00:00:44.670 - 00:01:34.550

The king, King Arthur and his knights, the Round Table, when they did good deeds and they died or were killed, they rode their steed and their armor into Avalon. So on some dark night you hear a horse galloping down the street and you hear the banging of armor and the blades against the shields. Don't worry about it, it's just the knights out there having their thing. In Avalon itself, there's many stories about Avalon, about politics, about the churches, about the people, both in groups and by individuals, and also about the railroad.

00:01:36.790 - 00:02:03.330

And I think we will put all those in one big pot and stir it up and see what comes out. The year is around 1925. What's that for? I'm not singing.

00:02:08.130 - 00:02:36.870

Is this all right now, Mary Jane? The year is like in between 1925 and 1930. You are living in Philadelphia and you're about 10 years old and you have a brother and sister. And on a Friday night when you're having dinner, mom says to you, tomorrow we're going to go down to the seashore.

00:02:41.460 - 00:03:11.360

And just a week before that, they had all been bought new shoes, Buster Brown shoes. So they had the shoe boxes all ready. So mom, after the kids were in bed, made all the sandwiches and put the Tasty Cakes and all that good stuff in the boxes so it would be all ready the next morning. And they had a package of towels and swimsuits.

00:03:13.320 - 00:03:49.880

So the first thing in the morning, the kids get up and they all go down to the PTC and get on it and ride down to the foot of Market Street. And there they climb down the hill on to the ferry. And for 10 cents, each one of them rides across the Delaware River into the train station in Camden. And when they reach the train station, the father goes up and buys the tickets and he pays a dollar for an adult for a round-trip ticket to Avalon.

00:03:51.660 - 00:04:11.480

And 50 cents for each one of the kids. And just a few years before that, for 45 cents, an adult could ride back and forth to Avalon. So there was a price increase from 45 cents to a dollar. So they get on this train and there must have been about 18 cars on it.

00:04:12.560 - 00:04:58.900

And they were told which car to take because this train went to any number of places that these kids had never heard of before such as Rio Grande, Cape May, Wildwood, Cape May Court House, Tuckahoe, Sea Isle, Townsend's Inlet, Avalon, Stone Harbor, and Ocean City. So when they got into the train, the first thing the father did was to push one of the seats forward so all the five people could face each other and the kids were against the window seeing what was going on outside. There must have been a thousand people getting onto this train. Good evening.

00:05:00.640 - 00:05:49.760

There must have been a thousand people getting on this train. And when the conductor came through, he punched all the tickets and put little colored slips on the back of each seat so he could determine who was going to get off at what station. And they also told the kids' fathers that the first they were going to do is run down the track which was a double track to Atlantic City and turn off at Winslow Junction and then go to Tuckahoe. So the train, after many jerking back and forth and almost knocked the kids off the seat, the train started down there and the kids never traveled that fast because this train was doing 70 and 80 miles an hour.

00:05:50.940 - 00:06:33.740

So they reached Winslow Junction and turned to the right and went down toward Tuckahoe and through the small towns and villages and the whistles of the train was blowing for each one of the crossings. And the kids liked that because they had just bought a Lionel train set the Christmas before so they were well up on the trains. So when they get to Tuckahoe, there's a lot of hustle and bustle because there's another train sitting there and they feel a couple cars being moved off the train that they came down on and the conductors were yelling for people to get into these other trains. There's a train there going to Ocean City.

00:06:33.920 - 00:07:06.220

There was a train behind them that was going to Cape May Court House and Wildwood and Rio Grande and Cape May. At Rio Grande, you change trains for Wildwood. So pretty soon the train started up again. Pretty soon the train started up again and just shortly after that they broke through the wooded area onto the marshlands and a new smell come in at them from the gas and from the salt from the marsh.

