Dear friends,

My name is Lou Ferreri. This June I am taking a trip to the Catskill Mountains. Except for a brief visit, I have not been there for 30 years. I am posting this note as a request for information. The length of what follows reflects 20 years of summers in the mountains. I have been thinking about this trip for several years.

Like so many others who visit this site, my time growing up each summer in Monticello or Fallsburg or Ellenville or Loch Sheldrake shaped a large part of who I have become. I spent 20 consecutive summers in Catskill bungalow colonies and hotels. From bungalow colony days to bus boy days to waiter in hotels and clubs, it was a great life. Most of us who were there marvel at our good fortune. For Dotty and Joe Ferreri, my parents, for Helen and Nat Goldknopf, Yale and Flo Weisblatt, Sol and Pauline Shwartz, Phoebe and Charlie Locke, Charlie and Paula Cohen, and all the other adults my parents spent their days with, the Catskill Mountains were paradise.

They were the parents of all of us kids who grew up sharing in the endless summers paradise offered. I'm 55 now and I often think back and refer to those days. I tell my daughter, now 11, stories about the mountains. I often wish I could offer her summers in paradise.

This June I will take one week to navigate my way down some old roads looking for signs of history long gone. I am aware that most of what I'd like to see is gone. No matter. I mostly want to find old places, walk the ground, feel the air, kick some stones, and be there. What I'd like to do is wake up one morning, after a terrific night sleep on the front porch of our bungalow, walk into a rainy morning, and head up the road looking for salamanders.

O.K. so maybe I'll have to settle for less. Whatever I find, wherever I find it,  will be good enough.

Reader, I'm looking for information. I'd like to know what remains and what doesn't. I'd like to know what happened to certain people. Any bits of information will help me to plan my trip. What follows are names of places or roads or people. I will be grateful for even the smallest response. I'm looking for clues to get me from one place to the next. I have received information from the Chambers of Commerce from Ulster and Sullivan County but they donıt offer history. The Catskill Institute site and its link to the Slatkin's Bungalow colony site, has already been very helpful.

Some of the dates that follow might not be entirely accurate, but it's the best I can do.  

It all began at:

