Waiting on the Angels - Text Only - Part I

WAITING ON THE ANGELS – The Long Cool Summer of ’65 Revisited

Text Only – Part One

Prelude

DOWN AT THE CROSSROADS – With Dylan and Robert Johnson

The day Bob Dylan signed his first recording contract with Columbia Records in John Hammond, Sr.’s office, Hammond gave Dylan a couple of albums of other Columbia artists including Robert Johnson’s  “The King of the Delta Blues,”  that Dylan never heard of but whose rustic blues music blew him away. 

The Mississippi Delta is the home and cradle of the blues as much as New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, and in academic circles blues is considered a branch of jazz. In fact the blues followed the jazz trail when the musicians and prostitutes were kicked out of New Orleans in the closure of the Storyville neighborhood that Robbie Robertson later talked and wrote songs about. The once-legal red light neighborhood was closed by the U.S. Army and Navy, though the righteous citizens of the city protested - “You can make it illegal but you can’t make it unpopular,” the New Orleans mayor complained.

But just as the Katrina hurricane did a century later, the civic crackdown on Storyville – in November 1917, scattered and spread the musicians and the music beyond the city limits, and most of the suddenly out-of-work musicians followed the river boat paddlewheel steamships upriver to St. Louis, Memphis and Chicago, letting off the bluesmen in the delta where they took root. 

Their contemporary offshoots from that area includes Sonny Boy Williamson, James Cotton, B.B. King, Levon Helm and Robert Johnson – the “King of the Delta Blues,” who died broke and friendless at 27 years of age, said to be poisoned by a jealous husband or lover, leaving behind only 20 some recorded songs and two photographs. 

When John Hammond, Sr. and Allan Lomax tried to find and record him – Lomax for the Library of Congress and Hammond for Columbia, Johnson was dead, but not forgotten. 

As legend would have it young Robert Johnson couldn’t play a lick when he first picked up a guitar as a boy, and was the subject of jokes among the real musicians, until he left town for awhile and came back with a style that shocked and amazed everyone, sparking the myth that he made a deal with the devil, selling his soul in exchange for the musical talent. 

“Sweet Home Chicago” was one of the songs Johnson recorded in two sessions at Texas hotels, and his other songs were covered by many artists over the years, but his most famous song is “Crossroads Blues” that Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix and dozens of others have covered and made famous. 

According to Dylan, Robert Johnson hit him like a “tranquilizer bullet.”  

Dylan later wrote in his autobiographical Chronicles, Volume 1: “I listened to it repeatedly, cut after cut, one song after another, sitting staring at the record player. Whenever I did, it felt like a ghost had come into the room; a fearsome apparition…masked the presence of more than twenty men….Johnson’s words made my nerves quiver like piano wires. They were so elemental in meaning and feeling and gave you so much of the inside picture…..There’s no guarantee that any of his lines either happened, were said, or even imagined…I copied Johnson’s words down on scraps of paper so I could more closely examine the lyrics and patterns and free associations that he used, the sparkling allegories, big-ass truths wrapped in the hard shell of nonsensical abstraction – themes that flew through the air with the greatest of ease. I didn’t have any of these dreams or thoughts but I was going to acquire them. I thought about Robert Johnson a lot, wondered who his audience could have been. It’s hard to imagine sharecroppers or plantation field hands at hop joints, relating songs like these. You have to wonder if Johnson was playing for an audience that only he could see, one off in the future.”

Dylan discounts “the fast moving story going around that he had sold his sold to the devil at a four way crossroads at midnight and that’s how he got to be so good. Well, I don’t know about that. The ones who  knew him told a different tale and that was that he had hung around some older blues players in rural parts of Mississippi, played harmonica, was rejected as a bothersome kid, that he went off and learned how to play guitar from a farmhand named Ike Zinnerman, a mysterious character not in any of the history books.” 

“This makes more sense,” says Dylan, as “John Hammond had told me that he thought Johnson had read Walt Whitman. Maybe he did, but it doesn’t clear up everything.”

Dylan later said that, “I would see Johnson for myself in eight seconds worth of 8-millimeter film shot in Ruleville, Mississippi, on a brightly lit afternoon street by some Germans in the late 1930s, but slowing the eight seconds, you can see that it really is Robert Johnson, has to be – couldn’t be anyone else.”

“I wasn’t the only one who learned a thing or two from Robert Johnson’s compositions,” Dylan wrote, “Johnny Winter, the flamboyant Texas guitar player born a couple of years after me, rewrote Johnson’s song about the phonograph, turning it into a song about a television set. Robert Johnson would have loved that. Johnny by the way recorded a song of mine, ‘Highway 61 Revisited,’ which itself was influenced by Johnson’s writing. It’s a strange the way circles hook up with themselves. Robert Johnson’s code of language was nothing I’d heard before or since. To go with that, someplace along the line Suzie (Rotolo) had also introduced me to the poetry of French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud. That was a big deal too. I came across one of his letters called ‘Je est un autre,’ which translates into ‘I is someone else.’ When I read those words bells went off. It made perfect sense….I went right along with Johnson’s dark night of the soul…Everything was in transition and I was standing in the gateway. Soon I’d step in heavy loaded, fully alive and revved up. Not quite yet though.” 

And so it was when Hollywood came calling for the movie rights to the P. F. Kluge novel “Eddie & the Cruisers,” and the producers and script writers would eliminate a chapter, the one where the Cruisers drive their ’57 Chevy to Camden to visit Walt Whitman’s house, and in its place Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”  and “singing the body electric” is replaced by Arthur Rimbaud, who reportedly faked his own death  in order to live out his life anonymously, much like Eddie Wilson does in the follow up film. 

Is Dylan pulling our leg with the Ike Zinnerman story, a farmhand teaching Robert Johnson how to play guitar instead of making a deal with the devil at the crossroads? After all, Dylan’s real name is Robert Zimmerman.

Supporting Dylan’s version, over the popular myths and legends, is the fact that the devil isn’t mentioned in the lyrics of Robert Johnson’s song “Crossroads Blues,” that makes no reference to a deal with the devil.

Cross Road Blues

I went to the crossroad

fell down on my knees

I went to the crossroad

fell down on my knees

Asked the Lord above "Have mercy, now

save poor Bob, if you please

Mmmmm, standing' at the crossroad

I tried to flag a ride

Standin' at the crossroad

I tried to flag a ride

Didn't nobody seem to know me

everybody pass me by

Mmm, the sun goin' down, boy

dark gon' catch me here

oooo ooee eeee

boy, dark gon' catch me here

I haven't got no lovin' sweet woman that

love and feel my care

You can run, you can run

tell my friend-boy Willie Brown

You can run, you can run

tell my friend-boy Willie Brown

Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe

I believe I'm sinkin' down

According to the popular legend:  “A crossroads or an intersection of rural roads is one of the few landmarks in the Mississippi Delta, a flat featureless plain between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. It is part of the local iconography. A crossroads is also where cars are more likely to slow down or stop, thus presenting the best opportunity for a hitchhiker. In the simplest reading, Johnson describes his grief at being unable to catch a ride at an intersection before the sun sets. However, many see different levels of meaning and some have attached a supernatural significance to the song.”

Crossroads are also points at certain places where people, families, towns, cities and sometimes whole societies reach a place in time where life changing decisions must be made, directions are changed and new destinations are set.

And so it came to pass in the summer of 1965, when America’s national psych came to a crossroads that was a circle – the Somers Point, New Jersey circle that led to many directions, five different roads, each with its hazards and rewards. 

Some people want to know why the summer of ’65 was the best tourist season the Jersey Shore has ever seen before or since. Families came, college kids made it cool, hippies thought it was hip, bikers put in an appearance, but as everyone who was there remembers, it was The Place to be at that time. Some say it was the weather, others say the economy was good while still others say it was written in the stars, and it was just the right alignment of people and planets to create the special things that occurred.

The summer of 1965 began down at the crossroads, down the shore, the South Jersey Shore, where the crossroad was a circle - the Somers Point Circle, and very close to where all the action would take place and from where, as the sun set on Labor Day, everyone would leave to go in their own way, for better or for worse, to reward or tragedy, their destiny was determined - a fait accompli – but it still had to play out, as it does in Waiting for the Angels - the Long Cool Summer of '65 Revisited. 

ACT I EPISODE 1 – The Hell's Angels Come to America's Greatest Family Resort

The scene is set at the edge of the bay's shore just off the Somers Point, New Jersey Circle at the base of the 9th Street Bridge causeway that leads to and overlooks the barrier island of Ocean City – “America’s Greatest Family Resort.” 

The summer of '65 began inauspiciously enough with the soft sounds of shore birds chirping and the waves of boat wakes lapping against the shore. The strong smell of salt ocean air is brought in by soft bay winds that silently propel a cat boat across the back bay horizon, setting the background for the time and place that what would become somewhat of a watershed event in the social history of society.

The natural sounds of spring were slowly over ridden by what began as a soft humm that got steadily louder. The squirrels and rabbits sensed it first, darting their heads as the birds went silent, then scattered away as the humm steadily increased in volume until it was a constant vibration almost running ripples counter to the tide, crescending into a thunderous roar of motorcycles that flew by in a blur and kicking up a cloud of dust before slowly fading away to a quiet hum as the dust settled. Then after a few moments the lapping of the tide could be heard again. 

Ocean City police patrolman William Warren was sitting in his patrol car in the parking lot of the Circle Liquor Store, which overlooks the bay and the bridge, taking it all in while eating his lunch sandwich when the swarm of motorcycles sped past him. While technically in Somers Point, Ocean City police patrols the state owned causeway and strictly enforces speeding laws. Warren put down his sandwich, reached for the patrol car radio, called it in, - ten four, and then began pursuit.

As those of you who were there will recall, the summer of '65 began normally enough, hell we didn't even know the Hell's Angels came to town. That was a city and state secret and most people only found out about it years later because Ocean City mayor Tom Waldman was in the thick of it all.

The Summer of ’65 wasn’t a watershed season because of any one thing – like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, it was more of a subtle change in direction, a fork in the road that you don’t recognize until years later. And while we didn't know it at the time, we later discovered the summer of '65 really began when the Hell's Angels came to town.

Although known to those who were there, it was all an official state secret until the day the former mayor Waldman sat down over a cup of coffee in a back booth at Ready’s Café on 8t Street in.

“There were two entirely different and unrelated incidents,” the mayor said as he began the story. “The Hell's Angels did come to town before Memorial Day, but that and the Labor Day events were two different incidents and only not really connected, and that’s a different story.”

As the mayor explained, “There weren't that many of them. Less than a dozen bikers - Hell's Angels. What happened was a black police officer ordered them to pull over and they ignored him. He was probably the first black police officer on the Ocean City, New Jersey police force.”

When the bikers ignored him and refused to pull over on the causeway he radioed ahead so as they cruised in town down 9th Street they were met by a police car roadblock at West Avenue where they were corralled into a vacant lot at the end of the railroad line and what is now McDonald’s.

There, they were just as belligerent.

“They would only talk to the mayor,” said Waldman, who was summoned out of his 8th street travel agency office, picked up in a squad car and taken over to talk with their leader, as legend would have it, Ralph “Sonny” Barger, the badest Hell’s Angel.

According to Hunter S. Thompson, “Barger’s word goes unquestioned." The father of gonzo journalism called him “The Maximum Leader,” and described him as “a 6-foot, 170 pound warehouseman from East Oakland, the coolest head in the lot, and a tough, quick-thinking dealer when any action starts. By turn he is a fanatic, a philosopher, a brawler, a shrewd compromiser and final arbitrator.”  

It was there in the middle of the dusty red gravel parking lot where the leader of the Hells Angels met Mayor Thomas Waldman, the suit and tie travel agent and “maximum leader” of Ocean City.

As he reflected on that day the mayor said, “Whenever you have a large transient population like we do, you will have exposure to all types, including these violent motorcycle gangs. But you can’t condone it, and you can’t ignore it.”

“We talked, and I introduced them to the black officer,” he remembered, “but they were very racist and weren’t going to take any orders from him."

"I told them he was only doing his job and trying to earn a living for his family. They were very polite, and eventually we all shook hands in the end. But we didn’t go out and have cocktails together.”

The mayor made a deal with Barger as they walked slowly away from the group so they could talk privately.

The mayor said that Patrolman Warren would write out a single ticket for speeding to him - Ralph S. Barger, Golf Lane, Oakland, California, and if he took it they could all leave town without any more trouble, but if he didn’t take it they were all going to be issued tickets, run in to the cop shop, their backgrounds reviewed and they would be detained while they checked to see if there were any outstanding warrants anywhere in the country.

The Mayor of America’s Greatest Family Resort and the maximum leader of the Hell's Angels went eyeball to eyeball and the leader of the pack blinked. He took the speeding ticket, put it in his back pocket and without saying another word they all got on their bikes and left the way they came.

And there it should have ended. But it didn't. It just set the tone and style for the rest of the summer, and set in motion events that anyone there will never forget.

Act I Episode 2 - Prologue - The Murder of Harry Anglemeyer 

There's a statue just outside the front door of the National Archives building in Washington DC that is called “Justice” and inscribed with the words “What is Past is Prologue.”

It's often said to mean that we are doomed to repeat history if we fail to learn its lessons or as Peter Pan said, “This has all happened before and it will happen again."

But actually it comes from William Shakespeare's “Tempest.” a play about a shipwreck, said to be based on the true life adventures of Captain Somers, whose ship ran aground in Bermuda in a storm.

Captain Somers, the admiral of the Jamestown Colony fleet, is said to be related to Quaker John Somers, who came from White Ladies, England and founded Somers Point, the quaint fishing and boating community across the bay from Ocean City. In fact, Bermuda was once called Somers’ Island and Ocean City was once John Somers' cow pen and called Cowpens Island, a name now given to the patch of sand on the causeway where the visitor’s Information station is located.

“The past is prologue” line from the “Tempest” comes at a time in the play where they are plotting a murder, and actually refers to how the past gives reason, meaning and motive to what is about to happen.

Antonio says: “We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again, and by that destiny to perform an act whereof what's past is prologue, what to come in your and my discharge.”

Antonio is rationalizing that the murder they are about to commit is an act of fate because of all that led up to that moment, so the past has set the stage for the next act – murder.

And so it was that the murder of Harry Anglemeyer served as the Prologue to the Summer of '65, as it occurred on the previous Labor Day, 1964, the final day of the summer when the tourists and shoebees had one last fling packing the beaches and bars before packing it in to go back to school or work in the real world. That was Harry' Anglemeyer's last day on this earth as he made his rendezvous with destiny at the Dunes nightclub.

