Family Days in Old Atlantic City

Summer, 1946 - World War II had ended the year before. No more telegrams from the war office creating widows and bereaved parents. The war was over. Our boys were coming back home, and the country was proud to welcome them - swords into plowshares, convert the economy.

I was to spend the summer of 1946 at Camp Happy. I was 11 years old, and had no idea what to expect although I entertained a vague hope that there would be uniforms and a group of people eager to live by camp rules that were to be doled out by sagacious purveyors of wisdom, selfless beings who had only the good of the camp community at heart. I anticipated an idyllic Eden where I would spend my time swimming, learning to row, playing baseball, and enjoying nature and the great outdoors.

Camp Happy fell far short. I was miserable. There were barracks fights, petty brawls, endless teasing, pecking orders, sub-rosa rules with which I could neither fathom nor comply. It was there that I first experienced mass punishment. It didn't matter that I had done my chores and stood quietly in line. If there were an article stolen, a not uncommon occurrence, if someone failed to get to an outhouse on time and left a pile next to a cabin, or for any one of a score of reasons, there would be no dessert that night, or no movie, or no something. My soul would cry "But I didn't do anything", and I would well up with tears that I dared not display. This was not Utopia.

I ran away. I persuaded a family to drive me out of the camp. They had come to the camp to liberate their son with whom I had developed a friendship. They were going to Philadelphia and I pleaded with them to put me near a Number 15, 38, 42, or 40 trolley and I would find my way home. I explained to them how I would proceed if dropped off near any of those trolley lines. I had more than enough carfare and all of my clothes in a bundle. I was ready and able. They loaded me and my bag into their black Pontiac and dropped me off by the #42 line. I took it, connected to the #15 trolley via some creative walking inspired by dead reckoning. When I got to the #15 trolley line at Belmont and Girard and presented the pass to the conductor he disdainfully asked me if I had found it. I was tired, having just decided to use the pass rather than walk the four or five blocks to 40th Street, but I was up to the task. I named the boarding intersection, told him where I had exited the 42 and how I came to Belmont and Girard. He was impressed and I rode on to good ole’ 40. I walked south on 40th one block, then turned west onto Cambridge.

My home was in the middle of a block of brick rows. Most of the houses had grass plots in front; all had yards behind. The living room and largest upstairs bedroom of the two story faced Cambridge Street. The kitchen was located to the rear of the house and faced the yard and the back alley.

Our house was one of the few with no grass plot. The entire front of the house was cemented except for the iron sidewalk doors, which were opened infrequently. It was a gala neighborhood occasion when the iron doors opened in the summer. Our basement was the chosen storage area, agreed upon by the entire block; it was the sanctum sanctorum of that indispensable summertime appliance, the wrench to the fire hydrant.

We were important folk because we housed the hydrant wrench. Everyone on our block knew where the wrench was kept. No one would ever tell the police where it was housed, a touch of Italy in old Philadelphia, silence in front of authority. Before the holy appliance could emerge from its sanctuary, certain rituals had to be strictly observed. One person had to station himself - It was always a boy who was stationed. But I saw my cousin Phyllis, Uncle Gypsy’s daughter, stand and defy two policemen who came to shut down the hydrant on a particularly hot day after all the boys, including myself, had fled to nearby porches for safety. We all knew about search warrants. Phyllis just stood there in open defiance. The police never bothered her - at the 41st Street corner, another at the 40th Street corner to look out for police. After both corners were declared secure the cellar doors would open and two, always two, people would remove the holy appliance from its tabernacle, conceal it in a cloth and carry it briskly to the hydrant. Several people would disperse up and down the street as additional security guards and the hydrant would be turned on, full blast. The wrench would be rewrapped immediately and then disappear into the cellar, returned to its resting place. The youngsters frolicked in the water, while the adults enjoyed the respite from the city’s sticky heat. Cellar door openings in the winter were basically non-events, strictly house concerns like coal delivery, or removal of coal ashes.

