Fire Island Lighthouse, Coast Guard, 1960
copyright Jim O'Hare 2012

Another Big Hit by Tommy Ho #22

Tommy Holton, #22 a Fantastic Photog and long a Bulkhead Bulwark, has yet another of his series on a NYC Family in Sunday's Times. Hard work (years and years) is paying off for one of New York's most renowned lensmen. If you don't know his work, and all you can recall is his fantastic fielding or heroic homers, check out Sunday's Times and these great links:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/five-years-later-a-new-reality/

http://www.thomasholton.com/

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Upcoming www.saltaire38.blogspot.com postings:

SALTAIRE CHRONICLES, by Duncan Dobie:

an essay, with pix, of a kid growing up in the 1950's while the Dobies build their dream house

Book Review: A review of the most comprehensive history of Saltaire Housing, replete with great photos. New Book "Saltaire" by Pat Hennessey, is a "must have" book for all Fire Islanders. Review coming up this week, hopefully. (volunteers needed)

March Special

Photo Essay: Saltaire and Kismet in the aftermath of the March Storm of 1962. Photos by the late Peter Baum, courtesy Victoria Baum Bjorklund. We remember it like yesterday. You will see.

--JO'H

Father & Son, 1957

Duncan Dobie with his dad, late 1950's. His dad loved surfcasting. His dad died when Duncan was 15. Hopefully, memories last forever.

Does anyone want to do a Facebook Page?

Or maybe Linked in or something like that?

Lippincott's Magazine, November 1878

A GOOD DAY FISHING: BY SALTAIRE'S FIRST HISTORIAN

WE WILL CALL THIS PICTURE "A GOOD DAY FISHING"
THE ARTIST: SALTAIRE'S FIRST HISTORIAN,
Ruth Brewster Bryan Dobie, SALTAIRE'S FIRST HISTORIAN

TITLE INSPIRED BY DUNCAN DOBIE, HISTORICALLY SALTAIRE 38'S BEST WRITER.
SEE:

http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=BUMPER-TO-BUMPER

SALTAIRE BLOG TO END IN 2012?

Maybe we will take it down and put what we have in a book.

Not many people read blogs anymore, because of text messaging and social media.

We thought it was worth it, but nobody is passing along stories to us anymore.

Gentle breath of yours my sails must fill
Or else my project fails,
Which was to please.

--The Tempest

Pacific Walk

Justin Zizes Jr.

Merry Christmas to all

West transept window, O.L. Star of Sea, Saltaire

click image to enlarge and to see great details

Fire at Fire Island Pines

Photo by Ken Stein III, via Justin Zizes Jr.
Click on photo to enlarge

Big Fire at the Pines: Hugh O'Brien Reports

I was there. All FI FD’s, plus at least 6 from the mainland. 4-5 hours to knock down. Everyone did a good job. Saltaire mustered five souls to be shoved into the inferno. You can watch it on TV, or read about it, but nothing compares with the thrill of having a wall collapse next to you, or a live electrical wire blowing up when water from your fire hose hits it.

Hugh

The Hikes to Ocean Beach

In Day Camp in the 50's and 60's Uncle Pete was always big on hikes.

The most common one was from Saltaire to Ocean Beach and back. That could be completed with the kids back to Saltaire by 12:30 or 1 PM.

“The only day you can’t take the kids on a hike is Friday,” Uncle Pete would tell his counselors. Since there was no meat on Fridays, mothers might pack tuna salad sandwiches with mayonnaise that could spoil in the sun.

This is pretty much how a hike to Ocean Beach would go with a class of ten to fifteen boys, ages eight and nine:

The whole day camp of 100 or so campers, ages five to thirteen would meet in the field at 9:00 AM. Everybody in the bleachers. Then Uncle Pete would stand in front flanked by his counselors, clip boards in hand. His whistle would shut everyone up. After a few introductory remarks, he would announce: “5 year olds, go with your counselor." The kids would line up with their counselor. Uncle Pete to counselor: “take your group to the playground.” Then it was “ Six and seven year old girls, go with counselor.” Uncle Pete to the counselor: “take your group out to center field for a game of dodge ball,” and off they went. “ Six and seven year old boys: you will be going with your counselor to ocean front for games.” And so on. It was kind of military like-- or perhaps football practice like-- just like up at Pleasantville High School, where Peter W. Kuracheck was (and still is) a legend.