Harry was a young and successful boardwalk merchant who owned a chain of Copper Kettle fudge shops on the Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Wildwood and Atlantic City boardwalks. A suit and tie member of most of the local civic organizations, Harry made waves for his opposition to Ocean City's strict blue laws that prevented many businesses, including his, from opening on Sundays.

While the ban on the sale of liquor was a key element in keeping Ocean City “America's Greatest Family Resort,” Anglemeyer thought that the ban on certain retail sales on Sundays hurt business and was bad for the local economy, so there was mounting support for Antlemeyer's campaign to do away with the Sunday blue laws.

Although he had a girlfriend, Harry flouted some homosexual tendencies, which annoyed some of his more reserved and conservative civic club associates, so after a few anonymous complaints, on a day when the Mayor was out of town, the head of Public Safety – D. Allen Stretch ordered a loyal policeman “to get the goods on Anglemeyer,” which resulted in morals charges.

But the plan backfired when the Cape May County prosecutor indicted the cop too, since he admitted that he was party to the immoral and illegal act that was alleged to have been performed at Anglemeyer’s swank apartment above his fudge shop on the Ocean City Boardwalk.

Anglemeyer was acquitted at the first of two trials, and he insisted the second trail proceed although they offered to drop the charges, he wanted to vindicate himself.

And so it was on Labor Day 1964 when Harry did what he did almost every night – he went bar hopping in Somers Point, joining the line of cars as they trickled over the causeway, occasionally stopping for awhile as the two bridges opened for boats.

Harry's first stop in Somers Point was just off the circle at Steels Ship Bar on Bay Avenue where the patrons were an older, quieter crowd than the young college kids who flocked to the rock and roll bars – Tony Marts next door and Bay Shores across the street.

Harry bought drinks for a couple of young girls he knew who used to work for him and told them he was bar hopping around the Point and asked them to join him, but they declined as he also mentioned he had to meet someone at the Dunes later on and didn't seem too enthusiastic about that meeting.

From Steels Harry then went up the street to Gregory's where he told the bartender Charles Carney to give him a short one – placing his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart as a sign to let up on the liquor in his drink. Harry had one short one at each of the places he stopped, which also included the Bali Hi - a Polynesian joint at Stinky Harbor, what is now Caroline's, where Harry arranged for a post season party for his employees. Then he went across the bridge to O'Byrnes, which was then a shot and beer and pool bar that later became Mothers, a popular afterhours joint with live music. Finally Harry took the last leg in his journey through the night and his life going a few miles down the road to the Dunes, which was so crowded the parking lot was full and cars were parked along both sides of the road.

Because the music in Somers Point bars ended at two in the morning by city law, places like O'Byrnes and the Dunes on Longport Boulevard in Egg Harbor Township, were popular after hour joints. Other places open all night were Jack's Grove, which became the Attic and Boatyard, and is now the Elks, and Brownies in Bargaintown. Since Egg Harbor Township didn't yet have a police department, there was little fear of the law at these places. 

The Dunes was eventually purchased by the N. J. Department of Fish, Game and Wildlife and is now a nature preserve - from one wildlife to another, but in 1965 it was the place to go after midnight. It was usually packed until the early morning hours and promoted the moniker “Dunes ‘til Dawn.” 

The Dunes was owned by John McLain, who also owned the historic General Wayne Tavern outside Philly, and John McCann, a prohibition era beer Barron from North Philly. McCann and McLain also jointly owned Bay Shores in Somers Point and built the Dunes because Bay Shores had to shut down at 2am and they needed a place for their customers who wanted to keep the party going.

The Dunes was open all night and most of the early morning hours, with the bands beginning at midnight and they played until late morning, so it was night time when you went in, and since there were no windows, it was quite a jolt to walk out into the glare of the next day’s sun.

Their T-shirts read “Bay Shores” on the front and rising sun on the back with the inscription: “Dunes 'Till Dawn” that you would often see people wearing on the beach and boardwalks.

Sitting on a tall bar stool at the front door of the Dunes, young John McCann, Jr., the son of one of the owners, dressed in a suit and tie, took a $2 cover from everybody going in, and had a wad of cash in one hand as he shook Harry's hand with the other and waved him in without paying the cover.

McCann, Jr. would later be elected to the Somers Point city council and serve as a Republican mayor and like his father the bootlegger and beer baron, young McCann would be arrested for importing tons of cocaine and dealt with Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, testify against the CIA in a secret Congressional Hearing and die in federal prison. But in the summer of '65 he was the clean cut kid who took the cover charge money at the door of the Dunes.

Harry and McCann exchanged a few words about the success of the summer season, and once inside Harry walked past the bars and the band on the stage, waved silently to bartenders and friends and went up a flight of stairs to the private Sand Piper Club, which was for members only.

While they often hung from the rafters and danced on the bar downstairs, you could barely feel the hum and vibes of the music in the Sand Piper Club, which was pretty quiet and good for conversation. But when Harry arrived there were only a few patrons at the small bar and sitting scattered around the tables. Harry had his usual, a short one, silently indicating to the bartender with his thumb and forefinger, and then sat there and waited. He told the bartender he was waiting for someone, but didn't say who, and after awhile, before the sun came up; Harry left the Sand Piper Club to meet his rendezvous with destiny alone.

From there we know from a young couple making out in a parked car that Harry had an argument with another man in a black suit and tie, but they couldn’t hear them and didn’t know what it was all about. Then the other guy punched Harry once and he went down, hitting his head hard on a concrete abundment. The other guy then just walked off.

According to the young couple, three young men, one in a red and white Ocean City high school football jersey, picked up Harry and dragged him a few feet and put him in the driver's seat of a parked car. They then walked away while the young couple went back to making out.

Harry was still alive at that point, and if the three “Good Samaritans” as they were later called or the young couple had called an ambulance or drove him to the hospital, Harry would have lived and maybe would still be alive today to tell his side of the story.

So it doesn't appear that the guy in the suit and tie who hit Harry actually wanted to kill him, but that was the result, and it is still a homicide.

By the time the sun came up, Harry was dead and someone had killed him, a murder – some would say a political assassination that would remain unsolved to this day, as justice would never be served, and as those who figured it out, it remains unsolved for some very good reasons.

Harry died before the bikers came to town, so he wasn't around the following summer when things got crazy, but his murder would hang like a dark cloud over the island community of Ocean City, “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” especially during the Summer of '65, when Harry's spirit could be still be felt during the on-going proceedings – and in some quarters, Harry's ghost still lingers today.

Harry Anglemeyer's murder served as a prologue to the Summer of '65, giving it social meaning, and provides a political motive for the powers that be to continue their treachery and reactionary policies that would result in the man-made catastrophe that was now coming, a train wreck that couldn't be stopped.

As a Shakespearean play, if it wasn't so tragic it would be considered a comedy, and though in the end, Harry was the only mortal fatality, for the survivors it became a comic farce.

Act I Episode 3 – The Beach and the Boardwalk

The Hell’s Angels who were heading to the Ocean City beach and boardwalk were stopped in their tracks and turned away by Ocean City's finest at West Avenue, where the railroad station and support buildings were located just across from the Texaco station where McDonalds is today.

The first settlers of Ocean City came by steam ferry, as the Somers’ family Cowpens Island became Peck’s Beach, populated by the men who ran the Lifesaving Stations and Parker Miller, the Lloyd’s of London insurance man who tabulated the loses of ships that ran aground.

Then over dinner at a Somers Point Inn the Lake Brothers of Pleasantville purchased the island from the Somers family for the purpose of turning it into a Christian Resort, starting a steam ferry to bring people before a trolley bridge was built.

At one point more people arrived at the Jersey Shore by trolley and train than by car or bus, and the trains continued operating direct express to Ocean City from Camden and Philadelphia into the 1980s. But in 1965 while the trains brought many of the families and young kids the roads had become the dominant mode of transportation. 

While anyone would recognize the beach and boardwalk today, Ninth Street is radically different from what it was in 1965.

Coming into town across the causeway from Somers Point the Ninth Street strip has been totally revamped. Gone are Chris’ and Hogates bayside seafood restaurants and their boats, the gas stations, drive-ins and diners that were replaced by marinas, banks and convenience stores.

Familiar landmarks come into play when you get to West Avenue with Voltaco's and the Italian joint on the corner, the Chatterbox and the shops across the street are easily recognizable.

But gone are the big old, clapboard hotels – the Lincoln, Strand and Biscayne, that were once nice hotels where tourists who arrived by train could stay for a reasonable rate, but by 1965 had deteriorated into shabby joints that were taken over by college students who could get a room for a few dollars a night or cheaper by the week. These discounts appealed to what the mayor called the “transient population,” mostly college kids who didn't spend much time in their rooms anyway.

Before Lauderdale and Cancun there was Ocean City - “Where the Boys Are” was the scene and where the college kids came from Philadelphia, Delaware, Pittsburgh, Ohio and West Virginia to line the beaches, wall to wall - beach blanket bingo. 

While the families still populated most of the island, the college kids ruled Ninth Street, the Ninth Street beach and the Fourteenth Street surfer’s beach where most of the action took place.

To put things into a proper perspective, especially for those who weren't born yet, in the summer of '65, LBJ was president, young men were eligible for the draft, the war in Vietnam was quietly raging and Richard J. Hughes was governor of New Jersey, and the governor would come into play before the summer was out.

The songs on the transistor radios on the beach blankets and the juke boxes at the Chatterbox, Varsity Inn and Bob's Grill were by the Supremes, Four Tops, Sony and Cher, the Byrds and Beach Boys as well as a slew of British Invasion bands – the Beatles, Hermans Hermits and the Rolling Stones, who would play the Steel Pier in Atlantic City and make a cameo appearance in the story.

The most popular songs of the summer began with Petula Clark's “Downtown,” the Righteous Brothers' “You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin',” “Gary Lewis & the Playboy's “This Diamond Ring,” the Temps' “My Girl,” “Eight Days A Week,” by the Beatles, “Stop! In The Name of Love” by the Supremes, “I’m Telling You Now,” by Freddie & the Dreamers” and “The Game of Love” by Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders.

As the summer wore on, other songs being played regularly including the Herman's Hermits “Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter,” the Beatles' “Ticket to Ride,” Beach Boys “Help Me Rhonda” and the Four Tops' “I Can't Help Myself.”

The Byrds' cover of Dylan's “Mr. Tamborine Man” and the Stones' “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” were popular in the hippie camp, while “I'm Henry VII, I Am,” Sonny & Cher's “I Got You Babe,” and the Shangri-Las' “Leader of the Pack” were often heard at Fourteenth Street, with that last tune taking on more and more meaning as the summer wore on.

There was a clear social divide among the college kids of the day, with the long haired hippies commandeering the Ninth Street beach and the crew cut straight jocks and surfers taking up most of the Fourteenth Street beach.

The hippies generally congregated at Shriver's Pavilion, that isn't there anymore, but Shriver's Candy store is still there, as is the retail store where Roger Monroe had his book store, the movie theaters, the Music Pier and Mack & Manco pizzas, now infamously Manco & Manco's.

Walking south on the boardwalk, there was the bath house next to Mack & Manco’s, Joe Del's cheese steak and sub shop, Preps Pizza, the arcades and Flanders Hotel, which retained its first class status, all still there, as well as the Copper Kettle Fudge building on the corner at 11th Street and the pavilion across the street, where the old folks retreated to when the hippies took over Shriver's Pavilion. 

Until he was murdered Harry Anglemehyer lived above his boardwalk fudge shop in the beautiful second floor apartment overlooking the beach and ocean horizon. That's where the immoral act that got him arrested allegedly occurred. 

The corner building stretches on for half a block and is of the Spanish Revival design in the same style as the Flanders Hotel, the Music Pier, the Chatterbox and the John B. Kelly's family home at Twenty-Seventh Street and Wesley Avenue, all designed by the same young architect Vivian Smith.

Two blocks further along Fourteenth Street was the surfer's beach and the most popular place for the high school and college kids to hang out, making Bob's Grill and the College Grill, then became the Varsity Inn when it moved to 8^th Street. They were the hottest hangouts in the Happy Days tradition. Bob's Grill is still there and if Bob Harbough is around he can verify everything I say is true.

There were no beach tags or beach fees at the time, and most people rented an umbrella, beach chair and a raft from either Bert’s Beach service or Surf & Sand, who had contracts with the city, and at day's end paid a dollar for a shower at a boardwalk bath house before hitting the Point. At least that was the routine for the shoebees, as they were called - day trippers who came down by train with shoe box lunches and didn’t spend any money except what they had to.

Besides the hippies and the straights, there was another social divide among the college kids - between the weekend warriors and those who were down for the entire summer. If you were a weekend warrior you stayed with friends, got a hotel room or slept on the beach and were gone by Sunday afternoon, but if you were in for the duration you had a job as a waiter, waitress, bus boy, grill cook or retail clerk, lived with your family, a group rental or rooming house, and were in a strict daily routine.

The two things the hippies and the straights had in common were the routine and music. Both camps listened to portable transistor radios, played the jukebox, strummed guitars, sang songs and were into the routine – the Groundhog Day recurring ritual of sleep work and play that inevitably ended at the Point.

You worked six to eight hours a day and then you went to the beach for an hour and joined friends who were already there. Then you went back to your room for a quick shower and change of clothes and hit the Point between eight and ten, and you didn't just go to the point - you hit the Point with a vengeance.

First you went to one of the shot and beer bars – Gregory's, Charlie's, Sullivan's or the Anchorage, tanked up on a few seven for a dollar draft beers and then go to Tony Marts or Bay Shores, where ever your favorite bands played. Sometimes between sets, you'd walk across the street to see certain bands that rotated on two stages so there was always live music constantly going on. When the music shut down at two in the morning, you went to the diner for something to eat and then to one of the after hour joints and carried on until the sun came up. Then you went to the beach and fell asleep and when you woke up you went for a dip in the ocean and then went to work. '' Then repeat the process.

Or as Peter Pan put it: “This has all happened before and it will happen again.”

