by Ed Lewis
I’ve lived in Ohio for forty years, but my memories of the Wildwoods are as clear as if they were only a day old. My family and I make at least one pilgrimage to the Wildwoods each year. Even our youngest grandchild, born in Akron, Ohio, will be making her eighth visit this summer.
On June 5, 2017, the Wildwood Sun by the Sea Magazine posted an artist’s rendering of a train crossing a railroad trestle on Facebook, flooding me with good memories, as The SUN often does! When I drive around town, I marvel at all the changes that have occurred, and I’ve seen many. Condos have replaced old houses. Mom & Pop stores have closed, giving way to big box stores on the other side of the George Redding Bridge, a.k.a. “The Rio Grande Bridge.” The car dealerships in town have moved inland. The fishing piers no longer reach the water’s edge. No more do you smell bread baking as you drive along Park Boulevard at night. I can’t buy a pizza at John’s Pizza on Schellenger Avenue. No Marsh’s Bakery.
But…there are still things around Wildwood that take me right back to my childhood. When I walk down that small section of boardwalk by Cedar Avenue, I still see the Old Mill boat ride, the Jack Rabbit coaster and the Carousel that was under a big-top roof at the corner where Kohr’s Bros. now resides. I see the arcade with the bumper cars and the game where the pigs came down a slide if you hit the target with the ball. Walking along 23rd Street, I still see Sportland Pool. When I walk under the boardwalk on the way to the beach, I see my brother and me looking for dropped change (I still have a chipped tooth from a failed limbo attempt under a concrete support). In my eyes Captain George Sinn’s pink Big Flamingo still plies the ocean off the beach along with Captain Otto Stocker’s blue Sightseer.
When I look at the Rite Aid on New Jersey Avenue, I see the Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Line station and the tracks that went down the center of New Jersey Avenue, where trains were parked back in the 50’s. When I visit my father’s house in West Wildwood that he built in the early fifties, as I look toward the water, I see the railroad where trains passed and the siding where passenger cars were parked in preparation for a busy weekend (as a kid I always wanted to sneak inside one but never did).
Then there’s that railroad trestle that was in that Facebook post, which is no longer there, but exists in my mind’s eye. Fishing seemed to only yield those pesky oyster crackers, so we stuck to crabbing. The trestle supports served as diving boards. When trains approached, we would climb down onto the large supports and wait until the train passed overhead, a mere four or five feet away. We waited until the passenger cars were overhead then performed what in our minds were spectacular Olympic-style dives into the channel below the bridge.
Isn’t it interesting how much nostalgia one Facebook picture can trigger? My 93 year-young father could tell many more stories. Some things have changed, but my grandchildren don’t care about “the good old days.” They are forming memories of their own. They still get excited when they walk onto the boardwalk. Their memories won’t be of John’s Pizza; they’ll be of some other place. They have no idea how exciting it was for me to watch a train go by, but they’ll tell their grandchildren about other things they saw. It’s all good, and Wildwood lives on.
