Jeannette of the Dimpled Eyes

In August of 1957 something happened that never had before. My parents took me along on their vacation trip. There had been a number of day trips during my youth. My mother and grandmother had taken me to the big department stores in Philadelphia every Christmas and to the city’s museums on my every birthday.

My folks drove me through Pennsylvania Dutch Country a few times over the years. It wasn’t overgrown with tourist traps yet. There was ONE Amish Homestead you could tour and learn about that sect, but mostly you rode around the beautiful farmland and saw the real Amish at work in the fields. Traffic wasn’t congesting Route 30 and the side roads. The only thing that slowed you up was an occasional horse and buggy clopping along.

There were only a couple of restaurants specializing in Pennsylvania Dutch menus where you could get some real Shoofly pie for desert. Miller’s Smorgasbord existed going back to 1929, but such now famous restaurants as Plain & Fancy and Good ‘n’ Plenty didn’t exist yet. We went on Saturdays. Nothing was open on Sunday, and still isn’t, out of respect for the Mennonite and Amish beliefs.

Of course today where you had open farm country you have strings of motels and restaurants, several homesteads giving tours, light shows and musical theater and a big amusement park called Dutch Wonderland. Once it was a land of unique people that drew your curiosity. Now merchants, cashing in on the Amish theme, have overrun the place with malls, outlet stores and phony tourist traps. They are driving the real Amish away.

There was the Strasburg Railroad in that area even back then. You could ride a steam train to Paradise and back. I was more comfortable with steam trains by the time I was sixteen, although I still gave the steam-hissing engines a wide berth.

Paradise wasn’t, but it did play well into all those suggestive names of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. You could always go from Bird in Hand to Intercourse, which lay between Blue Ball and Paradise, not far from Leacock and Lititz.

You know, that brings back something else I remember from Miss Hurlock’s class that I think she got a perverse pleasure out of it. It was a sexual reference that seemed out of place for the time and the place. We were reading some classic literary short story out loud in class and the author talked about his intercourse with a certain lady. Somebody giggled. Miss Turlock got this smirk on her face and said, “At that time intercourse meant correspondence and correspondence meant intercourse.” She sort of snickers when she said it.

At the time it was another of those things people said I didn’t understand, but it stuck in my mind until I did understand it and has never left.

My family took me to some amusement parks, such as Hershey, Dorney Park and Rocky Springs. Rocky Springs was my favorite. It wasn’t as large or splashy as Hershey or even Dorney Park, but much larger than Lenape. My grandfather took me there for the Downingtown Iron Works company picnic when he was still around. It was wonderful, one of the best days of my life. The gate attendants gave us little brown buttons to pin on our shirts as we entered. That pin meant we were with the Iron Works and it allowed us to ride all the rides as many times as we wished.

The ride I rode the most was The Whip. You sat in a car attached to a chain that wrapped about a center oval. The car whipped you around the corners at great speed (Pictured right).

They had a funhouse. It was the first one I ever saw where you rode through.  There was a penny arcade, too.

At the time Rocky Springs boasted the largest wooden roller coaster in the country. It was The Wildcat. When my parents took me to Rocky Springs a couple of times. My dad turned into a big kid at amusement parks. He was constantly harping on the roller coaster and why wouldn't I ride it. He ruined Rocky Springs for me by threatening to make me go on the huge Ferris wheel with him.

I had never been on an overnight trip with my parents, though, until that August, excluding the truck run I took with dad to Pittsburgh. We were going to Wildwood in New Jersey for a whole week. Not only were they taking me, Rich Wilson was invited along to keep me company.

My dad rented an apartment in one of those little boarding houses that fill the shore towns.

Rich and I had a room and my parents had a room. We hardly saw my folks except when we’d all have dinner in one of the eateries. Otherwise, they went their way and we went ours. We preferred it that way. We were usually up early and back late.

Rich and I would head out to the Boardwalk by midmorning, and then we would go and spend an afternoon on the beach or in the ocean. Rich would fling his shirt off as soon as we hit the sand. He wore a tight fitting swimsuit, something like a brief. I generally kept my shirt on, except when I went into the water. I wore boxer-style, less revealing swim trunks.