00:07:06.800 - 00:07:45.080

So the kids didn't really like that too much. So the first stop that we really made was at Sea Isle. There was a number of people got up and they looked exactly like the rest of the people on the train but they spoke a foreign language and they found out that Sea Isle was predominantly Italian and so these people were talking Italian and the rest of the people were Irish and English and they were coming in the Avalon and Stone Harbor. So the train starts up again and slows down after going through.

00:07:45.400 - 00:08:25.380

It looks like when they were going down from Sea Isle to Townsend's Inlet that they were running through people's lawns because there were houses on both sides of the track. So one of the kids looks out the window and sees the old Coast Guard station there, which was a boat station, and the men were pulling the boat out of there were on wheels to run down to the ocean and put the boat in the water. So then it stops and the couple fishermen gets off at Townsend's Inlet because there was very very few houses only something like four or five houses in Townsend's Inlet at this time. Then they started across the bridge.

00:08:26.400 - 00:09:37.420

Well there's no sides on that bridge and the train was doing about five or ten miles an hour and it was swaying back and forth and most of the mothers then were grabbing the kids so that they were worried about that they were going to fall in the ocean. Now this bridge was a horseshoe and it was about a mile and a quarter long and just before it hits the other shore we have to stop because we want to find out what's an Avalon. The strip along the ocean or along the inlet was called Leaming and there was just a few little shacks along there for the fishermen to get in out of inclement weather or whatever they did take a snooze or have lunch and then from 4th street on down to 25th street was Avalon. From 25th street to 38th street was called Peermont and the area south of that from 38th street to 80th street was called Holiday Beach.

00:09:38.860 - 00:10:40.620

Now we have three other areas beside that in Avalon. Going back over 21st street over the bridge there's a place called Seagate and Seagate remember back in years before that the only way you could get into Avalon was by barge or by boat or by swimming. In 1894, 1892, 1880 the train started and they built a bridge across the inlet and that train ran to 38th street and later on it was expanded to go to Stone Harbor around 117th street. Now on the Seagate area in 1914 they built a drawbridge there so you could for the first time drive from the mainland into Avalon.

00:10:41.960 - 00:11:52.660

Now this drawbridge was operated by a Bill Cherry and he would when the one that opened the bridge he would run out onto the bridge and put a pole into the center of the plug and keep turning it around to move the drawbridge to open to let the barges or anything else come through there and we always called it Bill Cherry's bridge and he was there until after World War II. Ethel was his wife and when Bill was busy Ethel would get out and open the bridge. Then just north of so-called Seagate was a place called Cedar Island. Now about two or three years ago some fast buck artists wanted to start to develop that and that was knocked down and now it's part of Green Acres so it won't ever be built up and that's the island on the other side of the bay from about 20th street up to about 17th street across the bay.

00:11:53.460 - 00:12:16.260

Now there's another little bridge on 24th street and there was about at this time span there was about six or seven houses out there but one man lived there during the wintertime and his name was Wicks so we always called it Wicks' Island because whenever he was there he always lit his kerosene lamp and put it in the

00:12:16.260 - 00:12:55.220

front window so we always knew when he was home because you could see the the light from the kerosene lamp. Even up until 1930 there was a number of families on the island used kerosene lamps and kerosene for cooking so it wasn't out of the way to see kerosene lamps. Now let's go back to the train and as the train pulls in to so-called Leaming there's no fishermen on board so he's not going to stop there at Leaming he's going to go to 9th street which is the first station in Avalon.

00:12:56.580 - 00:13:45.600

Now when he hit 7th street if you look to the right down the road toward where the Yacht Club is, the Yacht Club wasn't there at that time but it was a dirt road and about three quarters of the way down that road on the left was a city dump. Now that city dump was taken care of by a colored reverend in town here. We'll talk about him a little later but he operated the dump for the city at that time. If you look to the left the Seven Mile Beach Ice House is there and this was the major industrial plant of the whole Seven Mile Beach and they had about 20 trucks.