Johnny Caswell – Crystal Mansion
At the Shore

School is out
Come on, let's go
Come on, baby
Let's hit that road

(CHORUS)
We're going down to the shore
Just like we did once before
Cause there's no school anymore
So, baby, meet me at the shore

Hey, there'll be lots of fun
Yeah, lying in the sun
One the boardwalk, holding hands
Beach parties in the sand

Everybody's gonna be there
The hippies, the conservatives
And even the squares
Dancing til we can't no more
Come on and meet me at the shore

We're gonna swing every single night
Everything's gonna be all right

(CHORUS)

Hey, there'll be lots of fun
Yeah, lying in the sun
One the boardwalk, holding hands
And beach parties in the sand

Everybody's gonna be there
The hippies, the conservatives
And even the squares
Dancing til we can't no more
Come on and meet me at the shore

Act 1 Episode 4 - Opening Bay Shores for the Season

 Bay Shores manager Jack Murray had been driving his white Cadillac convertible north for three days, coming up from his annual winter sojourn in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and trying to get into the frame of mind of working another summer season on the Somers Point bay.

While he was driving down the Black Horse Pike he thought he was moving pretty fast – over 70 miles per hour, but was quickly overtaken and passed by group of about a half dozen or so motorcycle bikers wearing Hells Angels patches and California rockers, and slowed down to the legal speed limit.

About forty-five minutes later, as he turned around the Somers Point circle, he saw the same bikers being escorted off the causeway by a convoy of three Ocean City police cruisers, a sight that brought an ironic smile to Murray’s face.

He turned off the circle and made a quick right down the first side street and pulled into the vast and empty Bay Shores parking lot, littered with broken bottles and cans and pulled up to the front door of the dilapidated old wooden clapboard seasonal nightclub that had been there for as long as anyone could remember.

It was a weekday in mid-May, and Murray hadn’t been back since he locked the door after Labor Day 1964, eight months ago.

After unlocking the padlock on the chained door, Murray turned the handle and pushed the door open a crack with his shoulder as a rush of stale beer and cigarette smoked air flushed out past him. As the door opened wider the streak of sunlight glistened on half filled beer bottles, drink glasses and ashtrays on the bars, the leftovers, exactly as it was at 4 am on the day after Labor Day 1964.

That was the night Harry Anglemeyer was murdered, Murray thought momentarily. In fact, Harry was probably still alive when he locked up and left town that night, the last morning of a memorable season.

That was some grand finale to the end of the summer of 1964, one that would be hard to top – with the Democratic National Convention ten miles away in Atlantic City, the Beatles at the Boardwalk Hall, the Miss America Pageant, Jerry's Kids Telethon, Sinatra at the Five, hell, Harry’s murder seemed to have gotten lost in the headlines, bumped from page one of the Press of Atlantic City to the back pages, and has probably since been forgotten by most people. But not everybody. 

As Murray flipped on the electric and lights and surveyed the disaster in front of him, one that had to be cleaned up so they could reopen for Memorial Day weekend, a car drove up and a young man in half an Army uniform got out and said, “Hi, are you Mister Murray?”

Murray shook his head yes.

Reaching out to shake hands the young man introduced himself, “I’m Vince Rennich. My mother introduced me to Mr. McCann at dinner last night, and he said if I came down here you would give me a job at Bay Shores.”

Then, looking at the dilapidated old building asked, “This is Bay Shores?”

“Yes, welcome to Bay Shores and Somers Point,” Murray replied. "I think you'll like it here once you get into it."

“This is the first time I’ve been to Somers Point,” Rennich said, “and I got lost getting here.”

“Well, you can work as a bar back until a bar tending job opens up, and can start by helping to clean up this joint – clear off the bars first and then sweep the floors. I’ll be back in a little while with some help for you. And you can have the pick of the rooms upstairs to stay in,” he said as an afterthought.

Murray then drove down the street a few blocks and turned up Delaware Avenue to Gregory’s Bar where he parked on the street and went in the back door by the pool table.

He sat at the old Mahogany bar across from what they call the Tight End Fishing Club.

Gregory’s has changed a bit since then, though the long polished, rectangle Philippine mahogany bar is still the same, in 1965 there was a pool table in the back with a juke box, a dart board next to the Men’s Room door, a shuffle board against the side wall and a wooden telephone booth with folding glass doors next to a table from where the Somers Point mayor conducted most of his afternoon business.

Somers Point Mayor Stretch's routine was to work at his city hall office until noon when he would walk across the street to Gregory’s for a three martini and snapper turtle soup lunch.

Murray ordered a drink from Charles Carney the bartender, and bought “the boys” a round, before ordering some clams on the half shell that made Carney's eyes roll as he had to shuck them himself, part of the job at the time. While Carney shucked his clams in front of him Murray told Carney that he had a new guy came in without any experience, a friend of Mr. McCann, and he asked Carney to “show him the ropes,” so when he moved up from bar back to bartender, he knew what to do.

“Send him up for lunch tomorrow,” Carney said with an Irish smirk,. “And I'll show him the ropes and teach him a few tricks,” he paused for effect, “like how to rip off the owners.”

Murray knew Carney pretty well from when he was a bartender at Bay Shores a few years earlier, and knew he was only kidding, so he went on and explained to Carney that he needed a work crew to clean up the bar so he could open by Memorial Day weekend.

A few guys at the Tight End Club overheard him and quickly spoke up; some had done the chore before.

“We’ll help you Jack,” said Bill Saylor, a carpet layer by trade, who knew that Murray would pay them well in cash and let them have whatever booze was left when they closed the bar last Labor Day.

The crew included Saylor, brothers John and Timmy Hunt, Gary Duffy and Wayne Kline, a paraplegic by birth who walked like a crab but was very smart, had a college degree as an accountant, but was severely handicapped. He also worked as the golf cart manager at the Atlantic City Country Club – the Northfield links, and for drinking money, he cleaned up the Bay Shores parking lot of debris every morning when it was open.

Murray walked over to Bill Saylor and peeled off a C-note hundred dollar bill and gave it to Saylor, telling him to buy some pizzas and hoagies for the work crew and then pealed another C-note and told Saylor to give it to the new guy at Bay Shores, Vince Rennich, just out of the army, a friend of Mr. McCann. "Tell Vince that this is just an advance, and I'll check back with you in a few hours after I take care of some business.

Saylor just nodded, as he had done this before, as the Tight End Club looked at Murray like the Iceman Cometh, bringing some much needed work some cash flow, booze to drink and food to eat while you worked.

Murray then went over to Somers Point Mayor Stretch's table and sat down with his drink as the mayor put down his newspaper so you could see his face for the first time.

“Thanks for the drink,” the mayor said, as he was considered “one of the boys,” but he winched a twitch when Murray asked him the status of the Anglemeyer case.

“It's all covered,” the mayor said. “It was a homosexual hit squad who targeted Harry and tried to blackball him. They confessed and are already in jail. It's all covered.”

“What the fuck do you mean 'it's all covered,'?” Murray talked down to the mayor.

“It's going to trial soon, and will all be over by Labor Day,” the mayor said confidently. “Since Egg Harbor Township doesn't have a police force and the State Police are too busy, the case file has been given to the Ocean City PD, and they've got it all under control.”

Murray knew better, but didn't want to tell what he knew to the mayor of Somers Point, who apparently was out of the loop on what was really going down behind the scenes.

“Well here's a dime,” Murray said slapping a ten cent piece on the table.

“Call Mr. Kirkman and tell him that I'm coming to see him, now,” Murray said emphatically, getting up, walking back to the bar to put his drink down and leave a $20 tip for Carney, waved to the boys who were still at the bar and walked out the back door.

He nodded to Bill Saylor across the street, loading up the work crew into his long white van filled with carpets, and said, “I'll check in with you in a few hours.”

Making a left on Shore Road Murray passed Mac's and the Shoe Store on the left and Somers Mansion on the right, the High Point, Point Diner, Your Father's Mustache as he turned around the circle past the Crab Trap and Circle Liquor store, and right onto the cause way and over the draw bridge, from where in the distance across the bay he could see the Flanders Hotel on the far horizon, standing out on the Ocean City skyline. As he got closer he could see Kirkman's two-story square penthouse on the top floors, and wasn't looking forward to going there.

Murray considered going right to the top to see Stumpy Orman, who he knew was right then holding court at a table at Arnold Orsatti's restaurant in Atlantic City. While Murray had never met Orman, he knew he was the top underworld boss at the Shore, and Murray was acquainted with Orsatti, who owned Orsatti's Casino that was now the Under 21 Club, next door to Bay Shores, where they had top flight entertainment, but no booze, and was popular for its endurance dance contests. Orsattti wasn't really a mobster like Orman, but he was his congenial host, and let Orman take care of his business out of his restaurant, and was handsomely rewarded for it.

But he would be stepping out of line by going directly to Orman, so Murray decided to stay in rank and talk to Elwood Kirkman instead, as he was more in tune to the Ocean City political situation, which was being haunted by the Anglemeyer murder, then as now, over fifty years later.

Murray knew that Anglemeyer wasn't killed by a homosexual hit squad, because while he was in Florida he learned from a police source that a very distinctive diamond ring, that Harry Anglemeyer ostentatiously wore on his pinkie finger, was stolen the night he was murdered, probably by one of the three guys who picked him up and put him behind the wheel of his parked car.

And the ring had been pawned in Florida by someone Murray knew was a bouncer at the Dunes, who worked for his boss, John McCann, Sr., the co-owner of Bay Shores.

It wasn't “all covered,” as the mayor of Somers Point had professed, and Murray wanted to protect his own interests and the interests of his boss and that of Bay Shores and the Dunes. 

This was just the beginning, Murray thought, as he drove over the second draw bridge and onto Ocean City's Ninth Street, and where it would end no one knew.

Act I EPISODE 5 – Hitting the Point – Somers Point 

          

The sale of alcohol has been illegal in Ocean City, New Jersey since its founding by the Lake brothers at a Somers Point Public House. The Somers family gave up the land pretty cheap as it wasn't good for farming or a good place to live. Even the Indians recognized the land was uninhabitable, good for fishing and grazing, but the shifting sands of time made it unstable to live there at the mercy of the weather. None of the barrier islands along the Jersey coast should have been developed and they knew it, but the Lake brothers had a vision that they wanted to make happen.

There was still a stray bull hanging out on the south beach, and they say they made quite a mess of things rounding up and slaughtering that reluctant bull, signifying the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Eventually the outline of the city began to emerge, and the Christian community grew to what it is today - “America's Greatest Family Resort.”

The Lake's Blue Laws, written into the city charter that was outlined at the Somers Point tavern, made it illegal to sell alcohol, which was an automatic boon to the Somers Point tavern owners, and there were quite a few. Since Somers Point was an original point of entry for immigrants in the sail era, a prohibition smugglers haven and a transient point for those bound to Ocean City and Longport, the Point hosted a lot of transients, and had the liquor capacity to quench their thirsts.

“A drinking town with a fishing problem,” is how Gregory Gregory described his hometown, and while he was only a kid in the Summer of ’65 he could catch a fish and went after the stripers, striped-bass, often with his father and grandfather, who ran Gregory’s Hotel and Restaurant in the Point.

With about two dozen liquor licenses within its few square mile boarders, Somers Point had a variety of bars, restaurants and cafes that sold alcohol.

Basically there are liquor stores, most notably Circle Liquor at the base of the bridge and causeway to Ocean City, then said to be one of the highest grossing retail stores in the country.

Then there are local pubs and taverns. Pub takes its name from Public House – a place officially and legally licensed to sell alcohol to the public, and issuing these Public licenses was usually the first chore of business when any town or city is officially incorporated. Establishing a police department is usually the second.

Among the Somers Point pubs in the summer of '65 were many still popular today – Gregory's, Charlie's, D'Orio's and the Anchorage. There were others – Sullivans (now Fitzpatrick's) the Launch Haven (a trolley stop), and they all served clams, crabs, fresh seafood and whatever you can make on a grill. They also sported pool tables, shuffle boards, darts and a juke box. These places were popular lunch and dinner places for many of the families who came to Ocean City as well as the college kids.

Besides the pubs Somers Point was a famous dining destination because of the presence of five – five star restaurants – the Crab Trap, Harry's Inn, Mac's, Daniel's and Chi Chi’s, all top flight fine dining establishments that' in the Summer of '65, made Somers Point more popular for its cuisine than Cape May.

After take out liquor stores, pubs and fine restaurants, there were the cafes and cabarets that featured live entertainment, and they made the most noise. Tony Marts and Bay Shores are the best known, but there were others – Steel's Ship Bar, Your Father's Mustache, Orsatti's Casino, the Under 21 Club and Vaughn Comforts on the circle, where singing waiters had to audition and that skinny kid from Hoboken couldn't sing loud enough so he didn't get the job.

Not all of these places fit into the story but together they set the scene and provide the backdrop for what happened.

Of the cafes and cabarets Tony Marts and Bay Shores were the loudest and are were scenes of pivotal acts in the drama that was to play out that summer.

The two clubs across Bay Avenue from each other had a healthy competition going to see who would be the crown jewel of the Point, with money being the measure.

Both clubs featured multiple bars and two stages and dance floors, so when one band finished another band was ready to go, they didn't miss a beat and the music was constant.

Each club had a house band that played three or four long sets a night, six nights a week – they got Monday off, as did the best bartenders. The other stage showcased rotating talent, often from out of town, bands on tour on the remnants of the old Vaudeville and Chitlin' circuits.

Both clubs also had standup comics - master of ceremonies, go-go girls in cages, and a grill that served up hot dogs and cheese steaks, and maybe pretzels, but not much else. Music was the motive.

It was the music that drew the crowds, especially the young college kids, so Tony Marts upped the ante and began booking top flight Vegas style acts with hit songs, like Del Shanon, the Skyliners ("Pennies from Heaven"), Duane Eddie, Joey D. and the Starlighters ("Pepperment Twist"), Johnny Maestro and the Crests ("Sixteen Candles"), Dion and the Belmonts ("Runaround Sue"), Little Stevie Wonder - when he really was little, and Bill Haley and the Comets - Rock and Roll pioneers. Dean Martin put in an appearance once in awhile. But it was Conway Twitty who was the featured attraction at Tony Marts in the summer of '65.

Unfortunately for Tony, Bay Shores, his main competition, was ordered to close for the month of July for getting caught serving alcohol to someone under the age of 21.

The drinking age was set at 21 but ten to twenty percent of the patrons at any of the Somers Point establishment were nineteen or twenty – but they dressed and acted older and tried to be ladies and gentleman. Fake Ids weren't even necessary, as the local police understood and were in agreement with the club owners to let them in as long as they behaved themselves and things were kept under control, and they pretty much were.