At any rate, on a day your particular group was going on a hike he would announce, “eight and nine year old boys, go to your counselor , you are going on a hike to Ocean Beach today. Did everybody remember to bring lunch?” And off you went.

The usual itinerary was to walk inland as far as Lonleyville where you would go out onto the beach and walk the rest of the way to Ocean Beach.

The walking distance from Saltaire to Ocean Beach is about three miles. So with distractions I figure it took an hour each way.

One time when I was counselor for the eight and nine year old boys, I figured out that it took about as long to walk to Ocean Beach as it takes to recite the entire script for the movie “The Giant Behemoth.” I found that out because I had this kid in my class named Hughie O’Brien, who started the recitation of every single line of “The Giant Behemoth.” somewhere on Lighthouse Prom and he finished by the time we got to John and Ann’s in Ocean Beach. He recited all the parts, all the lines, by heart. Non stop. “Captain, we have a sighting at 500 leagues.” Scary noises. He could do sound effects: Monster’s roar, airplane sounds, the whole bit. For Hughie to do the whole movie from heart, all the parts, sound effects, even some theme music and final credits, took the same time it took to walk to O.B. I wonder if I could walk that fast today.

For fast walking kids, there were distractions along the way. Between Saltaire and Fair Harbor there was a strip of about 75 yards of undeveloped “no man’s land” between Saltaire and Kismet. You had to walk on a path of wooden planks over sand and brush. By the late 1950's that section was developed, but I still call it “No Man’s Land.”

One of the first houses in Fair Harbor, on the right, had a couple wooden figures, like a little sailboat or a little wooden kid with a fishing line or maybe a windmill that would spin in the wind.

Halfway through Fair Harbor some kids would already want to peel off and run down to the Pioneer Store or Lipinsky’s to spend some of the 75 cents or so they took along, but a good counselor would discourage that. “We don't have time to stop. Save your money for Ocean Beach.”

Then you get to the far end of Fair Harbor. Boys would shout “Who bit her end?” as they passed the house with a sign: “The Bitter End.”

Dunewood was created in the late 1950's. Before that there was a very long stretch of plank walkway through brush and sand from Fair Harbor to Lonleyville.

The advent of Dunewood was a Eureka moment for marauding kids. Dunewood had the famous “Pirate Ship.” It was a big wooden scaffold built in the shape of a Pirate Ship in the Dunewood playground. It was designed for kids to climb on, and it appeared on Dunewood advertising logos. The kids from Saltaire would definitely take time out from their hike to charge the Pirate ship like a bunch of pirates, climb it, jump around it like monkeys, ridicule it, insult the Dunewood kids, and sometimes pee on it before leaving. (I guess that was to leave their mark, like dogs.) This anarchy would never happen if Uncle Pete were along, but more often the hikes were supervised by mere counselors.

Then they would move on. When you got to Lonleyville, there was only one skinny boardwalk from bay to ocean. Loneleyville only had a few little shingled houses then. Lots of bushes, and then over the sand dunes and on to the beach.

At Lonleyville, instead of going to the ocean you could take Burma Road, the inland route to ocean Beach, but we did not usually do that. It was all deep sand and windy and the sun could make the sand blazing hot to trudge through. But Burma Road wound through sand dunes and there were always a few very old skeletons of rusted Model A or similar trucks that had long since been abandoned. Mostly it was rusted frames of the trucks half covered in the side of a sand dune. They were a fun distraction but, like I said, we usually did not do Burma Road, we usually walked along the oceanfront from Loneleyville to O.B.

You couldn’t eat on the streets in O.B. so the kids usually ate their lunch somewhere along the way. Maybe with a can of soda. Some of the soda cans in those days had angular tops with caps just like beer bottles. I think Chocolate Cow started out that way.

So then you would get to Ocean Beach. It was the metropolis. The big city. The Emerald City of Fire Island. You would walk by a swimming pool: Lucille Stretch Swim School. I wondered why in the name of God they needed a swimming pool on Fire Island.

Then you would get up to the immaculate village green. It was said you could get arrested if you stepped on the grass. Eugene Piper once wanted to throw beans onto the lawn, hoping they would sprout and ruin the perfectly manicured village green.

There were three stores that held my attention on trips to Ocean Beach: Kline's, John & Ann’s and Flair House.

I never went into the Flair House. It was a clothes store for grown ups, but it made Ocean Beach look to me like a real town. A real little fashion store.

John’ & Ann’s had a long counter with stools, and everybody would go there to get ice cream or maybe a soda.

