by Phil Rowe
In the late 1940's I was hired on as a combination apprentice candymaker and general worker at the KarmelKorn shop on the boardwalk at the Weirs, New Hampshire.
It was a summer job for me and the owners too. For it was only during the summers that my boss worked at all. From about Memorial Day through Labor Day the business had to make it all from the tourist trade at the lakeside resort.
During those few hectic months, we were open for business seven days a week from 10:00 A.M. through midnight. The hours were long, the work at times grueling, and the rewards worth it (for my boss at least). If things slowed down in the afternoons, I took a couple of hours off to grab a nap, down in the storeroom atop the sacks of popcorn, or take a swim break.
My boss had two homes in central New Hampshire, plus a winter one in Florida. And he managed to drive brand new Packards every year. Packards were then America's premier luxury cars. My boss did all right.
The KarmelKorn shop was on a boardwalk pier which extended out over the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee at the Weirs, a lakeside resort just 100 miles north of Boston.
There was a ballroom at the end of the pier (complete with mirrored ball turning overhead) which featured some of the big bands of the day. There was a Penny Arcade with dozens of pinball machines and numerous gift shops too.
The Weirs was once a so-called "in place" to go in the summers. Trainloads of tourists flocked there from Boston, New York and other cities in the northeastern U.S.. The railroad tracks ran right along the boardwalk, so passengers didn't have far at all to go on arrival.
There were several hotels, cabin colonies (precursors of today's motels) and family run inns, as well as bed-and-breakfast places.
Up the hill from the railroad station was a huge complex of wooden buildings owned by the American Legion. Hundreds of legionnaires visited there over the course of a summer.
The big attraction was the lake, its beaches, tour boats and summertime waterfront activities. But people, especially the under-30 crowd, came to dance and listen to the sounds of the famous big bands that played in area ballrooms. Other folks just liked getting away from the oppressive heat of their big cities for a week or two at the lake.
My job at the KarmelKorn shop was diverse. I worked as a candy maker's apprentice, expected to learn the making and selling a variety of fine candies. But I did a whole lot more to earn that twenty-five cents an hour, plus all I could eat. What I did the most was pop popcorn, but we'll get to that part later.
KarmelKorn shops were franchises that varied in size from wagon-sized outlets to deluxe full-line candy shops, like ours. Our store sold more than the carmelized popcorn, from which it derived its name.
We made lots of taffy, called salt water taffy, though I sure don't know why on that fresh water inland lake, several deluxe fudges, caramels, fancy roasted nuts and even plain buttered popcorn. We also had a grill that served light meals, usually hotdogs, hamburgers or sandwiches.
Besides employing students like me, my boss also hired school teachers. There were two counter sales ladies that had worked in the store for several years, mid-June to Labor Day. There were a dozen people who worked at the store, some as part-timers and eight full-timers.
Because our shop was just up the boardwalk from the big ballroom at the end of the pier, we counted on dance crowds for evening sales. There were, however, lots of other folks just strolling along the boardwalk to cool off in the moonlight.
During the day many of our customers were passengers from both a large excursion vessel, the Mount Washington, and big noisy Chris-Craft speedboats from the dock below the dance hall.
My boss was a showman, as well as a canny businessman. He astutely placed the taffey pulling machine right in one window to draw curious onlookers. A big pedestal fan strategically placed blew aromas of hot popcorn and freshly made candy across the boardwalk, drawing customers like flies to the spider's web.
Our principal product was popcorn, both the carameled corn and the plain. We sold tons of it each summer, no exaggeration. I know because I not only popped it, I also hauled a boxcar-load of 100 pound bags of unpopped corn from the nearby railroad siding to our basement storage area. And then I'd bring it up to the main floor, a bag at a time, for popping.
The poppers were shiny stainless steel machines, with horizontal axis rotating drums turned over gas flames. Each drum was about two feet in diameter and perhaps thirty inches long. They would accept a quart-sized scoop of corn per load and yield a bushel basket of hot popped corn. The culls (old maids) were sifted away over course screens to assure no customer bit into a potentially tooth-breaking kernel that didn't pop fully.
There were two of those hot machines turning all day long. I became quite adept at keeping them going full speed, each spewing out its popped load every five minutes or so.
If the two machines completed the popping cycles at the same time, it was a pretty hectic time for the me. If the popped corn wasn't promptly dumped there was risk of a fire. Dry popped corn will burn briskly if you aren't alert.
As you may have guessed I was guilty of letting things get out of hand once or twice. It is no fun having to quickly scrub clean a firey hot popper and get it back into service, with the boss glowering at you.
Two-thirds of the corn went into the making of KarmelKorn. The remainder was sold simply as hot buttered popcorn. Both sold as fast as we could make it. They were sold in boxes, the smallest holding a quart or so and the big ones about three quarts.
Sometimes I could get ahead of the demand for popped corn. When that happened, I'd place the surplus into shiny, well-cleaned 35-gallon trash cans. We'd use that only for the KarmelKorn, with freshly popped corn for plain buttered. That's because mixing the caramelized sugar and flavorings onto the older corn would heat it up again. There was never any corn left in those cans at the end of the day.
While I actually learned quite a bit about making several kinds of candy, my primary job was popcorn popper and general helper. I also hauled supplies to the grill, mixed various syrups and toppings for icecream sundaes, serviced the soft drink soda fountain dispensers, replenished the bottled drink supply, and cleaned up all sorts of spills and messes.
After two summers, I learned quite a bit about the business and became a friend of the boss and his wife. They knew how to work exceedingly hard in the short summer months, they also enjoyed the " good life " in the off-seasons. They were well traveled and broadly knowledgeable people.
One of the things I enjoyed, after a long day's work, was to go with them for a drive in their luxurious Packard. Sometimes we would head for another resort known to have a late night restaurant. We'd have a snack and sit around talking, sometimes until 3:00 A.M.. Then they'd bring me home, before heading back to their cottage behind the Weirs boardwalk. It was on trips like those that I got to know my boss and his wife pretty well.
They hinted once or twice that I might be groomed to run the business for them in a few years. While that was a boost to my ego, it could have led to disappointment, for the Weirs has rapidly gone down hill and is no longer the attractive tourist spot that it once was. In fact, I doubt that the KarmelKorn place could have survived. It's not there today.
Today, the Weirs is drab and run down, barely a shadow of its heyday vitality. Gone is the ballroom at the end of the pier, now a video arcade. No more will the big bands entrance the couples under that revolving mirrored ball. The shops that remain are strictly fast food places with no charm at all.
Even the big bowling alley, with the small balls and candlepins, that was once a major tourist attraction is closed down. Its adjacent Half Moon Restaurant is long gone too.
It's interesting how things work out. I never would have guessed how it would later change so. I thought that The Weirs would always go on as it was, and throngs of tourists would continue to arrive each summer. It's fortunate that I didn't get seriously involved or committed to a career in the popcorn and candy business.