Last Call: The ‘Friday on My Mind’ Housemates Look Back Ahead of Reunion
Bon Jovi and Jennifer Nettles asked the question back in 2009, “Who says you can’t go home?” On Thursday, Aug. 12, we’ll find out for sure here on the Seven Mile Beach. At 4pm that day, a group of friends who summered together in a legendary group house in Avalon from 1975 through 1983 will be getting back together in town for what might be termed “Last Call” for the Friday on My Mind House. They are coming from as far as Texas and Florida and as close as 12th Street.
The summer of 1975. It was a much different time. There were no cellphones, no Uber – heck, the only jitneys were still in Atlantic City. The Vietnam War had finally ended. The Flyers had just captured their second consecutive Stanley Cup. The movie “Jaws,” which would become the first true blockbuster, was booked for the summer at Hunt’s Ocean Theatre in Wildwood. FM radio was still fledgling, so transistor radios were tuned to WMID-AM, where The Eagles’ “Best of My Love” and Jefferson Starship’s “Miracles” got the most summer plays. Oh, and a guy named Bruce Springsteen released an album called “Born to Run.”
In Avalon, there was a robust nightlife in part because New Jersey had lowered the legal drinking age to 18 several summers earlier. There were lots of choices for entertainment and adult beverages: The Bongo Room. The Rock Room. The Banjo Room. The Little P. The Whitebrier. The Rock ’n Chair. The Concord’s Fife and Drum Lounge. The Golden Inn. The Windrift. Everyone had their favorites.
There were some legendary shore houses on the Seven Mile Beach in the 1970s. Dill’s Pier in Stone Harbor was one. The Oar House was another in Avalon. But no one did it better or bigger than the guys in Friday on My Mind.
Bruce Brown picks up the story from here.
“I had just gotten out of the service and these guys had a house in Ocean City and asked me if I’d like to join in,” he recalls. “I said that I would like to, but not in [the dry town of] Ocean City – too much driving to get to Somers Point, too dangerous. We needed a place where we could park our cars and walk. First we looked at Sea Isle, but in my opinion we were too old for Sea Isle City. Then we looked at Avalon. It was perfect! You could walk everywhere.”
So, the friends, primarily from Delaware County in Pennsylvania, settled on a place on 27th Street between First Avenue and Dune Drive. It became the home for about 10 guys a summer. Some of the names changed from summer to summer, but the total remained constant, and their mission was clear: “Work hard … play hard … and no one gets hurt.”
The house had the essentials for a group of 20-something guys: a color television and a Beer Meister. “We parked our cars on Friday,” Brown says, “and we walked everywhere. No driving during the weekend.”
Priorities. While beer was delivered to the house every Wednesday, no one on a recent Zoom call could remember any such scheduled food deliveries. There’s something else that did not exist in 1975 – Zoom.
They had their weekends down to a science. “During the day we were at Jack’s [Place], especially when it rained. Jack poured.” Afternoon frozen drinks at The Whitebrier on the beach, “Maybe dinner there, too, with the all-you-can-eat prime rib buffet.” Then on to the Princeton. “Tony [Matalucci] just waved us in. No cover, he knew he’d make it up on our bar tab. The older guys went to the P – the younger guys went straight to the back bar in the Rock Room. We loved [the band] Egdon Heath.”
After last call, a young Avalon police officer named Steve Sykes, who would later become chief of police, would meet them on the street in front of The Princeton and point them home. But first, a stop at The Sandpiper on Dune Drive, Avalon’s version of a late-night diner that opened for business at 10pm and was open until lunch – no, there was no Wawa. “And then quietly down 27th Street. We had a rule – no one could make any noise because Bernie the Baker needed to sleep so that he could make the donuts at Kohler’s.”
And then they’d do it all over again the next day.
Bernie Bischoff, who owned Kohler’s in 1975, still has fond memories of the Friday on My Mind guys. “They were really a very nice bunch of guys. Very well-behaved on our street,” he remembers. “And when they threw one of their big parties, we’d have to wheel the rolls down on a cart or two – that’s how many rolls they went through. We’d just cover them and walk them down the street.”
Well-behaved, friendly, courteous are all adjectives used to describe the house and its occupants by those who remember them. That especially pertains to their landlord, who still owns the home, and their next-door neighbors, who still live in the same house.
“We were friendly to everyone,” they say on their Zoom call. “We never had trouble among ourselves or with anyone in town. We certainly never intimidated anyone – we just had fun.”
And there was one house rule that never changed over all the years, according to Brown: “No drugs. Period. And keep in mind this was the ’70s! There was alcohol, which was legal for 18-year-olds at that time. But no drugs in the house.”
“Of course, I remember them,” says Greg Meredith, a legend himself at The Princeton. “They were great guys – one of them [Bob McGee] drove a Corvette and his license plate was VOH20. I guess you know what he drank. They were really good guys – they’d go back to see Tommy Hines and Joe Foley at the back bar every night.”
Can’t let a mention of Bob McGee (aka Boba Lou) go by without mentioning how he somehow convinced platinum recording artists Shirley and the Shirelles to come back to the house for a beer after performing at The Bongo Room late one night. So, the ladies ended up doing one more set – this one on 27th Street … in the living room! It could only happen at The Friday On My Mind House.
Wiffle Ball tournaments, volleyball and horseshoes in their backyard and parties that were legendary … “Everyone was there,” they remember. “Bartenders, waitresses, police, state police, lifeguards, the bands from all of the bars – one party, even the mayor showed up and had a wonderful time.”
Says Sykes: “At least once a summer that had a huge party – everyone in town was there.” His memories of the house are the same as their neighbors’ on 27th Street.
“They were good guys,” he says, “we [the police] never had any issues with them. They reminded me of the guys from the television show ‘Cheers’ – just really good guys who had fun.” And Sykes confirmed that the group “walked everywhere in their matching shirts. They parked their cars on Friday and the cars stayed there until they went home.”
Like all good things though, Friday on My Mind also came to an end – probably around the summer of 1983. “It got old. We got older,” they offer.
Everyone went their separate ways – lives, marriages, and some very successful business careers. And over the four-plus decades, they never lost touch. Weddings, and sadly, a few too many funerals. When it is suggested that this might be “Last Call” for the group, Brown responds with a chuckle, “Didn’t think of it that way, but we’re all getting up in age, so, yeah, I guess maybe it will be.”
Don’t shed any tears for this crew. They have nothing but amazing memories of their summers in Avalon. And for at least one day, Aug. 12, at The Princeton, they’ll relive those lazy, crazy days of the summer of their youth. They’re hoping to see all of their old friends there. And we’ll no doubt find out for sure if you can really go home again.
“It’s funny,” Brown adds. “Back in the day, we used to say, ‘Hide your wives and daughters, the boys are back in town.’ Now I guess it’s ‘Watch out for the grandmothers.’ ”