Shaving Cream

They didn’t have Howard Stern or Opie and Anthony in the 1950’s. Capt. Al Skinner served the same function in Saltaire in those days.

Saltaire was pretty staid and reserved back then, but Capt. Al was an escape from the puritanical strictures of a “family” community.
On the “Daddy boat” coming over on a Friday night the men would crowd the cockpit to hear Capt Al regaling with his endless observations about the passing parade of Saltaire characters. His R-Rated Shim Shack was filled with risqué pictures and a well stocked refrigerator, sophomoric plaques on the wall, and years and years birthday cards pinned to the walls, each more suggestive than the last.

But it is the parties some remember best—Al's birthday parties.

After all the kids were fed unlimited slices of watermelon in the ball field the “grownups” would gravitate to the Shim shack-- (kids would try to sneak a peek inside but parents would shoo them away), and eventually the crowd would spill out onto the porch and onto the field. .
And there was the music:

Have you had your shim today?
No I had it yesterday
da da da da da da da...

Shaving cream
Shave close and clean,
Shave every day and you'll always feel clean...

Since certain readers of this blog are in their fifth decade of adolescence and still look back fondly on all that, we present from the lens of Hank Stillgebauer- the Capt. Al Birthday party of 1957.

Only on Saltaire38.blogspot.com
And you don't even have to subscribe to Satellite radio!

All Photos copyright the Stillgebauer Archives.