Growing-up in Hammonton
by Jay Dubya

I was born (not hatched as some acquaintances might believe) in 1942 at the 
Swenson Home on Horton Street on the north side of the railroad tracks in 
Hammonton, New Jersey. The town had no hospital back then so many other 
Hammontonians that were not delivered by midwives were also naturally born (or 
born naturally) at the Swenson Home on the "proper side of the tracks."

On December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor had been attacked. World War II was in progress 
in the European and in the Pacific Theaters (where the war was playing). My 
father had volunteered his services after the Pearl Harbor attack and was away 
training at U.S. military camps and later after 1943 he had been stationed in 
France and in Germany during my early childhood. When Dad returned from the 
terrible conflict, he opened a small gas station/repair' shop next to the 
family's modest white bungalow, which was situated beside my mother's parents' 
Hammonton' business, Square Deal Farm Market on Route 30, the White Horse Pike.

Grand-pop Tony had pioneered the farm market trade on that busy highway, which 
at the time was the major summer tourist' link between Philadelphia and Atlantic 
City. Gramps would often drive me around South Jersey in his black stake-body 
truck to various fruit and vegetable farmers, where he would purchase corn, 
peaches, apples, blueberries, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini squash, tomatoes and 
other locally grown produce. Several times he even brought me to Dock Street in 
Philadelphia, which at the time was the area's major fresh food distribution 
center.

Antonio Giacobbe was a Sicilian immigrant who had come over to America via Ellis 
Island and settled with former Old World Messina, Sicily relatives near Ninth 
Street in Philadelphia. Gramps started out in the American free enterprise 
system by vending fruit and vegetables from a pushcart around the Italian Market 
on Ninth Street. In a few years he earned enough money to invest in a five-acre 
tract on the White Horse Pike in Hammonton.

Italian immigrants were not too well received from the firmly entrenched and 
established English Hammonton WASPs. A year after my grandparents erected Square 
Deal Market during the mid-1930s' Depression, an influential farm family of 
British descent was determined to knock them out of business by building a 
similar farm market right next to Square Deal. When a customer would stop his or 
her automobile between the two properties, Grandma Annie would rush over and 
nail the fresh fruit shopper before the competition had a chance to react to the 
prospective customer's arrival.

Eventually Antonio Giacobbe prevailed and proudly bought the other market from 
his chief rival. My Sicilian grandparents on my mother's side had overcome 1930s 
WASP discrimination through hard work and personal determination. Perseverance 
was a good lesson I had learned at an early age. It has as much to do with human 
economic' survival as persistence has to do with human success.

Grandma Annie Giacobbe also had a difficult childhood. She had come from a very 
poor Sicilian family that lived beyond the end of Pine Road in an area known as 
Sandy Crossways. She had to wear her father's discarded tattered shoes with 
holes in the soles to school and was often mocked by the other children 
fortunate enough to have wealthier parents and better shoes. Young Annie vowed 
to elevate herself above poverty. She always remembered the emotional scars she 
had suffered in her impoverished childhood. After marrying Grandpa Tony, my 
grandmother gained self-esteem by running Square Deal Farm Market with steadfast 
precision and a terrific Old World work ethic.

Kindergarten was not mandatory back in 1948. I remember entering first grade at 
St. Joseph School on Third Street in downtown Hammonton. I managed to master the 
fundamentals of reading and writing in four years of schooling, and when Grandpa 
Tony took me to buy produce I soon realized at a young age that I knew how to 
read and write and that he didn't. Grandpa would ask me on our excursions around 
South Jersey to read the various billboards and signs that dotted Route 206, 
Route 54, Route 322 and Route 30 and I would oblige. All Gramps had mastered was 
how to scribble two letters, his initials "A.G.," which he used to certify his 
approval on sales receipts that verified his wholesale' purchases.

No matter where Grandpa would drive me, he would always reiterate his reason for 
moving to New Jersey. The fat, bald-headed man knew very little English and 
repeated at least ten times to and ten times from our given destination, 
"Giovanni, there's too much true-bulla in Pencil-bania!" he would repeat in 
between smoking his huge El Producto cigar, before coughing like a tuberculosis 
victim. Then Grandpa Tony would again ask me the identification of words that 
puzzled him on various highway' billboards. But Gramps knew his mathematics 
without the need of a pencil, eraser or adding machine. He could calculate and 
subtract figures in his head and would tell amazed commission house men the 
exact total of his purchases to the penny that took them minutes to figure out.

