While we were staying in Townsend’s Inlet in New Jersey we could walk over the bridge into Avalon. We, June and I, made it a morning exercise while we were there. Townsend’s Inlet is the southern most community on the island that holds Sea Isle City, Strathmere and Carson’s Inlet. The view as you went up and over the bridge was outstanding. There was the Atlantic Ocean on your left appearing after a bit of a waterway from the Inlet. On your right were the Inlet waters, which look like a great lake spreading inward for miles. As you came down the bridge into Avalon the first large structure you saw to your right was Windward Harbors. It was a development of condo apartments. We had spent many summers and winter months there from 1983 to 1993.
Coming down on the Avalon side of the bridge one morning around seven AM we noticed a car parked over on the left. Seeing cars parked there was nothing new. There are usually many with the occupants spread out on the banks from the Bridge towards the ocean fishing. Fishing from the bridge was prohibited as is it is in Florida and most states. But today there was only one car there and a man eating what looked like a large hoagie occupied it. As we walked past June apparently noted what he was eating and commented that it looked good. I asked if it looked good enough to be on my forbidden food list. She thought it was. So I started thinking, since the gentleman seemed as chronically gifted as a I, that maybe he too had a restrictive diet and a wife dietician who saw to it that he only ate ‘good’ food. Maybe he was quietly having himself a feast out of her sight, early in the morning. But the hour and the type of sandwich –a lunch time sort – added mystery to the event. It was the most unlikely time for that sort of feast. He probably had purchased it the night before, put it in the refrigerator, and now early in the morning quietly went out to a scenic spot to enjoy it! I could even hear him as he left the home shouting loud enough to be heard in the bedroom, “I’m just going out to mail a letter!”
When I thought of his offered explanation, or my idea of his ‘explanation, it brought back memories of the past when I had heard of that explanation. It was offered often to the police when a spouse or relative was missing: “He/she was just going out to mail a letter!” I particularly remembered it in another context from my involvement as an attorney in the In Oh Ho murder case. The victim, In Oh Ho, had gone out to mail a letter when he was attacked by a number of young men. So it seemed natural that I would conjure up this excuse for this feasting sojourner. I never had a chance to ask him as we walked by. I did notice he was losing his hair on top of his head but he had sideburns—something you don’t often see these days. It would be the observing of these items that would later lead to me finding out that all my suppositions were dead wrong.
We, June and I, continued down past Windward Harbors and as I recall we even went down to the beach that morning for part of our walk. On our return to the bridge our hoagie eater was gone and some fishermen were out on the banks. We talked of and thought as we walked of the many enjoyable moments we had had at Windward Harbors. We recalled in particular of bringing the twin grandsons along on many of those trips. I can still hear them at maybe two or three years of age, sitting in the back and pointing as we went by ‘there’s the “waader” and other things. As they got a bit older they would note as we entered Avalon, the “Abalon bull a’vard” and then one day one of them pointed, as we went through the center of the town, “an there’s the Princeton”. This caused a stir in the front seat from June who asked, “How do you know about the ‘Princeton’?” The Princeton was a bar. It was one of the few open all year round and of course I had to confess that I had taken them there on different occasions. In fact they were well received there by the bartender who prepared them special sodas with cherries and the female patrons who helped them play shuffleboard. At a later time I took them with me and June knew it. In fact on one occasion I stated that after an errand we would stop by the Princeton. She instructed me to limit my visit to one beer since she had dinner in the making. Sure enough, after having that one beer and with the guys were busy playing at the shuffleboard, I made the mistake of ordering one more. As I made my request I heard from the depth of the bar somewhere a loud and clear voice, I think of Sean’s, saying, “Grandmom said ONLY one beer!” I can’t recall whether I followed the instructions or not. But I know I will never forget the admonition from my grandson.
