Some of my first memories are from Ortley Beach, New Jersey.
My Grandfather – retired from the US Navy and then the US Post Office and my Grandmother, retired from decades in retail with Sears and Roebuck, would get a house from Memorial Day to Labor Day. And it wasn’t fancy. There wasn’t even a phone or a TV. But it had that smooth, white stone driveway that made all that noise when my parents car would pull in late on a Friday night after my Dad finished work, packed the car carrier and loaded us up for a week “down the shore”.
There was an arcade – Barnacle Bill’s – that was across Route 35. And a block past that was the beach. We’d go and play Skee Ball and arcade games until our quarters ran out and then we’d run across the busy highway and beg Mom and Dad for more.
And when we went to the beach for the day, it wasn’t just for a couple of hours…it was the entire day. Summer vacation at The Jersey Shore was the only time we could eat Cocoa Puffs and Pops and Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops. They sold those little single serve boxes that came eight to a pack and my parents would get those for a special treat on vacation. And we’d sugar up in the morning, my Grandparents and Parents would load up a cooler with peaches and plums and bologna sandwiches and Capri Suns and “Tab” for my Grandma and Dad and Gramps would lug the beach chairs and towels and toys and buckets and stupid little games and we’d spend at least six hours a day on the beach.
8MM films exist of my brothers and me doing somersaults on the beach. There’s even one when my brother Billy got angry because he couldn’t complete a somersault and I could…that was one of the few times in my entire life that I excelled at anything remotely athletic in comparison to brother Billy.
And Gramps would take us crabbing in the afternoons. The changing of the tide was always best. High to low or low to high. I remember getting BUSHELS of crabs with Gramps. And there was an A&P not far from our bungalow that we’d stop at to get a gallon of milk and some lemons and a loaf of Italian bread and some steaks on sale and we’d go back to the bungalow and they’d cook up the crabs in a big pot on the stove and Dad would cook the steaks on the charcoal grill outside. And there was a hammock.
We’d kick and scream when Mom and Dad said it was time to leave the boardwalk. Partly because it was such a long walk back to Ortley Beach from Seaside (it was actually only seven or eight blocks…but at seven or eight years old…that was pretty far) and we could never get enough of skee ball and the spinning wheel games where you put a quarter down and won a box of candy bars and the dart/balloon games and cotton candy and the motorcycle rides with the “eerrt eeert eert” horns and the burlap sack slide…
So here I am, thirty five years old and wrapping up a week at The Jersey Shore…Wildwood, to be exact. You see, Seaside’s gotten too sleazy. The kids, they call it “sleazeside” now. And it can’t all be blamed on the MTV show. Seaside was sleazy when I was a teenager. Probably even when I was eight years old with all of these fond memories.
Something I learned this week is that the memories we have, they seem to be fonder when we were younger…the colors were brighter…the water was warmer…the games were cheaper…the fish were bigger…the boardwalk smelled sweeter…although not much has really changed.
I’m sure that when my Dad was running us up and down The Boardwalk in Seaside Heights, he’d lament to my Mom about how when HE was a kid in Keansburg, the shoot-the-water-gun-at-the-clowns-mouth game was only a quarter, and now it costs a buck. Not unlike I lamented to Rachel that now it costs three.
And when I went deep sea fishing on Wednesday and Friday this week, I texted my Dad that, when I was a kid and we’d go out with Grandpa and Uncle Buddy and Uncle Mike, it seemed like we ALWAYS went home with keepers. But he texted back that “you were smaller…that made the fish BIGGER”.
You were smaller. That made the fish BIGGER.
And he’s right. Because three bucks for a shoot-the-water-gun-at-the-clowns-mouth game in 2011 is the same as fifty cents or a dollar in nineteen eighty four. And seventy bucks for a family of three at the Ravioli House in Wildwood is the same as twenty five at the Italian place in Ortley that we’d go to.
But winning a Webkinz from the crane machine for Kaiya today is the same as my Dad winning a Snoopy doll for me when I was eight. And jumping through the waves at low tide is the same. And eating tons of junk food and pizza and playing skee ball and gorging on ice cream…and never wanting to leave the boardwalk…and counting up our tickets from Skee Ball and collecting the Chinese Fingercuffs and Spider Rings and combs…that doesn’t change.
And that’s The Jersey Shore at it’s best.
It’s Skee Ball and Springsteen. And funnel cake and ice cream. And sunburn and sunsets. And deep sea fishing and “watch the tram car please”. And crane games and canned beer. And crabbing and bargain shopping at the A&P. And spider rings and Chinese handcuffs. And paying too much for the shoot-the-water-gun-at-the-clowns-mouth game and riding the “eerrt eeert eert” motorcycles. And boxes of sugary cereal in the morning and plums and peaches at the beach.
And it’s Springsteen.
And it’s The Parkway.
And it’s traffic.
And it’s sleazy carnival barkers hustling for your change.
And it’s slow mornings and late nights.
And fishing and crabbing.
And that sad feeling you get in the last couple days. Longing for one more crane-game and one more funnel cake and one more sunset and one more sugary bowl of cereal…just that one…more….day…of…summer.
