My Summer of '62

by John B. Anderson

I had just finished the book, “My Summer of '42.” It was a tale of a young lad, coming into maturity, during one summer's vacation. This was not different for me, as the summer of '62 was a large adventure.

I had worked at “The Surf” restaurant for the previous seven summers, starting as a dishwasher when I was 12, then becoming a cook when I was 13. During that time, I had learned a lot about cooking, and I had considered making the restaurant business my life's calling. As you know, life changes dictate a lot of things – shit happens. During the summer of 1960, my boss, Nat Dellis, promised to financially help me with my college education, if I were to attend the Michigan State Hotel and Restaurant program. When I accepted my scholarship to the University of Chicago, and entered the business program there, Nat wasn't too pleased. Nat scheduled me to work a split shift during that summer, so I had to get to work twice each day during the summer of 1961. That pissed me off, so I searched for employment elsewhere for the summer of '62.

One day, I was talking with my Aunt Thelma on the phone. She suggested that I could get a job where she worked at Atlantic City Hospital in New Jersey. Aunt Thelma was a dietitian in charge of special patient diets at the hospital. She said that I should apply for a cooking job to Mr. Herrliman at the hospital, as he was in charge of the whole hospital kitchen. Mr. Herrliman was a French chef, who the hospital had recruited from one of the large Boardwalk hotels. My aunt said that I could sleep on the couch in her apartment in Ventnor City, and catch the bus to work every day. Mr. Herrliman said, “Yes,” and I said, “Yes.”

I took the Greyhound Bus from Manistique to Atlantic City – 27 hours for 27 dollars. It wasn't a bad trip, only long. I sat next to Jimmy Miller, whom I worked with at The Surf. Jimmy was on his way to Ohio, just before Cleveland. When I got off the bus in Philadelphia, I took a small bus to my aunt's apartment in Ventnor City. Ventnor City shares an island with Margate and Atlantic City. My aunt's apartment was two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean either west or east. The boardwalk was supposed to come out to Ventnor City from Atlantic City, but most of the boardwalk had been destroyed by a hurricane in the spring. It wasn't that I was going to walk the boardwalk to work anyway, because it was about 10 miles to the hospital in Atlantic City.

Atlantic City was the Monopoly board. The Boardwalk was, obviously, the most expensive property in the City and Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues were the least expensive, (ghetto). The hospital was on Michigan Avenue – easy enough to remember, right? I didn't have to be to work until 10:00 a.m., On my first day, I was given three sets of whites, and I was told that I couldn't have three new sets until the following week. If I were a sloppy cook, I'd have to wash them in between. When I arrived at the kitchen, I was introduced to Mr. Herrliman, who introduced me to the rest of the staff. It turned out that, out of all the cooks, I was one of two pale men. Most of the cooking staff had originated in Georgia, and had come north seeking employment. Their language was different. I was pretty used to Black city talk, but the cooks spoke rural, Black, and southern. I learned to cope.

The patients at Atlantic City Hospital ate better than any that I had heard about. Thursday was steak night, for example, with all other meals equally impressive. Even the special diet folks ate well. I was in charge of the nightly soup. The soup was prepared in a giant steam kettle. I started with two pounds of melted butter, added one heaping soup of flour, poured in about 5 gallons of chicken or beef stock from the cooler, and a heaping amount of “Accent.” “Accent” makes everything taste really good, but as it turns out with subsequent research, we were actually poisoning our guests. My regular jobs included a lot of prep work, such a peeling potatoes, washing asparagus, breading pork chops, or peeling carrots. On Thursdays we prepared salads for the hospital staff. The cole slaw, potato salad, pasta salad, carrot salad, were all hand decorated with different colored vegetables, such a boiled egg yokes, pimentos, green onion tops, sliced carrots into sunflowers, ships on the ocean and sunsets. Sometimes the designs were so beautiful, that the doctors and nurses would beg us not to cut into the salad to serve them.

There was an assembly line to serve up the patients' meals. The line started with a hot kiln that shoved a steaming hot plate on to the conveyor belt. The dietitian would call out what meat, potato, and vegetable was to be placed on that plate, and whether it was to be salt free or regular. We cooks would man our individual stations down the belt, and fill the plate with the correct food as it passed by. The completed plate was placed into an insulator, and placed on a tray so that with women dietitian staff could add the salad, the beverage, the silverware, and the dessert. We would eat after this and clean up the kitchen. A guy named Ike washed all of the pans. When Ike was done with the pans, and the kitchen staff had left for the day, he sprayed the whole kitchen with steam, killing anything that was moving.

We would finish our cleanup chores about 8:00 o'clock. Sometimes I would walk down the boardwalk for a ways, just to look at the crowds. Women from New York and Philadelphia would parade down the boardwalk, showing everyone how rich they were with their jewelry and firs. I found out later that most of these items were rented from certain boardwalk shops. Those women probably thought that I looked equally stupid in my kitchen whites. Most of the time, when I finished work, I would simply get on the city bus and head for home. Sometimes, I would get a beer from the 'fridge and just relax.