00:13:45.600 - 00:14:24.700

Remember this is the time of the ice man and the icebox. And so that in the summertime he would pedal his ice with these 20 trucks all up and down the Seven Mile Beach and Stone Harbor and Avalon and anybody else that needed ice. Now just before they opened this ice house you got to remember now all along the ocean was fairly good sized sand dunes. The developers knocked a lot of those down and filled in so that they would sell the lots.

00:14:25.160 - 00:15:32.000

Now in the early days like in 1890 some of these sand dunes were still there and around 17th street there was a freshwater pond that the water would come up out of the ground and lay in this area and during the winter there was a group of men here would cut that ice and store it in sawdust down near where the new ice plant is and that ice would last until like August or September. And I don't know what they did after that but so many houses were being built that this little pond couldn't take care of it and that's the reason why the ice house was made. Now up from the ice house on 7th street was Pop Gerringer's Little Store. There's a little store there and you could get sodas and sandwiches and ice cream and things similar to that.

00:15:33.300 - 00:16:08.880

Now the train pulls into 9th street station and looking out the window you see the first Avalon character and she is Jitney Alice. Now Jitney Alice had a Jitney believe it or not. It was a Model T and she was dressed you have to really she looked like a woman from the temperance. She had a little hat on, a tight blue or black jacket and a skirt made from an army blanket.

00:16:10.880 - 00:16:45.000

And I think it was the same army blanket that lasted her about 20 years anyway because it looked like. And she would hawk anybody getting off the train. Now the people would get off the train at 9th street was mainly for those going to the hotel area or they were business people coming in to sell to the ice house or whatever the case may be or residents in that area. There wasn't too many so-called bathers or shoobies getting off there at that station.

00:16:48.220 - 00:17:20.740

So we can go up and look at the Avalon Hotel which was built by the railroad and also by these financiers that they had. And for $2.50 you could spend a night. I don't know whether there was included meals or not but anyway $2.50 was the going rate for a room at the Avalon Hotel. Now one block away from the Avalon Hotel is the Wells Memorial Church.

00:17:21.140 - 00:17:50.100

That was the second church built in Avalon. Now the Wells Memorial Church was a free church when it was initially put up. It wasn't part of the so-called Union Chapel. It was an independent operation but later it became part of the regular religious group.

00:17:51.720 - 00:18:21.800

They had about 40 members described in it and on a Sunday they would maybe make $10 in collections and that was what their take was. But once or twice a year they would ask for special donations to keep the church going. On 9th Street was the beginning of the boardwalk. Now the boardwalk went from 9th Street to 32nd Street.

00:18:24.260 - 00:18:46.600

Now so we will hit those as we get down the road a little ways. But 9th Street to 32nd Street was the length of the boardwalk. The beaches there were good but due to the tide people just didn't go there. I mean it was just there was a pavilion there and at 17th Street was one of the two Avalon casinos.

00:18:46.840 - 00:19:38.300

The casino at 29th Street is still there but the one on 17th Street was torn down and that was also a movie house in the Woodville. It was a gigantic place and it was about three times as large as the 29th Street casino we have now. They had silent movies there and I can remember as a kid going there and they had stage shows. They had people coming in like on the Keystone Group and put acts on the stage. So let's go back to the train now and start up again and we get down to 13th Street and we're still traveling south and if you look to your left you'll see Borough Hall there with two employees.

00:19:39.400 - 00:20:08.800

One was the Borough clerk and the other was the assistant that took care of the taxes. There was also a telephone there so if you wanted a cop you had a call there and they would try to find the cop to send out because we only had two cops. One day cop and one night cop. The population at that time was maybe 150 and 30 of them were kids.

00:20:11.540 - 00:20:53.320

And then next to Borough Hall was the so-called waterworks because they had a well there and a large it looks like a smokestack filled with water for the population and behind that was the so-called sewerage plant. Now the sewerage plant and the water pump and the well and all the water was handled by one man. He took care he was the and that was David Fellenbaum's, Bubbles's, father. I don't know if you know anyway his David Fellenbaum senior was the the caretaker for that complex.

