The Jersey Shore
I spent a lot of time staring into Where’s Waldo? books when I was a kid.
The frenetic hidden-object puzzle books were ubiquitous in the myriad waiting rooms we seemed to frequent as a rowdy family in the 90’s, books designed, in those fearsome pre-iPad days, to absorb as much of a restless kid’s attention as possible for as long as possible. The beach scenes in particular fascinated me -- they seemed a fantastic fiction. A wide stretch of yellow sand filled wall-to-wall with blankets, umbrellas, ice cream and balloon vendors hawking their wares, crowds swimming happily in the sea as if it was a paddling pool, planes hauling advertising banners overhead-- nothing could be farther from the Pacific Northwest coast experience I knew.
I can now confidently report, Dear Reader, that our stripey-shirted friend was from New Jersey.
Beanie, cane and spectacles optional.
I’ll admit, my expectations of the Jersey Shore were low. The idea of paying $10 a person just to access the beach seemed a scandal. Pandemic-hangover still has me wary of any level of crowd, even outdoors. Springsteen lyrics and a certain MTV reality show of yore had me expecting wall-to-wall Sopranos extras in tank tops and gold chains.
Even so, as we joined the queue of cars waiting for beach entrance at 8:30am, my Jersey-resident sister remarked that there were actually a lot fewer people than she expected. We easily staked out a prime spot right beneath the lifeguard tower.
While there was nothing resembling the wide, rocky wilderness of my favorite Oregon coast spots, we also weren’t cheek-by-jowl with Snookie and company. Our beach-towel neighbors kept their social distance and also granted each other the kind of liberating, stranger-in-a-crowd anonymity I’d only really felt in a big city up to this point. Very few of us looked good in a swimsuit, and absolutely none of us cared.
We baked and swam, spotted dolphins cavorting just past the breakers, watched advertising planes circle and wheel overhead with the same greedy optimism as the seagulls.
Buy Duffy’s Ice Cream and Beer… or just toss me a french fry. We’re not going away till we get what we want.
When storm clouds rolled in in the early afternoon, we were ready to stroll the sparsely-peopled boardwalk in search of carnival food.
Nothing goes with 90 degree weather and 100% humidity like chocolate covered processed meat products.
Turns out, Fortune favors those who don’t check their weather apps. Tornado and flash flood warnings had scared off the usual weekend crowd. We would soon spend about an hour of the night huddled fearfully in the stairwell of my sister’s house, tracking the nearby funnel cloud on our phones while thunder roared overhead. But what you don’t know can’t ruin your day at the beach.