But Bay Shores got pinched by the state ABC – Division of Alcohol and Beverage Control – who sent in officers and agents undercover and they got the goods – the evidence and a conviction and the penalty was to close down for one month, and they couldn't do it in the winter but during the busy season.

Some of the ABC agents were on the take too, but it was too late for Bay Shores, and after a few nights without his main rival Tony began to notice a drop in receipts and Tony was worried.

Anthony Marotta came to New York from his native Sicily and found his way to Atlantic City where others from his hometown had settled. Tony met his wife there and made his first meager profits selling hot dogs and sandwiches at St. James Street on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, near where the Irish Pub is today. His wife's family stayed in the sandwich business and opened the now famous White House, whose customers included the Beatles, Burt Lancaster and FBI agent John O'Neil, the 9/11 hero and victim.

By 1945 Tony had sold enough hot dogs and sandwiches to purchase Shick's Hotel on Bay Avenue in Somers Point. Shick's was patronized by those who embarked or disembarked from the steam ferry that took passengers to Ocean City and Longport and then later for the train trolley passengers.

With the construction of the bridge and World War II Shick's value had declined and Tony got a good deal that he wanted to parlay by introducing live entertainment.

The old German beer Rathskeller on the first floor was given a stage and converted into a cabaret where Tony featured all kinds of music but noticed the popularity of the New Orleans style jazz and made it part of the house shtick. 

Len Carey and the Crackerjacks made Tony Marts famous with his New Orleans jazzamania routines. But early in the summer of '65 however, the house band that Tony had hired for the summer just wasn't cutting it, at least to Tony's standards. They played through Memorial Day and made it through June but then suddenly left. While the circumstances of their departure wasn't recorded for posterity, it’s highly likely that Tony fired them.

“You Fired! You Bums get out'a here!” - said in a deep, gravelly voice, was almost a cliché around Tony Marts, where bands would come and go, and go quickly if they didn't play the popular hit tunes, dress properly or otherwise disrespect the Boss.

In any case, Tony found himself without a house band for the rest of the summer of '65, and while he knew there were some good local bands, he could get them to play for next to nothing, and he wanted a good band, a real good band that would bring in new customers and compliment Conway Twitty's fans.

So Tony put in a call to Colonel Kutlets, a Canadian booking agent in Toronto, complained about the Female Beatles he had sent the previous week and told the Colonel what he needed – a rock and roll band that will knock his socks off.

Kutlets said, “I'll see what I can do and get back to ya.”

Act I Episode 6 - The Bikers Threat

The call came in from the Ohio State Police Intelligence Unit to the Ocean City Chief of Police. One of their undercover agents infiltrating criminal motorcycle gangs in that state reported that a group of Hells Angels with California rockers passed through and complained about being ticketed for speeding and kicked out of Ocean City, New Jersey, causing them much ridicule and embarrassment. They threatened to return to Ocean City with their entire club and all of their allies for a Labor Day run and ransack the town. This information was relayed orally with the request that the information not be put down on paper or documented or released to the press or the public in order to protect the identity of the undercover informant.

The Ocean City Police Department’s Intelligence Unit chief was already preoccupied with keeping tabs on the growing hippie threat, so much so that he had a surveillance team stationed above Shriver’s candy store to film those conjugating at Shriver’s Pavilion across the boardwalk.

Mrs. Helen Shriver Schilling, whose father started the candy store, now owned the entire block, all of the boardwalk movie theaters as well as the boardwalk parking lots. The boardwalk used to be a block further from the ocean but after the great fire of 1927 her father and other boardwalk property owners arranged for the new boardwalk to be built a block closer to the ocean, making the beach smaller, but giving them a free block of land, which was mainly converted to parking lots. And Mrs. Schilling was more than happy to assist the police in their monitoring of the drug crazed hippies that took over her pavilion and drove most of her friends away.

As his attention shifted from the growing hippie menace to the threat of an invasion of criminal bikers on the biggest holiday of the year, a policeman handed the chief a redacted FBI report.

FOR RESTRICTED EYES ONLY AT APPROXIMATELY NINE PM MDS COMPOSED OF MOTOR CYCLISTS RIOTED AT WEIRS BEACH LOCATED ON LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.  TWO HUNDRED NATIONAL GUARDSMEN RESPONDED COUPLED WITH RIOT TRAINED DEPUTIES FROM BELKNAP COUNTY AND LACONIA…POLICE DEPT. DAMAGE HAS INCLUDED BURING OF BOARDWALK, OVERTURNING OF POLICE CRUISERS AND ADDITIONAL FIRES. RIOTERS HAMPERED FIRE FIGHTERS AND THUS FAR TEN HAVE BEEN ARRESTED. MATTER BEING FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY BOSTON AND BUREAU WILL BE KEPT ADVISED. END

FBI WASHINGTON DC JUNE 23 1965

LACONIA, NEW HAMPSHIRE Riotous conditions developed at Weirs Beach located on Lake Winnipesaukee at Laconia, New Hampshire, on the night of June 19, 1965, when a crowd of 6,000 to 10,000 men and women who had congregated on Lakeside Avenue at the resort became disorderly and defined the local police.

NATURE OF THE CROWD The crowd was composed primarily of motorcyclists from all parts of the United States who were in the area to attend the annual motorcycle races at nearby Loudon, New Hampshire. Most of the individuals were in their twenties or early thirties.

INITIAL INCIDENTS: Trouble first occurred at about 7:00 p.m. on June 19, 1965, when someone threw a smoke bomb and the crowd converged in that area. Several more smoke bombs were thrown in the next hour with similar results. The crowd became disorderly and noisy, taunted police officers with vulgar and profane remarks, and interfered with traffic.

RIOTING ERUPTS: By 9:00 p.m. the crowd had become an unruly mob completely defiant of police orders. Members of the mob fought among themselves, threw firecrackers, rocks and over turned two automobiles, one of which caught fire. An unsuccessful attempt was made to burn a bowling alley by pouring gasoline into the air-conditioning system of the building and igniting it. At 9:30 p.m., traffic was completely stopped in the area and some of the motorcyclists were drag racing amid the mob.

POLICE ACTION: The Riot Squad of the Laconia Police Department, consisting of thirty men, moved into the area at 10:10 p.m. equipped with shotguns and other riot gear. They were met with a barrage of flying objects from the mob which refused to move. At that time the local police were joined by sixty New Hampshire State Police troopers and by officials of the Belknap County Sheriff’s Office. Tear gas was used by the police with little effect, the mob still refusing to disperse. Shotguns were then brought into play by the police who fired birdshot at the feet of the rioters Approximately 200 members of the National Guard detail assisted the police in the clean-up operation. A rumor that the motorcyclists would attempt a similar riotous disturbance on the night of June 20th 1965 did not materialize. As of 12:45 a.m., June 21, all of the motorcyclists had left the area and conditions were quiet.

ARRESTS AND INJURIES Thirty-three rioters were arrested and each is being held in custody in default of $500 cash bond. Fifty were charged with failure to disperse under a new State anti-riot law, eleven were charged with participating in a riot and the remaining were held on charges of drunkenness or assaulting an officer. Thirty-one rioters were treated for birdshot wounds at the Laconia General Hospital. Two of the injured reportedly received eye injuries. Several police officers were victims of minor injuries.

CAUSE OF THE RIOT: no evidence to indicate that any racial aspects were involved or that subversive, radical, or criminal influences were present.

NOTE: See memorandum W.C. Sullivan to A. H. Belmont - original to White House, copies to General Counsel, President and Attorney General.

The mayor then read aloud a report from the Attorney General of California:

“On July Fourth, 1965, the Oakland Hell’s Angels made a ‘run’ to Willits, California. An advance group of 30 entered the city the previous day and by the afternoon of the Fourth there were some 120 motorcyclists and their female companions congregating at a local bar. Periodic fighting between the motorcyclists and the local citizens broke out with beer bottles, belts made from motorcycle chains, and metal beer can openers being used as weapons…Assistance was obtained from the California Highway Patrol….and the group was instructed by the chief of police to move out of town to the city limits.”

The mayor then said, “I’ve contacted Governor Hughes and he’s prepared to help us. He said that he will make a contingent of State troopers available to us, as well as the 300 cadets at the State Police Academy, and put the National Guard on alert in case they are needed. The President and Attorney General have also been advised and they have indicated they will back us if we need any national support. 

“The president of the United States?” the chief said incredulously.

“Yes,” the mayor said. “The President of the United States has taken a personal interest in this matter. I’ve also informed Mr. Kirkman and he said for us to take care of it. So I’ve asked Mr. Stretch - the public safety commissioner to work with you and come up with a contingency plan that will effectively deal with over one thousand outlaw bikers and ensure the public safety is maintained. Now get to it.” 

Act I Episode 7 – The Hangover League Plays Ball 

Tony Marts after hours - one morning

It was late on Monday morning when Tony Marotta hung up the phone after talking with Colonel Kutlets in Toronto. He complained about the lame Female Beatles act the Colonel had sent him a few weeks previous and told him he didn't want any more crappy acts. Tony wanted the best rock and roll band that was available and he wanted them for the last seven weeks of the summer with the stipulation they play through Labor Day.

Tony thought for a moment and made a call to the Press of Atlantic City entertainment desk and talked to Ted Schall, giving him the details of the next morning's advertisement, telling him to take out the band he had fired the previous night and bragged about how great CowwayTwitty was doing and the Female Beatles - “they're the best girls ever!” Tony lied.

Tony then lit the cigar that had been hanging out of the side of his mouth when he was talking to Kutlets, exhaled a balloon sized cloud of smoke and got up from his desk in the cinder block and concrete bunker behind the nightclub where he conducted business during the day.

Walking out of the office Tony made his way through a canyon of beer cases stacked six high and silver stainless steel beer kegs and went in the back door of his dark club, past the closed grill and into the nightclub where all of the chairs were turned upside down on tables and the red stools were upside down on the bars so the cleaning crew could sweep and mop the tile floor still sticky with beer and cigarette butts.

All the stools were up except one, the one that Conway Twitty was sitting on, smoking a cigarette and drinking from a pint glass filed with ice and some brand of booze. 

Tony took one of the stools down from the bar and sat next to him, relighting his cigar and blowing out a thick cloud of smoke before saying, “”What's a matter, Twitty?” in the deep, gravelly voice that the bartenders and musicians often mimicked. When Tony talked his few choice words cut through the room and vibrated around at a certain decibel level that you could hear him from across the room even when a band was playing.

Conway, looking a bit like Elvis with his hair combed back and shirt collar up, took a sip of his drink and a puff of his cigarette, and as he exhaled said, “Tony, I just don't get it.”

“Get What?” Tony said.

“I just don't get this rock and roll thing.”

There was a quiet pause for a moment.

Tony shook his head sideways as Conway explained further.

“I want to get back to my country roots where I belong and get out of this rock and roll racket. It may be good for Elvis and Bill Haley, but it’s just not me, even though that's where the money is.” “Fuck the Money!” Tony bellowed, turning the heads of the cleanup crew moping the dance floor.

“Listen son,” Tony said in a softer, more personal voice that reflected a gentler, tender, fatherly nature, seldom seen.

“You gotta follow your heart and instincts and do what's right for you.”

Tony told Twitty that Colonel Kutlets would get him some good gigs down south, where they liked country music, and predicted that he would quickly top the country charts.

“But,” Tony said cautiously, and it was a But with a capital B.

“But I need you to complete your contract with me 'cause I fired the house band last night and now all I got is you and the freakin' Female Beatles and I'm depending on you until the new house band get here.”

“Tony, I feel like family here,” Twitty said. “I'll do anything for you and won't let you down.”

Just then the front door opened and a streak of bright sun light flashed across the room. Above the door, for the brief moment it was open, you could read the sign above the door: “Through These Doors Pass the Most Beautiful Girls in the World."

This time however, it was Doobie Doberson the bartender, wearing a funny looking fake black toupee and a sporting a wide, toothy grin.

It was Monday, the slowest day of the week and all of the senior bartenders and most of the musicians and entertainers had the day off, so they played baseball. It was part of the routine. 

Every Monday at noon they would meet at the Somers Point ball field under the water tower and play baseball with the local cops. They even had t-shirt uniforms – the red and white Tony Marts All Stars versus Bader's Raiders Blues, named after Lieutenant Lynn Bader, who was in charge of the Bay Avenue street unit responsible for keeping things under control, who would later go on to be chief.

The “Hangover League,” as it was called, was just like regular baseball – hardball, except everyone had a drink they would put down next to them before every pitch, and if the batter hit and knocked over a drink it was an automatic out.

They would have a running one hundred dollar bet to make the games interesting but the cops always won, mainly because most of the All Stars had worked until three in the morning, then made the rounds of after-hour joints, spreading their tips around. Some hadn't been to sleep at all while one young rookie bartender was passed out in the back of one of Bader's patrol cars at the ball field, where a few minutes before twelve noon they were waiting for Doobie and some of the band.

Doobie was grinning widely because he had upped the ante and doubled the regular C-note bet, and made some side bets so there was now a few thousand dollars riding on the game, and he had a ringer.

Conway Twitty stood up and stamped out his cigarette butt on the tile floor with his shoe as Doobie threw him a baseball glove.

“Ready?” Doobie asked.

“As ready as I'll ever be,” Conway replied.

Looking at Tony Doobie instructed him to, “Call the judge and put as much as you can on the All Stars today.”

Doobie then looked at Twitty and grinning widely said, “Conway can play,” and then after a pregnant pause, “Boy can he play. Tony, Conway was a prospect with the Phillies and tried out for the team with Fidel Castro, and while Castro didn't make the team they offered Conway a contract, but he'd rather play rock and roll.”

Doobie and Conway left through the front door while Tony went back to his office to call Judge Helfant and put a few dollars down on the Tony Marts All Stars against Bader's Raiders.

The details of the game weren't reported in the news, but the final result was a rout – twenty-two to seven, Conway Twitty and the All Stars over the hapless Raiders, who played like the Keystone Cops.

It would have been by even more but Butch, Conway's drummer, hit a line drive with the bases loaded, and knocked over Billy Bader's drink for the final out.

After the game they all went out drinking, bar hopping, carousing and terrorizing the various bars, but tipping well, with the winners paying the freight. Bartenders tip big – $20 in 1965 would be like $100 today, and they joked that there was only one $20 bill they kept passing around among themselves.

And it was a few hours into bar hopping and drinking with the cops when Conway Twitty first heard the rumor that some Hells Angels had been ticketed by the cops and kicked out of Ocean City and were threatening to come back on a Labor Day run with their entire club and take the town by storm.