When I was six years old in 1948 Mom and Aunt Frances took me one Saturday night 
to The Rivoli Theater on Bellevue Avenue in downtown Hammonton to see the Otto 
Preminger film Forever Amber, starring Cornell Wilde and Linda Darnell. The 
movie had a very spectacular fire scene, and at six years of age, I thought that 
the whole theater was engulfed in the inferno that was being shown up on the big 
screen. I panicked and started screaming my lungs out until Mom removed me from 
my seat, walked me to the foyer and soothed my alarm by buying some much-needed 
popcorn and soda.

The Philadelphia Phillies had won the National League Pennant in 1950 and I 
recall how psyched-up I was watching them on a small screen black and white TV 
play in the World Series against the New York Yankees. Joe DiMaggio hit the 
winning home run in game two and then the Yankees cruised to a four game sweep 
in spite of inspirational play by Phillies' centerfielder Richie Ashburn, my 
boyhood hero.

During the summer months Gramps would take me north on 206 to Indian Mills where 
he would daily buy two thousand ears of freshly "pulled" Jersey corn. Then he 
would bury me up to my chest with corn' ears as I sat in a back corner of his 
black Chevy stake-body truck. I got a thrill waving to surprised motorists and 
their passengers passing us going south toward Hammonton on 206.

Grandpa Tony often took me in his black truck to the Hammonton Auction Block 
where he would buy fruit and vegetables to resell at his farm market. Post WWII 
Hammonton was an agricultural town of around ten thousand inhabitants with a 
large Italian immigrant population and most of the farmers wore caps, flannel' 
shirts, gray wool vested sweaters, baggy pants and had mustaches. Some older 
Sicilian farmers even still brought their crops to the auction "block" in horse 
drawn wagons. The local growers would line up their trucks and wagons in four 
lanes that passed through the "auction block." Lots were drawn to see which line 
would go through "the block" first, second, third and fourth. Commission produce 
brokers and independent buyers like Grandpa would bid on items after being shown 
"sample packages" of the fruit and vegetables up for sale.

Downtown Hammonton hadn't changed much since the late 1940s. Dad was away in 
Europe going up against Hitler's minions so Mom would take me onto Bellevue 
Avenue every Friday night to do shopping. During the daytime Monday to Saturday 
she would faithfully wait for the daily mail to see if a letter from France or 
from Germany was forthcoming. Many American kids grew up in the mid-‘40s without 
fathers (that were in the military) around to give them guidance and discipline. 
So, like many other young boys during that decade, I was more exposed to female 
nurturing than to male naturing.

The town's early claims to fame were having Presidential candidate Teddy 
Roosevelt's campaign train stop for a whistle' stop speech and having noted 
anthropologist Margaret Mead living on Fairview Avenue during her younger days 
where she studied the cultural adaptations of Italian immigrants. Another 
important event in the town's history was when acclaimed virtuoso John Phillip 
Sousa and his famous touring band gave a sit-down concert for local citizens at 
the Hammonton Lake Pavilion.

I remember that late ‘40s and early ‘50s Bellevue Avenue was crowded with 
enthusiastic shoppers. There were soda fountains all over the main street. Every 
drug store, five and ten and luncheonette had one. I recall Vega's Drugs on the 
corner of Third and Bellevue, Godfrey's Drug Store at Bellevue and Egg Harbor 
Road, Kern's Drugs at 2nd and Bellevue, J.J. Newberry's and Joanne's Restaurant 
on the main drag all having splendid soda fountains.

Grandpa Tony spoiled me rotten by taking a young J.W. to see the four a.m. 
freight train rumble past the intersection of Fairview Avenue and Egg Harbor 
Road next to Vet's Bakery. My biological clock would wake me up at 3:30 in the 
morning and then I would bawl and throw a tantrum until Grandpa put me in his 
black stake-body truck and transported me to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks to 
see the locomotive, the counted tanker and boxcars and finally the caboose.

When Dad returned from overseas he opened his small gas station/repair shop next 
to the little white bungalow, which was adjacent to Square Deal Farm Market. One 
day after supper Dad sent me on an errand. I had to fetch a bill of sale from 
his office' desk inside the garage. I left the building closing the garage door 
very hard, and the descending object smashed down on my left foot, crushing my 
big toe. I was afraid to tell Pop of the catastrophe but since the pain was so 
excruciating, I finally had to divulge my self-inflicted injury.

Dad, who had seen all kinds of dead mutilated corpses in Nazi Germany, was 
horrified. He rushed me to Dr. Frazier Elliott's Office on Packard Street, two 
blocks from the center of Hammonton. Dr. Elliott was a remarkable man who 
inspected my ugly wound without batting an eyelash. Then he administered a 
needle and proceeded to cut the entire toenail off my big toe as if he were 
casually peeling a potato. Even at age ten I had to admire the fine dedicated 
small town doctor who settled me down, allayed my fears and kept his cool under 
very dire circumstances.

