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North Fair Haven circa 1955 If you were a young boy in the mid 1950’s and spent much of your summertime at the North End of Fair Haven, a universe of things to do was open to you. When summer arrived, maybe the attraction of The Cisco Kid or Gabby Hayes on the round-screened fairly new Zenith television in the giant blonde cabinet was no longer as strong as the lure of the outdoors. Promotional photo of Renaldo and Diablo, KTTS TV, Springfield, MO; Wikipedia ---PAGE BREAK--- Gabby Hayes, imdb.com You could walk to the State Park to go swimming rather than worry about getting a ride or the $.50 per car entrance and parking fee. If it was too early in the season for the lifeguards to be on duty, around Memorial Day, you might head for the warmest water in the area, the Park Pond. You would walk in front of the stone crusher behind the tent site area and wade into the silty-bottomed water. You could say you took your first summer “swim” as you came out of the brownish muddy water with leeches sucking blood from between your toes and fingers. Cold or warm air temperatures made little difference when you needed to celebrate the unofficial beginning of summer. Later, while waiting for Lake Ontario to warm up, you might head to Fair Haven Bay to swim. You might go to the front of the Bay View Hotel, now owned by Jack Beal, to dive off the docks, or climb onto Harvey Brown’s old commercial fishing boat for a dip. That boat had been abandoned one day by Harvey years before, when he had retired from commercial fishing. He had brought the front end of the boat out of the water but the back end stuck out about ten feet into the bay. You might jump out of the back end of that boat into the bay. The boat also made a great spot for fishing. When the lifeguards went on duty in the State Park for the summer, you could walk to the end of Lake Street Extension and into the Park, passing the Concession Stand on the hill and running eastward down the curved stone staircase to the beach or channel. If you had learned how to swim, the channel was the place to hang out--with the big boys. You would probably do cannon balls off ---PAGE BREAK--- the diving boards to try to get the lifeguards wet. You might jump off one of the high boards, closer to the channel bridge, to show your prowess in getting the bridge or even the pedestrians wet. Unfortunately, the high boards were less springy so were less fun after a short time. The Bay View Hotel in its Heyday. It was built around 1908. ---PAGE BREAK--- The Bay View Hotel in the 1960’s before it was demolished by a controlled burn. You might have worked up an appetite with all that swimming. Besides, you might be able to smell the hotdogs cooking and hear the hamburgers sizzling on the iron grates atop the stone fireplaces. Picnickers made their fires in those fireplaces. They had been made out of sandstone rocks by the CCC in the mid-1930’s. Pokers were attached to the fireplaces with chains. Probably, though, you had no money. It was time to go to work. You might look for abandoned Nehi, Coke, Pepsi and root beer bottles by searching through the red screened trash baskets. At two cents per returnable bottle, at least you could buy big a big stick pretzel if you turned in one soda pop bottle at the Concession Stand. A treasure trove of five bottles might buy a long-lasting Sugar Daddy. It was not easy to collect enough bottles to buy a hotdog at the Park, the item that had smelled so good as it hissed on the fireplace grate, filling the air with the smell of hot grease and making your tummy rumble. ---PAGE BREAK--- Fair Haven Beach State Park Channel Diver is in the air (center of photo) Perhaps it was time to leave the Park. If you had some change, maybe you would stop at Elmer McIntyre’s Stand instead of the Park’s Concession Stand. There you could buy Birch Beer in a brown bottle; by covering carefully covering up the word “Birch,” with your hand, you could imagine that you were drinking “real” beer out of that brown bottle. If you were lucky enough to have more change, you could buy a hotdog at “Mac’s.” Elmer might be the server or it might be his son, George; perhaps Belle Mahaney might wait on you. Prices were cheaper there than at the Park’s stand. Instead, you might buy a candy bar or two if you could. Mac’s was a dark green building with white trim. It had shutters with hinges that flipped up and latched from the inside. It was located not far from the Park on the bay side of Lake Street Extension. You might instead walk further south and stop at Shirley Crane’s “2-aisle” store with a meat counter in back. Of course, you might have been sent by your mother to this store many times for milk, bread, meat or other groceries. You may have bought candy bars or blow-up beach balls there in your past. ---PAGE BREAK--- Advertisement for Nehi softdrinks, late 1940’s or early 1950’s During the evenings the long daylight hours might bring fishing expeditions, baseball games, shooting baskets or a rousing game of hide-and-go-seek with the gang. But that’s a story for another time.