“I know some of those boys,” Conway said softly.

“I'll see what I can do.”

Act I Episode 8 – The Contingency Plan Unfolds

The first meeting of the federal emergency biker response task force took place on a Sunday afternoon in Elwood Kirkman's penthouse apartment on the top floor of the Flanders Hotel.

From the front windows, or from the throne of Kirk man’s private commode with the gold faucets there was a picture window view of the scenic blue ocean horizon and the beach and boardwalk just beyond the huge Olympic sized pools. To the right is the Copper Kettle Fudge shop and Harry Anglemeyer’s apartment above the store.

The original boardwalk ran right in front of the Flanders boardwalk door but after the fire and they moved the boardwalk a block closer to the Ocean, giving the boardwalk land owners a fee block of land. Kirkman had the pools built out to the new boardwalk.

At the end of the street was the pavilion where most of the old folks retreated to after the hippies took over Shriver's Pavilion.

Kirkman looked out the window and winched when he noticed a long haired hippie playing guitar, serenading some of the old folks, who didn't seem to appreciate the entertainment.

Kirkman owned the Flanders Hotel, the Boardwalk National Bank, a title company, a few Atlantic City hotels, the Seaview Country Club and most of the motels on the Black and White Horse Pikes to Atlantic City, which were popular before the Expressway and Parkway came in. Kirkman held the mortgage on most of the commercial businesses on the Atlantic City, Ocean City, Sea Isle City and Wildwood boardwalks, except those owned by Mrs. Schilling and what Harry Anglemeyer owned before he was killed. Kirkman was the Georgetown Law School roommate of H. Hap Farley, the Atlantic City boss who took over the Atlantic City rackets and Republican political machine when Nucky Johnson went to prison, and Kirkman made sure that Nucky stayed retired after he got out of the joint.

Kirkman was the richest and most powerful man in Atlantic City, other than Stumpy Orman, who ran the Atlantic City - Absecon Island rackets for Hap Farley and Angelo Bruno, the Philadelphia don who was a Commissioner on the board of the national crime syndicate. Orman was a phone call away and right then holding court out of a booth in a nearby Margate restaurant.

Turning back to his sprawling, split level apartment, furnished in an out dated Spartan 50s post-modern style, Kirkman looked around the crowded room and only recognized the Mayor, the chief of police and D. Allen Stretch, the public safety commissioner.

Kirkman sat down and leaned back in a lounge chair as he was introduced to the new faces in the room, including representatives from the governor's office, the New Jersey State Police, the federal FBI's gang unit, the Somers Point Police Department, the N.J. state Division of Alcohol and Beverage Control (ABC), whose undercover agents were trying to infiltrate the local one percenter gangs, and the N.J. State Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, who owned the patch of sandy wetlands between Somers Point and Ocean City, ground zero for Plan A.

One by one the mayor introduced them to Mr. Kirkman and when he was finished, Kirkman said: “I'm too busy to deal with this small town shit! I'm depending on you boys to deal with this kind of stuff, protect the public safety and see that the business and commerce isn't disrupted."

“Well,” the mayor said, “Mr. Stretch and the chief here have, in consultation with the Somers Point officials, the Governor, the FBI gang unit and the State Police, they have come up with a contingency plan that I had requested. Chief, will you explain it?”

The chief then got up, picked up a long stick and pointed it at a big map of the area propped up on an easel and began to lay out the plan.

“We've carefully studied the way other communities have dealt with this threat,” the chief began, “starting with Hollister, the California town that experienced an influx of outlaw motorcycle gangs that inspired the movie 'The Wild One,  that starred Marlon Brando and James Coburn, and started this whole town takeover thing.”

“A copy of the film was obtained by Mr. Oschlager, Mrs. Schilling's movie manager, and it will be screened after this briefing.”

“We estimate that they may have as many as fifteen hundred bikers, and we can match them in numbers,” the chief droned on, “if we bring in support from other local police departments, and buttressed by the State Police gang control unit, the 300 cadets from the State Police Academy, that will be bused in, and some federal officers. And the governor has the National Guard on alert if they are needed, as they have been in other events of this sort.”

“Because of the unique series of four draw bridges that provide the only accesses to the island, two of them being together on the causeway, we have decided to use them to our advantage, as we can raise and lower them when we want to at strategic times for tactical purposes.”

“So we will let the bulk of the incoming bikers, as they arrive, to cross the first bridge from the Somers Point Circle, where Lieutenant Bader will supervise the situation, supported by the State Police. After the main body of the bikers have crossed that bridge, we will raise the other bridge at the base of Ninth Street in Ocean City, so they will be trapped on the patch of land between the two bridges on the causeway. There they can be contained and controlled by the State Troopers, Ocean City and Somers Point police who can search them and arrest them for controlled substances, DWI, parole violations and outstanding warrants. Judge Helfant has agreed to keep his court open as long as necessary to process them and we have sufficient detention facilities to hold them all.”

The mayor was the only one to speak up and question the plan.

“I'm not so sure they will all arrive together,” he said. “I've read the reports from Hollister and other places this sort of thing has happened, and they all indicate the bikers don't arrive in one mass, but rather they come sporadically in small groups, not all at once.”

The mayor also noted that he personally felt he connected with the head Angel, the leader of the pack who Officer Warren had ticketed for speeding, and thought that he could work something out with him if they ever got together again. The mayor was convinced that if they could talk and reason together they could come to some mutually agreeable resolution and amiably resolve the situation before it escalated to the level of violence and anybody getting arrested.

Making a reference to JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the mayor said, “we can work this thing out without starting a war,” he concluded.

“These are one-percenters,” the FBI gang squad agent spoke up. “These guys are mainly disenchanted veterans, hard assed criminals and gang members who sell drugs, run prostitutes, steal what they can and will break a baseball bat across your scull without batting an eye.”

Kirkman then looked at the mayor and said: “You can try to reason with them if you want to, but we're making this contingency plan operational and putting it into action. And I don't want to hear about this anymore unless something goes terribly wrong.”

They then decided to put a news blackout on all of this and not inform the media, who were bound to exaggerate the situation for readers and ratings, or tell the public, who were susceptible to panic. So there was to be a total news blackout on this operation - that was given the code name Operation BARBARIANS. 

The Barbarian Task Force - BTF - as the feds called it, was scheduled to confer by phone daily and meet once a week until the week before Labor Day, when they would meet daily and confer hourly until after the crisis was over.

While Mister Kirkman was a congenial host, with waitresses circulating the room with snacks and drinks, not everyone stayed for the private screening of “The Wild One.”

And even though it was a state secret, purposely kept out of the press and none of the officials in the room leaked the details, one of the waitresses told her boyfriend over some pillow talk, some of what she heard, and before long it was all over the beach, the boardwalk and Bay Avenue – the Barbarians were coming!

The mayor and the chief didn't stay at Kirkman's apartment as they dimmed the lights and the movie projector began to click and begin the credits to “The Wild One.”

They walked out of the Flanders and down the boardwalk, headed to their office when they heard someone call their names. It was Roger Monroe, the owner of the bookstore next to Shriver's Candy store. It being Sunday Monroe’s book store was closed, but Monroe himself was sitting in front of a portable card table on which there was a large hard bound copy of the bible, a stack of Playboy magazines and a petition on a clipboard with a pen dangling from a string.

Monroe asked them, “Will you sign my petition to get rid of the silly blue laws so I can open for business on Sundays?”

The mayor and the chief stopped and shook Roger's hand. He was a good, legitimate businessman who attended all of the city council meetings and had taken up Harry Anglemeyer's crusade against the blue laws, despite what happened to Harry.

“You see how silly it is?” Roger asked, as he held up the bible in one hand saying, “I can't sell you a bible on Sundays because it’s a hard bound book, but I can sell you this trash,” holding up the Playboy in the other hand.

The mayor looked at Roger and politely said, “I understand,” while the chief took a closer look at the Playboy cover – one that featured a scantily clad voluptuous blonde draped over the monkey bar handles of a chopper motorcycle.

The chief then looked at the mayor and asked, “Do you know where your daughters are?”

Act I Episode 9 - Infiltrating Bay Shores – From the Mayor’s Daughter’s Perspective

Chris Waldman picks up the story (women’s voice): You see, Ocean City Mayor Tom Waldman had two daughters, Kate Lynn aka “Katie” who was to be eighteen years old on July 28, 1965, and me Christine, also known as Chris, all of fourteen and one of your humble narrators.

Although it has been fifty years since then, and I'm much older and wiser now, I still look back at what happened then through the eyes of a teenager, and don't factor in many of the things I have learned since then.

Ah, if we only knew then what we know now - Hey, there's a song there.

While my older sister looked older and was more sophisticated, she could put on her make up easily be 21, I was fourteen and looked like a twelve year old Tomboy. So there was no way I was going to experience the likes of Tony Marts  or Bay Shores, but Katie was there all the time - it was part of her routine, when she wasn't working as a waitress at the Chatterbox, la de ta!, where I also worked part time as a busboy.

But I knew from Katie, and dad – Mister Mayor – did I tell you my dad was Mayor of Ocean City? Well that helped Katie a lot, and she got in the nightclubs all the time, though she had to pace herself so as not to run into dad, whose favorite band was led by Mike Pedicin, Jr., one of the house bands at Bay Shores.

Pedicin had a hit song - “Shake a Hand” and played the main stage at Bay Shores, where his son Michael would play a toy saxophone at his knees, and later become the popular jazz man. Pedicin appealed to the older crowd, who came up in the early days of Rock & Roll with Bill Haley and the Comets (“Shake, Rattle and Roll”), Charlie Gracie (“Butterfly”) and the JoDiMars (“Now Dig This!”), all good friends who played together at one time or another the Point.

Katie preferred the bands on the back stage where they played a newer, louder, more danceable rock and roll that appealed to the younger College Kid crowd – bands like he Carroll Brothers, Bobby Duke and the Dukes and Johnny Caswell and Rocco and the Saints.

Katie likes the drummer in the Saints – Bobby Ridarelli because he's only fourteen years old and she can relate to him.

Then something happened, though it didn't happen all at once. The house bands that started at the beginning of the summer didn't all stay in one place, and moved around the stages, and some didn't last the summer and moved on to other gigs at juke joints in Margate, Wildwood, Atlantic City or Asbury Park.

Bay Shores noticed and acted on it first, realizing that money receipts don't lie – the hip younger crowd were spending more money than the older crowd. Now the difference here is between those in their late teens and early twenties and those who were in their late twenties and early thirties. The kids were drinking and even though they tipped better, Pedicin and the older crowd were moved with much consternation, from the main stage to the back stage and the new age rock & rollers were given the spotlight.

By mid-summer Pedicin was gone for good, and took his crowd across the street to Steel's Ship Bar and then later to DiOrio's, on the other side of the circle.

The new age rock & rollers kept the main stage and a completely new element came in, led by Tido Mambo, but he was quickly followed by the hipster Magic Mushrooms and the Monkey Men, a group of bikers who performed in a cage, and the college kids went wild.

Or so my sister says. With dad – Mister Mayor now comfortable across the street at Steel's Ship Bar – that had a bar that is actually shaped like a ship, Katie now had more opportunities to get into Tony Marts and Bay Shores, and hit the Point as much as she could.

Even though she was only eighteen, if she was wearing a dress and was with a guy in a suit and tie, she was in. Or if she knew the doorman or one of the bouncers she was in. If she wasn’t on a date and didn't have somebody on the inside, Katie would team up with her sidekick Rosie and they would put their makeup on and dress to kill and waltz around the Point as if they owned it.  It would be more likely they would be asked for their phone numbers than it would be for them to be carded or asked how old they were.

My image of the debauchery I thought went on at Tony Marts and Bay Shores was totally shattered when I finally got the chance to experience it first hand, and it was even better than I imagined.

It was a Sunday afternoon, so the boardwalk crowd was small, and it started to rain, so everybody left the beach and boardwalk. So after working breakfast and lunch shifts with my sister at the Chatterbox, she “hit the Point” while I went back into my routine – skateboarding to the boardwalk arcade - “Hey, it’s illegal to ride a skateboard on the boardwalk! Fuck you pal.”

Bay Shores didn't have an afternoon matinee show every day, only when it rains, so all the college kids get off the beach and boardwalk and take in the rainy afternoon “Moon Dog” Matinee at Bay Shore, and if the bands gets really hot things can get kinda crazy, even more crazy than a typical Saturday night.

So while she was dancing and partying at the Point I was spending my tip money playing pin ball machines and games at the boardwalk arcade. And then my routine requires a slice of pizza at Mack & Manco's, where Duncan was one of the pie makers.

Duncan was a lot older than me – going on twenty, but he was a Marine, just got out of flight school, and had six weeks off before joining his unit. He was leaving to fly helicopters in Vietnam on the day after Labor Day.

Besides being a slow Sunday afternoon, it continued to rain, just a drizzle, but that was enough, so everyone left the beach and the boards were empty, except for small groups of college kids playing in the rain. I was the only person at the counter, and Duncan didn't have anyone to make pizza for so he took out three pie-to-go cardboard boxes, slipped a pie into each box, closed them, stacked them up in front of me.

 “Bring these and follow me.” I picked them up and we went out the back of the 9th street store, down some steps and under the boardwalk where, without opening the door, he jumped into the seat of a brand new white 1965 Mustang convertible. Get in, he motioned me into the passenger seat. While it was a brand new car, I was a little quizzical about all of the dents, scratches, scrape and broken window, but it quickly became apparent where those nicks had come from as the engine sprung to life and we pulled out from under the boardwalk onto Ninth Street.

Duncan drove fast like a madman, and we whipped around people and past cars and through a red light. We did come to a stop, but when nobody was coming the other way he just took off, like a bat out a hell. Whoopee!

We were on the causeway in no time, and I'm glad the bridges didn't open 'cause I knew he would try to fly over it. We passed an Ocean City patrol car just after we ran the red light, but the cop just waved, and Duncan waved back. All of the cops have stopped Duncan at one time or another in the past few weeks, and because he's a Marine he gets a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. I think they actually admire him.

So with the AM radio blaring the Stones' “I Can't Get No Satisfaction,” the wind blowing in my hair and Duncan behind the wheel we drove across the bay causeway with the top down through the drizzling rain and pulled up at Bay Shore's front door before the song was even over. There was a No Parking sign but Duncan ignored it and jumped out of the car as soon the car stopped.