Saturday afternoons the Rivoli Theater at Bellevue and Third across the street 
from Vegas Drugs had matinee movies. I still vividly recollect seeing King Kong, 
Mighty Joe Young, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Creature from the Black 
Lagoon, and The Day the Earth Stood Still at the downtown movie house with St. 
Joseph School' friends. The theater boasted an ornate ceiling with crystal 
chandeliers that made it a showplace for the proud small town in the ‘40s and 
early ‘50s.

Most ‘50s businesses were little mom and pop operations like Rescignio's candy 
store across Third Street from St. Joseph School and like Miller's Family 
Department Store on Bellevue Avenue. Then, highway custard stands began 
replacing main street soda fountains and malls started sprouting up knocking 
places like Miller's Department Store and Rescignio's Candy out of business. 
Finally, in the early ‘60s the popularity of a new medium, television led to the 
demise of the glorious Rivoli Theater.

In the early fifties Grandpa Tony would take me over to the Sons of Italy 
Garibaldi Lodge on North Third Street and park me on a barstool to drink all of 
the Cokes and eat all of the pretzels and potato chips I wanted. Gramps would 
then play an Italian fingers game with some old cronies, and if Grandpa had had 
a dispute with Grandma Annie, he was determined to win the fingers game. Then 
Gramps would become the Capa or Boss and appoint a Lieutenant. Everyone else who 
had lost in the fingers' game would have to watch Grandpa drink eleven beers on 
the table (paid for by the losers) and then appoint his lucky Lieutenant to 
drink the twelfth.

Many Saturday nights Grandpa Tony would arrive back home drunk and then tripped 
and stumbled in the dark over living room furniture on his way upstairs to bed. 
Later in life his bad case of diabetes had been compounded, which eventually led 
to wheelchair confinement. His excessive drinking and need to be the "beer Capa" 
and the nasty-looking bruises on his legs didn't help his condition any.

Downtown Hammonton in the early ‘50s was very similar to the way Bellevue Avenue 
appeared in the ‘40s. On Friday and Saturday Nights the Hammonton High School 
kids hung out on their side of town in front of Vegas's Drugs and Augie's Sub 
Shop and Hamburger Paradise and across the street the St. Joseph High teens 
usually congregated in front of the Rivoli Theater. Bellevue Avenue acted as 
sort of a demilitarized zone separating the two rival factions. The Ramrodders 
greaser gang hung out in front of the Central Café on Egg Harbor Road three 
blocks away.

Certain business establishments were neutral territory where all three teen 
groups would share space. Those businesses were the Gem Burger Bar on Central 
Avenue, a block west of Hammonton High School, and DiDonato's Bowling Alleys and 
Royale Crown Custard Stand on the White Horse Pike on the Atlantic City side of 
Hammonton.

When I turned nine I became a friend of David Parkwell, whose family had a Farm 
and Garden Center across the White Horse Pike from Square Deal Market. David was 
two years older than I was, and I admired his mischievous nature.

"Slow John" DiAngelo was an elderly grower that owned ground behind Grand-pop 
Tony's five acres of peach and apple orchards. Several times I pretended I had 
been naughtily picking cucumbers in "Slow John's" field when the gimpy farmer 
was riding down a sandy road on his old John Deere' tractor. This would 
infuriate the partially lame old grower. He would halt his tractor, leap off and 
then awkwardly chase me across twenty or so rows of cucumbers until I safely 
gained shelter in a nearby' woods.

While "Slow John" pursued his elusive nemesis (who had also been wearing a 
Halloween Dracula mask), Dave Parkwell would exit a clump of trees from the 
opposite side of the field along the dirt road. Then he would hop onto the John 
Deere and drive it along farm roads through pepper and tomato fields until he 
parked the piece of machinery a mile or so away.

Dave and I would then reunite at my parents' snack bar located inside of Square 
Deal Market, and we would celebrate our dual mischief with "Electrocuted Hot 
Dogs" and bottles of Ma's Old Fashion Root Beer. Then I would furtively show 
Dave the neat Dracula mask I intended to wear next Halloween.

Dave convinced me to join the Hammonton Little League, which had the distinction 
of winning the 1949 Little League World Championship. He was the star of our 
team, DiDonato's Bowling. I played an occasional second base or left field.