Kline’s: There was a news cart outside that always had the Village Voice, Fire Island News, and in the very early days, the Fire Islander.

Every year there was one stupid thing that boys would buy from Kline's. It was a little tube of plastic goo that came with a little straw the size of today’s coffee stirrer/straws. You would put a blob of the goo at the end of the straw and you would blow and make little sticky bubbles. I can not recall what ever happened to those bubbles. I don’t think anyone carried one home. I think the kids who bought silly putty instead got a better buy at Kline’s.

So we’re in OB maybe 45 minutes to an hour, blown about 75 cents apiece, and it was time to go home. Walking back was usually a little less energetic. Nobody had the energy to assault the pirate ship again.

So you would get back to Saltaire and home.

“How was your trip?”

“Fine.”

“Did you get anything to bring home?”

“I got that plastic bubble stuff”

“Oh, let me see”

“I lost it”

I'd bet a tube of that stuff never made it back to Saltaire.

--JO'H

Followup comment. Beaver sez:

Wonderful memories of a great childhood with a teacher/football coach who was a REAL role model. My older sons former stockbroker lives in Pleasantville and some 40 years after his retirement Bert tells me that Uncle Pete is viewed their with reverence to this day..... obviously he never made his P'ville teams swim in seaweed and leech filled ponds. My fondest memory of Uncle Pete occurred on a "forced march", which rivaled any I encountered in the Army,from Saltaire to Sunken Forest. Were in not for Uncle Pete's intervention and help I'd probably still be lying face down, exhausted, on the beach opposite OBP.

e

It was Mosquito Day

It was mosquito day.
No, not a day to celebrate mosquitoes. Kind of to destroy them.
But more than killing mosquitoes it was a day to frolic in clouds of DDT spray.
Every few weeks in the summer in the 1950’s a yellow truck would come around from the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission.

Actually, the crew came over on a boat, THE HELEN MARION. I think they must have kept the yellow truck somewhere on the island 24/7. The crew was old men with boots and rain slickers.

At the height of the mosquito season in a bad year, you could walk into the ball field and in seconds be attacked by hundreds of mosquitoes. You couldn’t slap them fast enough. Instead of Whack-a mole you would be a human whack a mosquito game. You smack two on your left leg and three would start biting on your arms. All at once. There were times that classes had be rerouted to the ocean front.
Forget abut sunset or dusk. This could be all day long. But even when they were not at their worst, they would be pretty much everywhere.

So the mosquito truck would drive up and down the boardwalks with big hoses spraying a fog of DDT up into the air. Did you ever see fire boats spraying cascades of water up into the air in New York harbor? Same thing with the mosquito truck. Big hoses left and right spraying up into the air as the truck went slowly up and down the boardwalks. And kids on bikes would sometimes follow right behind the truck as it made it rounds. Kind of neat, for a few minutes at least, riding through a cloud of wet haze. It kind of smelled like gasoline. Everybody was relieved when the mosquito truck came by.

Then the mosquitoes would be gone. At least for a week or two.

Then they started coming back. In another week or so after that the HELEN MARION would tie up at the Saltaire dock and the yellow truck would go around again.

I remember kids saying DDT wasn’t poison to people since nobody died when they played in it. Sometimes when the DDT settled on puddles around the village it would leave a neat sheen of little rainbow colors. If you swished the water, or launched a toy boat into it, it would show little brownish-red rainbows. Push the boat fast on the water and it would have a colorful little oily wake.

I didn’t notice if some kinds of birds started to disappear as years went by. I was not a kid birdwatcher. A lot of friends noticed that the blue claw crabs were less and less as years went by. When you were little you could get a bucketful with a net just walking along the bulkhead on the bay. They started being less and less. I don't know if there was any connection.

One day in 1964 or 1965 the old guys from the HELEN MARION were sitting at the dock and complaining. They weren’t wearing rain slickers anymore, but they had boots. “No more DDT,” they were told. They had to stop it because “some bird watchers don’t like DDT.” From then on, all they could do was put pellets into standing water. “That will never kill ‘em like DDT,” an old sprayer complained.

I don’t know if the pellets gave off a sheen on standing water or were colorless. By then I was too old to play in puddles of greasy water.

--JO'H

picture by Justin Zizes Jr.

Back to School

Justin Zizes Jr.

Dedication of the Isle of Fire II

Pagel's pride

"The dedication of the Isle of Fire II"

click the image to enlarge. Note the boats in the Cove.

