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Intro The Family Albert Adolph Joe Harry Ernst Gunnar Einor Gösta * * * Email Gösta * * * Leave a Comment * * * Swede's Dock * * * |
Pop came to this country when he turned 18. He told me several times that his father didn't want his sons to have to go into the army (Sweden had a 7 year conscription then) so he sent them to America. When Pop was about ready to go his father turned to Uncle Gunnar (who was then 16) and said "Yew might yust as vell go too." and that's how Pop and Gunnar came to this country. His nickname was "Skomocorin" or something like that which means shoemaker in English. I'm sure it related to his legendary carpentry and mechanical ability. To give you an idea of its breadth, he used to have a skiff with a converted V8 Oldsmobile car engine in it. He was always tinkering with the adjustments to "yust tune er up a liddle." Well it was never too long before it wouldn't start and I would have to go chase down Red Risden, the Channel Drive mechanical wizard. I can still see Red standing up on the bulkhead, lookin down at Pop in the boat and sayin "Ernst, have you been playin' with that timin agin?" "Vell Red, it vas yust a liddle ruff." "You got the goddam distributor on backwards agin. I tole ya to leave the damn thing alone." The funny part of it was that there was a square hole and a round hole on the bottom of the distributor that fit on appropriate pegs on the engine block just to prevent that from happening. Pop had put (forced) the distributor on backwards so many times that both holes and pegs were rounded sort of. Pop would give sort of a sheepish chuckle, Red would fix it and everything would be hunky dory for another week or two before he would start tuning er up all over again. One good story was when Pop had an old fella called Vipsen (his real name was Alfred Carlson) fishing with him on his skiff. They were drifting for bluefish on the other side of the Mud Hole, maybe 20 miles from the Inlet when a hellava thick fog set in. A compass was all he ever had, no electronics of any kind - radar was unheard of for fishing boats in those days and you needed to be an electronic math wizard to read a loran (LOng RAnge Aid to Navigation), even if you had an old war surplus unit. Anyway Vipsen was kind of a worrier and was quite anxious during the steam in. Actually a foggy day at sea, even with radar, is a hellava strain on the nerves, you just don't show it. Well they hit the inlet right between the rocks and Vipsen said to the old man "Guddammit, Ernst, I got to hand it to you. Dat vere vun dandy piece of seamanship!". "Vell Vipsen, it vas pretty good, I got to admit. But no vere near as good as de enyeneers in dis countree." "Oh, how iss dat Ernst?". "Vell eff dis is Manasquan, dey built a bridge ofer de inlet ofernite." They had hit on Shark River, 8 miles above Manasquan. Oh well, Pop could always see the humor in things. The only time I ever saw him actually angry was when the school called to see if I was still sick when I was supposed to be in school. He didn't talk to me for a couple weeks, which actually made me feel pretty sick. Around my sophmore or junior years in high school, it used to be my job to come down to the dock between 10 and 12 at night to pump out the Thunder (properly pronounced Tune'der), a 34' dragger (actually my cousin Jimmy used to call it a leaky lobster pot), so the water wouldn't be too high to start the engine when he and Uncle Einor came down to go whiting fishing at 3 am. Boy did that boat leak. I put her up on the beach one morning coming in from fishing. In high school, sometimes I used to fish with Pop. When the fluke came inshore in late spring he would sometimes take Thunder down off Island Beach State Park to drag at night. You see, it was illegal to use trawl nets inside 3 miles in New Jersey, so you had to fish at night. What he, and all the small inshore draggers would do, is for a few weeks, spend a couple nights and a day dragging for fluke. The system was go out at dark, work till nearly daylight under the beach, then steam offshore outside the limit, fish all day, come back to the beach at dark, fish till morning and then steam home. As you might guess, there wasn't much time for sleep. I could get an hour or so between tows, but pop was on the wheel all the time. Anyway on the way in one morning, he asked me to steer for an hour while he took a snooze. Ok, he went below and laid down in the bunk. You had to stand in the little pilot house (really only a shelter with windows), but ever resourceful, I got a wooden fish box to sit on, closed the windows to keep the chilly early morning breeze off my face, nodded off a couple times, but only for a few seconds. The next thing I knew, Pop had me by the leg, "Vat de ?