NJ Ave.

NJ ave. had railroad tracks running down the middle of it when we lived there. They still had passenger service in to the center of Wildwood. Those old steam engines used to put out a whole lot of smoke. Sometimes you could get yourself covered with black soot if the fire wasn't burning right in the engine.

I was fascinated by them and the railroad workers were always friendly and talked to us kids. I asked for an electric train for Christmas so I could have my own train. I had that train for years and kept adding to it each Christmas.

I never wanted to be an engineer like a lot of the other boys, I wanted a ranch like Roy Rogers. Aunt Mary's father was a real cowboy from the west. When he was young, he rounded up cattle and all of that and I thought he was a special person, above everyone else.