“Follow me,” he instructed, and at the front door of Bay Shores he took the pizza off the top and gave it to the doorman and club manager Jack Murray, who was collecting the $2 cover. “Thanks Dunk,” he said waving us in.

The second pizza went to the bartender behind the first big rectangle bar by the door – who I later learned was the legendary “Buddy” Tweill – six foot four and beach boy tan – he flipped the caps off  two long neck Budweisers and handed them to Duncan who passed one to me - my first beer in a bar, one I couldn't tell anyone about or Mister Mayor would get wind of it and ground me for the rest of the summer, like he once did with Katie.

Duncan and Buddy didn't have to talk, and actually couldn't because the band was so loud.

Johnny Caswell was terrific, and firmly engraved in my memory as the first band I caught at Bay Shores. They later went from straight to hip and changed the band's name to the Crystal Mansion, but when I first saw them they played songs that I knew from the Chatterbox juke box - “The Thought of Loving You,” “Carolina On My Mind,” - there were others too.

A half hour later, as Johnny Caswell's band finished their first set, another band on the other side of the room kicked in, and the energy shifted to the back of the room, and it wasn't so loud, at least you could talk.

The third pizza went to Johnny Caswell, who jumped off the stage and greeted Duncan with a solid handshake and a shoulder hug, as Johnny took a slice of pizza and passed the box  back to his drummer on stage.

The bar was still packed wall to wall, and I stood back against the wall, standing out like a sore thumb in my Chatterbox uniform dress, afraid I would run into my sister, but at the same time I wanted to explore the club and walk around a bit. The dance floors were full and everybody was just dancing where ever they were, some dancing in their stools, others on their seats, one girl got up on the bar to dance and the whole room was rockin'.

As I scanned the room I saw a lot of kids I knew from the beach and boardwalk and the Chatterbox, some of them in disguise, as they too were underage too, and some of them saw me and just laughed and pointed at me, but then it happened.

I had walked over to the wall by the front door where they listed the dozens of the bands that had played there – Billy Duke and the Dukes, Pete Carroll and the Carroll Brothers, Sam the Band, Malcolm and Hereafter, Ruby Falls,.....I had just read a few when I was  totally startled.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” Katie screamed into my right ear, blindsiding me from behind.

“If dad finds out you're here you are grounded for the rest of the summer – you know that, don't you?”

“Well what about you?” I countered, without much punch.

Then Duncan turned around and smiled and Katie melted. I introduced them, and she introduced us all to Bobby, the drummer with the Saints, who I could identify with because he was so young.

“Gee,” I tried to placate her, “Duncan's not twenty one yet, you're almost eighteen, I'll be fifteen soon, and how old are you Bobby? Hell, none of us are twenty-one,” and it went unsaid that when we looked around the rockin’ room, nobody seemed to notice or care.

'But dad still can't find out” - me and my sister both said in unison. .

When it came to being under age, it wasn't so much as wanting to drink as it was the total experience, especially the music, and we felt pretty much invisible when we were out on the dance floor, where we had the most fun and was pretty much where we spent most of the afternoon. I still felt a little out of place because pretty much everybody was in their bathing suits and I was still in my Chatterbox uniform.

Dad was none too pleased a few hours later when Duncan dropped me off. He was sitting on the front porch reading the paper and Duncan's reputation had preceded him, even though he was the perfect gentleman.

As I tried to run past him he put the paper down so I could see his face and said, “Isn't that the young man who’s in the Marines? The helicopter pilot whose going to Vietnam next month?”

“Yes daddy.”

“Well he's too old for you.”

“He just gave me a ride home from work,” I lied as I slipped past him into the house.

The hardest thing about the best day of my life up to that point in time was that I couldn't tell anybody about it, not anybody at work, not anybody from school, nobody, or dad would find out. He has spies everywhere. But sis kept my secret, though she sometimes used it as a blackmail threat when nothing else worked.

So I lived at the shore during its hey days, experienced Bay Shores as it was at its peak at the Point, and would look back at the Summer of '65 as the pivotal turning point in my life, but you know, we didn't realize how really special it was at the time. We were just living our daily routines and things went back to normal for awhile.

We forgot about the bikers and the Barbarians, and went back to concentrating on what was really important at the time – the music, and there was much anticipation for the new band that was coming in to Tony Marts though no one seemed to know their name, just that they were really, really good.

Act I Episode 10 - The Hawks Check In

The band that Colonel Kutlets sent to Tony – the best rock and roll band available in the Summer of  '65, finally showed up in  a small caravan consisting of an old late fifties Chevy sedan, a Rambler station wagon with a luggage rack and a U-Haul rental box truck full of equipment and clothes.

The Hawks got their name from Ronnie Hawkins, the Rockabilly roustabout who led the Hawks through a hundred roadhouses for years, mainly in the southern Gulf States, and while they had a good time, learned a lot and got tight with the music, Hawkins took the bulk of the money and gave them the change. So they decided to bail out, take a break and go back home to Toronto and heal their wounds, broke but proud and smarter.

If you don't know Rockabilly music and never heard of Ronnie Hawkins, he was the guy in the cowboy hat in the Last Waltz movie who did the rockabilly version of the Bo Diddley song, “Who Do You Love?” - “I walked forty seven miles of barbed wire, I use a cobra snake for a necktie, I got a  brand new house on the roadside made from a rattlesnake hide, I got a brand new chimney made out of a human skull, now come on Robbie, let's take a little walk – who do you love?”

Hawkins in the Last Waltz gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like to play behind Rockin' Ronnie every night for five years so he whipped the Hawks into  a really tight group.

The Hawks will tell you that they got tired of all the carousing and good time, afternoon practice and working six, seven nights a week and living in motels, but the truth of the matter is Ronnie Hawkins fell in love. He fell in love and got married and settled down because she didn't want to live on the road. Now at this point in time the reputation of the Hawks was at its best – they were the best, and knew it and wanted to get paid accordingly, and tendered a half-dozen offers to back other big name acts, but they were now so tight with the music they knew they could make it on their own instead of as a backup band.

They also had a few original songs they thought were pretty good and maybe even have enough original material to record an album one day.

All of the Hawks were Canadians except for Levon Helm, an Arkansas Razerback drummer who also fiddled around on a mandolin and after they left Ronnie Hawkins, Levon assumed the nominal leadership of the Hawks. Garth the organist, was by far the best musician of the lot, and he taught the others a lot about the serious side of music, especially young guitarists Rick Danko on bass and Robbie Robertson on rhythm and lead, both of whom were boyishly handsome and got all the girls.  And then there was Richard Manual on piano, who had the voice – the vocal cords that could reach the kind of notes Roy Orbison could hit.

But it was Levon who Colonel Kutlets first convinced to take on this job, this mission and play for seven weeks at Tony Marts on Bay Avenue in Somers Point, New Jersey, and pre-billed as the best rock and roll band around.

The Hawks had never been to Tony Marts and had never been to the Jersey Shore before, but they heard a lot about it from other bands they ran into on the music circuit, and they knew Tony Marts was a happen' place and the area had good weather. And they would pull in about two grand a week – American, for those seven weeks, stay in one place and get paid for doing what they loved to do – playing their kind of music.

They say there's only two kinds of music, good music and bad music, and while the Hawks had played their share of bad music over time, they were now a finely tuned, high energy rock and roll band that - once they got rolling, would knock your socks off.

It took them a day to decide whether or not to take the gig, two days to get their act together, and then another few days to make the drive from Toronto to Bay Avenue. Levon drove the big black sedan, with Robbie Robertson running shotgun and serving as navigator while Garth, the Quiet One, had the back seat all to himself, and he did what he usually did, just sat back and took it all in.

Richard Manual drove the Rambler, which had most of their clothes and uniforms, while grinning Rick Danko drove the U-Haul, filled mainly with equipment - speakers, amps, guitars, two drum kits, a piano and Garth's mammoth B-3 Hammond organ

Unlike as in the movie Eddie & the Cruisers, in which the leather jacketed Cruisers waltz in the front door and announce, “Tell Tony Eddie and Cruisers are here!” Levon parked next to the curb, a little up from the front doors so the truck could fit in and they could unload the equipment. One of the cleanup crew, broom in hand, led Levon through the dark club, past the upside down stools on the bars and out the back door, through the stacks of beer cases and keg to Tony's bunker office. The janitor knocked softly on the door, and without opposition from within turned the knob, opened the door a crack and said, “Mister Marotta, Levon and the Hawks are here.”

“Good,” Tony said, as the door was opened wider, Levon was shown in and the janitor went off to help the Hawks unload their equipment.

Tony was a no-nonsense guy who sat at his desk across from Levon Helm and politely but firmly explained what he expected – four one-hour long sets a night, six nights a week – off Mondays, and a commitment to play until Labor Day. It was all in the contract.

Tony explained that until they found a better place they could stay upstairs in the dressing rooms of the old hotel, and after taking a drag on his cigar, added emphatically - “And stay away from the Go-Go Girls!”

Levon nodded his head up and down in agreement, picked up his copy of the contract and shook Tony's hand. The best part of the deal was the two grand a week, with a bonus if they finished their contract until Labor Day, divided six ways – Levon, Robbie, Garth, Richard, Rick and Colonel Kutlets, who arranged the deal and got his share of the stakes as if he was one of the band.

“Me and Colonel Kutlets have great faith in you boys,” Tony said, blowing smoke and mentioning that Conway Twitty had filled in like a trooper and left that morning to go on a short tour, but he was returning the following weekend for another run on the main stage. With Conway Twitty and the best rock & roll band around, everyone was expecting great things.

Out front Levon was all smiles as he held the glass doors open so they could wheel Garth's B-3 Hammond organ in to set up at the center of the main stage, where they would play until Conway Twitty came back, and took his place as king of the hill.

After checking out the dressing rooms and facilities upstairs, and putting their stage clothes and belongings away, Levon and Garth decided to check out the neighborhood and scope out the scene. They walked across the street to the open air Clam Bar at Smith's Pier, where they got a half dozen clams on the half shell, some steamers and chowder and learned from the waitress that some of the musicians and bartenders from Bay Shores rent rooms by the week at the Anchorage Hotel down the street.

At the Anchorage, an old, historic clapboard hotel that dates to the 1880s, they met Andrew Cornaglia, the young, 21 year old owner whose father had recently passed away and suddenly thrust Andrew into the role of a bar and restaurant owner.

Not just a bar, the Cornaglia family – his mother made the sauce in the kitchen, the mussels were steamed and the fine Italian cuisine attracted a strong clientele from their South Philly neighborhood. But the sudden influx of college students got Andrew to make some changes to accommodate the younger crowd, and not concentrate so much on the older folks his father had catered to.

While Garth Hudson sat down and began tinkling the keys of the old “Tom Thumb” piano against the wall, Levon made a deal with Andrew to rent a few rooms upstairs for the rest of the summer, a place they could get away from work and have some privacy.

Andrew said that all he had were a few rooms on the third floor.

While Garth, the Quiet Man, hardly said a word, he was by far the best musician of the lot, and even though the piano didn't have a full keyboard, and some of the keys didn't work at all, he made that Tom Thumb piano come alive, garnering the attention of Andrew and everyone else among the relatively serene lunch crowd.

With his easy smile and back country twang, Levon had the ability to quickly gain the confidence of whoever he was talking to, and it wasn't long before Andrew was telling him how his father and mother ran the place one way, and now he had to run it his way, and he was making some changes even though the regular customers didn't appreciate it.

His mother and father catered mainly to the neighbors from back home who took day trips to the shore. Now Andrew said, the College Kids had discovered the place and he was making more money selling them cheep beer and drinks than he was selling pasta and wine. So Andrew hired a few young bartenders and they began to draw a younger crowd who drank more and spent more money. Before hitting Tony Marts or Bay Shores, the College Kids made a stop at the Anchorage a part of the routine. And Andrew liked counting the money at the end of the night.

Andrew gave Levon the lowdown on some of the peculiar attributes of the local scene, and then turned around and told Garth that the piano he was playing was left behind by the Three Keys – who once played before the Queen of England.

“Now only Tedo Mambo plays it,” he added.

“Tido Mambo?” Levon repeated the name.

“You'll meet him soon enough,” Andrew said. “He's living on the third floor too.”

Levon made the deal before looking at the rooms upstairs, and just shrugged when he saw that the windows were painted black because most of the occupants over the years worked all night and had to sleep during the day, but it was okay.

Once they had a basic understanding of the lay of the land, the Hawks reconvened in the dressing rooms above Tony Marts to get ready for their premier performance at the Point.

Act I Episode 11- Conway Returns to Tony Marts and the Second Coming of Tido Mambo

The Hawks were anxious to see Twitty again, as they knew him from various crossroads down south from their years with Ronnie Hawkins, and knew he recorded at Sun Studios with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Levon said he remembered Conway as a former neighbor in Helina, Arkansas, when he was known as Harold Lloyd Jenkins.

The Hawks didn’t like losing the main stage but they knew Conway deserved it because of his seniority and popularity.

The Hawks were playing when Conway Twitty entered the room so they didn’t get a chance to greet him. Twitty knew the routine, and was on the main stage and ready to take over as the Hawks wound down their first set of the night on the side stage.

There was some anxiety among the bartenders and Anthony Marotta, sitting at the small raised bar against the back wall, quietly smoking his cigar, who knew Twitty was at a crossroads in his career and wanted to play country and western music, not the type of thing they wanted to hear at Tony Marts at the moment.

Would Conway play what he wanted? Would he do his country and western act that his fans drooled over? Or would he do the Elvis rock and roll that the College Kids preferred and what Tony wanted him to play?

“Hello Darlin’” made Tony winch, and then after a number of slow whining country ballads – “Goodbye Time,” “Linda On My Mind,” “Look Into My Teardrops” and “The Fire Is Gone,” that could make a man cry in his beer, Conway began the Irish sad song, “Danny Boy,” – “the pipes, the pipes are calling,…” and the bartenders looked at Tony to see if he was going to give Conway the hook and pull the plug. But he didn’t, so they just looked at each other across the room and shrugged, as some of the College Kids began to chug their drinks and walk out, heading across the street to see Tido Mambo at Bay Shores.

Conway Twitty was singing the song in the slow, dry traditional Irish manner – “Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes the pipes are call-lling, from glen to glen,...” and some of his fans and a few of the college kids started to slow dance to the tune, but half-way through the song, with the drummer taking the lead, the beat suddenly switched from the melancholy tune everyone knew to an upbeat – highly danceable rocking melody that made everyone smile, applaud and get up and dance and suddenly the place went wild.