&%#*## are you doin to me?" I looked up and saw nothing but white water (surf) and sand. Had fallen sound asleep and run 'er right up on the beach and never even woke up. A sea had come up, broke over the stern, washed across the deck, through the pilot house, went below and soaked the old man. The Coast Guard came and pulled us off. Boat was on the railway for a couple weeks and Pop lost the whole season. Don't believe I fished with him for another ten years after that. Pop prided himself on his dancing ability and was quite serious about it. Whenever there was a family get together and there was Swedish music (the Hambo or Schottish), he was the one the ladies wanted to dance with. I can still see him, so serious, yet pleased as punch, to be in the limelight. And if anyone mentioned how good he was, he would get even more serious with each step and beam even more. When it came time to settle up each week, whoever was entitled to share would sit around a table and split the money. The way it was done was to take the cash by each denomination (fives, tens, etc.) and split it up "One for you, one for you and one for me. Two for you, two for you, and two for me." (if it was a three way split) and so on until the cash was gone. I never knew why someone didn't just sit down with a pencil and divide it it on paper, but he just didn't. If I was around, it was my job to figure how many of each denomination would be needed, then go to the bank and cash the check. I later found it wasn't just a family trait because when I fished on an offshore dragger with 3 Norwegians and that's how we settled up there too. In 1944 or 1945 we moved into a big house on River Avenue which was home for my parents for the next 30 years. The landlord, Mr. & Mrs. Johnson lived in a small cottage in the back where Mr Johnson had a couple dozen chickens for fresh eggs and an occasional Sunday dinner. It wasn't unusual for people to have their own chickens in those days along with a small vegetable garden (especially a "victory garden" for the war effort). It was near the end of World War II (now that I think about it, it must have been right after the war ended because I can remember watching the VE & VJ victory parades from our apartment over the Sweet Shop on Arnold Avenue where we lived before River Avenue) and regular mail service overseas had been reestablished. Anyway any kind of fresh food was in short supply all over Europe. For Europeans fresh eggs were only a dim memory from 6 or 7 years before. I remember Ma and Mr. Johnson picking the freshest eggs and carefully packing them, rushing to the Post Office, and air mailing them to her family in Scotland. A major League hit in Larkhall. It wasn't all nice though. The Johnson's son Frank had been killed in the South Pacific. I'll never forget those eggs though, lotsa double yolkers, once in a while a triple and at least once four yolks. Great big bright yellow yolks. Mr Johnson really pampered those chickens. He also had a grape arbor. Every spring he would go down to the docks and get a bushel of bunkers to plant at the base of the grape vines, Boy, would those grapes grow! When they ripened in the fall, we would pick bushels and bushels of purple grapes for Ma to make jelly from, which lasted the whole year. I used to hate that time. It took about three days, peeling, cooking, straining, bottling, waxing, always plenty of drudgery work for a little kid. My Mother (whose maiden name was Hamilton) was born in 1910 in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, Scotland and came here 1927. I think she originally worked as a cook in a private home in Monmouth Beach or Rumson. Things were pretty tough in the world then, The Great Depression and all. Her father was a coal miner and that industry was especially depressed. I think she first went to her Uncle Harry and Aunt Maggie at Garside Street in Newark. I don't know how she ended up coming to the shore. Her parents came to visit right after the war and I recall them as tough wiry little people. I don't know why but that's what sticks. He died of lung cancer I think, which my mother blamed on his pipe smoking which is kind of ironic because she died of lung cancer herself, undoubtedly caused by her cigarette smoking. His working in coal mines for 30 or 40 years probably didn't help any. Everyone has a "Marion and her cigarette ash" story. She didn't inhale directly, just lit a cigarette and held it in her mouth, inhaling the "cold" smoke from the end of the cigarette. The ash would continue to grow until it was