00:20:54.520 - 00:21:28.240

Going down a little bit further on your left was what we called there was no streets through. Once you hit 13th street there was no streets through to your left to First Avenue until you got to 21st street. On your right after you passed 7th street there was no streets to the right going to Third Avenue or Ocean Drive until you got to 21st street. That was all just open land.

00:21:28.460 - 00:21:52.580

There was a few houses in there but you walked back through the bayberries to it and that was it. There was a fairly good sized park there. I guess if we had today you wouldn't be allowed to go in it or it would be a conservation area or something else. But the mosquitoes were so big in there that they had four engines and they would dive bomb you.

00:21:55.120 - 00:22:31.220

And then we finally pull into the 21st street station and I would say the normal train five or six hundred people would get off the train at that point in front of the Princeton. At that point also the Railroad Express would dump a couple cases or trays of Wawa milk. I'll tell you the reason why in a minute about the Wawa milk. When did they start changing the streets?

00:22:32.300 - 00:22:52.120

A lot of streets weren't cut into World War II. Quite a number of the streets weren't cut into World War II. Even just after World War II. Now when these people are getting off the train we'll go look down west on 21st street.

00:22:52.980 - 00:23:24.280

Behind the Princeton there was a garage, Howard Chandler's garage, and that was an Atlantic Refining Company. And next to it was one house and next to that was the A&P. And then a little bit later there was another building constructed there and it was an ice cream store, Hershey's ice cream. We could get a whole quart of ice cream for 15 cents.

00:23:25.380 - 00:23:52.380

And next to that later on there was a real estate agent by the name of Becker. Now he wasn't a real estate agent as we see it today. All he did was mainly show houses and sell houses and construct houses. In Avalon itself we only had one real estate agent and that was on the other side of 21st street where his name was Fowler Stratton.

00:23:52.960 - 00:24:16.780

And next to that was Keen's Drugstore. The old man George Keen and his two sons. One opened up the Keen's Drugstore on Ocean Drive. There was also a place on the corner of 21st and Dune or 21st and 2nd Avenue that was the American store.

00:24:17.040 - 00:24:38.280

So we had both the American store and an A&P here. Now that was the second American store because the first American store we had was catycorner across in where the carpet place is. That was where the first American store was. And then they moved after the construction of the new store.

00:24:38.600 - 00:25:40.660

It was a one-man operation and he had all his stuff with the shelves in and he took the coal with the grippers and took the cans and stuff off the shelves with a box of cornflakes and that's what you bought. Now as I said before we had two post offices. One post office was in Peermont and one post office was in Avalon up on 6th street and Walter Smith, "Pot Roast Willie" we called him because every Sunday his daughter cooked the pot roast for him. So all the kids called him "Pot Roast Willie" which was because he was a character and he would sit in his chair and with one leg over the arm and somebody would say something to him and he would [say] "You're welcome I'm sure" and that was what his pet statement, "You're welcome I'm sure."

00:25:40.800 - 00:26:05.700

Anything you asked him afterward "You're welcome I'm sure." Now George Keen the druggist he had a pet saying "We're fresh out" because you would go there and he didn't have what you wanted. Anyway going back to the train station now the kids and mother and father are now out of the train and they start walking the three blocks to the beach

00:26:07.340 - 00:26:35.640

and as they turn to go across to 21st street there was another garage pretty good sized garage there on the corner and next to it was a very small building it's still there today and that was the initial library that we had that's real small building and later it becomes the police station when they finally get a radio and talk to people so they moved the police station in there

00:26:35.640 - 00:27:06.080

until they moved it now into the so-called palace they have down on on 30th street 32nd street. Now the train is ready to go again but the mother and father now are walking the kids down to the beach and between second and first and second avenue as I said before one's the library and the next is there's two houses there and then there's two good-looking houses facing first avenue

