Synagogues, churches and clubs might have thought that they were important in the life of Parkside, but Mr. Solomon's drugstore was the real center of social life. Strategically located at the corner of Haddon and Kaighn Avenues, it was not only a large, well-stocked pharmacy, but also a soda fountain and a luncheonette. Managed personally by Mr. Sol himself, it was where everybody, who was anybody, went for ice cream, lunch, or a snack after the Parkside movie next door.

The fountain was managed by a tough Irishman named Jimmie, and his helper, Carl. Flo tended the cash register, Conrad cooked the food in the tiny kitchen, and others of us waited on tables facing both streets. When the crowds came in, everybody hustled, and between drug customers, Mr. Sol greeted his many friends. The doors shut at 11 PM.

After years of serving papers on foot and bicycle, I finally got my first real job there as a 16 year-old, waiting on tables in the evenings and on Saturday. Mister Sol's only instruction on my first day was, "Keep your eyes open, and your mouth shut." The pay was minimal, and the tips were something you earned by your manners and your smile. I know that it was September 1938 because that was when the first "Jefferson" nickels came out, and I saved every one I received until I had $3.00 for my first driver's license.

At the soda fountain, Jim was a real showman and amazed everybody by the way he would dip ice cream, flip it high in the air and catch it in a milkshake can. However, we laughed for weeks when one of his dips went up and never came down, because it landed in a box of cigars above the cashier's booth! They laughed at me too, because having been trained as a child never to waste food, I tried to eat leftover baked beans in the kitchen so they wouldn't be thrown in the trash. I soon learned the reality of the restaurant business after that.

I can still recall some of the customers and their sweet wives, although their names have faded, but as always, things learned on that job were part of my education. Where else could a boy learn how to set a table, serve food properly, write food checks legibly, mind his own business - and get paid for it? And it was fun as well!

.

My uncle Ed May operated one of the finest small print shops in Camden, and had customers all over the city. He had served his apprenticeship at a large Philadelphia printing plant, then opened a shop in the basement of his own home in Fairview. As his reputation grew, he was able to move to the downtown area to be near his many customers, and he operated a small but busy shop for over forty years. Known as a "job shop," it supplied the many forms used by doctors, lawyers, business men, and merchants in the daily life of the city. His own letterhead said, "Edmund May, Distinctive Printing," and as a result of working beside him. I knew that quality was the guiding principle of everything he did.

Like most small businessmen in those days, he rented a storefront as reasonably as possible, and never hesitated to move when something better became available. I remember his place on South Fifth Street very well, and later, in the 800 block of Market Street. After the War, he moved it out to Federal Street in East Camden and his customers always followed him. In his shop he had two Chandler & Price presses which were fed by hand. There was also a large cutter that could trim a whole ream of paper at a time. This was in the days of movable type, and he had a case for each font of type used, as well as a supply of large block letters. Composing sticks, ink, rollers, spacers, quoins, press forms, and all of the other tools of his trade were placed at convenient locations. Inevitably, something would be mislaid, and he would say with his characteristic laugh, "A place for everything, and not a - - - - thing in its place."

As the first male child in our large family, I was always close to Uncle Ed, and by the time I became a teenager, he was like a big brother to me. I decided that I too wanted to be a printer and took the print shop course at Woodrow Wilson High. Anxious to show him what I was learning, I appeared at his shop on Fifth Street where he let me be the "printer's devil." That meant my job was to put the little pieces of type back in the cases, ready for him, or his jolly assistant Frank McCoy to set for the next job. The compartments in the "California Job Case," as they were called, were not labeled but were arranged in the most frequently used order, and in different sized boxes. As might be expected, the letter "e" had the largest box. Printers quickly learned where each piece went and reached for them automatically, the way touch typists do on a typewriter.

My job also involved sweeping, cleaning, and heading down the street for a bucket of hot coffee and some of "Nick's Foot Long" hotdogs. I also delivered packages of finished work and advertising flyers. At the end of each after-school visit, he would hand me a few quarters, a real bonus in those days. To this day, I can still rime and arrange a ream of paper the way I saw him do it. He also taught me that the life of a printer would never make me rich, and was potentially unhealthy because of exposure to lead, ink, and solvents. After the war, however, working at his press helped subsidize my life while I was in college.

He raised a large family of his own, my five dear cousins, but he always found time to help me when I needed it. In addition to the fun I had working with him, he taught me to drive and let me take my driver's test in his big sedan. Every boy should have an uncle like that..

THE END OF THE WAR IN 1945

When Germany surrendered in May of 1945 I was still in an Army hospital in England recovering from wounds, but when Japan finally quit in August of that year, I managed to get to downtown Philadelphia and join the raucous celebration that erupted. Everybody rejoiced that the terrible war was over.

Before that happy moment, those of us who had survived the battle in Europe knew that it was only a matter of time before we would have to join the other troops in the Far East. They had been fighting fanatic Japanese troops who would defend their homeland as ferociously as they had every island in the Pacific. It was common knowledge that our military leaders expected many casualties on both sides, and we didn't doubt that we might be among them. Even those of us who had been wounded were aware that as soon as we recovered, we would be reassigned to an outfit headed for that area, so our comfort in Hitler's defeat was limited.

As difficult as combat had been against the skilled German Army, with their modern tanks and guns, they at least knew when to quit. If they were outnumbered or running out of ammunition, they would surrender, and only an occasional SS fanatic would have to be physically restrained. We had heard how the Japanese soldiers thought surrender was shameful and fought to the death, and that our Marines and soldiers had to literally burn them out of caves to overcome them.

