As the sun sets, literally, on the great pounding, soaking, flooding, road-and-bridge-closing, house shaking, dune-eviscerating, step-busting November noreaster of 2009, I have to say. It sure looks pretty out there tonight!

Being in the middle of all the hubbub, I have to say, it didn't feel as bad as it sounded on television or in the papers. I mean, we're used to high tide road closings and back bay street flooding, and nor'easters that chop up the beach and shake the house. Mostly, we went about our business, at least in Atlantic County, which was not as bad off as the barrier islands in Cape May County. And it was fun to see all the summer people down to take a look today! Everything's pretty much still here! Still, when I went out this evening to take a look arond (I had been deported all day to the pristine and dry astroturf of a field somewhere in Cumberland County for a riveting and relocated Pleasantville Jokers-Ventnor Pirates football game), it was clear Ida definitely took with her a chunk of the beach in Ventnor, at least below New Haven. You can see here, the steps no longer reach the beach.

Rut ro! What was left of the dunes in this part of town was washed away. But, funny thing, at low tide, there was actually more beach than usual, without those pesky dunes in the way. Mother Nature has a funny way of making more space for your beach chair, Ventnorites. Still, it's a long way to Memorial Day, and who knows what man and mom will conspire to put back, and take away, from the beach.

In any case, use CAUTION!

Because stuff that was formerly an easy way down, now, could lead to kind of a hard landing.

YIKES.

Anyway, it seems like it may be an interesting winter, if this is what November is cooking up. The politicians are looking to get some beach replenishment funds and sand back our way and will no doubt be taking the big back hoes to repair dunes like this one on the Ventnor-Margate border that got ripped into.

 In any case, who knows how it will all shake out in terms of what the beaches will look like by May or, more to the point, July. But I'm glad this wicked little storm has passed. It was impossible weather to walk a dog in, and enough with the flooding and road closings. Then again, the Dorset Ave. Bridge in Ventnor is going to close for four months for repairs, Exit 2 off the Expressway was already shut down, the same roads will no doubt flood at high tide even without a big nor'easter, and so it kind of all seems part and parcel of life down here.

Until next time, here's another sunset picture, looking toward Margate from the Ventnor Boardwalk, water rushing right past where the dunes used to be. Sure is pretty.

Ida is packing a punch today, with winds so strong I thought the Angelo's Fairmount Tavern sign hanging from the iconic restaurant was going to break off, it was swinging so hard. Up above, cool looking white caps pounding toward the Albany Avenue Bridge at nearly high tide this afternoon. Last night, the winds were so strong on the beach that it was like a desert storm out there, like the beach itself was a roaring river, the sand was moving at such a rapid pace. Needless to say, the dog walk did not get very far. My dogs do not like sand in their eyes. Atlantic City schools sent kids home at 1 p.m. to beat the high tide and are letting them sleep in until 9:40 on Friday, again to avoid bus drives in high tide, where streets look like this: (This is along the Coastal Evacuation Route on Fairmount Ave., at California, somewhat troublingly perhaps):

Flags were blowing along with street lights and what's left of our itty bitty trees on the Island. Further south, the rough seas had apparently claimed the lives of three fishermen off the Coast of Cape May and shut down bridges. Feels like a typical nor'easter, but apparently for a Hurricane like Ida to turn into a nor'easter is a rare occurrance, and there were predictions of the worst flooding at the shore in a decade. We shall see.

UPDATE: It's truly wicked windy out there, with a lot of flooding that has shut down various roads hither and yon, including, once again, the Dorset Avenue Bridge and Wellington Ave. in Ventnor, which pretty much leaves our friends in Ventnor Heights to their own little island, with no way on or off. Good thing, there's your WaWa to cling to, good people of Ventnor Heights! One friend was contemplating whether to take a boat or a fishing rod out her front porch. High tide has passed, and the waves are still kicking, and the wind is still whipping, and there's a traffic accident on my corner, and, well, we await the morning's cycle.

UPDATE 2: House is shaking from the winds, Cape May County has declared a state of emergency and is recommending people on the bayside move to higher ground, but not requiring it. Looking to flooding at high tide on the west side of the barrier islands near the back bays, lots of beach erosion. Black Horse and White Horse Pike were shut down leading into Atlantic City this evening, only way in was A.C. Expressway...

