Sixty Weeks to 60: Down the Shore

(42 Weeks)

The beach is my happy place, but as a Jersey Girl, I’m a little embarrassed to confess now that I spent very little time “down the shore” until I was able to drive.  Although, Point Pleasant Beach, about a 90-minute drive from home, became a day-trip destination in my late teens and throughout my adulthood in New Jersey, trips to any beach in New Jersey with my parents was a rarity.

My parents were New Yorkers.  A day at the beach with them was a drive out to Jones Beach or to my aunt and uncle’s place in Far Rockaway. A weekend away was always to Montauk. Montauk to this day is my happy place of all happy places, because of all the memories of simpler, easy summer days with my parents. 

One trip to the Jersey Shore with my parents that I recall was to the summer home of family friends in Beach Haven West (across the inlet from Long Beach Island).  I’m thinking I was probably 12, maybe 13.  It was an overnight. They had a dock but no boat that I remember. They had crab cages.  That was something new. 

We went to the Island to go to the beach and to the arcade and a waterslide (that was new too).  We went shopping at Bay Village (which must have been fairly new at the time).  Then it started to rain.  And rain, and rain, and rain.  In trying to drive the car back north on Bay Avenue, flood water rose so rapidly, that our car began to float.  Who knew that this road that was the main thoroughfare through the center of the island was actually below sea level. A good Samaritan with a truck pulled us to higher ground where we were able to drive off and resume our drive.  

I would be telling that story for years – every time I found myself on Bay Avenue driving with friends. Which was a lot.  I started following a Reggae band who were part of the regular bar scene up north and to whom I was introduced by a friend shortly after college graduation. When I found out they played down the shore too, I followed.  The Seashell in Beach Haven or Rick’s American Cafe in Barnegat Light mostly, and then Saturday matinees at the Tiki Bar in Point Pleasant.

Fittingly, the band was called, No Discipline, which was basically my mantra for those years. Some fun and crazy times, although not a lifestyle that was sustainable. Both physically and financially. I recall Labor Day weekend in 1988. I went to the ATM and was told “amount exceeds available balance” and the rent was still due. Every summer, another bar was added to the list of those I was asked to leave for my drunken behavior.

It ended when I met my first husband, settled down, stopped binge drinking, started taking my career more seriously, and developed some discipline – but I never lost my love for the beach.  I ran the Long Beach Island 18-mile run down Bay Avenue a couple times, day trips to Point Pleasant became part of my life with my daughter, and a few trips to Montauk worked their way onto our summer schedules, too.

Chicago has beaches.  I enjoyed a recent trip to the opposite shore on the Michigan side of Lake, too.  The waves are ocean-like at times. Sometimes when traveling down Dusable Lake Shore Drive on a sunny afternoon the Lake looks to be a shade of Caribbean blue.  It’s not the ocean though.  I miss the smell of the salt and always long for another trip down the shore.

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Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.