsman Willie Park, Jr. is over the bluff.

There’s also a municipal pier at William Morrow beach on Bay Avenue, where Bayfest is held in June, a classic theater and movie house that is undergoing restoration, and thriving marinas that feature an annual boat show.

Many fine restaurants and nightclubs enhance the Historic District and make for a popular, chic residential neighborhood in a community that also boasts fine schools, churches and Shore Memorial community hospital.

The historic restorations of the Anchorage Tavern, Mayer’s Inn and the old City Hall, now the town’s library, have significantly maintained valuable traditions that allow new generations to experience the same venues as their parents and grandparents.

The spirit of the old rock & roll joints – Bay Shores, Tony Marts, Mothers and the Dunes, now lives on at new places that feature live music and every Friday night all summer when free concerts are held under the stars at the William Morrow municipal beach.

Gregory’s, Charlie’s and DiOrio’s are three local bars and restaurants that are operated by a new generation of the same families for over a half-century.

The bars, restaurants and music all seem to fit with the boats and marinas to make for a unique neighborhood that has undergone many changes over the years, but maintains that small town charm on the bay.

A Tale of Two Fish - World Record Stripers

2011-06-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

A TALE OF TWO STRIPERS – A TRUE FISH TALE

Funeral for Maury Upperman's world record striper at Gregory's in Somers Point. (above)

Albert McReynolds broke that record with one of his own, and one that still stands today.
(left)

Maury Upperman and Albert McReynolds are not terribly well known to most people, but they are legends among fishermen who know their stories are true.

The current and previous world record striper fish were caught off the South Jersey shore by local, fishermen Maury Upperman and Albert McReynolds, one from a boat and the other from the end of the Atlantic City jetty during a N’easter.’

Roccus saxatilis, as it is refered to by scholars, is better known as a rock fish, or locally as a striper, because of the beautiful multi-colored brown and blue scales that run lengthwise along its body.

The striper is prized, not only for its beauty, but its size, fighting spirit, filet texture and taste. It is the filet mignon of fish, except it can’t be bought in seafood markets or restaurants at any price.

Because of its popularity, the striper was over fished, especially by commercial fishermen at sea in nets, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisherman’s Commission officially declared it a sporting fish that only sports fishermen could fish for with rod and reel.

A sixty pound striper could be over five feet long, as big as a man, with the largest recorded striper being 125 pounds, probably over 40 years old, and caught by commercial fishermen off Massachusetts. Local commercial fishermen out of Atlantic City and Cape May say they have caught stripers over 100 pounds but must release them by law.

Although it once almost disappeared completely, the Indians would be happy to know that - like the bald eagle, black bear and wild turkeys, the striper has returned, but not in great numbers, so it is still a rare and hard to catch.

Striper was served at one of the first meals that the local Indians shared with European settlers, and how to catch them was one of the first survival skills learned and passed on from one generation to the next. Stripers caught in local waters, provided by local rebels, were one of the staples in the diet of Washington’s army during the revolution.

They were once so plentiful that they were used as fertilizer.

Now they’re prized as a rare local delicacy, one you can’t buy at any price, and can only enjoy if you know someone who caught one.

To a fisherman, one striper is worth a hundred blue fish or flounder, and your striper fisherman is not your typical recreational fisherman who takes a boat out for a weekend afternoon when the weather’s nice to enjoy a day on the bay and if they’re lucky, catch some fish.

For serious striper fishermen, there’s no luck involved. Some recreational fishermen have caught the bug and taken up the hunt for a striper, some have even made it their avocation, and some have tried and never caught one.

Hot fishing spots are a fisherman’s biggest secret, and those who are successful at it try to keep their secrets to themselves, but how to catch a striper is no secret.

According to those who know from experience, much of it is in the timing – the time of year, the time of day, the tides, the period of the moon, the water temperature and weather conditions all play a part in whether you catch a fish.

You also need some basic equipment, a good rod (Fenwick) and reel (Penn), 25 pound stern line and bait, of which there are many varieties

Because the striper is at the larger end of the food line (next to man), it eats practically anything. It cruises with its mouth open and takes in whatever is in its path, but rejects what is not familiar or not tasty. If it doesn’t swallow the hook they usually slip away even after they’re hooked.