 UPDATE at 8:50 p.m. Looks like my kids are getting a day off from school tomorrow in Ventnor, due to the expected flooding at high tide in the morning by the back bays, where the school is located. A.C. High is starting two hours late, as of now. We may not get our share of snow days here at the shore, but every once in awhile we get a leg up with a Nor'easter Day. Move the cars to higher ground, and let the kiddie joy spread through our flooded streets.

Previously: Jersey Shore, MTV Style: Meet the Guidos

Oh alright, having sat out on the Housewives of New Jersey chit chat, I guess I'll weigh in on this latest television insult to Jersey, MTV's upcoming "Jersey Shore!" reality show. This one looks completely ridiculous in the "not my Jersey" way that gets our resident outraged Jersey blogger, Jersey Shore Jen Miller very riled up. But, as the trailer for the Dec. 3d premiere pleads, don't be a hater, Jen. It's all in ripped muscle, stained under the arms T-shirt, big hair, girls throwing punches, any-other-groaner-cliches-MTV? Jersey good fun, yes? I've never seen these types anywhere from LBI on south. If they exist at all, these characters are right out of North Jersey, from their accents (hair rhymes with yeah), to their actual right out of the 80s hair to their self-proclaimed guido-ness. Stay tuned, I guess, if that's what it takes to get you over your shore-less winter.

So, I wrote this little end of summer essay right before the Labor Day weekend, and people really liked it. It had some thoughts about the summer, about my kids, about running on the Boardwalk, about memories of my parents, about how the coastline conjures up those memories, about the way people vacation when they come down the shore, and how living down here all the time doesn't always yield the same pleasures. It was a fairly random set of observations, some of which had been explored at various times on this blog. I banged it out in about seven minutes, not including the hours of rewriting the next morning, mostly because the psychic on Ocean City's boardwalk who earlier this summer had told a gay customer he was going to Hell, was unavailable for a season ending interview. (Here's Michael Miller's Press of Atlantic City story on the psychic.) I really wanted to write a story that began: Looking back on the summer, fortune teller blah blah blah. Get it? But as these things often go, the story you dash off at the last minute is often the one that resonates, while the one you work on for weeks lands with an awkward silence.

So it worked out really well. People were literally stopping me on the Boardwalk and emailing me from all over to say how much it they liked it, how it evoked their own feelings about the Jersey shore. Jackpot, yes?  Except for one thing. In a valient attempt to draw some coherenence to the essay, which was organized basically as things that happened to me this summer plus things I've been thinking about, the very astute headline writer found an organizing thread: The shoobies had taught this local some lessons this summer. She called the essay: "Thanks Shoobies.  A Shore resident looks back on this longest of summers, with gratitude, not contempt, for faithful visitors." Nice.

And so it began. The "what's a shoobie" e-mails and phone calls. Honestly, I was really surprised. For one thing, I assumed the term is as ubiquitous in the Philly area as scrapple. People may have forgotten its origins (originally referring to people who came to the shore for the day on the train carrying their lunch in shoeboxes, though more recently the shoe part seems to refer to day trippers who show up wearing shoes on the beach, and, more generally, to visitors to the Jersey shore who are greeted with derision by people who live here because of their annoying driving habits.) But I was really surprised that so many people seemed to have never heard the term before.

A few years back I wrote about the term because it was being used on the Nickelodean kids show Rocket Power, which had a New Jersey writer on its staff. The cool surfer kids in the show used it to deride goofy looking tourists who wore socks with their flip flops. In North Jersey, the term is bennies (apparently from the train stations visitors come from: (B)ayonne, (E)lizabeth, (N)ewark and (N)ew (Y)ork, and the shoobie vs. bennie (benny?) line is often used to distinguish North versus South Jersey. (For more, see nsjersey.blogspot.com). I guess the lesson is, never assume anything. In the future, I will make sure I carefully define the word and its origins, even though I know people will write in and say, I can't believe you think you have to define shoobie, do you not respect your readers' intelligence? And I do hope for most, the meaning was clear from the story, not to mention the headline, which defines Shoobie nearly as quickly as it elevates it to big-type status _ "faithful visitors" _ and neatly incorporates the idea that the usual attitude toward same is contempt, not gratitude. I'm telling you, Janice Ward is a great copy editor.

