BEST 4TH OF JULY - EVER!

Millville folks worked for a whole year to celebrate its centennial. Committees were formed and my dad and mom joined up.  Mom was a member of the Methodist Women's Centennial Committee and they mostly worked on costumes.  Dad was elected secretary of the Y’s Men float building committee – he loved taking notes.  Many of the townsmen and a few women grew beards and walked around town in bib overalls and flared skirts on Friday shopping night.  My grandmother sewed a gingham pinafore for my mom and a white apron with lace trim to wear on High Street for many events that the wise fathers of our fair city had conjured up for us celebrants.  Dinners, speakers, art exhibits, poster contests to name a few.

It was a fine summer in kid-land.  The Elks had the best picnic on Memorial Day after the parade which was the biggest and longest in memory.  Big time politicians from all over the state made speeches on flatbeds in front of the city hall.  I entered a poster contest to celebrate the big 4^th of July.  The winner was assured a picture on the front page of the Daily Republican.  Boys week this year had bigger blue ribbons.  The American Legion Carnival with its games of chance was a big success this year and it even had a giant Ferris wheel. 

All of this led up to a 4th of July biggest longest bestest fireworks display ever produced for the worthy citizens of the Holly City of America. (According to the Mayor).  The parade came on a sweltering day.  I made an encore bike ride in it with my wilted used Memorial Day crepe paper decorations. Mom pranced down High Street and swirled in a gown with hoops no less (my granny was genius) – as a former high school cheer leader she never missed a chance to perform.  My dad proudly road the YMCA float – a giant Liberty Bell with tolling clapper accompanied by fife music blasting on a record player wired into the truck. 

After the parade mom grilled us a special meal – real (not chuck) steaks.  Prime sirloin from Kotoks Market.  A splurge, as they were at least $1.29 a pound instead of the 89 cents a pound shoe leather she usually bought for our "grilling".  If I complained about them being tough, she would snarl, “just be glad we still have all your teeth, your granny lost all of hers when she was 12!”  Darkness fell with a bang as cherry bombs exploded all over town.  We made our way in our 1955 Chevy Custom to the promised pyrotechnic extravaganza which was to take place on the field behind City Hall.  We had to park miles away. (or so it seemed) as everyone in town was there – Everyone!

Mom brought the old O.D. army blanket that we have had forever and we squatted on its indestructible fabric in an open spot near second base.  The Millville High School Marching Band marched onto the field at precisely 9 PM – playing one of the two patriot songs they had in there repertoire – It’s a Grand Ole Flag echoed off the center field fence and bounced back off the grandstands behind home plate setting up a cacophony which added to the magic of the moment.

The Mayor spoke for what seemed like an hour and introduced the MC for the event.  Local “showman” Al Marks – the Jersey George Jessel.   Al, ham that he was, in his deep baritone voice intoned…”Ladies and Gentleman, Children of all Ages please direct your eyes to center field as we begin the greatest fireworks display Millville has every had…BOOM !  A magnificent bomb ripped and reverberated off the City Hall.  Boom - another fired.

 

On the field a fireworks ground display ignited, and it looked like a sailing ship.  Big Al intoned "In 1733 Captain Buck sailed up the mighty Maurice river (pronounced Morris) and founded the settlement which would become Millville.  Another display ignited a brilliant illustration.  This time a factory with smoking stacks celebrating our namesake the mill of Millville...and so it went, one after another display was interspersed with rockets that lighted sky over our little town.  

And then the big finish – the high school marching band stuck up the Stars and Stripes Forever.  Hundreds of bombs soared into the sky.  The sound was deafening.  Windows all over downtown were near shattering.  And to a collective gasp of the throng below, hundreds of white flares soared high above the field and started to descend hanging from small red, white and blue parachutes.  The whole park was as bright as day.  And every kid in the place thought the same thing.  "I HAVE TO GET ONE OF THOSE FLAGS!" Hundreds of kids got to their feet and started to run around in every direction trying to snag a souvenir.   I was up and running toward center field because most of the kids were whooping in the infield.  I picked out a descending chute among the hundreds floating down.  It came closer.  100 feet...50...10...I was so close to grabbing it. Then I heard someone running toward me who also had their eyes on this treasure.  We both were converging on the same spot.  I had to beat them because if I didn't get this one it would be to late to get another. If only it would float to where I could reach it first?  I dove for it.  He dove for it.
Our heads met.  I saw stars and they weren't fireworks.  We had collided at full speed.  He lay there moaning and holding his head.  I checked mine for a skull fracture.  And then I noticed - I was clutching the prize.  I rolled over and stayed there until my mom came and proclaimed that she hoped I didn't break a leg for "that silly piece of cloth!"  The other daredevil limped away in tears.  And the best fireworks ever was over - I had a giant headache.  But I had won my slightly singed Millville Centennial Souvenir. 

 A well-earned trophy – and happy because I wouldn’t get a another until our Bicentennial! 