In one particular night game a big kid named Rollie Cantrobone hit a towering 
fly ball to left field. I backed up to the green wooden fence, held my glove up 
toward the blinding lights, and defensively searched the night sky for the 
obscure baseball. A small miracle happened. The baseball plopped down into my 
glove as I shielded my face to protect it from the descending white object. The 
fans on both sides of the field erupted in a boisterous cheer in recognition of 
my fantastic accidental accomplishment.

I had a great time making and having friends at St. Joseph School on North Third 
Street. During recess we played marbles on the hardtop playground, and yo-yos 
were prized possessions, too. I invented the baseball card game known as "three-
way matchies." Two close friends and I would simultaneously flip to the ground 
baseball cards with the images of major league players on the front and their' 
performance statistics on the other side. The owner of the odd-sided flip would 
win "the jackpot." If two cards showed their back' side, then the player that 
owned the face-up card would be declared the winner. My buddies and I spent 
hours of leisure recess' time perfecting and demonstrating our marble, yo-yo and 
"matchies" skills.

I remember when I was ten that all the Catholic school kids from grades three to 
twelve had to attend an assembly at the Rivoli Theater. We all walked by grade 
level classes from the Catholic school two blocks east to the movie house on the 
corner of Bellevue Avenue and Third Street. All that week the St. Joseph School' 
Fillipini nuns and Pallottine priests had been talking about heavenly 
visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, saints and hyping the new 
religious movie Our Lady of Fatima. The cinema presentation was an awesome 
experience to a ten-year-old kid. The film must have had a profound impact on my 
vulnerable subconscious. It probably also sparked my fertile imagination.

Sometimes I would sleep the night in the spare bedroom upstairs in my 
grandparents' red brick home, which was situated behind Square Deal Farm Market. 
A statue of St. Anne (the Virgin Mary's mother) dressed in a macabre black robe 
rested atop the brown mahogany bureau next to the bed. The statue's stern face 
was always peering down at me and I always had to go to sleep turning my body 
and my head in the opposite direction. St. Anne's hands held black rosary beads, 
suggesting that she was praying for the soul of the bed's occupant lying beneath 
her presence.

Every 16th of July the town of Hammonton celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of 
Mount Carmel with a large traveling carnival and an Old World' religious street 
procession. Statues of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and saints from St. Joseph Church are 
mounted on carts with drapes covering their frames and wheels and escorted by 
the faithful through the major streets of the community and then back to the 
Third Street church. Clusters of donations in the form of five, ten, twenty, 
fifty and hundred dollar bills were hung from and adorned the statues. In the 
years after WWII fifty thousand visitors would attend the 16th of July Mount 
Carmel Festival. The pilgrims were mostly Italian immigrants or first generation 
offspring.

Grandma Annie Giacobbe gave me a five-dollar bill to have pinned onto the statue 
of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. My grandparents did not trust banks because many 
had collapsed during the Depression, so they stashed cash in the mattress of an 
old bed stored in the brick house's attic. I discovered the cache (of cash) and 
stole five dollars from the attic' mattress. I had received five dollars 
spending money from my parents and I also had in my pocket the Abe Lincoln my 
grandmother had given me to have pinned on the Our Lady of Mount Carmel 
procession statue in addition to five dollars I had been saving for the 
carnival.

I met some friends at the carnival grounds, and the four of us bought popcorn, 
soda, pizza and cotton candy. Then we played different games of chance and tried 
out various amusement rides. Before I knew it I had exhausted all the money in 
my possession including the five I was supposed to have pinned on the Blessed 
Mother's statue.

"Did you pin the money on Our Lady's statue?" my grandmother asked.

"Yes," I lied, "and the man said ‘Thank you'."

"Good boy," Grandma complimented. "Marie, I think your son is goin' to grow up 
and become a priest. He's such a bona, belle boy!"

That night I slept in the spare bedroom of the red brick house. As my guilty 
mind approached the drowsy state that usually comes before actual sleeping I 
turned my head and thought I saw St. Anne's statue kneeling beside the bed, 
praying for my wandering straying soul. "You must return the ten dollars you 
have stolen," she commanded, "or else your soul will burn in hell!"

The next morning I didn't know what to do. I entered the small white bungalow 
and saw my father's wallet on the kitchen table. While dad was in the bathroom 
shaving I opened his wallet that contained only ten-dollar bills and removed 
one. That night mom told me I had to sleep in the red brick house because she 
and dad were going out to dinner.

I was tossing and turning in bed from the guilt of my third misdeed involving 
Dad's wallet. I had planned to go over to David Parkwell's parents' Farm and 
Garden business the following morning and have my pal change the ten dollar bill 
into two fives, which I would then surreptitiously plant into the stuffed attic' 
mattress since it contained mostly five dollar bills.

