Cape May Diaries
18 -The Doctor is in
The Physick Estate became a regular stop during our visits to Cape May.
One year, we actually got to talk to the good doctor, or rather the actor that played him.
A small man with broad shoulders approached us on the law, stuck out his hand and introduced himself as the doctor.
His real name, we learned later, was Joseph Kane. He was not native to Cape May.
“I was born in South River, but lived near in Plainfield," he said.
Up until graduation from high school, Kane thought he would become a priest.
"I was interviewed, I took the test and I passed. But when I'm scheduled to go off to the seminary my father took ill. I couldn't see myself leaving home with my mother dealing with six or seven kids and her husband in the hospital, not knowing if he was going to come out,” he said. "I thought about it. I prayed on it. I went to the pastor and told him I would have to put it off. At least I couldn't do it now."
But once he delayed the act, he could not go back.
He was a musician and started an orchestra -- which lasted for about 35 years, performing weddings, bar mitzvahs, bowling banquets and the like. He became a member of the musicians union, Plainfield Local, local 746, and a member of the American Federation of Musicians.
"I still have my card," he said.
But the musical world ruined him for priesthood.
"When you get out into the world, there were all kinds of temptations," he said. "So my life went on, and I never went back to the concept of becoming a priest."
Kane, however, did not make his living in music. Instead, he worked a variety of jobs, some which he realized later might have endangered his health – such as the place that made things brake linings and theater curtains out of asbestos.
"It was a terrible place to work with all that asbestos dust," he said "Today they make it a crime of even being anywhere near it.”
At one point, he went into the rest room for a cigarette where the boss caught him, and fired him.
"I said: `Thank you. I was just debating what the hell am I doing in here breathing all this stuff.' So it worked out very nicely,” Kane recalled.
During World War Two, Kane had the rare distinction of becoming a production manager for Cornel-Dubilier Electric Corp. “This was a company that made electronic capacitors. I had a department of 300 girls. I was twenty-three years old," Kane said.
From the face he made in describing this job, Kane indicated that this position posed as much a challenge to his hormones as his gig with the band. But he also said he got some other, more practical experiences from the job.
"The lady that was our manager of employee office took me under her wing," he said. "She mothered me. She was incredible to me. She did everything in the world.
"She said: `Ben, you know what, we're going to have you start a newspaper. We're going to call it `Current Doings at Cornel-Dubilier' and you're going to be the editor.'
"I said: `What do I know about these things?'
"She said: `What you don’t know they’ll teach you. So I'm going to sign you up in Rutgers, and you'll go, and I'll sign you up for a course in Industrial Journalism.'
To help him get even more experience in dealing with people, this woman took Kane to various meetings of management staff.
"She was involved with management," Kane said. "And I was introduced to a lot of people in a lot of plants in the area and other editors. I won out."
Of course, after the war, Kane moved on. He came across a man in his home town who owned an appliance store.
"His father had built the business. His father had just died," Kane said. “The son needed to generate more income.”
The appliance store owner's mother was from the Chevrolet family, a sister to the Chevy brothers who made automobiles.
"A wonderful background and a great family," Kane said. "We spent about ten years and it was fun. When I joined, the year after our volume doubled, doubled the next year, and then doubled the third year in a row.”
After that Kane went into the home improvement business with his brother-in-law.
“It was fascinating because you're talking to people who have a dream, and you're going to tell them give them something that they expect is going to satisfy that dream, but it can't. Because there is no way in this world that I can come in and satisfy a dream that you have. But you try and get close to it,” he said.
He moved to the West Coast, came back, then he moved to Cape May – supposedly to retire.
“I couldn't sit and do nothing,” he said. “So I heard they were looking for folks here, I came here, was accepted. They give us great training, every spring, initially when we first come, six or eight hours during the evening per week for a couple of months. We read literature about what we have to talk about. Now you know about it. I can't stop talking and the time is going. It takes 45 minutes to lead a group through the cottage, and you're only in the second room and ten minutes are gone. So you learn to do like the Realtor, does, this is the kitchen yaddy, yaddy yaddy. I’ve been doing this for ten years.”
Kane, who would turn 85 in the Spring, said he performs his role from May to October.
“My doctor told me `if you quit MAC don't bother coming back to me,’” Kane said. “This is therapy, we’re not aware of it. But it is. Here I have the joy of talking with you. You accept me. It makes me feel good, and I'm enjoying be with you. Isn't that what it's all about it.”