Thoughts, Memories & Ravings of Big Daddy Graham: Long Live Sea Isle Laundry

I was raised in a classic one-bathroom row home in Southwest Philly. Although as a kid I didn’t get every baseball glove, board game or T-shirt that I asked for, I must say I never particularly wanted for anything. Or at least I didn’t notice if there were kids on my street who appeared to have more than I had. That’s one of the great aspects of growing up in a community like I did: Everyone was pretty much in the same financial boat. (Be it a rowboat with one oar.)

I only bring this all up because I grew up without so many material items that we take for granted today. Stuff that my daughters couldn’t dream of being raised without.

We never had a car. Or a dishwasher. Or a garbage disposal. I never had my own room. No air-conditioning. No automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator. We used those stupid silver metal ice trays that you broke your back on, attempting to pry loose one stinkin’ cube. But who noticed?

Two other items we lacked? A washer and a dryer. Without coming off like I’m old enough to have lived through the Great Depression (which I ain’t!), I actually do remember my mom washing clothes with a washboard.

Then they opened up a laundromat right across the street from us and life changed for my mom immediately. People use a laundromat so rarely today that I believe a little description is in order. Laundromats were self-serve, coin-operated “stores” where you could do your wash, and when ours opened on Elmwood Avenue you would have thought my poor mother just hit the lottery. She could now wash and dry my brother’s and sister’s filthy play clothes in literally about one-fifth of the time.

We would load up our shirts and undies in these big baskets and walk them across the street. Which, by the way, was a common sight around the neighborhood during those years. When was the last time you saw anyone doing that?

Well, I can tell you when it was for me, because it was actually me carrying the clothes. It was right here in Sea Isle. It was the summer of ’77 and my boys and I rented this rancher right on the corner of 51st and Landis directly across the street from a diner called the Sea-Dale, where La Fontana sits today.

But more important was the fact that Sea Isle Laundry was on the other side of the street, and unlike today where virtually every house and condo on the island has a washer and dryer, we most certainly did not. Nor did too many rentals on the island back then.

And I was in town for the entire season. Sunday through Sunday. Memorial Day to Labor Day. Not because I had a summer job, because I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t have a gig anywhere on the planet. I had finagled yet another summer in which I somehow had worked up in the city just long enough in the winter and spring to collect unemployment for the summer. They were marvelous times, just bumming around, and it was always “5 o’clock somewhere,” if you get my drift.

And Sea Isle Laundry? Not only did it permit me to occasionally wear some clean cutoff denim shorts, I actually liked hanging in there. What the heck, I was accustomed to hanging in laundromats already. I know many people who find the thought of them to be disgusting, but I do not. Besides, when I was using the Sea Isle Laundry in the ’70s, they were a great place to meet chicks. I ended up dating a woman for a year I met in that laundromat. I think we broke up when one of us ran out of quarters and the coin machine was broken.

Well, here’s the amazing part of this story that some of you reading might not be aware of. It’s still open. Right at 5013 Landis. Three-hundred sixty-four days a year (it’s closed on Christmas Day), 24 hours a day. In fact, one of the first stops I make when I do my first bike ride of the summer is to the laundromat to see if it’s still open. And I always feel good that it is. Like all is right in the world.

It’s been open since 1963, when it was originally owned by a gentleman named John Mazurie. 1963. That’s 56 years ago! Then Superstorm Sandy wiped it out in 2012 and in the middle of that mess Vince Morrison acquired it (because it was right next door to his law practice), and Vince still owns it today. Or his son, Matt, a Marine vet who did a tour in Iraq, owns it. I think it all depends on who cleans it more often, and Vince (like all parents) claims that title is his.

Vince tells me that it doesn’t do much business anymore, but he just doesn’t have the heart to shut it down. People who rent and own condos with the tiny washers and dryers will occasionally use it to clean a bigger item like a comforter, as will the “somewhere out on Route 9” people from the campgrounds. Polar Bear Weekend and the Christmas holidays are his “busiest” times.

Drunks who lived in Townsends Inlet who were attempting to stumble home from the bars would occasionally end up falling asleep in there, and Vince would serve as their wake-up call. Vandalism would also be a problem, but all this stopped when the jitneys came into being. Now no one casually walks by there anymore.

If you want a true nostalgic feeling, free of charge, you should ride your bike to it. If you grew up with them, you will immediately either say to yourself, “Thank God I don’t have to use these anymore,” or you’ll get a warm nostalgic feeling like I do. It’s like stepping into a time machine. The Smithsonian has already requested the entire joint.

What the heck, bring along a couple of smelly hoodies and do a small load.