For the most part, your typical striper fisherman will swear by eels, baby bunker, but there’s something to be said for artificial lures, since the two biggest stripers ever caught with a rod ad reel were caught with artificial lures.

Caught back in the Sixties, “Big Ben,” once the world heavyweight striper champion of the world, was weighed in by Maury Upperman and registered 62 pounds, 9 ounces,

It took its name from the name of the handmade bucktail lure Upperman used to catch it.

Brothers Maury and Bill Upperman were brothers who lived Downbeach in Margate, and made their own artificial lures, pouring spoonfuls of lead into small, oval shaped molds they hand painted and attached to a hook and, a lesson passed on from the Indians – fuzzy hairs from the tail of a white-tailed deer.

The Upperman Bucktail lures were popular because they worked, and they worked so well they were marketed and made standard issue as part of US Navy pilot survival kits during World War II.

The day he caught the big one, Maury Upperman was fishing with his brother Bill and three other, local serious fishermen, Clay Adams and Elmer Gregory. They all had their own boats, but on this day they were aboard Ike Beach’s “Rascal.”

They were just off Island Beach State Park, just north of Barnegat when Maury Upperman reeled in the Big One.

Three fifty pounders were also caught and brought aboard the Rascal that day, but Maury’s 62 pound 9 ounce fish became the new New Jersey state and world record.
Dubbed “Big Ben,” the fish was brought back to Elmer Gregory’s Somers Point bar where it sat on black draped buckets of ice, given a proper funeral and viewed by hundreds of worshiping fishermen who stopped by to pay their respects.

The fish was then gutted, its filets enjoyed by the Uppermans and their friends, the hide treated by a professional taxidermist and mounted on Gregory’s wall over the dining room door for decades.

There was a marked decline in the numbers of stripers caught from the 1960s to the 1980. By 1982 the numbers of stripers being caught had declined measurably, making them even more prized by serious fishermen. The fishermen also noticed that as their numbers decreased, the size of the ones being caught increased.

In the middle of a blazing, three day ‘Noreaster in late September 1982, Atlantic City lifeguard Albert McReynolds decided to go fishing. McReynolds knew that stripers chase other, smaller fish, and that during a storm, the striper runs up close to shore. The weather was treacherous, with heavy winds, driving rain and high tides over running the rocks – perfect striper weather.

Setting up his lines in the most precarious place at the end of the Vermont Avenue jetty, McReynolds held on and caught two stripers that night, leaving the one whopper flopping in the jetty rocks while he reeled in the big one, the one that would be the next world record striper.

Just as a golfer needs a witness to certify a hole in one, Atlantic City fireman Pat Urman was also fishing on that jetty that night, discounting accusations that McReynolds actually obtained the fish form a passing commercial fishing vessel that disposed of an unwanted catch. That was just a rumor spread by other jealous fishermen.

McReynolds took his fish to Campbell’s Marina on the Margate causeway, where it weighted in at 78 pounds, 8 ounces and 53 inches, and probably would have weighted more if McReynolds didn’t keep fishing and let it lay on the jetty for awhile.

Even before it was weighed in word spread among the local fishermen and Elmer Gregory, who was with Maury Upperman when he caught the previous record, went over to check it out. Then McReynolds, with bragging rights, went over to Gregory’s where he bought the bar a round.

A plastic mold of the fish was made, and was at the front door of Campbell’s Marina for many years.

Just as Upperman’s “Big Ben” Bucktail lures became popular and were marketed in national magazines, McReynolds also benefited financially from his record striper, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money from equipment manufactures, and popularizing 20 pound test lines and Rebel lures.

To show it wasn’t a fluke, McReynolds went to Florida where he caught a world record shark, and held two world records at the same time.

When Maury Upperman died his family retrieved “Big Ben” from Gregory’s wall, and it has since been eclipsed as number two behind McReynold’s fish. Corky Campbell has McReynolds mount, which currently hangs from the ceiling at the Riptide Bait and Tackle shop in Brigantine.

They did meet one day, when Dick Russell, author of “Striper Wars” was in Somers Point to promote his book.

