When we were kids, summer vacation meant Road Trips. My sister Alice and I would pile into the car with our parents and usually our grandmother, Celia, who was originally cursed with the moniker “Alphonsine” (which she promptly chucked into the bushes as soon as she was able). We often motored east to Gloucester to see relatives or west to the Berkshires so see relatives or south to Connecticut to see…well, you get the idea. Motels were not a thing at the time so you overnighted at the visitees’ manse, ate their food, drank their liquor and played with their kids even if they were rotten little brats who threw things.
The ruler of the roost in Gloucester was big Joe Tettoni, who was loud and funny and the bane of my tiny but tough grandmother. Joe knew he wasn’t her favorite guy but every time she walked through the door he gave her a mighty clap on the back and roared, “How ya doin’, Celia?” His victim would pick herself up off the floor and deliver a magnificent zinger which would have the crowd in stitches. And so, the visit was on.
Joe’s quiet wife Mary, who my grandmother referred to as a German war bride, invariably made spaghetti in a gigantic pot, and whether it was complemented with sausage or chicken or the brains of monkeys, it was always the best spaghetti in the world. “Mary was made an honorary Italian for her spaghetti at the last Sons of Italy banquet,” boasted Joe. “She beat out all the real Wops.”
Her abilities in the kitchen were a source of great pride to the demure Mary and she was careful to pass her prized recipes down to her two daughters, who were, alas, never able to duplicate their mother’s unique magic. This seems to happen in kitchens worldwide, whether the long lost creator is Mary Tettoni or Chef Elmo---is it accidental, perhaps just one forgotten critical ingredient or do these prideful cooks intentionally carry their secrets with them to their graves? Despite searching the finest trattorias in 49 states over a lifetime, I have yet to find the equal of that brilliant concoction of the German war bride.
Beachin’
Sometimes, we’d drive to the beach. It was only 25 miles away, but the traffic was ample and the two-lane roads of the era made for slow going, and that didn’t include stopping at every farm stand we saw for home-grown produce. Sooner or later, our hearts would lift at first sight of the Salisbury Beach roller coaster in the distance, and Alice would always shout “I’m going on THAT!” as if we didn’t know it. If Alice knew the roller coaster would go off the rails and fly down into the street, she would get on anyway, she was an addict. I preferred the Dodgems, where you could jump in and look for kids to smash into even though the sign said head-on crashes were illegal. The manager would let you slide unless you had the bad manners to pulverize some four-year-old riding with his mother, at which time your car would be disabled and you would be yelled at and expelled for assault and battery, sometimes for a week.
There was only one place to go for lunch and that was the Tripoli pizza stand, the mecca of thin-crust magnificence. As with Mary’s spaghetti, the Tripoli pizza was impossible to duplicate and their little streetside booth was always overwhelmed while cheaper emporiums nearby were empty. No visit to Salisbury Beach was complete without a sitdown lunch outside the Tripoli shrine listening to the carousel music of the merry-go-round across the street.
Most of the time, we’d even go into the ocean, freezing-ass cold as it was. On a good day, you might get 64-degree water, which my fiftyish father wanted nothing to do with. He was fine with his beach towel, straw hat and transistor radio, purchased only to listen to Red Sox games and thus commiserate with other concerned males on the beach. The Red Sox were omnipresent---strewn out down the strand on everyone’s radio, on the black and white television of every saloon---and a hollered request for a score anywhere in Salisbury would get an instant reply and often a dash or sarcasm.
I particularly liked the penny arcades, where experienced experts showed their mettle at exotic games like Skee-Ball or those claw machines where players used a joystick, attempting to grab prizes like stuffed bears, which amateurs like me never could wrangle. If you had a quarter, you could ask an exotic dummy in a glassed-in booth named Madame Zelda for a brief reading of your future, which was always unduly optimistic. Better to spend your change at a glistening pinball machine where you could pile up the points if you were good and play for an hour. I knew a kid named Jimmie Hennessey who could beat the hell out of those machines without getting a tilt and once won his mother a big stuffed octopus. I hate to admit it but I was jealous of his talents and aspired to be a pinball wrestler when I grew up. Later, I professed as much on my college application forms just in case there were any closet arcade lovers in the Dean of Admissions office. Guess what? I was accepted everywhere I applied. You never know.