GET A BEER FROM THE FRIDGE? I was only 20 years old, and the drinking age in New Jersey at the time was 21. My aunt didn't care, and she had told the local grocer that I was of age. I didn't care for Eastern beers, though. The only Midwestern beer that I could buy was Millers, so that became my choice. Some evenings I would sit on the back stoop with Elaine, (younger), or Cassie, (older), and just shoot the breeze. They lived with their dad, a New Jersey State Cop, in the apartment below. I asked Elaine to go with me to see Paul Anka at the Steel Pier one evening. The performance was great. I was ready to go back home, but Elaine said that she was staying to see if Paul would kiss her hand after the show. She was swooning over Paul, so I left with an under the breath suggestion as to what she could kiss, and I headed home. I ran into Cassie on the back stoop, consumed a few brews, made out, until my aunt came looking for me. That wasn't the first time that Aunt Thelma had interrupted a fun evening.

Actually, Aunt Thelma was a fun-seeking lady herself. She would get herself all gussied up, complete with a large hat, and we'd head for the Club Harlem for a night on the town. I pretended to be her gigolo, escorting this older woman around town. The singers and dancers at Club Harlem were always spectacular, and the comedians were really funny. One comedian, Irwin C. Watson, I later saw on television.

Even in 1962, without the casinos, Atlantic City brought in top performers. Ray Charles regularly performed at the Black Orchid, the Four Seasons were a steady act at Steel Pier, and James Brown inspired the troops at the bottle club. I bought tickets to see Dean Martin and his “Italian Friend” at the 500 Club on opening night. Dean had no idea, (apparently), who his “Italian Friend” was, so, after a couple of Dean's songs, out walked Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. onto the stage. The show was supposed to end at 2:00 a.m., but they kept going until 6:00 in the morning. Frank didn't like the ice cubes in Atlantic City, so he, (supposedly), sent his pilot to New York to get some good ice cubes. I didn't bother going home to change; I just picked up another set of whites at the hospital laundry and went to work.

One day at work, I was assigned to crack eggs all day. Mr. Herrliman was making a 7- foot wedding cake for the hospital administrator's daughter's wedding. I learned that I could crack 4 eggs at a time into the huge pan. After the cake was baked, Mr. Herrliman decorated it by hand with squeeze bags – all 7 feet of cake. On the day of the wedding, we were issued new white uniforms and chefs' hats. A delivery truck pulled up to the loading dock, and we wheeled this 7-foot wedding cake onto it. It was our job to keep the cake from tipping while the delivery truck drove us to the Marlboro-Blemmin Hotel on the boardwalk. When we wheeled the giant cake into the huge ballroom, all of the wedding guests applauded. We were the heroes of the day.

Halfway through the summer, Mr. Herrliman hired a young man named William Oates. I discovered later that his nickname was “Sweet Thing.” His was an interesting story. Sweet Thing had been married in Florida the month before. The day after he was married, he went to his job which was harvesting clams, and fell in love with another woman. He tried to keep both women happy, but his wife eventually discovered his transgressions. She threatened Sweet Thing, so he ran away to his sister's home in Philadelphia. Fearing that his wife might find him there, he made his way to Atlantic City to find employment at the hospital as a cook. I know that you're not thinking so right now, but he was really a smart dude. We became friends.

About three weeks later, Sweet Thing's wife had tracked him down. She came into the kitchen one morning, picked up a knife and went looking for her estranged husband. One of the other cooks, “Johnson” wrapped his enormous arms around the young lady until hospital security came to take her away.

Sweet Thing and I used to drink in the ghetto bars. As I was one year under age, this was the safe way to do things. I was the only white person for blocks, so the bartenders served me without question, figuring I was mentally ill. Some evenings, after work, we would catch the crab guy at the corner, and buy some crabs from him. The were smoked and wrapped in an old newspaper, but really good. We would take the crabs into a bar on Atlantic Avenue, crack them open, and enjoy crabs with our beer. The bartender didn't complain, as we were good at cleaning up our mess. On evening, (probably drunk), we tried to integrate one of the boardwalk bars. This didn't go too well, so we had to leave quickly. Another night, we went to a gay bar, and tried to dance with a couple of lesbian women. That didn't go well either.

My summer of '62 was drawing to a close, when the Miss America Pageant started. Tuesday is the night for the parade down the boardwalk. I yelled at the previous year's winner, Nancy Fleming, a gal from Whitehall, Michigan, and she waived at me. Wednesday, I bought a Miss America general admission ticket at Convention Hall for $1.00. I figured that I couldn't get much of a seat for $1.00, but I watched this large lady run up the escalator to the balcony seats. I figured that she had been here before this, so I followed in quick pursuit. When I sat down, I was directly above Bert Parks.. Wednesday's pageant consisted of 1/3 swimsuit competition, 1/3 talent and 1/3 of the girls modeling evening wear. I discovered that there was a complimentary spot for Miss Atlantic City. In her evening gown, she looked like they recruited her from the Baltic Avenue Red Light District. Miss Michigan, that year, was a pretty girl from Roscommon, who recited a poem about fly fishing – lame! I missed the next three nights of the pageant, because I was on my way home, you know, 27 hours on the bus for 27 dollars.

