Young Assistant to Community Legend, Rudy Eyes Quiet Days, Fly-Rod Crafting

RIO GRANDE – Gary Rudy remembers May 1, 1960. On that day, the young Pittsburgh-area native, and newly-named assistant manager of the now-closed Murphy’s 5 & 10 at Wildwood and Pacific avenues, Wildwood met the manager, who wondered aloud why the company persisted in sending him such young assistants.
Since that tenuous introduction to Cape May County and its people, Rudy has woven himself into the fabric of the community. He continued and finally became manager of the Wildwood store, which he fondly remembered as having counters, able to be filled from a center aisle, and wooden floors, a lunch counter “That served the best hamburger and shakes,” and employed some 60-75, whose children and grandchildren still remember him from that store.
It was there he met Bea, his bride-to-be, who worked for Murphy’s for 33 years.
In 1977, when MurphyMart opened in Court House, Rudy was its first manager. That store, part of the mall that included A&P Supermarket, Smith’s Family Bootery, and a laundromat, is the present location of T.J. Maxx.
“There were about 175 employees at peak time,” he recalled in an Oct. 21 interview. “Each of them had problems and two of them were mine,” he said.
“I still see people every day who say, ‘I worked for you, it was my first job,’” he said, a statement what makes him feel his age.
The Rudys married, and lived in North Wildwood for two years. Then, they relocated to the bustling community of Marlyn Manor, the community behind the present Herald building on Route 47, Rio Grande.
From that dwelling, the Rudys decided they would build a log cabin in Shannon Oaks, which has been their homestead for the past 33 years.
At the time of its erection, Rudy said some Shannon Oaks residents opposed them, in the belief that such a humble, log home had no place in that community. “They felt that a log cabin belonged in the Poconos, not in Rio Grande. But once it was built, there were a lot who agreed it was an asset,” he said.
That log cabin was built by Leonard and Ruth Verity in the daytime, and then by the Rudys burning the midnight oil.
“Bea and I would work at Murphy’s. We’d come home and Len would have a list of stuff for us to do that night,” said Rudy. “He was the professional, but we put a lot in ourselves.”
Herald Publisher Art Hall first became acquainted with Rudy when he would call weekly for MurphyMart’s advertisement for the next week’s edition.
“Art would come in and sit down, and we’d talk. One day, I said I was sick and tired of this, the 175 employees, and someone 400 miles away telling me how to turn the key. I just didn’t like it anymore,” he recalled.
“One day, Art said, ‘How’d you like to sell advertising?’ I said I never sold one, but I’ll give it a try,” he added. With that decision, Rudy retired with 25 years’ service to Murphy’s.
Thus, the next chapter of Rudy’s life, as well as that of the Cape May County Herald’s was about to begin. The year was 1983.
Rudy recalls the first “real” office the Herald rented was a yellow house at the foot of the Veterans’ Memorial Bridge in Schellenger Landing. “It was so small, in order for me to go to the bathroom, (Editor) Joe Zelnik had to get up from his desk and move around. He had to wait, and it always ticked him off,” laughed Rudy.
From there, the Herald office relocated to North Main Street, Court House, and later to the site of the former Green Turtle Restaurant, at the site of the present Herald Building, 1508 Route 47, Rio Grande.
Rudy, at the time a captain in the Rio Grande Fire Department, recalled the night of July 24, 1988 when his parents were visiting, and he turned off the radio which alerted firefighters to calls.
“It was hot, and we had the windows open, so I figured if the (fire) whistle went off, I could hear it. It went off at 3:31 a.m., and I ran down to the fire house, put my coat on and said to the driver, ‘Where are we going?’ He said, ‘We’re going to your office; it’s fully involved.’ My heart was pumping pretty hard that day. That fire was on Sunday (July 24) and on Wednesday (July 27) we put out a 100-page paper,” he said. The fire was determined to be arson, and led to the restaurant-turned-publishing office being demolished and the present Herald Building constructed.
In that interim, the newspaper staff was disbursed to various locations. The business office was temporarily relocated to General Manager Rudy’s garage in Shannon Oaks. Other offices in LeRic Plaza were rented for the editorial and composing departments. The newspaper was printed elsewhere, thus no presses were involved in the fire.
“We were like that for six months. We operated out of the strip mall, my Bronco and garage,” Rudy said.
Rudy retired from the Herald after 19 years, many of them as general manager.
Recalling when the newspaper first entered the computer age, Rudy said it purchased six Apple computers at $10,000 each. One of those tan, tower-like computers remains in the Herald building, a relic of the past.
Always active in the Independent Free Papers of America (IFPA), an organization made up of free newspapers in the U.S. and Canada, Rudy had served as its hotel liaison setting up conferences, arranging hotel accommodations and speakers.
After retiring from the Herald, a new opportunity opened for him when IFPA decided it needed an executive director. He was asked to draft a job description for the board of directors. After doing that, they asked him to put a salary figure to the document, he did. They agreed, and, Rudy was into the next chapter of his life, leaving the Herald for the wiles of North America.
In that capacity Rudy led a life some might envy, flying from South to North, West to East, and stops in between arranging seminars and conventions. “It was a job to die for,” Rudy admitted, “It was a lot of work, a lot of pain, and I kept that job for another 10 years,” he said.
When his last plane touched down, Rudy knew he’d filed his final flight plan. “Travel sucks, it is absolutely awful,” he said. “The year before, I made 37 trips by plane, and I have not been on one plane where everything was perfect. It was either no luggage, or it was late, or all the seats were sold out, no, not one perfect trip in the last five years,” said Rudy.
His most recent flight, however, was not for business, but rather for pleasure with his nephew. It was a fishing trip to Alaska where he enjoys the serenity of nature while fly fishing.
The fly rods he uses to land those fish he made, a hobby that has turned profitable for him. He likes to add that he learned the skill at the Cape May County Technical School in an evening class. Now he makes rods decorated with bird feathers from around the globe, each unique for its owner, who must be a devotee of trickling streams and splashing waters.
“Rod building got me several trips to Alaska,” he said with a smile. His work has been spread internationally in fly-fishing magazines as distant as Norway. He also likes to assist his teacher, Dick Herb, in those evening classes.
Now that Rudy considers himself retired, he wants to continue to build those rods. “It’s a hobby and I don’t want it to become a job,” he confessed. “That would be work.”
One thing Rudy won’t condone is settling into a rocking chair to watch life dwindle to nothingness.
He’s simply recharging his batteries for the next run. Although he’s done many things, he likes to point to 14 years serving on Middle Township Planning Board, five as chairman, and 32 years as a Rio Grande (Distract 2) fire commissioner for 32 years, 16 of which he chaired.
For over 50 years, he played Santa, was master of ceremonies at numerous functions, and announced Middle Township Christmas and Halloween parades.
He looks forward to tomorrow with much anticipation just as he did May 1, 1960.