My father, Stan Mirvis, aka Pop, circa 1940-ish at Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey

When I was a kid, we had an old family photo that we cherished: My father by a lake with a top-hat and no shirt, a shit-eating grin, gripping a tennis ball, with a poison ivy rash on his side, looking exactly like Harpo Marx. A decade or two ago, Rebecca took the print to be reproduced. Now we all have copies of it, and it holds a place of honor in our homes. It is a wonderful way to honor and remember a truly kind, funny, smart, good man … and great father. He died of cancer in 1979 just after his 63^rd birthday. That was 44 years ago. 25 or 30 of you reading this blog remember him. I feel happy every time I see this picture.

On Thursday, we left Vermont, headed for our wintertime adventure. On Friday, we arrived in Chester, NJ, where we spent the weekend with Jim and Julie Duffy, some of our very best friends. Chester, NJ is about 20 minutes south of Lake Hopatcong, the site of the photograph. For a few weeks, Duffy and I had been talking about what to do during our visit. Could we find the exact spot of the photo?

We’d be near the lake for a whole weekend. How many structures like the one in the picture could there be? We prepared to spend the weekend location hunting, searching for the exact site of the best father photo of all time!

Here is the story of the photo. After high school and before WWII, Pop had three best friends, Wally, Seymour, and Artie. The four of them worked in Manhattan. In the summer, they rented a cottage at Lake Hopatcong. They hopped on the train as soon as work ended on Friday and returned late Sunday or early Monday. The four of them stayed best friends their entire lives. Their wives became best friends. I loved them all immensely. Wally became an organizational consultant; Seymour a studio photographer; Artie a high school principal; and my dad, a textile wholesaler.

I carry a memory of the four of them in my pocket, where it has been since Pop died. He always carried two silver dollars in his pants pocket. They were so old that they were worn clean of any signs of having been silver dollars. They were just silver discs. 

The four best friends all went off to WWII at about the same time. One of their fathers (I don’t know which one) gave them each a silver dollar when they left for Europe with the request that they all return them when they came home. Miraculously, they all came home. When they went to return the silver dollars, instead of accepting them, the father gave them each a second one. As far as I know, the four friends carried those coins the rest of their lives.

When Pop died in 1979, those two coins became mine. I cherished them. But one night, my car was broken into, and the coins vanished. Oh, how I cried at their loss. I put a Liberty half dollar in my pocket that day, and I still carry it. Like Pop’s, the signs of it having been currency are long gone, but it is one of my most loved possessions.

This weekend, I hope to bask in the love and camaraderie of those four amazing men as I search for the site of the photo. Stick with me. I’ll let you know what I find.

Chapter 2

It’s early Saturday morning. My heart is pounding with excitement. There is a good reason why Jim Duffy is such a best friend. He’s done his homework. He printed lit from the website of the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum. He found a ton of leads. I’ve left messages with the museum. Sadly, they are closed for renovations until March. The search has begun. After breakfast, we hit the road.

Lake Hopatcong, I learned, had been a NYC playground until zoning changes in 1950 shifted its trajectory. It had competing amusement parks, vaudeville halls, and some of the best performers from New York. The train ran from Manhattan to either the Mount Arlington station or the Lake Hopatcong station, and from there, trolleys carried the weekend frolickers to the various villages. There was no need for a car or much money. Everything four young shenanigan-prone men could have wanted was at their fingertips. They were pups at play!

I couldn’t wait to unravel the mystery.

Chapter 3

Well, that seemed easy! We drove the 20 minutes from Duffy’s house in Chester to the southern end of Lake Hopatcong. Duffy grew up just north of there, so he had stories of the lake, like the old Chris Craft speedboat that his uncle owned and kept at a marina on the lake. Jim recognized the marina where Uncle Tom had moored the boat. About five minutes after starting our drive along the lake, we saw a sign for Nolan’s Point. We had read about it on the website as being one of the centers of summertime activity. It was home to one of the two amusement parks on the lake. The other was the River Styx Cove.

We followed the road to the point and pulled into the parking lot of the Windlass Restaurant. It was right on the water and looked old and classic enough that I suspected it might have some good pictures on the wall. I was right. The place was filled with hundreds of postcards, paintings, and assorted memorabilia from a past age of glory.

Ann Marie, the restaurant’s hostess, asked if we had a reservation. “No,” I replied. “We just wanted to look around the place,” and I showed her the picture of my father. 

“That’s the old boardwalk,” she said. “It was right there,” as she pointed out a window. “It was torn down years ago, but that is where your father was standing.”

First stop. First conversation. Paydirt!!!! It seemed too good to believe… and probably was. We took photos, proudly showed the picture to patrons at the restaurant, then drove around the lake marveling at how vibrant it must have been in its heyday. While it is the largest lake in New Jersey, we also marveled at how tiny it is compared to Lake Champlain. We noted the density of the houses and cabins along the shore, and we imagined how thick the boat traffic must be on a pretty summer weekend. We also observed how murky the water appeared and the signs warning swimmers of algae blooms, and we questioned how so much septic effluent could possibly be managed.

Ann Marie was a gem. She showed us pictures, told stories, and introduced us, in absentia, to Marty Kane, the resident historian and founder of the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum. At the time, I had called and emailed Marty, but we had not yet made contact. Marty is the local repository of knowledge. He takes visitors on historical cruises of the lake. This summer, Duffy will be stuck with us again when we come down to meet Marty, tour the museum, and cruise the lake.

All in all, a day very, very well spent!

Chapter 4

We slept soundly Saturday night knowing that we had been successful in our quest to find the site. On Sunday morning, that bubble sprang a leak! I awoke to an email from Marty Kane, the local historian. It read, “There simply is nothing distinctive in the photo. As you have probably learned in your visit there are some 2,200 homes on the lake, and there were formerly two amusement parks, some 40 hotels, and a host of marinas and other businesses. The wooden structure is simply not recognizable, and there is no clear view of the shoreline. Best guess is possibly River Styx Cove or Van Every Cove based on the distance to the other shore.”

A quick glance at the photo made Marty’s comment obvious. The shoreline across the lake in the photo is way too close to have been at Nolan’s point. Fortunately for us, we had driven around the Styx River Cove. The cove is narrow, so the opposing shoreline was a lot closer; in the 1930s, the area abounded with cabins, social activities and entertainment; and it was home to the second amusement park on the lake. In addition, it is a hop and skip from the Lake Hopatcong train station, maybe five minutes by trolley, much closer than the Mount Arlington station that would have served Nolan’s point.

At this point, I am voting for Styx River Cove. My father’s love of music and performance and socializing would have made that corner of the lake a perfect destination. Alas, we will probably never know, but communing with my father along the shores of Lake Hopatcong is a perfect beginning to this road-trip adventure. Thank you, Ann Marie. Thank you, Marty. Thank you, Jim and Julie. You’ve brought a smile to every cell in my body.

A gallery of Lake Hopatcong in its prime, thanks to the Windlass Restaurant….