Jersey Mike

This post is in response to the two opinion pieces published in the Patriot News by Elana Altman.

My whole life, I’ve taken the abuse of lame, regurgitated, unoriginal and downright misinformed jokes and misconceptions about my home state, New Jersey.

“The Armpit of America”

“The Turnpike Stinks”

“What Exit?”

“Jimmy Hoffa”

And recently ,things haven’t gotten much better with the mindbending television shows like “Jersey Shore” and “Real Housewives of New Jersey”. The worst of the worst of New Jersey are highlighted nightly on MTV and E! while the rest of the country looks on in horror while actually believing that these idiots on television fairly represent the general population of The Garden State.

I say this as a born and bred Jersey Boy. I was born in Passaic, raised in Northeast Jersey – Bergen County – and went “down the shore” as a kid. Every summer my grandparents would get a house in Ortley Beach from Memorial Day to Labor Day and we’d go down for eight or ten days at a clip. We played skee ball and pulled the slots on the boardwalk and “watched the tram car, please” and ate Zeppoles and pumped our fists before it was in fashion.

We’d also vacation in the Poconos. A week or so a year we’d head out Interstate 80 and get our version of wilderness in. “Look kids! A deer!” and lightning bugs aplenty.

But when I reached the ripe age of nineteen, I’d had enough. I wanted to explore. I moved – albeit hastily – to Hartford, Connecticut and lived there for a couple of years. From there, it was Suffolk County on Long Island. And then Toronto, Ontario (that’s in Canada for my readers in Perry County). Jaunts to the West Coast and everywhere in between. But as I got older, I realized – there ain’t nuthin like Jersey.

Yeah, sure, people are polite in other places. And sure, maybe the politicians are less corrupt. And those of you in the back talking smack about la Cosa Nostra..you bettah watch-a you mouth! ‘Cause if there’s one thing that defines a good majority of Life in New Jersey – it’s the Italian-American population.

We went to Roman Catholic church every Sunday and feared the shit out of God. We prepared for Confirmations and Bar and Bat Mitzfas. And every Labor Day weekend, a highlight of life in North Jersey was the Lodi Feast.

It was sorta funny to read the articles by Elana Altman writing for the Patriot News the past couple of days. Most hysterical, though, had to be the comments on the drivers – she got a quote from – get this – a seventeen year old kid from Camp Hill who said “They’re bad drivers,” because, who better to ask about the quality and skill of drivers in the most densely populated state in the country than a seventeen year old kid from Camp Hill.

Bad drivers? How ’bout this – you stick hundreds of thousands of people onto a few highways in one of the most affluent and economically stable sectors of the country – all with a million things going on and different places to go – and then tell me how YOU’D drive. The argument that people from Jersey are “bad drivers” holds no water in my book. It’s not that we’re BAD drivers – we’re OFFENSIVE drivers. And not “offensive” in the Andrew Dice Clay sense of the word. We’re OFFENSIVE in the New Jersey Giants rushing for a touchdown kind of way. You HAVE to be shooting the hole or driving three moves ahead when competing with tractor trailers and thousands of other people with places to go and things to do that are just as important as yours.

Really, New Jersey drivers are some of the BEST in the world- and Pennsylvania drivers just can’t keep up. Don’t believe me? Let’s go for a ride some time. I’ll show ya.

Look, I realize Jersey has it’s flaws. But there’s a good reason for all of them. You complain about the smell? Well, where do you expect to get your gasoline or plastics from? They have to come from somewhere. And speaking of smelly highways- you Pennsylvanians have nothing to talk about when it comes to smelly highways. Have you driven 283 to or from Lancaster when they’re laying manure on the crops?

And speaking of toxicity- there’s this nuclear power plant called “Three Mile Island” that you may have heard of.

Oh, and the Susquehanna River ain’t no gem of clear water either – especially considering how often the beach on City Island closes because of e-coli breakouts.

SO yeah, take your jabs at Jersey. We can take it. We’re used to it. But don’t whine and bitch when we bite back. Because if it weren’t for Jersey – the “Armpit” of America – you douchebags in the rest of the country wouldn’t enjoy Springsteen or Bon Jovi or Frank Sinatra or Sabrett Hot Dogs or Jersey Tomatoes or The Statue of Liberty or street names in the game Monopoly or Danny DeVito or Jason Biggs or Jack Nicolson or John Travolta or Paul Simon or the electric guitar invented by Les Paul in Mahwah or a plethora of other things.

But hey, keep bustin’ balls. We can take it. Not like you whiney Pennsylvanians crying about your Phillies and crappy governor and most expensive turnpike in the country and Ben Rothelisburger and Poison and Fuel.