August 1971, Atlantic City, New Jersey

By Dave Hollander

I wanted to impress Mrs. Hoffman. It was the first day of school. When she assigned our 2nd grade class to write a paragraph on “What I Did On My Summer Vacation,” I had a doozie.

This was the summer of 1971 – the end of summer, to be exact. Sleep-away camp was over for my two older bothers. My little sister and I were finished with day camp. Like the summers before, my parents seized that glorious week of free time – not quite the end of summer and just before the back-to-school frenzy – to go away as a family. That summer we went to Atlantic City.

When you’re 7 years old, wearing a Speedy Gonzales iron-on T-shirt that you just won at the boardwalk your first hour there, life doesn’t get any better. I loved that shirt. And I loved our Howard Johnson’s hotel where we stayed. “Just 1 Block from the Boardwalk,” a sign read in the lobby.

But it was time to go to sleep. So I did. The seashells, the Ferris wheel, the saltwater taffy – I’d see it all again tomorrow. Sweet dreams.

At 3 a.m. my father was startled by a feint but persistent noise outside in the hallway. My mother urged him to call the front desk. The man at the desk said, “Sir, there’s nothing to worry about.” My father remained alarmed.

Our Howard Johnson’s was a U-shaped building with the interior walls of the hotel enclosed around a courtyard and pool area. My father thrust open the sliding glass door of our room to see outside from the terrace. A man in an upper-floor room across the courtyard yelled to my father, “Get out of there. There’s a fire in the room right above you!”

My father called down to the front desk again. The man at the desk said, “Sir, there’s nothing to worry about.”

My father opened the door of our room and looked out in the hallway. I pushed my head out the door from beside him. I saw what my father saw. Firemen covered in black ash had swarmed our hallway. The one with an axe in his hand told us to use the fire exits. Now.

My father didn’t call down to the desk this time. He carried me and my mother carried my sister. My brothers followed closely. Joe, my oldest brother, just 13, reminded us: “In school, they tell us, no matter what, to stay calm.”

We followed the exodus of guests – some wearing fur coats, some lugging fully-packed suitcases – moving down the stairs to the fire exit out of the building. We didn’t pack anything. “Who brings a fur coat to Atlantic City in the summer?” my mother asked. Joe repeated to us every 30 seconds: “In school, they tell us to stay calm.”

At the bottom of the stairs there was a surprise for us. The exit door was locked. Slight panic set in. Joe was the only one who knew what to do: “Everyone, remember, in school they tell us to stay calm.” Everyone did. We reversed course, found an open door to the lobby, and streamed out into the parking lot across the street.

Free from danger, the crowd began to watch the fire, the smoke, and the action. The air of panic changed to a spirit of community, like at a ballgame. People joked and traded stories. I stood wide-eyed, absorbing every wondrous moment.

The highlight of that early morning came when we all bore witness to a singular act of one firefighter’s remarkable stamina. A woman trapped in her room several stories high was forced to exit through the window and down a ladder. She was a very, very large woman. The only way the fireman could balance the damsel’s unwieldy girth was by positioning himself directly under her, pushing his hands firmly into her massive buttocks to support her weight while maintaining their precarious balance.

The crowd watched the spectacle intently, cheering progressively louder for each rung they descended, nine floors all the way down to the ground. When they reached bottom, the stalwart fireman raised his fist in triumph. We roared with applause. The grateful woman bear-hugged her hero and planted a comic book kiss on his cheek. We howled with laughter.

Fortunately, at the end of it all, nobody got hurt and nobody lost their fur coats.

My Dad wrapped me in his light blue windbreaker. I was only wearing my pajama bottoms and the Speedy Gonzales T-shirt. If I was cold, I hadn’t noticed. Night turned to morning and we were allowed to go back in the hotel to get our things. My father checked us out and the man at the desk handed my father a bill which included a charge for the night of the fire. My father looked at the desk man the way he looked at us when we had done something wrong and he knew that we knew that he knew. In response to my father’s questioning of the charge, the man at the desk removed it with an apology: “Sir, there’s nothing to worry about.”

What I now realize was an extremely dangerous August night I saw then as a whole world of excitement that no Hollywood summer blockbuster could’ve imagined for me. That summer, there were no fireworks or water slides. No Little League tournaments won or teenage love won and lost. But when you’re 7 years old, and you’ve just spent the night escaping an Atlantic City hotel fire with brave firemen, fur coats and a kissing fat lady, and you’re wearing your new favorite Speedy Gonzales iron-on T-shirt, you think life just can’t get any better.

Dave Hollander is the author of a book of interviews and memoirs, “52 WEEKS: Interviews with Champions!” (The Lyons Press). He writes for several prominent magazines and can be read at www.DaveHollander.com.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, October 26th, 2006 | Email This Post

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