The book is all about stripers, focuses in on the problems of how legislation has tried to preserve them, and gets into the ongoing battles between the recreational fishermen and the commercial fishermen who want to catch them again.

Dick Russell presented his slide show and gave his talk in Gregory’s dining room one afternoon, so Upperman brought “Big Ben” by and Campbell brought in McReynold’s current world record, and there was a meeting of the mounts.

They were different in some ways, “Big Ben” being a few inches longer, while McReynold’s fish being big fat cow.

But they were both caught by serious, local fishermen on artificial lures, and their world record rankings have endured the test of time, as they still wait for someone to come along and reel in one in that’s bigger.

William Kelly
Billkelly3@gmail.com

McReynolds photo: http://www.fishingfury.com/20080411/world-record-striped-bass/
and http://www.striperspace.com/about_striped_bass.html

Intrepid Project - Join Us

2011-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

INTREPID PROJECT

http://www.intrepidproject.org/

WHY ARE 13 US NAVY HEROES
IN A LIBYAN MASS GRAVE?

United States Navy Master Commandant Richard Somers was one of the first officers to enlist in the new Navy at the turn of the 19th Century. The young officer and his men fought gallantly in America’s first naval war against the pirate States of North Africa. He died with his 12-man crew of the USS Intrepid on September 4, 1804 while engaged in a secret mission during the Battle of Tripoli.

When their bodies washed up on the shores of Tripoli, the bashaw - the king of the pirates - invited a pack of dogs to devour them as American prisoners of war looked on. These 13 naval heroes remain buried today in two mass graves in Libya. One of those graves is unmarked and underfoot on the Tripoli plaza where Gaddafy has held his anti-America rallies for decades. Unfortunately, many Washington bureaucrats want to leave these men right where they are, buried like animals, not like American heroes.

Today, 2,200 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 2nd Marine Expiditionary Force are floating just offshore aboard the USS Bataan and USS Mesa Verdeare, awaiting orders in the same Mediterranean waters patrolled by Somers and his men.

Two thousand modern Marines are poised to fight in Libya where we left 13 combat veterans behind 207 years ago.

The Somers family has asked for the return of their ancestor's mortal remains for two centuries. The City of Somers Point, named after the heroic Master Commandant's family and still their residence, has worked on repatriation for decades. Additionally, the descendants of renown American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wish for the return of the remains of his uncle, Lt. Henry Wadsworth, who served as second in command on the fire ship Intrepid when it was lost. The legendary poet was named after his heroic uncle, as he was born just a few years after the failed mission.

With the instability in Libya today, Americans are paying close attention again to Tripoli. We have a brief window for a strong push to align national public sentiment behind the campaign to return the mortal remains of these early American heroes. Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Intelligence, has introduced HR 1497, the first legislation in history to require the exhumation and return of the remains of these brave men.

But Rep. Rogers and Rep. LoBiondo need our help - they need hundreds of other members of the House of Representatives to sign on to HR 1497 as cosponsors. Without this support, HR 1497 will never pass the House and may never be heard in the US Senate. Encouraging Congressmen to sign on will require a sizable public relations campaign, so our nation's veterans will have to carry this message to the people.

We need your help. Please call your Congressman today at 202-224-3121 and encourage them to sign on as a cosponsor of HR 1497. You can also find out how to contact your congressman. Finally, sign the petition to bring home the 13 heroes of the USS Intrepid!

Sign the petition Here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bring-home-13-american-heroes.html

To enlist and support this project go to:

http://www.intrepidproject.org/

MEDIA CONTACT:
Michael Caputo
mc@intrepidproject.com

Dolfin Dock's World Famous Fish Report

2011-04-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

Dolfin Dock's World Famous Fish Report

We're Gonna Light This Up Like Dynomite!

Striped Bass Being Caught off Dog Beach & Rt. 9 Bridge at Beasley's Point

Tog off OC Fish Pier, bridge and jettys.

White Perch in Egg Harbor River

Boat Slips available - 15' - 20'

BOOYAH -

Go Flyers!

Looking Down Sore Road

2010-09-27T02:43:00.000-07:00

Looking Down Shore Road Back In Time

Historic Anchorage Tavern

2010-09-27T02:41:00.000-07:00