Conway smiled at Tony, - he was just busting his balls, and then he kicked in with what they called his “Elvis Set,” – even though Elvis just made some of them famous, songs like, “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” “Hound Dog,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Reelin’ And Rockin’” and “Got My Mojo Working.”

Conway had the room under control, Tony Mart was happy and all was well with the world.

Meanwhile, across Bay Avenue, a long, black hearse pulled into the Bay Shores parking lot and pulled up to the front door, followed by a crowd of hippies. Six men took a black wood coffin out of the back and hoisting it up on their shoulders, carried it in the front door to the applause of the generally young and hip crowd.

Carried in the casket by his band – the well named Upsetters, Tito Mambo had strong support from the hippies, who followed them like rats and the kids in the Pied Piper of Hamlin to a New Orleans funeral like dry dirge music that was pumped into the sound system.

They set the coffin down on the stage and picked up instruments and began to tune up as the coffin lid opened slowly and the head of Tito Mambo appeared as if he was Lazarus    rising from the dead. Dressed like Jesus Christ with long hair and a beard, white robe and sandals, he picked up an battered white 1957 Les Paul Stratocaster and began to hit some high notes, made some wa-wa noise and then blasted the electric guitar like Jimmie Hendrix, except it was just loud noise, much to the amusement of the bewildered crowd.

As the first hippie to take the stage at the Point, Tito Mambo had the hip crowd in his pocket, and was slowly garnering the attention of the young college kids, and even a few of the older crowd thought the whole act somewhat humorous, but wasn’t really music. Except once he got going, Tido Mambo sat down at the piano and began to swing. His band was really very good, and after pumping out a lot of noise, really got down and put out the kind of rock and roll that the young crowd liked to dance to.

Johnny Caswell, the other band at Bay Shores, was a bit perplexed by the whole thing, and just sat back and shook his head. Caswell was old school, but his band was younger and they were falling for the Tito Mambo shtick, and after hours started hanging out with the Upsetters, getting stoned and doing some of the experimental drugs they had – mushrooms, coke and meth – crystal meth they got from the bikers. Eventually Caswell’s band would change their name to the Crystal Mansion, after the farm they rented out on Mays Landing road.

While Conway Twitty and Levon and the Hawks were what Anthony Marotta called “the last of the gentlemen,” - the straight, old school bands who wore stage outfits when they performed, Tito Mambo was the first of what he called the “animals,” who took over rock & roll, and it was never the same again.

Before the end of the summer other hip bands in jeans and t-shirts came in to Bay Shores – the Magic Mushrooms and the Monkey Men – bikers who rode chopper motorcycles with high handles – what they called “monkey bars” because the rider looked like a monkey hanging from the branch of a tree.

On this night however, at the end of his last set, Tito Mambo – in his Jesus Christ mode – made an announcement – on Saturday afternoon of Labor Day weekend he would perform three miracles – not only rise from the dead, he would turn water in wine and walk on water at the Ninth Street beach in Ocean City.

Act I Episode 12 - The Sin Cities of the East - The Media Gets Wind of the Story

The Sin Cities of the East - Joined at the Hip - Ocean City and Somers Point, New Jersey

With Levon and the Hawks and Conway Twitty at Tony Marts, Johnny Caswell and Tido Mambo at Bay Shores, Mike Pedicin, Sr. at Steels Ship Bar, the Under 21 Club bringing in big name recording stars like Dean Martin and Little Stevie Wonder, singing waiters at Your Father's Mustache and the High Point on the circle, and live entertainment at most of the pubs and restaurants, Somers Point was running on all cylinders, with a good mixed crowd of young college kids, hippies and older folks filling the streets and sidewalks, especially Bay Avenue.

There were other similar scenes – Wildwood, Sea Isle City, Margate and Atlantic City all had their rock and roll scenes, and many of the bands – like Bill Haley & the Comets, the Carroll Brothers, Caswell, et al. played them all, but Somers Point really stood out in the Summer of '65 as people began to recognize that something special was happening and those who heard about it just had to check it out for themselves.

And the Christian island resort of Ocean City, New Jersey swelled to capacity, its hotels, motels, rooming houses and apartment rentals were sold out through Labor Day and college kids were sleeping in their cars and on the beach.

The 10,000 year 'round residents of Ocean City didn't mind the windfall, when their small community suddenly swelled to over 100,000 people, making money renting rooms, t-shirts, ice cream, pizza and junk jewelry. 

Mainly, it was the estimated 20,000 college students who made the most trouble, especially the hippies, parking their VW buses in one spot for three and four days at a time, playing loud music on the beach and boardwalk, sleeping on the beach, leaving piles of litter behind.

In Ocean City there was only one possible responsible official reaction – the knee jerk reactionary one - there was nothing else to do but close the beach at nights and outlaw playing music on the beach and boardwalk. So one of the more conservative city commissioners proudly introduced a resolution to close the beaches and parking lots to the public between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am and outlaw the playing of music on the beach and boardwalk.

The two square mile mainland city of Somers Point was more tolerant of the sudden influx of tourists and the college kids, as they had a special thirty man summer time police force – Bader's Raiders, who kept order along Bay Avenue.

People still complained about the noise, the traffic jams, the lack of parking and drunks urinating on lawns, but when they complained at City Council meetings, someone from the Somers Point Beverage Association always spoke up, saying something like, “Hey, you don't buy a home next to an airport and then complain about the airplanes.”

You can't have all this happening at the same time at the same place without people complaining, someone trying to outlaw it, and without the media getting wind of it.

The local weekly newspapers first reported the introduction of official city resolutions closing the beaches to the public at night and banning the playing of music on the beach and boardwalk, brief news reports that raised the eyebrows of the local daily news editors – who sent some new young, cub reporter to check out the scene and report back on what's really going on.

The Camden Courier Post got the scoop when it reported all about it under the headline: “Thirsty Teen Throngs Besiege Point,” with the subheading of: “Saturday Night at the Point – Youth Capitol of South Jersey – the Magic Number 21 – When Boy Meets Girl.”

Then the Philadelphia Inquirer and the afternoon daily Bulletin did major news stories and the New York Times chimed in, “A New Look Slowly Comes to the Jersey Shore – Some Abrupt and Flamboyant.”

Then, to top it off, the notoriety of the scene and the situation went national when Life Magazine made it a photo-featured cover story that proclaimed Ocean City and Somers Point, New Jersey joined at the hip as the “Sin Cities of the East,” making it an even more popular destination for those who wanted to partake in the sinning or just gawk at the side shows and tell their kids, “See, this is what you can't ever do,” but still finding amusement at it all.

The new producers at the Philadelphia offices of KYW TV News also took notice of these media reports and began talking about it. KYW was the newest of three broadcast network affiliated TV stations in Philadelphia at the time, and they wanted to make a splash, so they put together a documentary film crew they called the Investigative Unit that won journalism awards for reports on nursing home abuse, insurance fraud and mob controlled unions. Now they were looking for a new assignment and they knew their boss didn't have one ready for them.

So the lead field director, David Brenner, a local South Philly boy, held up the newspaper clips in one hand and the Life Magazine in the other and made the pitch to his boss, saying, “This is a great story! The college kids take over, the officials want to outlaw music and close the beaches. Jesus Christ! We couldn't make this shit up and get people to believe it.” 

“Okay, okay,” said the senior executive producer, “but I don't want to just repeat this crap about everybody having such a good time and the music and dancing and beach blanket bingo. I want a story, a real story, and from all this noise we're getting, there's got to be a good story down there somewhere. But you don't have it yet and you got to dig in the sand to get it, but don't come back with the same junk the Inky put out.”

David Brenner slapped his hands, shook the hands of the executive producer, kissed him on both cheeks and promised him a good story, then as he got to the office door, stopped and turned around, "Correct that - we'll get a GREAT – G-R-E-A-T- Story,” he spelled out, almost dancing out the door.

Walking across the KYW newsroom, he walked into a small conference room where there were three people waiting for him – two young men and young women, Brenner's secretary-girl Friday, Tom Snyder, the on air reporter and the cameraman-technician who made up Brenner's Investigative Unit crew. 

“We're going to the Shore,” Brenner said smiling, “We're going to the Jersey Shore!”

“Hot damn,” the cameraman said, “I was getting tired of these nursing home and mob shit stories. Maybe we can finally have some fun in the sun.”

“I don't know how much sun I can take,” Snyder said shyly and dryly, “or how much of your fun I can take."

Brenner slapped Snyder with a towel, put him in a head lock and began screwing his fist into the top of Snyder's head giving him a hard nuggie while laughing and looking at the others, “Do you think he's serious or not? I can't tell sometimes.”

“The bad news is,” the secretary paused for effect, “the bad news is there are no rooms available for anywhere within 20 miles of Ocean City, - it's booked solid.”

“But the good news is,” she smiled, “my parents have a summer home in Ocean City and they said we can stay there, though somebody might have to sleep on the couch.”

Everybody looked at Tom Snyder and laughed.

“No, I'll take the couch,” the cameraman said, swinging a pack of electronic gear over his shoulder. 

They then left immediately, over Snyder's protests, without packing. 

"I'll buy you a t-shirt and bathing suit on the boardwalk - that's all you'll need," Brenner said, noting that with a thousand dollars in cash budget, and not needing to rent a motel room, they had plenty of money for accessories. 

So David Brenner, his secretary, cameraman and Tom Snyder piled into a white KWY van, packed with broadcast equipment and headed down the shore, not knowing exactly what their story was going to be but with high anticipation and the expectation that whatever happened, it was going to be a really good, check - make that great time.

And yes, it is David Brenner the comedian who was an award winning documentary film producer for KYW TV before he became a famous celebrity, and yes, it is Tom Snyder the talk show host, who was a rookie, first year street reporter at KYW TV when he accompanied David Brenner to find a story in Ocean City – Somers Point scene. .

The Long Cool Summer was the title of their one hour long documentary film aired on KYW TV 3 a week after Labor Day that reportedly won additional awards for them, and is said to be stored and archived in a cold storage vault in the media library at the Urban Archives at Temple University in Philadelphia. It could provide an actual documentary film footage of all that then transpired.

David Brenner once related the story of what happened on that assignment to Johnny Carson on one of his appearances on the Tonight Show, and later fondly reminisced about it with Tom Snyder on his late night talk show, which was humorously pantomimed by Dan Akyroid on Saturday Night Live.

Act 1 Episode -13 – Conway Conducts Peace Talks

When he took a week’s long vacation from his gig at Tony Marts in Somers Point Conway Twitty did two things – he spent a few days in New York and signed a record deal with a Country music label saying, “They say there’s only two kinds of music, good music and bad music but the two kinds of good music are country and western.”

The second thing Twitty did was to hook up with Somers Point police officer Bill Bader and an undercover Ohio police officer and meet with Ralph Sonny Barger in a small roadhouse bar at an undisclosed location.

Ralph Sonny Barger, the head of the Oakland chapter of the Hell’s Angels, sat back in the bar booth, cigarette smoke twerling around him, a empty shot glass in front of him on the table and a bottle of beer in his hand. He was sitting alone on one side of the booth across from the three others – Conway Twitty, Bill Bader and the undercover Ohio cop who had infiltrated the Hell’s Angels and first set the Ocean City PD the report that the Hell’s Angels were going to return and retaliate by taking over the town in full force on Labor Day.

Twitty knew Barger as a fan, and was trying to mediate a non-violent solution to the escalating situation when Billy Bader asked Barger, “Why do you do what you do and want to make an even bigger issue of it?”

Barger took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled a big cloud of smoke, took a swig of beer and said, “You have to know me and who I am to understand what all this about.”

Barger went quiet for a moment and then began again and didn’t stop until he was done:

“I was nine years old when the original 1947 Hollister motorcycle fracas went down. What started out as a sanctioned American Motorcycle Association racing competition quickly got out of hand when riders from early outlaw clubs like the Pissed Off Bastards and the BoozeFighters got drunk and rowdy, racing through towns streets, running traffic lights. This was supposed to be your typical annual AMA national gathering, just like the dozens they’d staged before. But it all went wrong as hell. Raucous biker riders were getting busted for lewd behavior, public drunkenness, and indecent exposure. To hear some of my older friends, you’d think the Hollister incident was America’s first taste of hell on wheels. Looking back, it probably was.”

“The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin, hit the screen in ’54, while I was in high school. The movie was a big hit, based on what took place in Hollister, California, July 4, 1947. An article written by Frank Rooney in Harper’s Magazine in 1951 inspired it. The impact the movie made was apparently strong, the Booze Fighters disbanded after it became a hit, claiming that, thanks to the movie, bike riders now had irreparably bad reputations.”

“When I saw The Wild One, Lee Marvin instantly became my hero. Lee’s character, Chino, was my man. Marlon Brando as Johnny was the bully. His boys rode Triumphs and BSAs and wore uniforms. Lee’s attitude was ‘If you fuck with me, I’ll hit back.’ Lee and his boys were riding fucked-up Harleys and Indians. I certainly saw more of Chino in me than Johnny. I still do.”

“After the Hollister incident cut deep into the AMA’s creed, they labeled rowdy, outlaw motorcyclists the ‘one-percenters.’ According to AMA propaganda, one percent of motorcycle riders were the outlaw clubs giving bike riding a bad name while the other ninety-nine percent were good old-fashioned, ass-kissing, law-abiding citizens. Since then we proudly adopted the name that the AMA shoved on us, the One-Percenters.”

“I get asked a lot about initiations, and there sure have been some wild speculations in this area. I’ll give you one example: to become a Hell’s Angel you have to kill someone. To become a Hell’s Angel, there never has been any initiation rite outside of serving as a prospect. As a prospect, you ‘re basically a gopher for the club, you’re there before meetings to make sure the clubhouse is set up with the tables and chairs, make sure there’s coffee and food. When events are over, you clean up the clubhouse, a role that continues until you are no longer the newest member. But prospects can also be the rowdiest of the bunch, with the most to prove. They also seem to have the most fun.”

“The Hell’s Angels is a club that tries to exist with as few rules as possible, including there are meetings once a week at a predetermined time and place, there will be a two dollar fine for missing a meeting without a valid reason, girls will not sit in on meetings unless it is a special occasion, there will be no fighting among club members, a fine of five dollars will result for each party involved, no using dope during a meeting, no drug burns, no spiking the club’s booze, no throwing live ammo into bon fires, no messing with another member’s wife, no stealing among members, prospects must be brought up for a vote by a member, there will be a fifteen dollar initiation fee for all new members. 

