I don't know if I am moving out of the
radius of Newark....
but if you lived in the Weequahic section...Bradley beach was a
part of the Newark experience....
if this is leniently accepted on this site...
I know it will resonate with so many other Newarkers who loved the
saltaire shtetl of Bradley beach.
there was a comfort and familiarity and peace and joy ...
and its name was SUMMERTIME!
I didn't get to leave Newark very much....
summer would be long and lonely sometimes for me....
friends were gone
and my best friend was a pink Spalding ball
I would bounce in the alley
and make up stories like spun dreams...
we never belonged to the fabyan swim club...
and some friends even were members at the spring garden swim club
near Chatham...
which you would reach going past an old castle with a "spagooti
" bump in the road ....
but for me....in the heat of the summer...
when my uncle Eddie Fischer pulled up in front of my mother's store
in his imperial
with the lollipop lights....
(my uncle Eddie worked at the American men shops...
on the highway...with artificial palm trees and green turf in front...)
my little valise was packed...
and I was heading down to stay with his daughter...
my cousin Michele Fischer..for a weekend
on Brinley Avenue....
at the absolutely magical Bradley Beach!!!!!!!
Michele was my beautiful cousin
with the sphinx-white beehive and tanned skin....
the sea princess of Bradley beach....
uncle Eddie and I
would stop at rollo's for a hamburger....
I remember
sometimes my family and I would take the old road.....
the cheesequake highway? could that be right?
sometimes we would even take the train from Newark to Bradley....
I loved the names of red bank, long branch...Rumson...Neptune....
they are always engraved in my mind....
but there was nothing like arriving at her white wooden house...
running up to the second floor....!!
her mom would make cream cheese and olive sandwiches
to take to the beach...
Michele would be tan and beautiful...
and I was white as a ghost and shy in a bathing suit
with a little cap...
we said good-bye to satin, her black pug...
and headed down brinley to the BEACH!!
all down the streets
were little white wood houses with big porches
and lots of families...children everywhere...
sand on the sidewalk...
screen doors slamming...
how I loved the sound of screen doors slamming
in the summer time...
watching the people in rocking chairs on the porches...
children with plastic tubes and tin pails....
little white jantzen swim caps with rubber daisies...
(I loved the snaps on the neck straps..
but the caps had a funny smell!)
but one could smell the fresh salty sea!!!!!
what a gift for Newark nostrils!!!
each house had a little kitchen with tables
where the families would eat at night
and the fathers would come down on the weekends.....
there was the big brick hotel Lorraine
with lots of older people sitting on the balcony
and "the nosherye"(sp)
was right underneath.....
across the street
was the Penny Arcade...yippee
and my uncle Ben Simon owned it!!!!!
Michele and I would play lots of pokerino....
it was always jammed and colorful and noisy...
the whizzes, pops and chimes
of the pinball machines...
and uncle Ben
would let us have any coveted prize we wanted
from the prize counter.....
and then
walking outside...
clearing Newark from my lungs...
I could see and feel the sea!!!!
it felt so foreign and large to me.....
I was scared of splinters on the boardwalk...
and I have never quite gotten used
to sand in my toes...
I preferred Mary Jane shoes or my saddles
on the terra firma of Newark streets!!
a typical little Newark girl !!
there were souvenir shops
with funny postcards and lots of tubes....
(I wish I had a collection of all of those post cards now)
and a big refrigerator with green glass coke bottles
and a coca cola poster on the wall....
I had my special tube and plaid bathing suit,
of course....
there was the beautiful little miniature golf course
and the wonderful wooden gazebos
where we would go for summer dances at night...
and then there was something happening sometimes...
UNDER the boardwalk...
but I was too young to know....
there was the swimming pool also and showers...
but we just went to the beach....
planes flying overhead with long strings of messages...
who could forget the original smell of Coppertone....
and building sandcastles in the wet sand
and watching them dissolve in the foam
that was probably my first lesson
in dreams disappearing......
at night....
Michele and I and uncle Eddie
would walk to Asbury park....
past the Syrian concessions...
we would get frozen custard
which was incredible....
past the immaculate confection shops...
with spotlessly white decorations and shelves...
with fudge and jelly apples and caramel apples
and pastel saltwater taffy in the windows....
it was MAGNIFIQUE!!!!
we would pass through ocean grove
which I knew little about at the time....
we would glimpse the swanboats
on a little glassy lake...
and on to Asbury park
with the beautiful carousel
and the spooky and amazing funhouse
with the great revolving barrel entrance....
they had to stop it
to get me out
as I was so scared!!!!!
uncle Eddie rescued me.....
visits to Bradley beach
were greatly exciting for me....
leaving Newark on those humid summer days
when I had no one to play with...
Bradley beach was absolutely exotic....
I remember waking up in Michele's bedroom
on sunny Saturday mornings...
there was a beautiful church across the street
on brinley avenue...
with red canna lilies blooming
and a little glass shrine in the garden....
I would hear the morning church chimes...
and when I would look out of the window...
it was the prettiest and most peaceful sight
I had ever seen.
we would walk up by the train station
in the morning
and go to Kramer's which I think...
was a candy store.....
I followed Michele everywhere....
but soon...
homesickness set in....
and though Bradley beach was a paradise...
it was soon time
to return to the only home I knew...
and that was...
Newark.
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