While we pursued our plebeian pleasures, of course, we had no idea that Las Vegas, Nevada was waking from its sleep, wrestling with the sheets, putting on the coffeepot and sitting down at the table to plan big doin’s. Danged if we didn’t miss all the fun.
The Big Boom; Nuclear Tourism Arrives
Las Vegas has long been the home of the bizarre and the land of the outrageous. Things happen there that don’t dare occur anywhere else, sometimes even to you, and when they do you’re encouraged never to tell about it. An anonymous gambler took that advice to heart in 2003 when he hit the jackpot at the Excalibur Hotel & Casino, winning $39.7 million on his first spin at a progressive jackpot slot machine. The win got the man a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records and has yet to be topped. There are endless stories in Sin City of unlikely candidates making a fortune overnight at the Vegas gambling tables and as many of luckless characters losing tens of thousands. Not surprisingly, Las Vegas is the suicide capital of the United States and perhaps the home of the nation’s only Suicide Cleanup Service; “Our compassionate and trained staff are available 24/7 to provide a safe and discreet cleanup service. Call us anytime for support.”
People get married in Vegas, lots of them, over 70,000 a year. You can get married at a wedding chapel, at the Mob Museum, inside the Pinball Hall of Fame, on a gondola at the Venetian Hotel or at the Taco Bell Cantina by Elvis, Frank Sinatra, the Fonz, a Vegas showgirl, Darth Vader or a bonafide local minister. There’s even an underwater ceremony at the Shark Reef Aquarium for mermaids and their catches.
Many people flock to Las Vegas for the entertainment, which is unrivaled anywhere. From the Rat Pack to Liberace to Elvis to Cirque du Soleil to the Blue Man Group and now, ultimately, to the Puppetry of the Penis, which features two naked men who contort their bodies into impossible shapes, including one mimicking a sailboat. There’s the Zombie Dance Burlesque, Popovich’s Comedy Pet Theater and the Atomic Saloon at the Palazzo, but nothing nowadays can equal the Pride of the 1950s---the nuclear detonations in the nearby Nevada desert clearly visible from Las Vegas. Or as one New York Times writer put it, “The non-ancient but nonetheless honorable pastime of atom bomb watching.” Soon after the fireworks began, Vegas was transformed from a town of 25,000 people to a world-renowned playground of hundreds of thousands.
People went gaga for Yucca Flats, epicenter of the Nevada wasteland and Target Zero. Vegas tourist hotspots held Dawn Bomb Parties, where guests would drink and sing until the flash of the bomb lit up the night sky. One fellow writing for the State Department Bulletin described the fun: “You put on your dark goggles, turn your head and wait for the signal. BANG!---the bomb is dropped. You wait for the prescribed time, then turn your head and look. A fantastically bright cloud is climbing upward like a huge umbrella. You brace yourself against the shock wave that follows an atomic explosion. A heat wave comes first, then the shock, strong enough to knock an unprepared man down. Then, after what seems like hours, the manmade sunburst fades away. Time to hit the bar for a stiff one.”
For twelve years, an average of one bomb every three weeks was detonated…a total of 235 bombs. Flashes from the explosions were so powerful they could be seen from as far away as Montana, so you can imagine what it was like up close and personal. Scientists claimed that the radiation’s harmful effects dissipated and were harmless once the shock waves reached Vegas but they nonetheless scheduled tests to coincide with weather patterns that blew fallout away from the city. As the tests continued, however, people in northeastern Nevada and southern Utah began complaining that their pets and livestock were suffering from beta particle burns and other ailments. Beginning in 1963, the Limited Test Ban was in effect, barring above-ground nuclear testing at the site. “Turn out the lights,” said the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, mournfully, “the party’s over.” But they were wrong. It was just getting started. Wayne Newton showed up.
That’s all, folks….