00:27:07.160 - 00:27:32.020

Frederick Michele and the next one to it is named Wolf and they were real famous horticultural people in Philadelphia, seeds and trees and flowers and plants and all this kind of stuff. Michele what gave quite a number of things to Avalon itself and we'll hit them as we

00:27:32.020 - 00:27:58.660

get to the point so they so now the kids are almost down to the beach and they look to the left and there is a hotel now that is called the Puritan Hotel because Avalon as I started to say before was a little bit on the religious side and was developed and everything by the by religious people

00:28:01.300 - 00:28:31.320

so you could also stay there for like two and a half a night so the kids now are to the boardwalk and they go up the ramp and it's a two-layer affair the boardwalk at the end of 21st street on ground level there's showers in there there's also stalls for changing clothes and restrooms on the second on the second one the depth top over this is

00:28:33.220 - 00:28:58.580

an area where with a roof over top of it people can sit in there and alongside of that was a place where mothers and fathers can drop the kids off and they do basket weaving and things similar to that so that if the mother and father wanted to lounge down the beach a little bit by themselves they just put the kids up in there and for a dollar or so the kids learn to weave baskets

00:28:58.580 - 00:29:24.160

and everything similar to that down on the beach the swings and slides and teetle toddles [teeter totters] that's where the person can sit on both ends of it and they crank back and forth up and down this was all donated by Frederick Michele also down on the piece there there was a hot dog stand and you could buy hot dogs he would come around with his little

00:29:25.140 - 00:29:53.710

tray and sell your hot dogs and sodas and things some of that right on the beach and people would take the trash and put it in the trash container so we didn't have wasn't any problem on trash so now we've got the kids down the beach and the mother and father down the beach and the train now is ready to go down down south so the next point of interest

00:29:54.310 - 00:30:30.830

is where Marabella is now now the main building in Marabella initially had steps going up and on the top of the steps was a restaurant and a bakery and they sold this Wawa milk that's where the Wawa milk was being sold and his his name was Johnny that that ran it and next to it was a hardware store

00:30:30.830 - 00:30:57.770

where the little Rocking Chair was and it was the best little hardware store that you ever wanted because the kids could go in there and get cap pistols get caps they could get bb's for their bb guns all the good things and they had everything in that little hardware it was it was pretty dark in there but they had everything that you could think of in this little hardware store

00:30:57.770 - 00:31:27.350

okay and it was run by a woman her name was Lil James and her husband was a captain in the coast guards and he wasn't there very much because he was out capturing rum runners because through this area from Cape May on to Egg Harbor the boats would pull in from the steamers offshore with the whiskey and loaded on the trucks and the way they would go to Philadelphia south Philadelphia

00:31:27.350 - 00:31:58.710

down where the Italians were drinking and all this kind of stuff of course and uh not yet but they would even beat out the booze that was made in Vineland that that mary god you can you can confirm that anyway that they uh that's what happened on that. Now next to it was Barron's now Barron some of the Barron family still owns the building next to

00:31:58.710 - 00:32:31.050

on the next street but William Barron he had a regular meat market there and people would go there in order for by the phone or by just walking up and getting their food stuff for him now Bill Barron he bought that out from a from a man down in Peermont named Candless and he Candless was the first one to have a grocery store

00:32:31.050 - 00:33:04.870

on the island this was back in the late 1880s Barron himself put a pickle barrel in and for five cents you could get a big sour pickle and it was great i mean you can't find anybody with sour pickles anymore they don't i don't think they make them. And then going down further on the right now remember the next street down is where the schoolhouse is now the library and

00:33:04.870 - 00:33:33.530

that's where we went to school in that building there. After 1925 we had two rooms in the school house two teachers and they taught all the subjects including music and art and periodically the county would send a woman around like one half day a month and teach you special art but outside that there are two teachers one teacher was the principal the superintendent