GUESS THE YEAR
pix by Justin Zizes Sr., courtesy of Justin Zizes Jr.

New Tower Rising Sept. 2011
Justin Zizes Jr. click image to enlarge

right click to download image to your computer

A Great Photo Essay

Catch this: a guy named Evan has a blog about walking to different post offices and in August 2011 he visited Kismet, Saltaire, F.H. and OB. Nice images and words about Saltaire.

Follow this link

http://colossus-of-roads.blogspot.com/2011/08/postmark-adventures-fire-island-ny-part.html

BIG LABOR DAY ISSUE

Click on images to enlarge

1920's --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1954

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1964:

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Eugene Piper 1959

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1920's medals were awarded by Yacht Club

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Labor Day 52 years ago

"S-A-L-T-A-I-R-E
That’s the place we love to be in S-A-L-T-A-I-R-E
Seasons Over now we’re sorry
That we have to say good-by
Pack our bags and heave a sigh
Leave old Saltaire with a cheer
And all come back next year "

Pix taken by Jeff Weinlandt on Labor Day, 1959

They would sing this song on the dock on Labor Day as the Islander pulled away. The people leaving on the boat would sing it; the people on the dock would sing it. At each departure, there were less people left on the dock.

(Look closely for Eugene Piper, Bill Ervin and Norma Ervin.)

Saltaire Memories: Labor Day

Tom Lyon was a smart city kid. He seemed to know about everything. In Saltaire, he would sit down in front of the Saltaire Sweet Shope or on the dock and read a whole stack of daily newspapers. Sometimes he would fight with his sister Laurie about who would get the sports sections first and who would get the news sections.

Tom would come up with critiques of and pithy quotes from that morning's observations by Arthur Krock, or John Drebinger’s report of what happened last night with the Yankees. When we were kids, Tom must have picked out a thousand newspaper articles for us to read and talk about.

And the Yankees ... Tom could tell you what the Sporting News was saying about the latest Yankees streak, or how many home runs Babe Ruth hit at the Stadium in 1927.

At any rate, it was Labor Day, September 7, 1964. The annual awards ceremony was over, and people were starting to roll their wagons packed and ready to go down Broadway to the dock. In those days, the season pretty much ended at Labor Day.

Tom is sitting there in front of the Sweet Shoppe, and he says "you should read this story.”

It was an essay about Labor Day from that morning’s Times. I read it, and I figure I have read it again almost every Labor Day since. No great shakes, that essay. Tom wasn’t sentimental that way. His sentimentality had more of a Holden Caufield edge to it.

But I read it because I think of Tom sitting there reading that paper, that day at the end of that summer.

There would be more summers for Tom. But not many. I still think of Tom sitting there.

Then I think of the millions of stories over that vast expanse of time that Tom never got to read, that he never got to talk about, laugh about, make sarcastic remarks about. I still think of Tom...

---JO'H

So for what it's worth: here is the article Tom told me to read:

_______________________________________
TOPICS

End of Summer

It's gone it now, the whole thing. That's all there is, there isn't any more. It seemed just a moment ago when, on a Memorial Day Beach the summer stretched ahead to a rockets a flight beyond infinity. Obviously this was not so. The seashell held to the ear that day sang a gay lyric based on sunshine, sparkling water -- and all the time in the world. Hold that shell today and it weeps with sadness and is dour with foreboding. Good-bye to the beach, which to all intents and purposes today is turned back to the gulls. Farewell to the clams and the driftwood fires, to the castles and the fishermen and the legend of the singing sand. This holds that to walk over it when the tide is right will compress it in such a way as to sound like a song. The tide was right that day the summer started, the result having a lilt like something composed by Meredith Wilson for 76 trombones. Today the tide is all wrong. Today is Labor Day and the end of summer. Good-bye.


Lake and Mountain

Farewell to the lake and to the mountain just behind it. Under a late May sky the water was deep blue and the mountain a brilliant green, and the scene cried for a painter to record it. Today there is something bleak about the sky, and an occasional dab of red and brown disfigures the green, like careless spatterwork. No artist would care to touch it today, now at the end of summer. Good-bye. Farewell to the trout at the bottom of the stream and that bass the bottom of the lake and to the loon that makes its home near where stream and lake join together. Back in May the call the old fellow made could be recorded as a cheerful salute to the season, although this could stretch the imagination somewhat. Today, there can be no question about the call. It is rude, sardonic, and it spells out its message -- you're going back where you came from, and good riddance.