In the meantime, I guess I should clarify that scrapple is a traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour and spices, according to Wikipedia. And, for the still confused shoobies among us, here's the Wikipedia entry for shoobie, plus the somewhat more incendiary urban dictionary entry for same, and the more to the point offering from the world of academia, from the Double-Tongued Dictionary spearheaded by Grant Barrett, the word of the year guru.

The double-tongue people define it as, simply, "a short-term visitor to the beach and shore communities of New Jersey." Of course, being double tongued, they add an editorial note that muddies the issue: "Shoobie has long been said to derive from a description of tourists, day-trippers, weekenders, and others who would bring a meal packed in a shoe box. Though often repeated, this supposed origin has not been verified."

Ok? Does that settle it? No?  So what is a shoobie, anyway?

Suddenly, it was sunny. After an all day Danny deluge that, frankly, lacked the epic drama that KYW seemed to want it so badly to have (David Madden, you're the best, but telling people to stay out of the surf when it's pouring out is just, kind of dumb. I mean, we're staying out of the surf. Not only that, we're headed to Best Buy.) Anyway, around 5 p.m., it seemed to dawn on every one that it was suddenly a gorgeous day out. And so as the sun set over our shoulders and the moon rose over the ocean, and, kind of unfortunately, the lifeguards headed home, everyone, it seemed hit the beach and boardwalk. Even the lamest of boogie boarders (me) could catch a big ride this evening. And little chick boogie boarders (my daughter) finally felt the call of the surf board. The water was tres warm, the sky was sunset streaked and it was a happy island in the sun. Here's Weezer, at last September's Borgata show, doing a Jersey version of their (hip hip) happy song. Here's to an awesome found evening on the beach.

DUDE!

Surf was way up this morning, and surfers and little surfer dudes gathered at the Ventnor Pier to check out the 10 foot swells:

The word on the pier was, as lush and awesome as Saturday looks, Sunday is going to be the day the surfers in Jersey wait all summer for, making do with Lake Atlantic and its itty bitty waves most of the time. Sunday, according to my surfer sources, was looking to be an off shore wind (not great for sitting on the beach), which would clean up today's waves, which had a little chop on the surface of them.

Sunday's waves are looking to be bigger, smoother, cleaner. However, for us mere mortals, there were several other factors in play. One, there's some thunder around and a little rain. Though as I write, it's still sunny. Actually, it's has started raining as well, with a little thunder. But still sunny. It's going to be that kind of weekend, I guess. Two, the water temperature has dropped about 10 degrees, to around 70, maybe high 60s, and will be rough.

Not that these guys care.

 It is quite beautiful to watch.

Maybe it was the heat, or maybe I just run with, and run into, a jaded crowd. But it seemed Wednesday's third annual Thunder on the Boardwalk did not generate as much awestruck-ness as in the past. It still generated an awesome crowd _ 750,000 , according to local estimates _ and a cool flotilla of people watching at sea. Still, it seemed everyone I spoke to on the beach and later was a little ho hum about it. We've been through three of these now, and nothing will top the first one for utter shock and awe, beginning with the buzz-through the day before over the tops of our homes in Ventnor. Wow! That was very loud! And low! Seems they've refined their flight patterns a bit so they're not looping around low enough over my garage to take a very cool turn at the basket during HORSE. I guess I'm not much for using military power for entertainment purposes in general, but the air show was definitely were a more pleasant diversion than prior ones this summer on the beach. As a friend put it, last week flies, this week fly-overs. Good line, wish I could take credit for it. But listen, nothing has been more pleasant this summer than the water temperature, which is hovering past 80 like it means it. In any case, I was much better this year snapping photos than in the past, so here they re. The trick, you see, is to get the planes AND the beach. Here's a pretty good one:

A little loop de loop:

Chutes on the beach:

My attempt at context, with chute:

The awesome flotilla of spectators:

And, finally, a touch of heart from the mighty fighter jets. Awwwww. Almost as cute as the smiley face fireworks this year on the Fourth of July.