00:33:35.230 - 00:34:00.070

and taught four grades in one one room and the other teacher taught four grades in the other so we didn't have to spend too much for education but one thing good about that is that you got the same subject for four years so by the end of four years you really knew what that subject was i mean even though you weren't paying attention to it you were doing your own stuff thing because

00:34:00.070 - 00:34:33.410

you would go down each row and give the assignments out and that's how it was but you unconsciously they tell you that you're picking up the noise from the other classes as you were doing your study now from the school down to 33rd street there's no streets in there so like from 26 to 30 to 33 there's no streets now there's houses back in there but again you

00:34:33.410 - 00:35:03.730

have to walk back two paths through the bayberries to the houses now around where 27th street is now for two and a half blocks was a large lumber yard Charles H. Clouting Lumber Company and they would bring freight card loads of lumber in for the construction and that Charles H. Clouting, his daughter, Adelaide Clouting, was the first

00:35:03.730 - 00:35:32.390

one to commit suicide in town that i ever but she was outstanding on what she did. So then just past that was the firehouse. Now the firehouse that was just torn down in the center of this building here that was the old firehouse and we had one paid fireman and he lived in the back of the firehouse

00:35:32.390 - 00:36:01.470

because that was to assure that when the word got out we at least had one fireman on the scene and all the rest of the abandoned town belonged to the fire company and that was where the main action was because we would have pot roast dinners in the wintertime pot roast mud hens instead of chicken possum pie all kind of things more like you wouldn't eat now

00:36:03.870 - 00:36:31.890

and we had a 1926 La France pumper and we could either pump from the bay normally we did we would drop the hose over in the bay and then pump through the fire. We didn't have very many fires it was very very sheer because like in 1890 like 1895 there was only 75 houses on the island so 75 houses

00:36:32.390 - 00:37:04.930

it really couldn't so the people would also get off there'd be a large number of people get off there because we had we had really two known hotels in in this area down here we had the Luray Hotel which is where the post office is now right behind it was a hotel it wasn't a very large one but it was still they called it a hotel. The Peermont Hotel was up on the beach and

00:37:04.930 - 00:37:40.730

that was destroyed real early in its life and was never replaced. Now going down that was a good beach area down on 33rd 32nd street the boardwalk if you can just picture what 32nd street looks like there was only one house and a store from Avalon Avenue from First Avenue back and that was a store where you could buy sandwiches and uh initially it was orientals

00:37:40.730 - 00:38:14.690

owned it then it become Highfield's store and some of the Highfields are still around. In fact Jane uh that had the lingerie shop she was one of the Highfields and her father was gassed during world war one world war one and he was the only plumber in town. We had a real odd deal on on the so-called tradesmen we had one plumber my father was

00:38:14.690 - 00:38:39.370

the only electrician in town we had two cops my father also filled in he was elected judge here in Avalon and when one of the cops was on vacation he would fill in for that and then they would have to take anybody they arrested over to Meerwalds on Route Nine. But it was very active i mean i think he made like they would it was mainly one woman in town will

00:38:39.370 - 00:39:02.990

Lillian Johnson she was colored and anytime she drank her car would hit a pole or something and then they would have to lock her up overnight until she cooled off and then let her out the next day and then she would be fine like a dollar court cost and two dollars went to the county but that's the main action on on that. Now

00:39:02.990 - 00:39:41.330

if you go down a little bit further into Peermont when you got past 34th street, 34th street was literally the last street between second and third avenue until you got down to your street: 57th street. 57th street was one of the first streets through that area there was on the right when you got past 38th street

00:39:41.330 - 00:40:11.450

there was no streets until you got well into Stone Harbor in other words the so-called diamond coast 42nd street and uh on that area there wasn't anything up there we did have around 40th street there was a boardwalk that was all meadow at that time and there was a curvy boardwalk and there was about five men lived out and these were there was about

