Ninth Street
and Central Avenue was like Grand Central station in downtown Ocean City when
Petula Clark's “Downtown” song was a hit on the charts in the summer of '65.
There was a take-out only hot dog and ice cream
stand on the Southwest corner, the Galley Sub shop across the street, the Greek
joint popular with the hippies and the Chatterbox, which was Ground Zero of the
teenage social scene.
The Chatterbox soda fountain and grill had been
there for some thirty years and had a storied history even then, still run by
the same family and was pretty much the same in '65 as it was when it opened in
the 1930's, not like it is today. Before they remodeled it - around 1969, the
“Box” had a big stainless steel and Formica soda fountain that ran along the
west wall, similar but bigger than the one at Ready's Coffee shop on
8th street that's still there.
There was a juke box, a dime a song, three for a
quarter, and maroon and white vinyl seat and Formica booths against the other
walls, booths that were moved to the Varsity Inn when it relocated from the
14th Street boardwalk to 8th Street at the same time they renovated
the Chatterbox.
The Chatterbox, where both of the mayor's
daughters worked, was famous for its celebrity alumni, as a number of former
employees went on to fame and fortune, including Grace Kelly – Princess Grace
of Monaco, popular TV commentator Chris Mathews, and Pittsburgh history
professor Donald Goldstein, bestselling author of Pearl Harbor books including
“At Dawn We Slept.” Both Goldstein in the fifties, and Mathews, in the sixties,
flipped burgers on the Chatterbox grill when they were still in college, with
Mathews also working at Watsons and nights as a singing waiter at Your Father's
Mustache bar in Somers Point.
Even after she became a famous movie star and then a
princess, Grace Kelly always came back to Ocean City every Labor Day weekend to
be with her family. Sometime while she was in town she would bring her kids to
the Chatterbox for lunch and an ice cream float, play the juke box and
fraternize with the waitresses like she was just another shoebee.
This year however, word on Ninth Street was that
Grace Kelly's husband, his royal highness the Prince of Monaco, would accompany
her, and bring all of the international rigmarole that came with him. It would
not be a normal Labor Day with the Prince in town and the Barbarians on the
way.
In the Summer of '65 most of the high school and
college kids who worked as waiters, waitresses, short order cooks, pizza makers
and retail clerks either lived with their parents, in a group rental house or
apartment, or in one of the cheap hotel rooms at the Biscayne, the Strand with
its large wraparound porch, or the Lincoln, next door to the Chatterbox.
The five story wood clapboard Lincoln Hotel was
pretty quiet most of the year, its conference room a comfortable and secluded
enough for the members of the private, members only Riverboat Club to meet at
noon for lunch each weekday.
While Ocean City was technically and officially a
dry town, its blue laws forbidding the sale of liquor, there were some private
clubs like the VFW, American Legion, Elks, there was even a black Elks club on
the West Side, and the Riverboat Club, a loose confederation of local Ocean
City businessmen who enjoyed having a drink of beer or wine with their lunch.
So they met every weekday afternoon at noon and had food catered over from the
Chatterbox or Watsons, and ordered a shipment of beer, wine and booze that was
delivered in a white van from DiOrio's Circle Cafe in Somers Point. Three trips
daily, one in the morning, one at noon and another at six, the Lincoln Hotel
was the first stop.
There wasn't a problem in the spring and fall but
after late May, when the college kids hit town, they occupied all of the
2nd floor rooms around the Riverboat's conference room and they drank beer
by the case and kegs on weekends, and blocked the halls with their bicycles,
surfboards and skateboards, and on the whole, provided a stark contrast to the
straight, suit and tie businessmen of the Riverboat Club.
The College Kids formed their own clique and called
themselves the “River Rats” to mock the RiverBoaters, but they all tried to get
along.
Both camps enjoyed drinking however, and the college
kids were surprised but happy to learn from the Riverboaters that they didn't
have to drive over the causeway to the Point to buy more beer, but could just
pick up the phone and call Joe at DiOrios and get on the shipment list for one
of the three deliveries of the day.
Eventually the Riverboat Clubers would get tired of
the College Kids and their silly antics and move into more permanent quarters
in the big old rooming house on the southwest corner of 8th and Wesley,
where it is today.
But in the summer of '65 the Riverboat Club was
still meeting at the Lincoln Hotel, and putting up with the college kids. The
ranks of the Riverboat Club included the Mayor, Bob Harbough of Bob's Grill,
Roger Monroe the bookstore owner and Michael Rozet, who owned a hip cheese shop
that was wedged between the Chatterbox and the Lincoln Hotel. Rozet was
friends, and later business partners with Bill Hamilton, an Ocean City high
school teacher who also owned the Rock Box record shop on Asbury Avenue, and
coached soccer and taught a summer school literature class.
Harry Anglemeyer was a member of the Riverboat Club,
until he was murdered, and the other members of the club tried to keep up with
the latest developments in the case, but after awhile, they stopped talking
about it.
On this particular mid-week afternoon in late July
1965, as the Riverboat Club met for lunch at the conference room of the Lincoln
Hotel, surrounded by a motley crew of River Rat college kids, most of the
Chatterbox waitresses piled into a couple of cars to go to the Seaview Country
Club on the mainland for a surprise 18th birthday party for the eldest of
the mayor's daughters.
The mayor had learned, from Elwood Kirkman that John
B. Kelly had a special Sweet Sixteen birthday party for his daughter Grace in the
Rainbow Room at the Seaview so he arranged for a similar party for his daughter
Kate, a move he would come to regret.
The exact circumstances are a bit blurry today, but
from what can be pieced together from those who were there, a dozen or so
teenage girls had lunch in the Rainbow Room, played some popular 45 rpm records
on a little square record player and were dancing among themselves when they
heard, from a busboy cleaning the tables, that the Rolling Stones were guests
at the hotel. In fact, it was Mick Jagger's birthday too! And at that very
moment Keith Richards was throwing a birthday party for Mick downstairs in the
basement Game Room.
Katie was led downstairs by the bus boy, and
introduced herself to Mick and told him it was her birthday too, and asked him
if he would come up and meet the girls at her party upstairs.
When Duncan, who drove some of the girls to the
party, checked in the Rainbow Room, he found a group of giggling girls standing
around Mick Jagger.
“Is that Mick Jagger?” he asked a passing waiter.
“Yes, sir it is,” came the reply, and Duncan rolled
his eyes and walked over to the lobby bar and ordered a rare shot of whiskey
and sat down.
It later came out – you couldn't keep such a thing
secret, it later came out that Mick invited the girls downstairs to his party,
and so as not to cause suspicion, one by one the girls meandered down the steps
to the game room where they played pinball and pool, drank beer and smoked
cigarettes and pot with the Rolling Stones.
The mayor's daughters thought that was the greatest
thing after a Bay Shores rainy day matinee, and knew they were going to be
grounded for the rest of the summer, but were quite surprised at their father's
reaction.
They were in the other room and could hear him
talking with Mister Kirkman, yelling at Kirkman - “How could you let my
daughters, and the daughters of my best friends drink and smoke pot with the
Rolling Stones!?”
They couldn't hear Kirkman's excuse or what he said,
but in the end, in no uncertain terms, could either of them leave the house on
Labor Day weekend. The party they had planned was off, and they couldn't leave
the house.
And they knew why. It wasn't because they partied
with the Rolling Stones at the Seaview, it was because the Barbarians were
coming, and the mayor didn't want them out on the streets when the bikers were
raping and pillaging the town.
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