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.
Above, fleeing the beach in droves...
So in theory, the place to be in this week's heat would seem to be the beach. Right? In theory. In reality, the beach today and yesterday was, by all accounts, downright miserable, with reports of biting flies coming from Long Beach Island, Ventnor, Margate and, not as bad, North Wildwood. I guess you'd call these pests see-ems, as opposed to the ones that sneak up on you, because this strain of Jersey Shore black fly boldly march up like parasitic beach bag checkers, spread out their fly towels and act like you'd invited them to hang out around your ankles for the afternoon. It was a war out there, really. One friend fleeing the beach after about an hour - unprecedented for this local beachfly - described reading her book, looking up and seeing a mass of black flies around her ankles, biting, and saying to herself, "What the heck am I doing out here?" And then, like the people above, abandoning beach. Or heading back into the water, which at least was warm and offered a brief respite from the blood suckers. The land breeze is, of course, the culprit, and so we can only hope it shifts by tomorrow, bringing the breeze again from off the ocean, making the beach again the proverbial "cooler at the shore" and sending the flies back to the mainland, or at least to Brigantine, where they belong.
So the Ladder Ball story which ran this week got a pretty big bounce, especially online. Here is a picture of our heroes, who were excellent subjects, appearing as if on cue in Ventnor on the day I went looking for a game in progress, and launching into an excellent discussion of possible philosophical underpinnings of their hanging balls game within 30 seconds of me wandering up to them with a notebook and a very weak brown colored pencil that I dug out of my beach bag. It's that kind of thing that makes reporters give thanks to the journalism gods. They even stuck around while I went back home to get a pen and my camera. (Beach reporting can sometimes leave a person unequipped.) The comments attached to the story are pretty funny, though a little too much discussion of the people pictured in the photos, but yea, for once, it's not a girl in a bikini who was most prominent in a beach photo (though she's part of the gang, above.). Deal with it. And as to whether an elaborately assembled, competitive ball game is the most highly evolved way to spend time on the beach, or some sign of lack of appreciation for the simple pleasures of sand, surf and sky, the debate rages on.
If bald, hunky, judgmental television star chefs are your thing, today is your day to go to the reinvented for 2009 Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival. Noted chef Tom Coliccio, owner of NYC's craft restaurant and top judge on Bravo's Top Chef, will be doing the foodie rock star thing from early afternoon (Healthy Eating with Tom Colicchio at Showboat) to late afternoon (Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea BBQ Tailgate ... at Bally's Dennis Courtyard ... with Tom Colicchio) to Evening (Food and Wine Spectacular at the Pool at Harrahs ... hosted by Tom Colicchio) to Late Night (Crystal Head Presents: House of Blues After Party ... hosted by Tom Colicchio. Whew. Rock this town, Tom C.
I'll be on assignment for some if not all of Tom Coliccio's big day in A.C. (Who other than Tom could keep up with it all) and will be filing for this week's food section. Tomorrow and Sunday feature more celebrity chefs, including a wine tour with Ted Allen, Feast of Fieri hosted by Guy Fieri, Culinary Demonistration with Ingrid Hffman, The Art of Fondue with Duff Goldman and Ingrid Hoffman, an evening with Emeril lagasse, and, the synergistic shindig, the Malibu Rum Beach Soiree at Bally's Saturday, where all the celebrity chefs will be on hand.
For a complete schedule, and ticket information (some events are sold out), go acfoodandwine.com.
Update: Foodie rock star indeed. Colicchio, he of the bald head and liquidy light blue eyes, was mobbed everywhere he went, so much so that he was basically kept behind ropes at this evening's big event at the Pool in Harrah's, surrounded by security like he was President Obama or something. Meanwhile, chefs from Harrah's, Bally's, Showboat and Caesar's, humped out elaborate little finger food at stations all night long, 1,500 veal meatballs and counting at one station, little tuna tartar and foie gras gelato in tiny cones in another. More sugary deserts than you could shake a white chocolate swizel stick at. More to come.
Another Update: Colicchio and his wife welcomed a baby boy to the world - pulled a bun from the oven, said one headline - the day after his Atlantic City visit. Nice, Tom. Luka Bodhi was born on August 1 at 7:55pm. He weighed in at 6lbs 9 oz.
And here, from Thursday's food section, is the story about my day stalking Colicchio and doing investigatory food journalism for the Inquirer. There were some people very dissatisfied with their experience at the food festival, especially those who paid their own way as opposed to being comped. Seemed the events were widely different, with some, like the clambake, leaving people very satisfied, and others, like the BBQ on Friday, that fell flat. The sessions with the chefs seemed to go over well, less so, the advertised hosting and mingling events, which, at least for Colicchio, seemed to hold less appeal as the day wore on.
Previously: That warm ocean? Nice while it lasted.
Fourth Street Coffee Wars: the debate continues
Well we've had quite a streak of warm ocean temperatures this summer, quite unlike last summer, but on Thursday, that thing that happens when the wind shifts and starts coming in from the mainland, and the top layer of water gets blown out to sea, and all of a sudden. Brrrr. Your ocean is as cold as your beer:
Well, not quite. But during some investigatory happy hour beach reporting, a little Bud Light in honor of our President's choice of brew tonight in his Sgt. Crowley-Skip Gates summit, I discovered that the ocean had dropped about 10 to 15 degrees since Wednesday. It's called upwelling, I tell you. And every summer we write about it like it's never happened before. The lifeguards said the water temp was down in the low 60s, after being nicely in the mid 70s for the last few weeks. Meanwhile, the southern half of Ventnor was still reeking of mussels.
I'm thinking perhaps I should invite some Ventnor police officers to a Bud Light summit of my own, see if we can work out our differences. They seem way too interested in my traffic habbits this summer. I mean, I make that U turn in front of CVS all year long, no problem. Only in July does this cost me $85. So much for cutting the locals a break. In any case, I found it interesting that President Obama went for Bud Light, as my usually way ahead of the curve nephew just this week accepted one of my Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre brews but then chose to polish off our stash of Bud Light, kept in stock for an always-dropping-in neighbor who drinks nothing else, and sang its praises. So maybe they're onto something. Anyway, hopefully the ocean will reverse course and warm up again for this weekend. Though it seems some thunderstorms may make things a little lively. No worries. Despite the worms, mussels and seaweed, it's been incredibly lovely this season.
Previously: From Worms to a Whale.
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