The first day on the beach Rich excused himself. He came back a few minutes later with two girls on his arms. They were the Siravo Sisters, Jeannette and Marilyn. Jeannette was the older and the one Rich had chatted up. Marilyn, the younger sister, tagged along. (In the photo with me is Marilyn on the left and Jeannette on the right, closest to me.)

We passed a good bit of our time that week with Jeannette and Marilyn. We met them on the beach every day and then after dinner we spent the evenings on the Boardwalk with them. We went to the amusement piers, played the games of chance or just walked in the moonlight holding hands.  As it happened, much to my surprise and delight, Jeannette preferred me to Richard so she became my girl for the week. Unfortunately, Rich wouldn’t accept her choice. He wasn’t use to girl’s rejecting his advances and he kept pushing himself upon her. She wrote about it later:

“How thoughtless he was, even at the dance that’s all he did was to kiss me all the time. I got pretty tired of it. All it was he had to have this dance. Remember the last night we were together, well, he made me cry a couple of times because I told him I liked you better than him.”

Dick Clark held one of his record hops in Wildwood at the Starlight Ballroom, which was the dance Jeannette was referring to. We took  the girls for a night of dancing. As we walked in Ballroom we were given these small autographed photos, sort of like Baseball Bubblegum Cards, one of Dick Clark and one of Pat Boone. I’m not sure why Pat Boone, he didn’t appear at the dance. Dick Clark always had a couple guest stars appear and perform at his dances. I say perform, but they only lip-synced to their recording. I don’t know whom he had that night. They were a couple of wanna-bes who later became never-weres.

What I remember most was dancing cheek to cheek with Jeannette, smelling her perfume and almost winning the Spotlight Dance. That was a feature of Clark’s hops. Everyone would dance and a spotlight swept the floor. If it came to a stop upon you, you had to leave the floor. The last couple remaining won some kind of prize. Jeannette and I came in third, which was as good as last since we got nothing. It was still fun to last that long.

I really liked Jeannette. She was very cute, especially when she smiled and these little dimples formed beneath her brown eyes. She did not like her dimples for some reason, but I guess my words to her about them began to change her opinion. In one of the letters she wrote me, she said:

“I’m beginning to like my dimples, but do they have to be in such a place?”

After the vacation we corresponded by mail for the next year. I even visited her in Langhorne where she lived. My parents were not so happy about this puppy love. After all, Jeannette was not only an Italian, but a Roman Catholic.

For some reason Ronald asked if he could write to her. Ronald was very big on Pen Pals, so I assume he wanted to add her to his collection. However, what he wrote her was a bit convoluted and not very well put:

“Larry’s is always raving and ranting about you. What is so attractive about you anyway?” (I don’t think he meant it in the way it sounds.)

“You can also tell me what happen (sic) in the park one nite when you and Larry, a couple of friends, were there one nite this past summer. He also said something that happen (sic) at school having something to do about biology room or teacher. I don’t know exactly what the circumstances were. I hope you understand what I’m talking about because I don’t!”

Well, I don’t know what he was talking about either and neither did Jeannette, but she did say she wasn’t going to write to Ronald anymore.

He finished up his letter by trying to get her to be a Pen Pal with some girl living in Brooklyn. Jeannette rejected that idea, too.

After a year or so it dissolved into just another summer romance memory for each of us. I wonder where she is today? I hope she had a nice life.

TO J.S.: ONCE OF LANGHORNE AND WILDWOOD

Gusty strokes of wind

Bring thoughts to mind,

Things that might have been.

            Whom do I mean?

            Her name was Jean.

Sunshine through the storm

Takes me from one dream

To find I dream of

Another sea scene.

Thinking you loved me.

Your Roman face and

Dimpled eyes I see

            On the beach we met.

            Your name was Jeannette.

No ghost or shadow

Will make this less true;

Yes, she was the first

Back when I was new.

            Whom do I mean?

            Her name was Jean.

                                                1958

That was the one and only vacation trip I ever shared with my parents.