The trip home had its good points. A lady got on the bus at Cleveland with three children. The baby was fussy, and the other two were restless, so I volunteered to entertain one of the older kids – my good deed for the day. When I got off the bus in Chicago at 2:00 in the morning, two of my college friends, Dick Dolnic and Kevin Krown, met me, and took me to breakfast at Dick's home in Winnetka. Dick explained that his family was the first Jewish family to move into Winnetka. After breakfast, Dick gave me a ride back to the Greyhound Bus Station, so I could catch the bus to Escanaba at 11:30. Dick was stopped for running a stop sign on the way, but he said, “Don't worry about the ticket. My dad will square it with the alderman on Monday.”

I've been to Atlantic City four times since that fun summer of '62. A couple of years ago, I asked the hospital staff if I could see the kitchen again, but the answer was, “No.” I haven't heard from or seen Sweet Thing since that summer. I hope that his wife never caught up with him. I went to Western Michigan University without a penny to my name, so I had to take out a student loan that following semester. The summer was worth it.

A Conversation with Frank Wills, Guard at the Watergate

I graduated from Western Michigan University in 1965. Sargent Shriver was our commencement speaker, who urged us to join the war on poverty, “The Great Society.” A month after that speech, I was still without a job. My friend, Tom, called me and said, “Tomorrow, go to Fort Custer at Battle Creek to the Job Corps Center, and tell them that you want to be a, Group Life Foreman.”

“What the hell is a Group Life Foreman,” I inquired.

“Never mind. Just tell them that's what you want to be.” So I did, and all of a sudden, I were one.

The Job Corps Camp at Fort Custer was an urban training facility for 1500 corpsmen from all over the country. After the 16 – 21 year old men attended vocational and academic classes each day, they came under the supervision of the group life department. It was during these after class hours that I met Frank Wills. Frank was a particularly nice young man from rural Georgia, I believe. Frank graduated from the program a couple of years later, and he was placed in a job at Chrysler in Detroit. That's the last that I saw of Frank, until a number of years later.

After a 7 year stint with Xerox Corporation, I returned to Michigan to work as a finance director for the Community Action Agency in Battle Creek. At CAA, we administered a lot of manpower programs including Neighborhood Youth Corps, Operation Mainstream, CETA, and others. The national CAA group called a manpower meeting in Washington, DC. The boss couldn't attend, so he sent me in his place. During the noon break, the CAA director from Boston introduced to the group, a very famous person, Frank Wills, the guard who discovered the Watergate break in. We all stood and applauded.

Frank looked at me, “John! John from Battle Creek! Hug time. Frank and I decided to have lunch together, so he could tell me his tale.

Frank told me that he had to leave Chrysler, because the company had placed him in a stamping plant. His asthma couldn't stand that, so he quit. Frank's cousin called and told Frank that he could get him a job where the cousin worked as a security guard.

Frank and his cousin worked as play cops at the Watergate. One day the cousin said, “Frank, let's call in sick tomorrow, and play some poker.”

The famous day arrived, and Frank's cousin really was sick, so Frank didn't call in, and he went to work as usual. As Frank was making his usual rounds through Watergate, (a complex with pricey apartments, along with a few offices), he noticed that a side door was taped open. He thought, “Damn those guys from Xerox, they were moving in copiers, and forgot to take the tape off the door.” Frank removed the tape, and continued his rounds.

After a short break, Frank started his second round of apartment checks and office checks. He approached the same side door, and found it taped open again! Frank returned to the office to get his boss. Frank and his boss, then, started checking all doors to all apartments and offices. When they got to the office of the Democratic National Committee, they found the door ajar. They, cautiously, entered the outer office. They heard some scuffling in the inner office. “What do we do, boss?”

“Well, we don't have guns,” he whispered. “Let's try this.”

The boss flung open the door. “WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?”

In the darkness, Frank heard, “Clunk, Clunk, Clunk, Clunk, Clunk,” (five guns hitting the floor.) Frank whispered, “What to we do now?”

“Get their guns! Then we'll call the cops.”

The rest of the story has been written. Frank was puzzled, “From the moment these five guys dropped their gun, at every step, each guy squealed on the guy on the next higher level. That was strange.

I said, “You have to remember, Frank, they're all Republicans”

I've lost touch with Frank over the years. At that time, Frank was unable to secure employment in DC, as most jobs were government funded, with the funding controlled by a Republican government. For a short time, he supported himself by telling his story to CAA sponsored gatherings around the country. A later magazine article, (Life?), showed Frank returning to his roots in rural Georgia, still one of the nicest persons around.