I have goosebumps from reading this. I’m on a business trip in Orlando (heading to Epcot in 30 mins) and yet I’m wishing I was back home. I grew up in Philly and spent my summers in Wildwood Crest and all of the towns up and down the shore.
I live in Williamstown, NJ now…just 40 mins from the beach.
One of the most overlooked features is the boating opportunities: some of the best back water areas (sounds, inlets, harbors, intercoastal waterways) are in Cape May Cty.
I have spent my whole life boating…mostly light fishing and skiing. I have a full court press going on my wife for a Baja speed boat, and hope to be back in Cape May Cty enjoying the water.
I’ve been all over this great planet, and been to every resort, amusement area and Ocean imaginable. I refuse to move from the area I grew up in. I’ve turned down 50,000 dollar a year raises and various opportunities. My whole network of friends and family are in that area.
Alot of people don’t “get it”. I guess you have to live and experience it to “get it”. Maybe I am nuts, but there is something special about knowing the network of people and towns from the Philly burbs to the Jersey shore. You could bump into someone in the Poconos and then a month later see the same guy on the beach in Ocean City.
Oh! Does anyone else buy used / discount books on the O.C. boardwalk to read on the beach? It’s a tradition with us. A $2 edition of Lord Jim makes my whole day.
When we stay at the Harris House, every morning I climb over the railing to 12th St., then buy the paper at the box on the corner. Then I get two large coffees at the Fenwick’s on the boardwalk, one for me, one for the wife. I smoke a cigar or two that week, generally purchased at Churchill’s these days…I love Ocean City…
My sister was always the bookworm; she’d make a point of visiting the boardwalk bookstores in Ocean City as well as a store farther south on Asbury, closer to where we always stayed. I never bought anything, and I’m not sure any of us was really looking for beach reading, but a visit to the used book stores is certainly a tradition.
But of course…and at least three different explainations on how the term supposedly originated.
Hmmm…after previewing, I see that I skipped the part restricting this to people who say “down the shore”. I don’t actually say that, except in jest. When a non-Jersian asks where I live, I say “Central Jersey Shore”.
…and when a New Yorker asks, I say “Central Jersey Shore, ya bennie” :D.
Tonight we finished the last container of Raw Bar crab soup that came home in the cooler, thinking about how great it was last week in Cape May and how the time there always goes by so fast, maybe more and more so as we get older. Thanks again Cartooniverse for a great thread.