Club will furnish patch, which remains club property. New members must be voted in. Two ‘no’ votes equal a rejection. One ‘no’ vote must be explained. Anyone kicked out of the club cannot get back in.” 

 “In the beginning days of the Hell’s Angels, we really didn’t travel any great distances. We rarely rode outside of the state of California.”

 “A motorcycle run is a get-together, a moving party. It’s a real show of power and solidarity when you’re a Hell’s Angel. It’s being free and getting away from all the bullshit. Angels don’t go on runs looking for trouble; we go to ride our bikes and to have a good time together. We are a club.”

“Most Hell’s Angels are great riders. A group of Hell’s Angels cruising down the road, riding next to each other and traveling at a speed of over eighty miles an hour is a real sight. It’s something else, a whole other thing, when you’re in the pack riding. It’s fast and dangerous and by God you better be paying attention. Whatever happens to the guy in front of you is going to happen to you….”

“When Hell’s Angels chapters started getting chartered outside the state of California in the sixties, that’s when we first started our cross-country rides like the USA and World Runs. We’d meet up with the new clubs along the way, and they’d join the run. Man, we used to ride from Oakland to New York on those early rigid-frame bikes, and they bounced around so much that if you drove sixty miles an hour you were making great time. The vibration left you tingling and numb for about an hour after you go off your bike. If you covered three or four hundred miles a day you were hauling ass. The other big problem then was we’d have to find gas stations every forty miles or so, since those old-style bikes with small tanks couldn’t make it past sixty miles.”

“The big difference between the Hell’s Angels and the rest of the motorcycle world are our bikes and the way we ride. This is serious business to us. Our bikes are us. We know that. The cops know that, and everybody else should know that too. The law and the road are one. Even today, if the cops know a large group of Hell’s Angels is headed somewhere, they’ll show up in force, alerting neighboring police forces along the way. This mutual assistance pact they set up had been used against us for as long as I can remember…We keep going and they keep coming around with all their surveillance methods and radio equipment watching us and keeping tabs. We don’t look for trouble or have intentions of starting any, but by God, it always seems to be around.”

“The Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club has four or five mandatory runs per year and probably fifteen or twenty parties and smaller runs. Each member is responsible for his own machine. He has to make sure his bike is in good enough condition to make it there and back on a long run…I’m kind of hyper on preparation, so I’ll go around checking bikes a little before we leave. Sort of like an inspection during my Army days. A lot of guys would get kinda pissed off at me for it, but fuck it, that’s what I liked to do.”

“There’s no serendipity when it comes to the way we ride. You can’t believe the rush you feel in your gut when everybody is kick starting their bikes and we’re ready to go. We have a strict formation in the front of the pack. I always ride front left, and the rest of the officers ride in the front of the pack. Usually the vice president rides front right, because he’s the most ‘legal’ person of our group. He carries the bail money. From that point back, it’s a motherfucking free-for-all drag race, jockeying for position.”

“There’s an art to leading a motorcycle pack because you have to be able to anticipate things like lane changes in traffic, shithead drivers, gas stops, and stopovers on the open road. The Oakland club has a long-ass pack that maybe goes on for half a mile. I can’t just think about whether I can make a lane change myself; I’m responsible for the safety of the rest of the riders. Speed limit is a big thing too. We know we can do eighty-five to ninety on an open freeway, but in some regions if you don’t stay closer to the speed limit you’re gonna really get jacked. Finally, you need to know exactly where you’re going and how many miles you can go, knowing what kind of gas takes the others have. After going about a hundred miles, it’s up to me to decide when everyone can gas up. Before we leave a gas station, one guy is in charge of counting up all the bikes. We don’t want anybody left behind or stranded.”

“When the West Coast members go east, we meet a couple hundred more along the way, which gives us a total of about four hundred ready-to-go Hell’s Angels. Man, this is a fucking army now, and together we are going to ride as one gigantic Hell’s Angels pack. We’re gonna be together on the road, brothers, ‘till the wind stops blowing, the grass stops growin’ and the river stops flowin’.”

“I was riding at the front of the entire pack and felt as if no power could stop us. It was like I became Crazy Horse leading the charge with hundreds and hundreds of motorcycles, all going eighty miles an hour. People in the towns heard the roar of our bikes way before they even see us. The local police just look the other way…mothers grab their babies from their yards and run into their houses. Cars swerve over to the side of the road. But others, like the farmers, take their caps off and put them into their hearts and chests, and the local fire departments salute us.”

“We might die if trouble erupts, but at least we will do it with style and dignity, because we believe in our brotherhood and the backs of our jackets. Why is a run important and significant to me? Because it proves that I belong right where I am, with my club. I don’t have millions of dollars and I’m not on the cover of Time magazine either, but what I have is respect. Respect from those who count on me. After all, I am Sonny Barger, Hell’s Angel.”

Act 1 Episode 14 – The Sit-down Continued

In the back booth of an otherwise empty roadhouse bar at an undisclosed location, Sonny Barger, the leader of the Oakland chapter of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club sat back against the wall before leaning over and snubbing his cigarette out in the dirty ashtray as he ex-hailed a round circle of smoke.

Across from him, sitting between Conway Twitty and Somers Point policeman Bill Bader, the Ohio State Police undercover agent, who had infiltrated the Ohio Hell’s Angels, threw down a copy of March 29^th  1965 Newsweek magazine between the ash tray and empty beer bottles and shot glasses.

Barger had already read the story and shrugged as Twitty picked up the story and began to read: “A roaring swarm of 200 black-jacketed motorcyclists converged on the small, sleepy Southern California town of Porterville. They rampaged through local bars, shouting obscenities. They halted cars, opening their doors, trying to paw female passengers. Some of their booted girlfriends lay down in the middle of the streets and undulated suggestively.”

Barger interrupted him there saying, “And as the evening wore on, everybody was partying and having a great time. Cycles raced up and down the main street. There were wet T-shirt contests happening in the saloons, and the booze and drugs flowed like ice cream and cake at a kiddies’ birthday party. It was fucking heaven. The Hell’s Angels along with the locals and other bikers, were having a wild time.”

“What about the riot?” Bader asked.

“The Porterville chief of police panicked,” Barger replied quickly and then excitedly. “He felt he and his men were outnumbered, so out went a three-county mutual aid call. In less than an hour, over 250 cops, firemen, highway patrolman - there were even some curious forest rangers, swarmed into Porterville. Fire trucks hosed down the main streets and lathered the roads down with soap, making it impossible to race up and down the street anymore. Motorcycle riders who tired were then shot off their bikes with powerful water streams. After the first trucks showed up, kids got up on top of the buildings and threw bricks down. We stayed at ground zero. That’s where the real action was.”

“The cops lined up their vehicles and the first trucks and instructed all motorcyclists to leave town in one direction. There were two choices: leave town or get your bike washed over…The Hell’s Angels all met up a couple miles out of town. Pissed off, we pulled our bikes over to assess the whole situation. What the fuck, all we had really done was have a little fun. Some of the other clubs had decided they had had enough. The party was over…We turned our bikes around and headed back toward Porterville with revenge on our minds. The cops had the main bridge blocked off and we couldn’t get past. So we blocked the OTHER side of the bridge, meaning if the cops wouldn’t let anybody into town, then we sure as fuck weren’t going to let anybody out. The cops threatened to arrest us, and we were ready to fuck ‘em up and fight back. Back and forth, hurling threats, sneer and spit, a true Mexican standoff.”

“Then an officer from the highway patrol came over to talk to us. He had stars on his collar and to this day I’ve never seen so many stars on a CHIP uniform. He came over and wanted to speak to me, Sonny Barger. Was I the man? I was pissed off but calm. I told him the Porterville police still had a few of our guys. All we wanted was to get them back. My deal was this: I’d post twenty-five dollars bail, forfeit it, and then get the hell out of Dodge.”

“We passed the hat, bailed the four guys out, and then all headed back out of town toward the group still waiting for us. We were pretty satisfied with what had gone down. It was getting pretty close to a Sunday sunrise, so everybody started heading out. With 250 cops in the area, they decided to do only what they know how to do and that’s play cop.”

“I got up and stood on the seat of my bike and announced out intention to everyone within ear shot.”

“The Oakland Hell’s Angels are going. Anybody who wants to go with us can go, but when we leave here we’re leaving and not fucking stopping for another fucking ticket. If they stop us, we fight! Anybody who doesn’t want to fight, stay here.”

“We took off as a group slow and easy, but loud, gunning our engines all the way home. It was deafening. If they wanted to stop us then they’d have to catch us, roadblock us, and knock us off our bikes first. Looking back, when I stood on my bike, it was at that moment that the Oakland Hell’s Angels became a force to be reckoned with. We weren’t about to get fucked over. The Oakland chapter assumed a special leadership position within the entire Hell’s Angels club. I learned that when you take a stand against the cops, they know better than to fuck with you.”

“What about your attacks on the anti-war marchers?” Bader asked.

“The Hell’s Angels are an apolitical organization,” Barger responded. “But when the peace marchers started there were club members who didn’t like the upper-class antiwar radicals’ attitude toward vets like us, so we decided to express our opinions and take a stand against these left-wing peace creeps and went down and fucked with them.”

“Eight of us moved toward the crowd. We fanned out and made our way forward through the protesters who were milling around and carrying signs. At first, the crowd cheered us. They thought we were there to support them. I felt a rage come over me. I was a vet and I loved my country. I was also pissed at the government that wasn’t going to let us win this stupid war. All of the chanting, signs, and speeches weren’t going to do shit for the troops overseas. What good was this gathering? 

Something inside me snapped, and I responded the only way I knew how, violently. I grabbed a few college kids at random and roughed them up good.” 

“We didn’t hit any women or kids, there were more than enough guys in love beads and madras shirts to push around. Some of the protesters scattered while others fought back. There was no heated discussion or emotional political arguments. Our fists and the end of our boots did our talking. We made it clear to the peaceniks, the cops, and the rest of the country where we stood on the war. We dug it. As a vet, I felt we ought to stick up for America. As long as there’s at least two people on earth, there’s going to be a war. If you can’t settle something peacefully, then fight it out. If you don’t want to participate in the war, fine, but don’t yell chickenshit names and throw blood on the guys forced to go.” 

“After that the left wanted to have a sit-down. Ken Kesey, the counterculture writer who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest called me. We arranged a meeting at my house, with Kesey, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. When the group showed up at my house, before the sit-down, Ginsberg took out his Tibetan silver prayer bells and began to chant a Buddhist prayer in an Eastern lotus position. I knew about Ginsberg and his flakey poetry, but it was still a bit weird seeing a robbed and bearded Jewish man meditating and chanting in MY living room. The first thing on the agenda they wanted to know why we beat their people up. We wanted to know why they wouldn’t let our American military fight the war and protect themselves. The meeting must have worked. They didn’t get beat up at any more demonstrations. That first fistfight proved our point anyway. The beer and drugs then came out and we listened to Bob Dylan’s ‘Gates of Eden’ and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,’ which was okay even though the guy can’t sing. But I dug that skinny little Joan Baez and I even like her music.”

“We held a Memorial Day run to hook up with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters again. The Sixties were the best thing that ever happened to the Hell’s Angels. We actually had a lot in common with the hippies.”

 “This year the Hell’s Angels didn’t just shake up the left with the VDC demonstrations, but we also rattled the cages of the right-wingers too…California Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch, responding to pressure from other politicians, released a report denouncing the Hell’s Angels, claiming we were a menace to society. The sixteen-page report called us ‘disreputable’ and even said you could tell a Hell’s Angel by his patch and his odor. ‘Probably their most universal common denominator,’ said the report, ‘is their generally filthy condition.’”

“What about this guy Hunter S. Thompson?,”  Bill Bader wanted to know, pulling out a copy of the May 17, 1965 issue of the Nation magazine in which Thompson wrote about ‘The Motorcycle Gangs, Losers and Outsiders.’

“I actually liked the way it was written, even though some of the facts were exaggerated,” Barger said, before lighting another cigarette and continuing. “After the article received a good reaction, Thompson came back to Oakland and hung around the club’s favorite biker bar hangouts until he and I finally met face-to-face. He told me he wanted to ride with the club and me and write a book about us. Since I liked the way he wrote, the Oakland and Frisco chapters let Hunter hang out with the club for a price, two kegs of beer. But as time went by, Hunter turned out to be a real weenie and stone fucking coward. You read about how he walks around his house with his pistols, shooting them out his windows to impress writers who show up to interview him. He’s all show and no go. When he tried to act tough with us, no matter what happened, Hunter Thompson got scared, I ended up not liking him at all, a tall, skinny, typical hillbilly from Kentucky. He was a total fake. When his time came, he got it. He was beaten up by the Hell’s angels so he could say, “I met them. I rode with them, and I was almost killed by the Hell’s Angels.’ He got into some really stupid shit to get beat up.”

Then Conway turned around and looked as some of the other Hell’s Angeles who had come in and were sitting quietly at the bar, keeping an eye on the boss talking to strangers in the corner.

“Are you going to have them beat us up when we leave here?” Bill Bader asked sheepishly.

Barger laughed, ordered another shot and beer from the waitress and looked at Bill Bader, and sternly said, “Now what would they think of me if I asked them to do something I couldn’t do myself.”

“Well look Mister Barger,” Bader said respectfully.

“We have this mayor back home,” who you already met, who wants to meet with you again if you ever come back that way.

“From what I understand,” Barger said, taking a shot off the trey before the waitress could set it down, “we’re going to have a real big party down the Jersey Shore on Labor Day, so I’ll see you all again then.”

Downing the shot Barger slammed the empty shot glass on the formica table, and looked at Conway, who said he would pick up the tab and slowly got up and smiled a grin at each of the three men.

“Sonny,” Conway said as a parting shot, “I’ll play a private party at anywhere of your choosing after Labor Day if you boys can work this thing out without trouble. Think about it.”

“I’ll do that,” Barger said as he walked away and out the door, his pose following him quietly, just as they did when they last left Ocean City.

As Conway Twitty and the two undercover policeman sat in the booth together, and the roar of motorcycle engines came to life, they just looked at each other, considering all that they had just consumed.

As the sound of the motorcycles faded away, Bill Bader said, “I’ll write up an AAR – After Action Report and let you guys read and comment on it before I send it in.”

END ACT ONE – Waiting on the Angels – The Long Cool Summer of ’65 Revisited