The Winding Road

Farewell to the dirt roads which lead to picturesque hamlets and pretty, cared-for farms. Back at the end of May, the spirit was adventurous and it took no more than a touch of the wheel to leave the superhighway world and find a better one. A whole new country opened. Roads were found which followed the natural course of roads -- beside the natural course of streams -- the best of them not even on the wavering thin blue lines on the road maps. On Memorial Day it seemed right to plan an entire summer away from the highways, but good-bye to that. Farewell to lanes going through buttercup meadows, and the brooks lined with weeping willows, the lanes on which twice a day the herds of cows have the right of way. Good-bye to the road stand with box-top counter, where sweet corn is still warm from the sun and practically given away by a proprietor or honestly glad and to see you. Farewell to the country store. Of recent years these have sprung up everywhere, vending atmosphere along with antiques, but they are imitative, not real. The real ones are on the back roads which, starting in late May, went everywhere. Tonight, going home, they will lead but to the superhighway at the end of summer. Good-bye.

Farewell to It All.

Goodbye to the weekend, which never is quite long enough, of course, but is the next best thing to the official vacation. Farewell to tennis and golf and the rocking chair on the hotel porch and the hammock beneath the tree. In late May it was possible to itemize all the worthwhile books which would be read in that hammock, but today the fact must be faced that "War and Peace" has suffered its usual postponement until another summer. Farewell to the little carnival, set out for a week in the town's dusty lot -- about the only relic left of the great circus tradition. Farewell to watermelon, held in the hand and not on plates, and grilled chicken drumsticks, served minus forks, and peanut butter sandwiches seasoned with just the right pinch of fine white sand. Farewell to the summer. Late last May it seemed likely that even the office time clock would cooperate, by slowing its hands or stopping them altogether. That was just an illusion, so recognized now. Instead of stopping on the sunny hours, the hands of all clocks everywhere moved forward like lightning, to reach today. Good-bye.


New York Times
Septemer 7, 1964

Who's Who From Labor Days Past?

click to enlarge

Ralph Perlberger

"Anonymous" chimes in:

Anonymous said...
In the top photo, I can see Matt Sirovich, Alan Preston, Kevin Smith, Mike McAllister, Eugenie Chefetz, Leeny Maier, Tom Sconzo and Jenny Brown
October 7, 2008 3:18 PM
Anonymous said...
In the bottom photo is Dave Maier,Tom sconzo,and Kenny Savelson

another "anonymous:"

Okay, in the fourth photo down I can tag the kids I used to babysit for. Smack in the middle (next to Laura Zaccaro in the cowboy hat) is Pam Gartin. Her brother Chris is up front in navy blue. And isn't that Allison Dietrich in the back left in the stripes? I think so. Jen Blau is up front to the left of the microphone. That could be Dave Bear two over to the right from her. And OBviously the cutie Perlberger girls are up front in black and blue. The Pogrebins are also rocking the cowboy look on the right. That's all I've got....
October 7, 2008 10:06 PM

From Jen Blau Martin:

How Funny! I think my brother Jeremy Blau, is the curly toe-head sitting on someone's lap inthe top picture the the left of Jody Perlberger. I'm in the 2nd picture back row sitting on someon'e shoulders (maybe Jenny Burns?) after singing "When my Baby Goes to Rio!" Front row in the glasses is Katie Stockbridge. Alizon Hull is two to the right and Heather Jone is sitting on Leenie Mayer's lap.-Jen Blau Martin
October 9, 2008 8:27 AM

Editor's note: lets keep this string going. There are a lot of names still unnamed in the above pictures.

More importantly, beside naming names, tell us a little story about those Labor Day Shows-- or some other story.

JOH & Derf

LABOR DAY, 1946-1949 IN SALTAIRE: KODACHROME IMAGES BY THE LATE RICHARD GREER

Pictures by Richard Greer

Pictures courtesy Sid Greer

Ed. Note: The promise of Saltaire from its very inception, to nurture “Healthy Happy Saltaire Youngsters” http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Bungaliers was as much evidence in the post- World War II era as it is today. Kids here, kids there, kids everywhere.

Saltaire was never a resort where you went to get away from the kids—it was a place you went to live with the kids. And you never got to know just the kids: you got to know whole families. Bill Stillgebauer told us that his parents were close friends with the Greers, and Bill became friends with the Greers' kids, and grandkids and nieces and nephews. The Greers were cousins of the Glascocks who became good friends of the Stillgebauers, and so on. Growing up Saltaire, you knew people in the context of their families.