So this week we bandied about the whole vexing pedestrian vs car at the Jersey Shore question. My story on a new crackdown on cars that do not yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk is here. Starting next week, Longport, Ventnor, North Wildwood and Sea Isle City will be among 15 towns in South Jersey to start using undercover police officers as "pedestrian decoys." Which means that in addition to your speed trap vulnerabilities to tickets, now the police are going to jump out and slap you with $100 fine and two points for not letting one of their finest across the road. You've been warned. Now, I've given a lot of thought to this whole question. Up until recently, I felt really strongly that pedestrians were often at fault, and that motorists were wrong, especially in a four lane street, two in each direction, to wave beach goers across without being able to guarantee that the other three lanes would also be safe to cross. This drove me crazy, really. In the guise of being nice, hey, we're at the shore, let's slow down and wave the pedestrians across, they often set these walkers up for more danger, trapping them in the middle of the street, or waving them to a lane where the driver was not stopping. But I see now that what's needed is not a case by case risk assessment, but an entire cultural shift. People should be all about slowing down to let people cross. To be clear, the law states that pedestrians should not leave the curb until it is safe and it is reasonable that a car has the ability to stop for them. Once in the crosswalk, that's where the burden shifts, obviously, really, to the car. But clearly, cars driving up and down those busy shore streets are more interested in making the light than allowing every last boogie boarder and double stroller with chairs attached to stop their momentum. Perhaps the decoy program, or at least the publicity about it, will help that shift along. Along the same lines, how about some accommodations for bicycles as well? How ridiculous is it that the Atlantic City Boardwalk is not available for bicycle commuting by casino employees after 10 a.m.?

In any case, here's a photo of Captain Vincent Pacentrelli of the Longport Police demonstrating the ins and outs of crosswalk etiquette. Not sure if Vince himself will be making like a surfer dude and trying to spread the yield-to-pedestrian word next week, but take a good look. Longport's got a long history of catching me coming off that bridge a couple few miles an hour too fast, once while I inconveniently had like $13 unpaid on an old Wildwood parking ticket from a few years back, and as anybody who lives in Jersey knows, that's a pandora's box not easily closed. But Office Vince was very nice about it, and after I interviewed him, he looked up my entire driving record on his computer and made jokes about it. But like Andy Reid, he's all about second chances. Thanks, dude. I will be staying out of Longport as much as possible.

 UPDATE: People seem to really be a little paranoid about the pedestrian thing, and all of a sudden seem to be giving the pedestrians the benefit of the doubt. However, just this afternoon, I saw the usual near catastrophe. One driver waves across, the driver in the next lane doesn't see that and continues on as usual and there's a close call. Then there was the driver in front of me who stopped _ a little suddenly _  for a pedestrian who was still on the side of the road, causing the driver in back of him (me) to have to make a kind of sudden stop. Interestingly, the driver in front of me was a police officer, so I guess it's good I stopped in time.  

Flooding!!! In Margate!! Ventnor and Adams Ave., right in front of Rita's Water Ice!! Awesome. You know, I've traveled up to Sandy Hook, and down to Cape May Point, and traversed all of LBI, all in the name of beach journalism, but sometimes, the cool stuff is right outside your doorstep. Literally. Especially when it rains really hard, a nice drenching downpour with thunder that was really welcome after all that awful heat, humidity and pestilence that was so bad for beach morale. This corner of Margate always floods, something about tides and the back bays and poor drainage. Channel 6, which has offices up the street, likes to film from this area, because it looks so cool! Of course, a few blocks away, there's no flooding at all. But I will feel very intrepid having to take off my sneakers to get to my car parked out back. Why didn't I wear flip flops like a true professional beach reporter???

Here's another photo I took leaning out the door of the office.

And, another one:

Now, here's one I took out my window on the second floor. Yes, that's a child trying to float on a boogie board in the water in the street, which I do not recommend, as there were cars also trying to navigate those waters.

Forecast for Thursday looks kind of iffy, with a shower or thurnderstorm, but a welcome high of 81. Friday looks like it has a lot of potential, with a high of 83, and more sun. Meanwhile, ocean temps are soaring into the upper 70s.