As I feared, I opened my eyes around midnight and St. Anne was again kneeling 
beside the bed. "You've been a sinful boy again," the statue said to me while 
sobbing and weeping. "I don't want to see you burn in hell for all eternity!" I 
turned my face and when I looked back, the statue was no longer on the floor 
beside my bed. It was again stationed up on the mahogany bureau.

My heart and conscience were both in the same miserable quandary. How would I 
get twenty dollars to repay my debts to the Blessed Mother and to Dad? I prayed 
to St. Anne for a solution to my heartfelt dilemma. I was in for the shock of my 
young life!

The next morning Steve Van Buren, an all-pro football player for the 
Philadelphia Eagles stopped at Square Deal Market to acquire some tomatoes, 
corn, blueberries and peaches on his way to the Jersey shore. I immediately 
recognized the famous sports' celebrity from Eagle' television football games 
and from sports news' clips I had seen at the Rivoli Theater.

I almost swallowed my tongue when Steve Van Buren and his wife approached the 
little candy/soda/hot dog concession where I had been standing behind the 
counter. They ordered Pepsi-Colas and hot dogs, which I began to prepare on the 
"Hot Dog Electrocutor." Then the football star and I struck up a casual 
conversation.

"Do you know who I am?" he casually asked while his wife chuckled in the 
background.

"I think you're Steve Van Buren, my very favorite football player!" I exclaimed.

"You're absolutely right," the tough athlete remarked. "Would it be all right if 
I signed and gave you an autographed picture? I have some in my car."

"Can I have one for my friend David Parkwell too?" I begged.

"Why sure, no problem," Van Buren returned. "I'll be right back with two of 
‘em."

I graciously and thankfully received the two unexpected gifts. I was thrilled to 
death to obtain them from the Eagle' great.

After Steve Van Buren gathered his produce and then drove off with his pretty 
wife another farm market patron made his way to the concession stand.

"Wasn't that Steve Van Buren?" the man asked.

"Sure was," I answered.

"He's the best fullback in professional football," the man elaborated. "I'll 
give ya' twenty bucks for one of those signed pictures. What do ya' say?"

"Okay," I said, "but this is a big sacrifice," recalling a synonym I had learned 
for the word bunt in baseball.

"I will cherish this picture for the rest of my life," the fellow commented. 
"I'll even have it framed."

That afternoon my father again was shaving. I sneaked into the bungalow's bigger 
bedroom, found his wallet on the bureau and replaced "the ten-dollar loan" I had 
borrowed. Then the next time I was in church I put five dollars in the 
collection basket. And finally I replaced the five dollars I had pilfered from 
the attic mattress.

‘Thank you St. Anne!' I acknowledged as I rolled my appreciative blue eyes 
toward the ceiling. ‘Now I'm off the hook!' And that's how David Parkwell never 
got his autographed Steve Van Buren' photo (which he never knew about).

My parents had purchased their first television in early 1953. I was forced to 
sit down for a "lesson in history" and watch the boring Queen Elizabeth 
Coronation in network black and white. Even at ten years of age I hated royal 
pomp and ritual. The ceremony went on for hours and hours. I thought to myself 
that the mere act of placing a crown on somebody's head (even a Head of State) 
should require no longer than fifteen-seconds. So, even at age ten, I had 
already been exhibiting symptoms of cynicism towards the artificiality of 
"stupid" adult traditions.

In March of ‘54 I received some bad news. Dad explained that the family would be 
moving away from Hammonton, New Jersey to a newly constructed community, 
Levittown, Pennsylvania. "Levittown is closer to Norristown than Hammonton is," 
Dad explained. "Uncle Frank got me a good job as a stainless steel fabricator at 
his company, Martin and Quade. It's an opportunity for advancement."

Before 1954 my life was rather nondescript. At age ten I was satisfied and 
content doing simple basic chores around Square Deal Farm Market. I felt 
threatened having to abandon the security of playing Little League for 
DiDonato's Bowling and of leaving the familiar halls and rooms of St. Joseph 
School.

I had turned eleven in the spring of ‘54 when my family made the move to 50 
Daffodil Lane in the Dogwood Hollow section of Levittown, Pennsylvania. My 
sister Annie was six and my younger brother Skip was an infant. I was rather 
melancholy for having to break away from all I had known and valued as a 
youngster growing-up in an Italian agricultural community. I was extremely 
apprehensive about what to expect in my new social environment. At age ten I had 
concluded that some things in life just were not fair.

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