I've been around here a long time

I started a painting that I've done a few times in the past, the semi-long-ago past. It's laborious and complex. It involves portraying several popular businesses in Rehoboth. It is put together organically. I usually think better with the paintbrush than the pencil in planning a piece of my art, but this is so complex a piece that I gave way to the pencil.

I used to title it, "A Grande Connoisseur's Rehoboth," but this time I decided to call it "Nostalgic Rehoboth," because I was going to base it on some memorable places that are no longer here. There are so many – McQuay's Market, Stuart Kingston Gallery on the Boardwalk where the auctions used to be held, Gems & Junk, Gershman's – The Little Store with the Big Bargains, Carlton's, the Thunderbird Shop, Royal Treat, The Camel's Hump and Dolle’s, with the landmark sign that graced the Rehoboth skyline now gone.

I kept remembering more, but had run out of room. Maybe I'll have to do another after I rest. The Belhaven, the Pink Pony, the Avenue Restaurant, the Sea Horse and The Art Age. Of course I finally gave in and included favorites we still have, like Funland, Grotto’s, Nicola Pizza, the Blue Moon and the Back Porch Café, to name a few. And certainly the Jolly Trolley that carries us to them.

I remember when I lived in the Moore Building on Rehoboth Avenue in the 1970s. It was owned by Carlton Moore, who had Moore’s Pharmacy on the first floor. Summer nights would be spent sitting on a bench outside with my neighbors, mostly older, genteel widows who lived upstairs in their rented apartments. I fondly remember Sue Burton, Dorothy Quillen and Ethel Donahue. Sometimes Jimmy Marshall, who enjoyed their company as well, would join us.

Ethel Donahue worked nearby at the Thunderbird Shop. It was managed by Mrs. Greene, who traveled to distant, exotic lands and the American Southwest to procure exotic treasures. One time Ethel, an older lady, broke her leg and was bedridden in her apartment at the back of the building. Jimmy Marshall and I took turns taking care of her, enjoying her stories of working as a saleslady in the store.

When I was a child, we'd spend summer afternoons enjoying the beach after parking on Olive Avenue. My mother sat with a group of friends who gathered there, including the beautiful and deeply tanned Kitty Cole, who looked like Ava Gardner in her black, one-piece bathing suit. She is over 100 years old now and still looks beautiful.

Sometimes I would leave the white bench in front of the Moore Building and walk to the north end of the Boardwalk to enjoy the live drama of the Stuart Kingston Auction. Mr. Kennedy would preside and had a remarkable dry wit, crossing his arms and delivering bon mots. I admit I had sort of a crush on him.

One night, a beautiful young woman with long black braids got a big diamond ring bid on by her fiancé. "Are you happy now, Pocahontas?" quipped Mr. Kennedy. I loved the Persian carpets and Oriental vases. They would start the bidding with very small rugs and work their way up to expensive art and jewelry.

I once worked at a store called Import Specialties that sold exotic items. It was housed in the old Belhaven Hotel, and I remember Mr. Papajohn, the landlord. He was a powerful man with a maroon necktie who would sometimes sample the pot of meatballs in the kitchen of a restaurant I worked in. It was good that his tie was maroon, for it sometimes dipped into the red gravy of the pot!

I remember Braunstein's clothing store, and Eddie Saff's linen and variety store. Gershman's, with its tables of various colorful apparel, was a favorite place to shop. When I worked for a time at Braunstein's, it seemed like I was endlessly folding and refolding sweaters on their tables, or overseeing the dressing rooms. I chopped huge bowls of salad and sliced Bermuda onions at Pappy's on Rehoboth Avenue during the 1970s. I had to wear a striped shirt and a straw boater hat.

Also in the 1970s, a man wearing a Shriners hat, whom everyone called the "Repent Man," strode up and down the Boardwalk yelling "Repent!" Then there was Eddie Fisk, a man who walked around town mumbling to himself, but if you really listened, his vocabulary was very impressive.

But my favorite place to spend a summer evening was – and still is – The Back Porch Café. It had a very Key West vibe and was painted a beautiful sea-green color. My parents had honeymooned upstairs there when it was the Marvel Hotel in the 1940s and was painted yellow. Their pet Boston bulldog with one brown eye and one blue eye chewed the lace curtains.

I remember a lot of the stories of old Rehoboth. I rode the rides at Funland as a 4-year-old, and screamed on the Sea Dragon at 35, and now I have grandchildren of my own to take there.