1. Gus Lux Bungalow Colony. My first years were spent at a place called Lux's. It was owed by a man named Gus Lux. Other then the time I fell off of a picnic table I remember little more then my parent's (Joe and Dotty Ferreri) and my grandmother"s (Jeane Kutcher) fondness for being there with friends and the Lux family. I have 2, 16-millimeter films. But they offer little more then pictures of me and a group of children along side a short wall at the edge of what seems to be a lake. Other children appear briefly, but I have no idea who they are. There is a man in the film, a friend of my parents, whose name I think was Sammy Diamond. I think it was in Greenfield Park but I'm not sure. Can someone tell me where exactly was Lux's bungalow colony? (Maybe 1946-1949)
2. Steinıs Bungalow Colony. Many of us remember those places we learned to swim or play ball. For me it was at Steins. I remember it as a simple place, two long rows of bungalows with a narrow road/path centered between the two. A small lake was to the left as you entered the bungalow colony.
I have a great black and white photo of myself, Allen Goldknopf, Joey Cooper, and other kids standing, with arms up, at the volley ball court. Helen Goldknopf tells me Steins was located "2-5 miles outside of Monticello". Anyone know anything about Steins? (Maybe 1950-1952)
3. Leo Schnieders Maple Crest on the Lake is a place I remember well. Drive out of Ellenville to the old Briggs Highway road. Shoot a right up the hill and keep going till you come to Orenshines and the waterfall, (human made I believe), take a left at the fork in the road and continue a mile or two or three until you get to  Leo Schnieder's on the right side of the road. There you can stop at the small store and pick up a 12-oz bottle of Mission soda. There was a song we kids used to sing, it was about all the dadıs fishing and playing poker, it ended with the line, "sits Yale, Sol and Joe." I remember nothing else about the song except that Iıve hummed it to myself countless times over the past 40 plus years. I think it was written by Charlie Locke. Anyone know what happened to a kid named Kenny Bloomer. He taught us another song that I've never forgotten and that I still sing with my daughter. It goes, LMN, LMN, LMN Diego Sendiego Ichkis Pichkis hit him in the Kichkis, Hocus Pocus Chiminy Ochus, Oh Yeah! Repeat while skipping down the road. There was also a song having to do with Gramma's Lysoap. Wish I could remember more. Pardon my excesses here but I figure if I carry the memory, others do too. Also there was Mike Locke, Gary Weisblatt, Howie and Irene Schwartz, David Taylor, others, are any of you out there? I know where to find Maple Crest but Iıd like to know what it has become. (Maybe 1952-1955)
4. Sporthaven Bungalow Colony was next. We spent 2 or 3 summers there. I remember Steve, and I think, Ellen, the children of the owners. (Name was Applebaum or Adelblum? Sp? I think.) Steve used to dissect frogs and other living things on old boards. Movie night by the pool was the greatest. The pool was emptied at mid-summer for cleaning. For some reason I remember little else other then it was another few summers in paradise and the dads always went fishing on weekends getting up at 5 AM. I also remember a bad day when a bunch of us kids went down the road to an abandoned hotel. We were very destructive. Some people from across the road from the hotel reported us to the local police who showed up at Sporthaven. All of the parents of all of the kids who were in on it had to come up with money to pay for losses. It was a dark day in the summer of many of us. Joey Cooper, where are you? Exactly where was Sporthaven? Could someone give me directions to whatever might be left of it? I have no memory of where it was. (Maybe 1956-1957)
5. Local 805. We spent one summer at Local 805 bungalow colony. I got my first job,  pumping coke at the nearby drive-in theater. There was a steep hill bordering the front side of the bungalow colony. Every night we played on that hill climbing up and rolling down until dark.  Local 805 was the home of my first summer big time "crush". I pumped Cokes at the local drive-in movie theater. The ice cream truck came every day. We learned to love creamsicles. I recently contacted Union Local 805 in NY. Turns out the bungalow colony was located in Wurtsboro. It still existed up until a few years ago when it was sold. The people at the Union didnıt know what the buyers did with it or if it still exists. They also didnıt know where it was in Wurtsboro. Does anyone know? Does it still exist in any form?  (Maybe 1958)
6. Slatkins. Then there was Slatkins. Slatkins was a fantastic place to live through summers. I owe much of the inspiration to make this trip to the Catskill Web Site and also to the Slatkin's link to the site. Slatkins was big, with lots of kids, perpetual hanging out at the casino, or on the hill or at the lane or in the valley and it was all so cool because there were always so many options. I created my first masterpiece, a mural sized painting of two knights on horses with long spears charging at each other. It was for color wars, and possibly some of the most deliciously competitive times in my life. Howie and Irene? Ellen? Where are you? (Maybe 1959-1962)
7. The Irvington Hotel Bungalow Colony. I'll be visiting whatever has become of the Irvington in South Fallsburg. My last summer as a kid was spent at the Irvington Hotel  and Bungalow Colony. I worked a job cooking burgers (Myron?) and building ice crème sundaes in the hotel coffee shop. Coffee ice cream, crushed fruit, pineapple, whipped cream, nuts, the jukebox played, and all was good with the world. Nights were different. I worked the club nights. I was 16. I got a chance to meet the comedians who bombed and dropped by for after hour drinks, I met the strippers who hung out and left late. (I was propositioned once. It scared me to death. When I jokingly told the women behind the bar, who I believe was from town, that maybe I should have taken the stripper up on the offer, she smacked me hard across the face and said, "Shame on you". (Maybe 1963)
8. Linden House Bungalow Colony. Kerhonkson. By the time we went to Linden House I was old enough and out on my own. I made periodic visits to Linden house to see my parents and my brother Eric (Ricky in those days). We listened to Sargent Pepperıs Lonely Hearts Club Band on the speakers my father placed outside the bungalow, turned it up loud, and barbecued. The slot machine was hidden in the old telephone booth. Nickels disappeared like water through fingers.  Otherwise I worked tables for the next three years at the Evans Hotel in Loch Sheldrake. I do not remember where in Kerhonkson Linden House was. Anyone? (Maybe 1964)
9. Evans Loch Sheldrake Three incredible summers. Too many stories to relate here. Jack Evans, and the Grandmother and Dora, and the cast of dinning room characters, and Harry, both Harrys, who were always miserable about one thing or another but most of all about their preceding night at the track. Bus boys worked hard and had a great time. Food hidden under the servers in the dinning hall. Great meals after dark, sitting around the table, it was a feast every night. The time we all got sick from the chopped liver served to us in the kitchen, and the time Jack Evans fell and broke his arm because he slipped on the wet boards (we had warned them about this over and over) in the basement under the dinning hall where we all slept. And the salad guy with the meat cleaver, and Grandma in the bread room. Grandma, it was Randy who sabotaged the loaf of bread you put through the bread slicer. It really wasnıt me. Harry, it was mostly Steve, he was the stunt king, really, you should have let us back for another summer. Where did all the monkey dishes in the world go? Someone please tell me what ever became of the great Jimmy Holmes, the best club singer to ever walk the Catskill Mountains. (OK Lovelace Watkins was really good too, but pound for pound no one could touch Jimmy Holmes.) Steve, I wonder if we might catch a cold Colt 45 at the bar in Loch Sheldrake and then a Barbecue sandwich at ?.  My 4th year working the hotels brought me to the Windsor Hotel. Anyone out there from the hotel days? (Maybe 1964, 65, 66, 67?)
 
10. Fitzcarelli's Farm. (Sp?)  Periodically a group of families would pile into cars, and head to a place called Fitzcarelli's Farm to eat on Saturdays or Sundays. A large dinning hall with big servings of salad and of pasta and olive oil fried chicken that tasted like nothing Iıve had since. They kept bringing food, all you could eat and we ate plenty. Big tables of friends and family singing Volare aloud, the entire dinning hall so festive and full. I have no idea where this was. I'm not even sure that it was a farm. I got in the car and like most kids, went for the ride. Anyone else ever been there? I can't even offer a year or years. Early 60ıs I think. Anything at all?

 If you have read this far and you know anything about any of the names or places mentioned above I would love hearing from you. I'm leaving for the mountains around June 9th.  Any information or memories?  If I don't learn more then I already know I'll make due and follow my memory to wherever the road goes. There's a quote, it applies here, "Wherever you go, there you are".

 Thanks for listening and maybe I'll see you there.

 Lou Ferreri in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Louzoo@uswest.net
posted 4/18/01

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