Belvedere Club memories: Kate Orr Tomkinson – Back to Book 3
 
An earliest memory is a story from my dad when he was little.  My grandparents in 511 were having a cocktail party in I am guessing the early 1930’s.  It was a rainy night and my grandparents had sent a boat to Canada to get the liquor for the party. 
 
Slightly before the party was to start there was a loud knock at the door of 511.  My grandfather looked out and saw a person outside that closely resembled said an agent of Volstead Act, aka prohibition.  Ganny and Pop Orr immediately dispatched my dad (Jimmy Orr) to take the case of liquor and throw it into the channel.  The 8 year old was quick to react and with diligence heaved it out into the channel.  To my grandparents dismay, the caller/knocker was an invited guest who threw off his hat and said “surprise” but didn’t know then he had just ruined the party.  My grandparents did not hesitate to plead with my father to dive for the booze.  Needless to say it is still at the bottom of the channel!!
 
 
As kids growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, a favorite pastime was:
1.       Placing pennies on the track for the train to flatten
2.       Playing kick the can at the beach till the curfew rang, with a favorite hiding place being on the roof of the kiddie koop.
3.       Waterskiing from the ski dock just past the pier
4.       Hating sailing but going anyway and having a huge storm turn over our boat and being rescued by the Coast Guard - then still hating sailing.
5.       Having Ginger and Chris Payne hang bad gangsters from their belt from a tree next to 511
6.       Janet Kuhn and Sunny Ware lose gangsters to kidnappers from the Belvedere
            (Jim McDonald and ?? accomplice) so fun for the gangsters!!
7.  Watching the Alexander boys get their mouths washed out with soap for cussing on a daily                             basis.
 
Special memories for me were listening to Uncle Bud Alexander yell “boom boom” after every Venetian firework.
 
Driving my Grandmother’s 1948 Oldsmobile to the grocery store where the current Goodwill store is on the north side of town.  As the bell begun to ring for the bridge going up I decided I could easily make it.  Well I did but not without the bar landing on the top of the car and getting air with a car that should NOT BE GETTING AIR as the bridge separates!
 
Probably not politically correct to remember but making sure Nat’s car was washed for his Thursday’s and Sunday’s off.