I walked up to my house and tried the door. It was locked. That meant no one was at home, unusual for the time of day and season. I went to 4040 Cambridge, Aunt Tilda's house where I was always welcome. This was the house that my grandparents Tuoni lived in, and it always felt good to be in it. Aunt Tilda greeted me with surprise. She thought that I was away at camp for the summer. I told her that it was an awful place and that I had run away. Then I learned that my parents, and new baby sister, Nancy was about six months old at the time, were spending the summer in Atlantic City. My father was doing major repair work on Aunt Jule and Uncle Morris's boarding house on Pennsylvania Avenue and the family was staying there for the summer. Well, how do you do? An entire summer in Atlantic City. Aunt Tilda provided bed and breakfast. Uncle Morris showed up the next day in his big black Packard, my clothes were already packed, and I had a summer at the beach.

Atlantic City was a family town. Hard working people would leave Philadelphia to spend some time at the seashore. Aunt Jule’s place, called Jule’s Cottage, was typical. The first floor, except for a common entrance, was the province of the host family. The second and third floors contained bedrooms and two or more baths per floor. Some bedrooms were interconnected so that parents had easy access to the children's room. Uncle Morris got a cot for me and I shared a bedroom with Nancy. The basement was a common area. There were several cooking stoves with ovens for baking and roasting, a like number of refrigerators, and a good supply of tables and chairs. Everyone in the kitchen was extended family. The atmosphere was festive. "Try some of this sausage", "She makes the best tomato sauce", "That pie smells great", and so on through the coffee and the figs and the nuts.

The Boardwalk was magic, sudden happy encounters with old friends, a chance meeting and my first romance, soft ice cream cones, George C. Tilyou's Steeplechase - The Funny Place, Steel Pier with its diving horse, prestidigitators, carneys, lanolin salesmen, ethnic stores, and salt water taffy. You name it.

The beaches were crowded, but clean, and all within a short walk of my lodgings. What a summer! I got brown as a beetle. I learned to body surf, ride waves as it was called. I scavenged the early morning beaches, amused my self all day walking the sands as far as Margate, testing all of the beaches, and settling on one for the season. I dug clams and played by pilings, but I only got to Steel Pier once. I begged and begged and finally the great day dawned. I leaped out of bed and immediately threw up. So did several other people in the house, from eating tainted apple strudel the night before. My stomach churned, my eyes filled with tears. I doubled over in pain and ran a slight fever. My father was ready to call off the trip. I begged him to wait until noontime. I drank some weak tea and ate nothing. The fever abated and most of my strength returned. It was through a supreme act of will that I recovered enough to set out with my father to behold the joys, wonders and mysteries of Steel Pier. I got to see the diving horse, acrobats and tumblers, and finally a magic act. The magician was a spellbinder, Black cape lined in red, black top hat, blue hazy spotlights, flowers and streamers popping out from a tin can, his hat, or his breast pocket. He did card tricks that boggled my mind. I was especially impressed with the card tricks since I was learning to play cards from my mother, who was one of the best card players in West Philadelphia. She could play Rummy or Poker with anyone. Stakes never bothered her. She was equal to any pressure that a raised bet could cause, and she generally knew what card or cards you were waiting for. She would amaze me when we sat down to play Rummy together. All game long, I'd be waiting for a particular card, say the Jack of Spades. Mom would declare Rummy and show me the Jack of Spades as her discard. She'd say that she knew that I was waiting for the card because of several plays which she had observed me make earlier in the hand. She was patient with me and taught me a great deal about tactics and strategy. But I could never beat her. She loved cards and maintained her own gambling purse, which was never mixed in with household money. The gambling purse was strictly hers and no one, not dad or me or my siblings or the parish priest or anyone could touch it. She was a traditional Italian-American housewife, hard working and family oriented. The meals were always skillfully prepared, plentiful and on time. The house was spotless and the laundry always fresh and clean, and none of those chores stood in the way of her weekend card games. Esterina la gambella (Esther the gambling lady). She was warm and caring and with a tongue that was sharper than parmesian. She was sometimes too quick to speak. Her tongue could get her into trouble, but you always knew where she stood, though you might just as well not have cared to. I inherited her quick tongue. Mom was stout, like all of the Perrettas.

My brother,Tom came home from the Navy that summer. He took Nancy to the boardwalk and had a photo of her and him taken at a photo shop. It was a great picture, Nancy sitting on a wooden horse, barefoot and smiling broadly, Tom in his U.S. Navy enlisted man's uniform. The photo was so well made that a copy of it sat in the photo shop's window for several years. Tom still has the picture.