Ode to the Jersey Shore

First of all, let me express my sincere sympathy to everyone who has been affected by Hurricane Sandy.  I too have been impacted, but my pain doesn’t compare to the lives snuffed out and the homes battered or gone forever from this violent storm. 

We’ve heard about such storms so often before. We’ve seen images of people standing in line with buckets to get water or fuel, trying desperately to either get dry, cool off or get warm depending upon time of year, people desperate for help just to find a way to eat.  But these scenes, until Katrina, usually were from other parts of the world.  Now such occurrences are so frequent we don’t even hear much about it unless it knocks on our own door, and knock it did.  These are the impacts of climate change and sadly I fear that this is only the beginning of a lot of pain, physical and mental, yet to come.

My pain is not physical but it seems real enough. I refer here to the memories of my family life growing up and then raising my own family in New Jersey, and how much of what is left of it now are only my memories.  Seeing the scenes painting the TV airways endlessly has reminded me of what we all lost.  It forced me to take a long overdue walk down memory lane.

My best memories of childhood revolve around my dad, the military man, an outdoorsman who loved life and his family more than I can describe. We never had much money, but we had what we needed and we always had enough.  Our lives weren’t built around acquisition of goods but rather around experiences and adventure, closeness and family.  As a child, one of my favorite things was the Sunday “mystery ride”. We’d all pile in the car and not know where we were going although I suspect my dad did.  It almost always involved a drive somewhere to the Jersey shore.  

There were long Sunday dinners at Ho Wah’s Chinese Restaurant in Belmar, followed by the real deal soft serve ice cream somewhere in Pt. Pleasant.  A special treat was a stop at the Asbury Park boardwalk where, if my mom was in the right mood and dad’s wallet still had a few bucks left in it I could ride the carousel and try to grab those precious rings.

Then there was our little motor boat - in the eyes of us kids it was the biggest yacht in the ocean!  This was the domain for the guys, my brothers, but on occasion I got to go too.  I wasn’t much of a fisherman but I loved digging and diving for clams, especially in the bay.  I learned how to swim at the age of 4 when my dad threw me overboard.  And the greatest times of all were when mom came too, filling the picnic basket with cold chicken and bologna sandwiches, fresh fruit and home made cupcakes all enhanced with a pinch of beach sand. We’d find a sand bar or small island, pull up the boat, hit the beach and life was good - until the ride home.  There is no torture worse than a sandy butt inside your damp bathing suit stuck against hot, vinyl seats covered with gritty beach towels.  But it was all worth every itchy, squirmy minute.

My pre-teen and teen years were consumed with daydreams of becoming a surfing beach bum, somewhat influenced by the movie “The Endless Summer”.  Oh how I wanted to surf.  We’d spend a few weeks every summer in Lavallette, or Seaside Heights or somewhere on Long Beach Island.  I’d get up at dawn and hit the beach. I’d watch the surfers until the obligatory departure from the water as the lifeguards arrived at 10 am and the beaches became swimming only.  That’s when I’d make my move, hoping to befriend one of those lucky guys who might be willing to let me try, just once, that evening.  It never worked, but finally my dad decided I could buy my own board to try it out.  My proudest possession became a clunky, heavy, used 9’ 10” piece of death that I could barely carry, but I was so proud!  I spent two summers trying to make that work to little avail.  Yet my dad would carry that board for me over sand dunes, through parking lots, down what seemed like miles of sand until we could get to the surfers’ beach.  I became an expert paddler, but with the weight of that board I rarely caught a wave but it didn’t matter - I was able to be out there, on the water, with the others, just living life.  

That's me with those spiffy eyeglasses!

High school and college years belonged to the Seaside Heights boardwalk.  I have never watched the TV Show “Jersey Shore” but I can say that from what little I know about Snooki, the boardwalk was a different place back then.  It was our hippie hangout. We’d walk from one end to the other, moving along when we’d see the security guys headed our way.  Back then my rants usually revolved around anti-corporate, anti-pollution tirades and the Vietnam War.  I played guitar and vented through the music of the likes of Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills & Nash, Bob Dylan, Country Joe and the Fish, etc.  I never thought of myself as anything other than mediocre but I always drew a crowd, sometimes a pretty big one.  I’d be sitting on a bench singing away, just me, in my bell bottoms and P coat, surrounded by people.  The security guys didn’t like that much so finally one time I was brought to their security office and “detained” for performing without a permit.  However, being a “juvenile” had its benefits and it never lead to actual arrest.  (Neither did my detention for surfing in a non-surfing beach but that’s another story).

