The Captain's was always a highlight of our Atlantic City vacation.

The visit was usually reserved until the last full night and I can still remember the flounder I had my first trip.

The Steel Pier along with its Deep Sea Diver Bell, Diving Horses, comedy divers, first run movies and name entertainers was the first full day must.

I remember seeing Gary Cooper's High Noon then after the movie Pat Boone came out to sing Ain't That A Shame and Lucille but to my fine tuned R&R ear they were poor imitations of Fats Domino's and Little Richard's versions.

A daily highlight was eating at a cafeteria where I was allowed to pick my meal and the only admonishment was one I heard later in life at Great Lakes NTC, "Take all you want but eat all you take."

It was always a day of adventure from the rental bicycle Boardwalk ride to being allowed to eat salt water taffy just before bedtime at the Saint James Hotel.

On another note, I love those swinging doors on Kuehnle's Hotel Bar.

Kuehnle’s hotel was the hub of Republican politics in Atlantic City and the place where important political decisions were made.

I remember Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Avenue as being the two main streets in the Atlantic City of the 1950's.

Pacific Avenue had small buses called jitneys that held about 12 people. They ran practically bumper to bumper so they were very handy. The fare was 10 cents unless you wanted to go past the end of the line to Hackney's Seafood Restaurant (10 cents extra) or Captain Starnes Restaurant (15 cents extra.) The last I heard, the jitneys are still in service.

My main memory of Atlantic Avenue was going to the movies on a rainy summer vacation day in 1957 and seeing William Holden in "The Bridge on the River Kwai."

...all produced in the nearby farms of the Garden State. They were brought in daily by horse-cart, as well as grain, garden truck, milk, pork, firewood, even barrel staves!

New Jersey was called the "Garden State" because it was the backyard vegetable garden, chicken coop, pig sty, timber patch and cow pasture for New York City, Philadelphia, and the sandy shore resort-towns. As Benjamin Franklin, a man who knew it well, said, New Jersey is like "a beer barrel, tapped at both ends, with all the live beer running into Philadelphia and New York." (It was also the brewer, hard cider as well as beer.)

All those McMansions presently in New Jersey, and their accompanying highways? They were all built on those former tomato fields, potato fields, corn fields, fruit orchards and cow pastures, after the Second World War and the Interstate Highway Act. Most developments have one lone farmhouse standing by the access road, often with large chicken coops still standing behind them, the palimpsest of New Jersey's agricultural heritage.

If transportation costs ever get so high that it's no longer worth it to truck in vegetables from California and Mexico, and not sensible to drive to work from 5000-square-foot houses 100 miles from the place of employment, New Jersey will turn its residential zoning back into farmland. There's going to be a lot of money waiting for someone who develops a way to remove toxic chemicals and metals from poisoned reclaimed farmland.

Yes - New Jersey born, New Jersey bred, New Jersey proud! That's me!

Genealogical and memorial history of the state of New Jersey, 1910.

Louis Kuehnle was born January 6, 1827, at Hacmusheim, in the principality of Baden, Germany, and died August 7, 1885, at Egg Harbor, New Jersey. In his native country he received the training requisite for a first class chef, and came to America in 1849, obtaining employment at some of the leading hotels and restaurants of the country. While in Washington, D. C., he had the honor of presiding as chef at the hotel where President Buchanan boarded. In 1858 he opened the New York Hotel at Egg Harbor, being connected with same until his death. January 9, 1875, he purchased and opened Kuehnle's Hotel, at Atlantic City, New Jersey, placing same under the management of his son, Louis K. He was held in high esteem by his fellow citizens at Egg Harbor, who several times elected him to the office of mayor; he was also a member of the city council and the school board. He married, in 1852, Katherine Werdrann, of Germany, and they had three sons— George, Louis and Henry.