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Robert Lane: The Voice of Paragon Park

By Cindy Beth Bittker

One of the privileges of publishing this website is hearing from people all over the country, (the world, actually) who have such warm feelings and fond memories about the time they spent in Hull -- some many decades ago -- that they still enjoy re-connecting with our little town via the internet and take the time to e-mail me with stories and memories of their summers in Hull.

My most recent contact came from 84 year old Robert Lane, who in 1941, at seventeen years of age, was known as the "Voice of Paragon Park."

"During the 30's and early 40's my Mother and I would travel to Nantasket Beach to live with my Aunt and family for the summer at their beach house on Fairmount Way, (on Sagamore Hill.) I got a job at Paragon Park as their disk jockey to play the music for the Park and surrounding region. I was known and "The Voice of Paragon." Pretty great job for a kid. Great Days, great memories!"

"My job was to keep a steady flow of music blaring all over Paragon Park on their rather big sound system. I think there we something like over a dozen speakers scattered around the park and some on Nantasket Ave that sent loud music to the street and the beach."

"I had a little booth up on the balcony of the ballroom over the Palm Garden Grill. My bosses, the Stones gave me a rather free hand in what I played as long as it was loud. But I do remember that they wanted Kate Smith's "God Bless America" to start the day and to end the day's. I would also give ad type announcements that would tout something in the Park such as the Palm Garden Grill. It was a fun job for a kid and certainly not hard work."

"My male cousins Bert and Dick Maccabe, worked at a Bingo parlor down on Nantasket Ave. at the same time. One of the fond memories I have of that circa was boating in the bay over by World's End. My cousins and I had a boat that we enjoyed on the waters of the bay on both sides of Sagamore Hill. I often dreamed of owning property on World's End someday as it was a lovely piece of land. It was only inhabited by live stock at the time. Rarely did we see a farmer that would chase us off the land."

All of Roberts family lived on Sagamore Hill. "The first house was owned by my Uncle Herbert Maccabe and my Aunt Margaret Maccabe on Fairmount Way. It was the second house down from Roosevelt Ave. on the east side of Fairmount. The second was a house on Hillside Road, the second from the corner of Fairmount Way which belonged to my Uncle Jack Dennison. The third was a house on Roosevelt Ave belonging to my mother Julie Lane. It was the second house on the south side of Roosevelt Ave. which might now be the third or fourth as at the time a big empty lot was between them. (Now 26 Roosevelt Ave.)

This was an early photo of me taken August 1936 when I was just three months shy of my twelfth birthday, standing on the shoreline rocks at the south end of Nantasket beach with the roller coaster of Paragon Park in the background. It must have been on a Sunday as my usual dress for the "Rocks" was just a pair of swimming trunks. We spent a lot of time at the rocks fishing. Perch was the most prevalent catch. The family never seemed to tire of eating the catch, but did of the cleaning, for that job always fell to the kids!

"I just had the job that one summer (1941), then after graduating from Wellesley High School in 1942 I went off to the war as a Aviation Cadet, Flight Instructor and then a P-51 pilot. After the war I went to school and became an Aeronautical Engineer and spent my whole working career in aircraft design. Even worked on the Concorde and got a chance to live in Paris France!"

Now I'm retired and enjoying life and travel with my wife, Mary. We live in Vista, California, a little city about 40 miles to the north of San Diego. My last visit to Nantasket Beach was in 2002 where I was showing my wife the three properties I was involved with as a kid."

"When I visited Nantasket Beach in 2002 I found that one of the early landmarks had been torn down. That was the Apollo Theater where we spent many of an afternoon at the movies especially if the weather was poor. It was either the movies or the Fun House at Paragon Park where the slides were great! There seemed to be a lot of changes at Anastos Corner like that and the old US Post Office across the street was gone."

Thank you to Robert for sharing his memories of Paragon Park almost 70 years ago!

 

 

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