Eventually I matured, finished college, married and had children of my own.  And yes, the Jersey shore became their favorite place too.  I asked them this week about some of their fonder memories and what fun we had reminiscing!  There was the time that I got wrapped up buying salt water taffy at the Casino Pier end of the Seaside boardwalk, and all four adults never realized that my 3 year old son had just continued strolling his way on down to the other end.  Now I was glad those security guys were around as we managed to safely retrieve him from them. 

My dad, then “Pere Pere” to my kids, was also a big part of their lives.  Their best memories also revolve around a boat, fishing and clamming.  He often took the three of them for the day while I was working, and they proudly came home with their “catch”.  I still gag at the memory of the eel my son caught and was determined to eat.  “Pere Pere says you just have to skin it, slice it up and fry it, that’s all”.  I tried, oh how I tried and boy did I massacre that poor animal.  But by the time we were done we managed to each get a few small bits of what today I remember looked a bit like fried calamari.  I couldn’t eat it although I didn’t let on as he was so proud.

My daughter remembered too the wonderful times on the water - diving for clams just like her mom loved to do.  But she was the boardwalk fly and loved the rides.  She particularly recalled the “Fun House that blew up all the girls' shirts and skirts” every time they went in it. She reminisced, “Remember the spinning tunnel tube on the way out?”  Seaside was always the destination for prom weekends and then special weekend getaways with her son and husband as an adult.  She said, “I'll never forget the excitement when you got to the bridge and knew you had arrived down the shore or the emptiness you felt coming back over the bridge to go home.”

4 generations have enjoyed the shore together. Here's grandchild #1, now 20 yrs old!

My youngest son, now also in the military, sent me his memories too. I had totally forgotten about the time he was off on his bike in Ocean City. We heard screeching tires a block away and immediately knew it involved him.  Fortunately, it was minor.  

“Certainly my most firmly imprinted memory would be getting hit by that car.” he wrote. “However, even that couldn't ruin the fun of being near the ocean or the healing burn of living in those waters the following days. The horseshoe crabs are certainly a grand memory and I'll never forget the hours of fishing and clamming with Grandpa. Hours of trolling those shallows for the telltale scrape of my rake as it passed through that mud. Inner tubes with baskets floating by our sides and an old row boat with that tiny motor. Endless walks and boardwalks, such mysteries held beneath (not always good and some confusing to small kids, like random long balloons). Burying each other in the sand and trying to dig holes so deep we could all get in. I remember the hurricane while we had a house there and us standing on the beach leaning into the wind, nothing could dampen our fun or ruin our time. And most of all, who could forget the body surfing? That stretch of sand is some of the only fond beach memories I have left. A time when the sand and the seas were a play thing, such fun could be found. I hope to find such things again with my own children. That stretch of beach that seemed so simple, some would even claim less fancy than most, was a world apart. I have found no place like it and hold fewer memories of a place more magical. The smell, the feel, the memories, no storm can wash that away!”  

Sandy may have succeeded in demolishing all these wonderful places but not the sweet memories.  We’ve all gone our separate ways but remain a close family, and that closeness was sealed by the grains of Jersey Shore beach sand I am sure still linger somewhere in our belongings today.  

These are the kinds of memories that will become harder and harder for families to achieve thanks to many leaders in government and business who refuse to acknowledge climate change and its devastating impacts.  I fear that we have created a world where the memories imprinted on the brains of my grandchildren will be filled with the horrors of trying to adapt to a climate that no longer nurtures human survival.  I hope I am wrong.  But I will continue to fight for climate change action until the day I die, because there are so many more memories, wonderful memories of a livable, pleasant planet, waiting to be made.