When the news broke that American planes had dropped a new type of atomic weapon on Hiroshima, every one of us breathed a tentative sigh of relief. We wondered if that might possibly save us from joining the battle. Then when a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, our hopes soared. Everybody held their breath until the news finally broke on August 14 that Japan had agreed to give up.

I was home on pass from the Tilton Army Hospital in Fort Dix that day, and when someone suggested we go to Philly to celebrate, it didn't take much coaxing. Still using a cane, I joined the thousands of happy people milling along Market Street. It was really one big blur of an evening, but there was lots of hugging, kissing and free drinks for anyone in uniform. My face was smeared with lipstick from pretty girls who just wanted to show a soldier how glad they were that it was over, and their own boys would soon be coming back.

Today, historical revisionists sometimes try to say that we did a terrible thing to drop atomic bombs on Japan. Of course, evervthing done during the war was terrible, but conventional bombs dropped on Tokyo actually killed more people. Every one of us who was scheduled to join the assault on Japan cheered, and would have gladly pushed the button that sent those bombs on their way. Harry Truman made that decision for us and will always be our hero that saved so many American lives. A lot of us wouldn't be here today if he hadn't. 

	LIFE MAGAZINE V-J Day Photo New York City Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 25' tall statue in Sarasota FL 2006 Sculpture by J. Seward Johnson

The common definition of coke today is either a soft drink, or a drug that is the scourge of many cities. Under the subject of "Heating With Coal" on the DVRBS website, there is a very accurate description of the production and use of the material we stored in a bin in our cellar. It was a clean alternative to the coal that most people burned to heat their houses, and gasses given off during its production were piped into our stoves and water heaters. For many years, those gasses provided house lighting until electricity became more common. Our home in Parkside was built just after the first World War, but even then, every room had a gas fixture on the wall to be used in case the electricity failed. In addition, there was a single gas burner and grate in the bathroom where a small pan of water could be heated for shaving or washing. There was even a "gas log" in a fake fireplace that was never really trusted.

Before 1946, cooking over a four burner gas stove in the kitchen was a marvelous improvement over the wood or coal stoves still in use in some homes on nearby Haddon Avenue. Women from that generation always insisted that the instant response of a gas stove was far better than that of the modern electric stoves. We all knew what gas smelled like when it wasn't burning, and learned as children that it was deadly if left on for more than a few minutes. A common form of suicide was to place one's head in an oven with a sheet over you and turn on the gas. The carbon monoxide in the gas acted quickly.

I am familiar with "Otto Coke" because my uncle, John May, worked in the accounting department of the Camden Coke Company - which by that time was owned by the Public Service Electric and Gas Company. As noted in the attached articles, regular coal was heated until the impurities were driven off by destructive distillation. Most of these became heating and cooking gas, and what was left was nearly pure carbon which burned cleanly and efficiently in the furnace. Naturally, we used Otto Coke at home, and furthermore, we had a Servel gas refrigerator, conveniently sold by Public Service also.

One of my favorite memories was being taken to the Coke Plant to see it in action. As I watched, a retort was opened, and red hot coke spilled out into a small railcar pushed by an electric locomotive. It was quenched with water to shatter it into smaller chunks, and then further graded into usable pieces. Huge pipes on top of the retorts captured the gasses that came off during the process, and they too were cleaned and separated before being distributed to the public.

Natural gas supplanted coke gas for household use many years ago, but coke is still widely used in the steel industry. The gas from its production is now used to make many modern chemicals, but almost nobody heats their house with coke and fewer still would recognize it by that name.

BRAVE or STUPID?

Robert A. Stanton

Teenagers have always tried to show off to impress the girls, and I suppose that Roly Maurer and I were no different. But, one time, we pulled a stunt that would have given everyone the chills -including me when I think about 67 years later.  

We were out bike riding with two pretty girls from our neighborhood. As we passed the old Convention Hall, we stopped alongside the tower from our local radio station, WCAM. At that time, there was no fence around the tower, and we just leaned our bikes against it. Roly looked up and saw that there were small hand holds fastened on the steel columns that could be used by the maintenance men. Normally, a ladder would be required to reach the first one, but by standing on his bike, he could start climbing.  

I climbed right behind him, figuring that we would just go part way up, but when the girls began to "ooh and ah" nothing would do but to see how far we could get. Never looking down, we kept climbing from handhold to handhold until we actually got to the top of that tower!  

At the very top was a small square of weathered plywood, and we both banged it with our fists. Magic Markers were unknown then, but it would have been a great place to write our names. We came down and enjoyed the adulation of two very scared young ladies. If Camden policeman had come by on his motorcycle when we were up there, we would have been arrested, but our poor mothers would have certainly aged a few years if they had heard about it. It was the stupid kind of thing that kids do..

Because we had heard that "everybody" did it, and "nobody would miss a gallon," we helped ourselves to "free" gasoline. It was done in the dark with a rubber hose from the gas tank of a man who lived in the nearby Magnolia Apartments, and it was stealing. It was only done once, when our old Ford's tank was nearly empty, but we could have gotten in deep trouble if caught. In those days, kids didn't just get a fine or community service - they were sent away.

Unlike today, gas tanks were usually located behind the cars, with a convenient gas tank cap. All we had to do was put the little hose in his tank, put our mouth on the other end, and suck up gas until the siphon started running into a gallon jug. I wasn't fast enough, and got a mouthful of gas which forever cured me of the practice. We surely helped encourage the development of locking gas caps, and at 20 cents a gallon, it was hardly worth the chance we took.