1950’s Mayor John Ludlow once said:
There is a word in our own language that I think has not been given due importance. The word is "sociability," which I'll take the liberty of terming "vocal, hospitable, friendliness." Sociability is friendliness of by word as well as by deed: it is when you enjoy having people in for supper equally as having supper at their house; when during a walk around the block you meet and have a friendly greeting from eight or ten people.Such is the type of life that we have at Saltaire. We are a small incorporated village of one hundred and ten cottages, a part of the Town of Islip,
---Mayor John Ludlow, 1954.
http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=polio

We are proud to introduce Richard Greer’s Labor Day pictures from 1946, 1947 and 1948 that show that sociability in context of a Village tradition carried on each year from the earliest years of the Village: the annual Labor Day races at the ball field and on the bay. Parents went down to the field to watch the kids run. And they got to do some running themselves—or at least jumping in potato sacks. The next day was on to the bay for the swimming races in the boat basin.

Then to watch the kids as they gore themselves, hands behind their backs, with blueberry pie, a tradition that goes back at least to the 1920’s in Saltaire, http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/2008/08/labor-day-in-saltaire.html

Finally, of course, came the great Labor Day awards ceremony at the Yacht Club. The Village turned out for what was Saltaire's version of the Academy Awards. The season's awards for sailing, swimming and track were awarded in a packed Yacht Club, topped off by the big awards: the Sailing trophies and "The Cup," a trophy given each year for the best kid in each particular class.

Greer's images capture a Village in an era of confidence: a Village that in the previous ten years had fought off the utter destruction of the Hurricane of 1938 http://saltairian.com/pages/history/1938/ocean-met-bay.html
http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=beleagured
http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Joseph+Lynch

and then had seen its parents go off and fight and win the Big War.

http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Iwo+Jima

http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=nancy+latham

48 -star American flags delineated the running course for the races at the field; red white and blue streamers hung on the Broadway fence.

And kids everywhere, and parents everywhere too: this was, after all, the earliest bloom of the Baby Boom. So thanks, Sid Greer, for saving your dad Richard's Kodachromes from that heady time: This was All American Saltaire at mid Century.
ALL PICTURES BY RICHARD GREER

CLICK ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE

THE LABOR DAY TRACK MEET, 1947

Not many people remember, but there used to be a cinder track around the ball field, as seen on left. By the 1950's it was covered up, except for the northern end of the field between the right field foul line and the the fire house. The fire house was farther back than it is today. It was torture to walk on that part of the old track in bare feet: there were big, chunky cinders.

Note: fire alarm gong on Broadway. In the early days, there were similar alarms in strategic locations throughout the village. They were manually operated: just hit 'em with a big hammer to summon help. There was no electricity or telephone service until the 1930's. See an earlier fire alarm here: http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Fire+Alarms

Note here the clear view across tennis courts to houses on Marine Walk.

Note in this picture: there used to be basketball backboards along the right field line, a double sided one shownher incenter filed, and another deep in center field.
The house in the background is on Pacific walk.

THE SWIMMING RACES AT THE BAY

The track meet was one day, the swimming meet the next.

These swimming pictures were taken in two different years, 1946 and 1948 .

Look closely: the old grey headed man in the scow on the right is the famous old bayman/hermit , Captain Baldwin. Kind of creepy to see him there. To follow his legend, click here: http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=Baldwin

THE PIE EATING CONTESTS:

There is a Saltaire promotional brochure from the 1920's that shows a line of kids along Bay Prom participating in a pie eating contest. http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/2008/08/labor-day-in-saltaire.html These 1948 by images by Robert Greer show the tradition was strong. See, for instance Hank Stillgebauer's images from 1957: http://saltaire38.blogspot.com/search?q=messiness The pie eating contests continued at lest through teh early 1960's. Why the stopped this this tradition is anyone's guess, but there is no reason why it cannot be reintroduced in 2010.

THE CUP:

This was it. The ultimate; the Oscar; the top award for top kid in each goup. Real hardware that looked great on the mantle.

THE REASON THEY DID ALL THIS:

Only on http://www.saltaire38.blogspot.com/

We have lots more Greer photos from that era: beach scenes; sailing scenes, scenes with lots of people old timers may recall, and a series of pictures of a baseball game between Saltaire aind Pont of Woods at Point of Woods in 1950.

Trouble is, we have not received YOUR pictures yet.

send them to:

johareny@aol.com