{"id":1507,"date":"2013-06-23T19:35:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T23:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2013-06-23T19:35:26","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T23:35:26","slug":"jersey-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2013\/06\/23\/jersey-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"Jersey Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"05<\/a><\/p>\n

Is a Jersey Girl still a Jersey Girl if she finds herself down the shore after 40 years?\u00a0 For whatever unfolding of circumstances I found myself not on the Cape this June but down the shore.\u00a0 What a difference four decades makes and yet there was not much difference at all.\u00a0 What a disaster one storm can make and yet so little seemed evident.<\/p>\n

Staying in Spring Lake was beyond relaxing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a quaint seaside town with B & Bs, the famous Breakers, the longest continuous boardwalk, mostly residential with a wanna be downtown.\u00a0 Our hotel, the Hewitt Wellington, sits on the corner of the lake with one of the best porches around.\u00a0 I once thought I was an expert on porches, having photographed enough of them, until someone pointed out to me that it wasn\u2019t the porches I was after but the chairs.\u00a0 Anyway\u2026<\/p>\n

Five days and four nights, at the suggestion of my sister, were spent in total slug mode. \u00a0There was breakfast (including latte because yes I did bring my Nesspresso machine), lunch and dinner, books, the pool, wine on the porch, you get the picture.<\/p>\n

\"pt<\/a><\/p>\n

We finally roused ourselves on the last day to head out to Point Pleasant for dinner and a nostalgic walk on the boardwalk.\u00a0 You know a real boardwalk with games and rides and screaming kids and parents trying to corral the lot. I was feeling all things haven\u2019t changed a bit with the usual garb, shorts, tee shirts, flip flops, hoodies.\u00a0 \u00a0I was familiar with all that but then the do rags and tattoos started making their way into view.\u00a0\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I have a tattoo, I appreciate the art it just wasn\u2019t forty years ago when the only tattoo you saw was on some father\u2019s forearm and it said semper fi or something military.\u00a0 Therein lies the rude awakening.<\/p>\n

Walking along it was good to see that Jenkinson\u2019s still owns everything except for Martell\u2019s Tiki Bar.\u00a0 But there didn\u2019t seem to be any tickets left??? Big savings cards were the method of payment for the games.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 No streams of tickets around your neck?\u00a0 Finally down the boardwalk there were games taking tickets so all was not lost and funny you could pay cash or credit for those tickets.\u00a0 Credit?\u00a0 Who the hell paid credit on the boardwalk?\u00a0 OMG I am sounding so damn old.\u00a0 The rides were familiar; the tot train still left the station with parents squeezed into the seats holding on to scared\/excited toddlers.\u00a0\u00a0 The water guns had changed from pistols to Uzis, really?<\/p>\n

The food was interesting too.\u00a0 Funnel cakes and waffle cones of frozen custard, thank God, but someone explain to me what the hell is Philadelphia Water Ice.\u00a0 Sushi?\u00a0 I thought for dinner we would just grab a slice and walk along the boardwalk until I realized I had become a sit down and be served kind of girl\u2026no interest in burning the roof of my mouth while trying to keep the cheese in the fold.\u00a0 Just sayin.<\/p>\n

As we walked around, my sister rolling her eyes at me, I realized she was more of a Jersey Girl than I would ever be or had ever been.\u00a0 She truly spent time down the shore and to this day thinks nothing of jumping in the car to drive down the parkway to meet friends of hers who are continuing the shore legacy with homes of their own.\u00a0 She knows full well the significance of Point Pleasant\u2019s boardwalk having random boards replaced and not whole sections the way Seaside Heights needed or the other truly devastated towns. She understood far better than I when we overheard a local bitching about \u201csome woman tourist\u201d stating it didn\u2019t seem that bad.\u00a0 He mentioned she should kiss his ass, love that part of Jersey, pretty sure that\u2019s the part of the Jersey Girl I wound up with.\u00a0 She\u2019s been to and still goes to the Stone Pony.\u00a0 Me not so much, but I am in awe of her and her friends and the dedication to this little piece of the state that is in such dire need of continued support.<\/p>\n

Funny thing about the support part, we looked everywhere for a Jersey Strong tee shirt and there were none to be found.\u00a0 What\u2019s up with that?\u00a0 Please don\u2019t tell me someone owns the right to that little catch phrase\u2026and for those of you who don\u2019t think much of our President, his reassuring and damn true words, New Jersey is stronger than the storm, just might be a lasting legacy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As for me returning to the shore, I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0 But I know like I know that I am so glad they are absolutely Jersey Strong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is a Jersey Girl still a Jersey Girl if she finds herself down the shore after 40 years?\u00a0 For whatever unfolding of circumstances I found myself not on the Cape this June but down the shore.\u00a0 What a difference four … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[274,272,275,273],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pause-points","tag-hewitt-wellington","tag-jersey-strong","tag-spring-lake-nj","tag-stronger-than-the-storm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-oj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1512,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}