The car gave me the freedom to do other activities. My friends and I took up bowling, which had become a big fad around that time. A decade earlier Bowling Alley were considered somewhat less than respectable places, on the same level as pool halls. They were places for hard men and course behavior. Now bowling alleys were springing up all over the place, large brightly lit caverns with snack bars and groups of young people tossing balls down the alleys.
There was also the appearing of a number of miniature golfing ranges. The best of the lot was just outside of Reading. It wasn’t the usual flat, side-boarded holes with windmill and clown obstacles. It was build up, over and around these rocks and it had waterfalls and sand traps, rather than those mechanical devises.

The other thing we got into was roller-skating. There was a skating rink in Exton we went to a lot. Sometimes they held sock hops there and we went to those as well. There was another skating rink in Berwyn that also held Saturday Night sock hops. We did both there, too, skate and dance. Dick Clark hosted some of the sock hops at Berwyn. Clark got around; he had his hops at Sunnybrook Ballroom in Pottstown, at the Starlight in Wildwood and at the Berwyn Skating Rink. He probably had others as well. I remember one of his musical acts at Berwyn, Danny and the Juniors (pictured left). Their recording of “At the Hop” was moving up the charts at the time. 
The bowling, miniature golf, roller skating and sock hops continued over the remaining years of my teens. I went to these sometimes with my various buddies and sometimes on a date with different girls. Helen Semibold and I had partied way by the summer of 1957. I was dating a girl from my church for awhile, and I thing Anne Schantz (right) was the first one I attended a sock hop with.

Ronald and I bowled often; I think Stuart joined us. Ronald may have gone miniature golfing with me. I think Ronald and I use to go to this Chip ‘n’ Putt south of West Chester along Route 202. It was a nice facility. Chip ‘n’ Putts had eighteen holes, but short fairways. You only used two clubs to play, a chipping iron and a putter, thus the name.

We would ride out to the course and after play, stop at Jimmy John’s for hot dogs and fries. Jimmy John’s had been built in 1940, two years later than Dick Thomas’s Brick Over. There were pictures on the walls of the original Jimmy John with celebrities. I remember Tom Mix in those photos. The restaurant also had these electric trains that ran along shelves on the walls and on a platform in the center.

In 2010 Jimmy Johns was going to have a big 70^th Anniversary celebration. They had hired Duff Goldman to do the cake on his TV show “Ace of Cakes”. On the eve of the celebration there was a fire in the kitchen and the restaurant burned down. Duff donated the cake to the firemen who put out the flames. Happily, they were able to rebuild and Jimmy Johns is in business still today.

My mother took a job with Valley Maid Potato Chips in Phoenixville. You will find many people who agree that Valley Maid made the best potato chips ever. My mom liked working there except when they put her on the barbecue chip line. The seasonings played havoc with her lungs and she picked up a cough from the process.

The problem with my mom going to work was now my Grandmother was there all the time. She didn’t drive and with my mom working their frequent visiting came to an abrupt stop. On Saturday nights when my parents went on those toots with their pals my grandmother was home with me. Granted, I was often out on those nights too, either driving to Downingtown to see Ronald or going up the road to Richard’s. Still, I craved some alone time.

I got some alone time in October, when my grandmother had a heart attack on the 16^th. I guess all the activity and stress after my grandfather died finally caught up to her. She had been through a lot, having to sell all her furniture and household goods and then moving in with us. She remained in the hospital until November 10. You can see she looked well by Christmas. She was 59 years old.

A partial solution to getting some alone time came from church. I had stewed about going to church every Sunday with the family since we moved to Bucktown. When I got the car, I made a deal with them. I would go to Sunday School, but not church. Sunday School was first, so I would drive to it and come home while they attended church service.

Sunday School was incredibly boring. Our teacher was a man with a monotone way of speaking. It was worth it to me enduring this torture because it gave me an hour with no one else in the house. That gave me enough time to get out my stash of naughty magazines and bring my fantasies to a conclusion before they came home.

In may have been an omen that what I was doing wasn’t right with God the first Sunday this bargain began. I had just gotten home and was digging in my treasure trove when there was a knock at the front door. It had to be a stranger. I went out to see and there were two ladies standing on the porch. I opened the door.

It cost me a dollar to buy the Jehovah Witness book called, “From Paradise Lost to Paradise Gained” just to get rid of them. Once they left I tossed their orange book aside for another of quite ungodly content and sought to gain my own temporary paradise.