 

   

 When my oldest granddaughter went to her first Summer Day Camp, it was provided "free" by her school I thought about my summers.  This was the first times she had been on a half hour big yellow bus ride from home - alone.  I have to admit she is much braver then than I ever was.

And seeing her off reminded me about my firs fateful day at the YMCA Camp Hollybrook.  I was a bit older than Violet because the age limited started at ten, she was six.  But everything for kids today starts earlier than the sheltered days of the 50's when I grew up.  And going took a lot of coaxing from my mother who thought being with other kids would be good for me.  I have to confess I never had a baby sitter.  Nanny would be there with me or Mom would go out.  The kids in my neighborhood were a few years older and refused to play with “baby Cal" like me.  And I was a baby until I was 10 or so - that’s for sure.

So, I spent my long summer days entertaining myself.  Finally, after much cloaking I relented and said I would go to the YMAC camp.  There were three two-week sessions and only the "rich kids" went to all three.  Mom paid $10 bucks (which was a lot of in 1953!) for the first session and said if I like it, she get the next two.  The fee covered the cost of lunches and arts and crafts materials.

And so, the day arrived, and I walked to the corner a few blocks away like a prisoner on way to a final punishment.  My palms were wet.  I had never been on a bus without my mom or Nanny.  It rumbled up billowing diesel smoke and I clambered on.  The bus was packed with kids, and I found a seat in the back.  There was a "Junior Counselor" in front of the driver and he gave us an overview of the rules of the camp.  Then we sang the Hollybrook Theme Song.  Lots kids were camp veterans and knew the words. I listened and sweated more.  After the song the 20-minute ride into the woods that bordered our town was a cacophony of laughs and shouts by the "happy campers".  I just sat silent and worried – what if we had a thunderstorm… what would do for a whole day until we piled out of bus in front of the "lodge".  The lodge was a one size fits all building where we would eat and spend rainy days according the Junior counselor’s orientation speech.  Across from the building in big field there were a ton of other campers from ages 9 - 15 waiting for the festivities to begin.  A young man in a Hollybrook tee-shirt with a name "Chief Bob" on his chest shepherded all the boys 8 years old together from the group and a the girls were gathered by a woman dressed the same.  Chief Bob announced to about a dozen of us guys (I didn’t know any of them) that we were the proud Cherokee Tribe, and he was our Chief.  He said we would learn lot about the ways of the Indians, nature and history. (Each age group had an “Indian” name - this probably would not be the case at the now abandoned camp ground – indigenous Native Americans  would be hard to say for 8 year olds and the tribal name considered stereotypical – the times have dramatically changed since my camper days long ago).

    My first day went like this:  We marched to the "Chapel in the Pines" (remember this experience was sponsored by the Young Men's Christian Association and was before the advent of the YWCA - but girls and boys both attended the "Y".  The camp was built by the "Wise Men” the adult men's club that were builder and benefactors of our town's beautiful building that housed a full basketball court, games rooms and meeting rooms for the individual clubs - but that's another story.  The chapel was on a sloped area with a podium made out of pine logs with a cross carved neatly into the front of it.  On the hill were rows of spilt logs to sit on and the campers were quietly seated.  This place was a sacred place I would come to find out.  The Head Chief of the tribes (the director of the Y) welcomed us, explained some more rules and then read a bible verse and we all said the Lord's Prayer.
    Next Chief led us deeper into the pines where we were introduced to our Wigwam.  A large round and tall "tent" made of canvas and painted with our name and some pictures I recognized from watching cowboy movies at the Saturday matinee.  He instructed us that here was where we would always return after events and also where we would change into our swimsuits.  Yikes I forgot about swimming - but swimming lessons were a big part of our day here.   And then the shocker - we would sleep here during our once a week "overnight"!  Mom didn't tell me about any overnight!  Now I was sweating again.
    Our next activity was a "nature hike".  We visited all the other wigwams and were warned about the older boys who sometimes played tricks on little kids.  Next, we went back to the lodge as the temperature started to rise and I wished I had brought a hat.  I was roasting already and it was only 10:00 AM.  At the picnic tables behind the lodge we met "Miss Pat" our arts and crafts teacher. (Pat would go on to become a nationally noted artist known as the "Marsh Painter" - with her sunset paintings hanging in galleries all over the world.  Many times, I look at the sun setting and say, "Ah, we're seeing a Pat Witt sky tonight".)  My first project was to braid a "lanyard" of colors of our choice - a task that every camper the world over gets to do.  After a few tries a produced an orange and blue one (our high school colors) which I know 7 decades later still exists because my mother kept it along with a myriad of other hallmarks of my life that she thought would be destined to be housed in the Memorial Cal Museum when I became famous!  I found arts and crafts to be a welcome break to everything else that day because it was held under an umbrella of oak trees with a nice breeze coming off the namesake "brook" down the hill to our "beach".
    Lunch was next in the big room.  We had American cheese on white, family style bowls of chips and fruit punch served in ice cold metal pictures that were sweating a much as I was.
    Now we rested on army cots at and around our wigwam for exactly an hour because swimming instruction - I dreaded the afternoon to come.
           (To Be Continued)