as long as the original cigarette. Her mother came back again in '47 or '48 and did die in the River Ave house but I don't know what from. Ma had an older sister, Jesse, who married a fella named Tommy Cadoo, who I think was also from Scotland and had emigrated to Montreal, Canada. They used to come by train and visit for a couple weeks every summer. Uncle Tommy was quite a walker and it wasn't unusual for him to disappear for hours at a time, walking he said, though there were times his gait was a bit unsteady so everyone suspected he probably had a few rest stops. They had a daughter, Helen, and a son Tommy who were quite a bit older than me. Tommy was in the Canadian Army and I think saw action in Europe. I have a vague recollection going to visit in Canada once by train, but I was pretty young, probably 4 or 5. Very nice classy people they were. Aunt Jesse was a very together person, in today's vernacular. Ma had a another sister, Betty, and a brother, Cubby (I think) who never left Scotland and another brother (Harry) who emigrated to Australia. She also had two cousins, Mary Smith and John Dixon, children of her Uncle Harry Dixon and Aunt Margaret in Newark. I believe Uncle Harry was her mother's brother. Aunt Maggie was Irish born as I recall. Uncle Harry worked, a watchman I think, in the Gillette factory in Newark so there was never any shortage of razor blades, which I recall as a quite a local benefit during those times of major shortages of everything during and right after the war. I believe he was a chauffer for a wealthy family at one time, which may have been how my mother got her first job. John talks about a great thrill when his father allowed him to use the car (He had just turned 17 and gotten his license) to pick up Ma when she arrived in New York on the boat from Scotland. When Uncle Harry retired he moved to Atlantic Avenue in Point Pleasant Beach, where Mary still lives. One time Pop's brother Einor set up a bet with somebody ("it's a sure ting Ernst and ve can't lose!!"). The stakes were $20 or have your head shaved. Well, Einor is a stubborn kind of a guy and refuses to pay any money after losing the bet and talks Pop (again) into going along with him to the barber shop. Pop (always the sport) sits in the chair first and gets his head shaved. When Einor's turn comes and Pop's head is looking like a baby's ass, Einor looks at him and says "You know Ernst, I tink I'm yust gonna pay dem fellers." And he did, with a full head of hair. Einor was bad luck for Pop more than once. Another time, Pop met him just by chance at Monmouth Park. Pop only went once a year and when he did it was a kind of holiday. He would take $100 (this was in the early 50's) and make a day of it. Figured if lost it all, it wouldn't kill him and was the price of a good day out. If he won, it was icing on the cake. Most of the time he won a few bucks when he went (he was usually pretty lucky, didn't know anything about horses, just bet on hunches, neat names, etc.). Comes the last race, he's got $400 or $500 dollars in his pocket and is planning on putting everything on the nose of his next hunch. His best day ever!!! That's when he just happened to meet Einor who of course has a hot tip and is putting his last 10 bucks on it. Knows the jockey or some such. He talks Pop away from Pop's horse ("Yeesus Einor, I got a good hunch on dis horse." It was 10 or 12 to 1.) ("Arggh, you don't know notting about horses Ernst. You bedder listen to me, I got a sure ting!!!"). Well I guess I don't havta tell you what happened. Pop wouldn't talk to Einor for over two years. (Pop's horse won and when Einor's finally came in it went to the glue factory or the White Castle supply house, or some such.) Pop had a series of strokes (probably dozens) before he turned 60 but he just shook em off. One time, he even paid Shorty (Bror Sandburg) to go out with him and his skiff partner because Pop knew he wouldn't be able to pull his share, said "his right side wasn't workin so hot." They brought him back in when he fell over and couldn't get up. He recovered and eventually retired. He was Ok for a couple years, but then finally had one that paralyzed his right side that he couldn't shake off. He stayed in a wheelchair for about seven years. Your grandmother had taken such good care of him the undertaker thought he had only been bedridden a few weeks. (to the best of my recollection) on the left.} End of ErnstThe address of this page is: http://www.SwedesDock/family/Ernst.htm You can email the author at NMFS-BITES-BIG-TIME@SwedesDock.com Let me know what you think in the anonymous form below.
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