Visiting the New Jersey shore

Did you know that the rest of the country (world?) calls it “the beach”?  New Jerseyans call it “the shore.”  (Why?)

While growing up, my mother would take my sister and me to the New Jersey shore for a week, each summer.  My father would drive down and visit, but he was too much of a workaholic and too antsy to stay for long.

One of the first things you learn, living in The Great NJ, is that each and every town has its own identity.  It feels quite different from the next town over, and has an individualized history and often a quite different ethnic mix.  Before I knew any other social science, I learned that place really matters.  And hovering at the horizon is the NYC skyline, a regular reminder that things can change rather quickly once you cross a line, in this case taking a bus across a river.  I started thinking about “invisible borders” seriously and at a young age.  Later, in high school, the kids were from either Hillsdale (my town), or from River Vale, one town over.  We thought of them as the “wuss kids.”

So just about everyone is a regional thinker, and in New Jersey your “region” refers to your town or maybe county, not to the state.

This importance of place is true of shore towns as well.  We spent time in various locales:

Asbury Park: This was early on, and I barely have memories of it.  We decided it was “a dump,” and had seen better days.  It had once been a glamour spot of sorts, with dance halls and gazebos.  Later in life I would go back there for some of the older architecture, Bruce Springsteen landmarks, and Puerto Rican food.

Ocean Grove: The place we went when we were young.  This town has fantastic Victorian homes, and an unusual role in the American history of religious revival camps.  Holly and called it an “old people’s town.”  Plus there was no boardwalk and everything was closed on Sundays.  The ocean was wonderful and the walks were easy, but we always wanted to be somewhere else.

Point Pleasant: I haven’t been in so long, but I think of this as one of the most typical and representative of New Jersey shore towns.  Holly and I were OK with this place.

Seaside Heights: This for us was the best, especially for my sister.  It had lots of other young people, an active, retro-flavored boardwalk (I loved that game where you throw the ball up and try to have it land in the right slots for points), and the ocean water seemed rougher in a fun way.  Eventually we settled on going here each year.  Later the setting for Jersey Shore, the TV show.

I also went to some chess tournaments in Atlantic City (pre-gambling, quite run down), where I did very well, and when we were all grown we would meet up in Spring Lake, which is perhaps the actual nice shore town.  Belmar and Cape May also received earlier visits, and we would stop for root beer in Toms River.

Even in the early days it was exciting to drive from one town to the next, like in Europe crossing from Germany into Luxembourg.

I did a lot of reading on the beach, for instance tackling both LOTR and Karl Popper’s Open Society books.  In later years, Holly would be off with friends, and my mother and I would drive around, listening to Beatle songs on a weird 8-track tape that split up the songs when it changed tracks.

So early on I learned the idea of “local travel,” namely that a nearby trip can be no less fascinating.  I consider that one of the most important practical ideas you can imbibe, along with “regional thinker.”  I got them both quite young, and in a very convincing fashion.