00:40:11.450 - 00:40:41.750

40 little shacks out there on this on this boardwalk. Two of them drank like fish and we never could figure out how they could go from the so-called Black Eagle Cafe at two o'clock in the morning and work that windy boardwalk and not fall overboard and never did any of them ever fall in the creek but it was in that area and that's that was one of the

00:40:43.430 - 00:41:14.590

highlights of Holiday Beach. In Holiday Beach itself this is from 38th street on down you had to go 57th street was open and then there was another street around 70th that would go from second avenue toward the beach. Now in this time span there was no

00:41:14.590 - 00:41:51.590

when you got past 36th street here there was no there was no street it was just railroad track from about 36th street all the way down to Stone Harbor. The only way you could get to Stone Harbor was actually via third avenue or ocean drive and that went in the stone harbor now the bridge in stone harbor was baptized by Woodrow Wilson. He was governor at that time of

00:41:51.590 - 00:42:23.230

virginia and he used to come over here a good bit and then he later become president united states but he did dedicate the bridge the drawbridge going to Court House from Stone Harbor. That was 1915 one year after Avalon. The occupations in town we had really Stratton in Avalon was a real estate and Puttergill

00:42:24.090 - 00:42:59.230

over here on 33rd street in that little store where the uh laundromat is. That was a regular two-story house there and Puttergill had his real estate agent in there now. The post office was on 32nd street and that was their name was Shuttleworth, Sam and Bessie Shuttleworth she was postmistress now you can imagine how many women were in that position

00:42:59.230 - 00:43:28.590

in the country in in the early 20s. She was also had the switchboard and also had Western Union and she also did a little bit off this shot of renting out houses. But Bessie, you would call up and say you never use somebody's telephone number you just say you want to talk to so-and-so and she would plug you into them.

00:43:30.710 - 00:43:55.670

Their house is still there that little yellow place in the second house behind the post office and that was the post office right in the side of the house so she had one part of the house she had the post office another part of the house she had the switchboard and that's how she she operated. But she knew everything was going on if you wanted any information you called her and she told you

00:43:59.370 - 00:44:29.270

now on 29th street the so-called casino that's there now, across the way from that around 1929 they built a regular movie theater. My father put all the equipment in it. And upstairs they had a ballroom and that was where all the dancing took place especially the lifeguard ball at the end of each season they would have that up upstairs there and it was really a decked out affair the ball

00:44:29.270 - 00:44:55.270

in front of the so-called movie the firemen would have their games of chances one time a year for a carnival and they would put all their wheels up there and run through that and sell hot dogs and a whole caboodle to finance the fire company. Now getting back to the fire company, as i said before, just about every man in town belonged to the fire company when the whistle would blow or that there

00:44:55.270 - 00:45:25.190

used to be a big ring somebody would find that there's a fire and clang the ring and that information would pass all over town and all the men would somehow get to where the fire was. We had one one fire truck and there was one pull two-wheeler that we used for hose and it's in the hose house here and that was at the

00:45:25.190 - 00:45:56.050

other end of Avalon and that's that's how we covered the whole area for the fire company. The weather in the winter time here was considerably colder than it is now. The kids used to at the end of this when the winter started they would go out and walk out on the bay and spear eels and we would get have eels during the winter from

00:45:56.730 - 00:46:35.110

the spearing jobs. The kids in town did several things one is that when the railroad stopped running in about 1934 the railroad properties were all vacated and we conned the borough into dumping sand up by the 9th street and we built a ball diamond and that's the reason why the ball diamond is there today otherwise the borough would have

00:46:35.110 - 00:47:05.150

sold it off. And we had tennis courts tennis was the prime sport in town all the so-called rich houses had tennis courts the ones up on first avenue which was named Bergner. he had a brewery in Philadelphia and he had a tennis court there was right two blocks down on the left just past the...[audio recording cuts off here.]