I often thought it strange that in this small town in south Jersey a place was named Princeton, and even more obtuse was that that place was a bar. My daughter and her husband were graduates of Princeton and lived in Princeton Junction. I had read a bit of the history of the founding of the University, first called the College of New Jersey, in the life of Jonathan Edwards, a philosopher and theologian, one of the early University presidents. The word had aura that seemed grossly out of place in being the name for a bar. There certainly was no academic enterprises happening in this Princeton unless you considered the literature, mainly fiction, promulgated as true stories and the like. The only academic thing about it maybe was every one had to obey the teacher or in this case the bartender. (I have it from a reliable source, my daughter, that the name “Princeton” arose due to Prince William of Nassau donating the land, i.e., Prince-town, now is Princeton)
When we stayed in Townsend’s Inlet, as I recall on this occasion, it was in an apartment at the very end of the island. We shared the place with my nieces Beth and Winnie Allen. We were located on the second floor, which gave us a view from the porch of the Atlantic and the Inlet beyond the green vegetation and the sand dunes. As a young man and a child I had spent summers in a house in Sea Isle City on 45th street. I never recall venturing to the end of the island at Townsend’s Inlet though I do recall going up to Strathmere and Carson’s Inlet on the north end of the island. Sometime in the early 70’s there began a lifeguard run. It was usually in late August. The original run was on the boardwalk north then onto the beach and reversing your tracks came back to the boardwalk and ran south on it. You then left the boardwalk and went two blocks to the main street, Landis Avenue, and you ran down that south to Townsends Inlet and then back to Lifeguard headquarters at 44th street and the boardwalk. Later they decided to stay off the streets and proceed only on the beach. So when you came to the south end of the boardwalk(around 54th street) you went on the beach and south to Towsends. You turned around under the Avalon-Townsends Inlet Bridge, which we referred to earlier. I think it was about 13 miles in all. Sometimes the timing of the race, the day, the hour, etc. didn’t jive with the tides and you lost the advantage of running on hard sand available only at low tide along the water’s edge. The beach was trying enough even when it was the hard sand but with the soft sand you really got a work out. I recall that we always turned around under that bridge in soft sand! So my memories of Townsend’s Inlet up until our stay with my nieces was not too pleasant.
A few days after our encounter with the early morning hoagie eater I met him in a store in Avalon, I think. The sideburns gave him away. He confirmed that he was the early morning eater. He explained without my asking that he spent a great part of his early hours working on the computer to obtain information on the stock market and the odds in horse races around the country. He often purchased the hoagie and stored in case of one his late night enterprises. He gave himself a break by leaving the house and going to that scenic spot to have what was breakfast and lunch combined. He was not as old as I thought he looked on that quick peek as we walked by and in fact he reminded me in stature and manner of a client of mine, Tony Perpiglia. He made no mention of wife or restrictions on his diet so I was wrong on all those accounts. The reason for his eating there was not as romantic as the scenario I had created.
Tony Perpiglia was the epitome of “Live by the sword, die by the sword” I met him as his appointed counsel in a petition in the Federal court for his release from prison. He knew the law so well after 20 years in jail, I think he prepared the petition but maybe with the help of a Public Defender. He had been tried and sentenced with some seventeen others at the same time. We succeeded in having the petition granted mostly on the testimony of Lou McCabe a man who had practiced criminal law for years. He was then in the part time employ of the DA as an appeals counsel. He had been appointed initially in the matter of Tony but either because he had witnessed part of the trial or his health, he had to give up the appointment. I was named in his place. Tony died on the floor of a South Philly bank within two years of his release. A stake out officer shot him as he attempted to rob the bank.
A New Year is here. We now have spent eight years, plus a few months, residing in Florida. We really never planned it. When I recall the events that led to our doing it, they all seem happenstance. It may seem like it was all planned but it was more an accident. We recently learned that the Windward Harbors complex burned to the ground. At one time we talked about retiring there. Now it seems so much more reasonable that we sold the property in 1993 and moved here in 1997, We have now so many friends and activities here that it seems hard to think we might have done otherwise. All these coincidences reminds me of an old adage,” Coincidences are the hand of God working anonymously” We celebrated the New Year with the usual pork and sauerkraut dinner with guests. One couple was our good friends; Joanne and Lew Hegerman who have been at all our New Years Dinners. So we have another good beginning and hope and pray all will be well the rest of the year. Until next time, Pax Tecum!