Disco nights at the Jersey Shore

Don­na Summer died too soon at age 63. The mo­ment I heard of the dis­co diva's pass­ing, I im­me­di­ate­ly thought of a recurring scene at the An­chor­age in Som­ers Point, N.J., at the height of her pop­u­lar­i­ty.

In the late 1970s and ear­ly 1980s, the icon­ic Jer­sey Shore bar nicknamed one por­tion of its in­te­ri­or "Ralph's Lounge," a tip of the hat to an epon­y­mous bar­tend­er whose bushy black mus­tache and leath­er avi­a­tor's cap I can still pic­ture to­day.

The week­ly Ka­mi­ka­ze nights were the busiest at the An­chor­age, while on Ha­wai­ian nights, Ralph would pour shots while wearing a grass skirt. The bouncers were big and the women wore hal­ter tops showcasing sun­tanned shoulders earned from days spent on the beach in Ocean City or Mar­gate. The beer was plen­ti­ful. To this day, you can still see faded and torn T-shirts on some South Jer­sey beaches ad­ver­tis­ing the An­chor­age's re­mark­able of­fer of sev­en beers for a dol­lar.

And then there was the night­ly bac­cha­nal.

It began when the juke­box amplified Don­na Summer's cooing the opening bars of a song that became an An­chor­age hym­nal.

Last dance

Last dance for love

Rec­og­ni­tion of the song would cause a drum­beat among the col­lege-age crowd. They'd im­me­di­ate­ly fo­cus their at­ten­tion on Ralph, and a bur­lesque-like ne­go­ti­a­tion would be­gin. The crowd demanded ac­tion. Ralph feigned a lack of ­in­ter­est while fill­ing patrons' glasses. All the while the song continued.

Yes, it's my last chance

For ro­mance to­night

By now the shouts from the bare­ly le­gal crowd would al­most drown out the juke­box while Ralph went about his work.

I need you by me

Be­side me, to guide me

To hold me, to scold me

'Cause when I'm bad

I'm so, so bad

Then, bor­der­line pandemonium and a brief sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief. May­be he re­al­ly wasn't going to do it to­night? Hey, what's wrong with Ralph? But with the timing of a DJ who could hit the mark, just when the mu­sic built to a cre­scen­do, Ralph would run the length of the joint, scale the bar, and com­mence dancing for the crowd, all the while the mu­sic thumped …

So let's dance the last dance

Let's dance the last dance

Let's dance this last dance to­night

The An­chor­age was heav­en on those nights. Ask patrons about some of the oth­er leg­end­ary haunts — Beach­comb­er, Maynards, Tony Mart's, Dunes 'til Dawn, Mother's, Phil's Bon­go Room, Bayshores — and chances are they can tell you sim­i­lar traditions about each.

Summer un­of­fic­ial­ly begins this week­end, and there will be plen­ty of celebrating the Shore for its beaches and fam­i­ly memories. Those of us born and raised here tend to main­tain an al­le­giance to a par­tic­u­lar Shore town and rel­ish taking our kids to the same beaches we once visited with our parents. We also hold firm in our opinions about par­tic­u­lar watering holes, and we re­sist change.

The Geator, Jer­ry Blavat, who has owned Memories in Mar­gate for 40 years, broke it down for me.

"When you own a bar or club and open it up Memorial Day week­end af­ter clos­ing it Labor Day, you don't have to do a thing to it," explained the Boss with the Hot Sauce. "You don't have to ren­o­vate. Be­cause next year, peo­ple want to come back to the same feel. But when you own a club in Phil­ly, peo­ple are al­ways giving it a dif­fer­ent look. The Shore bars, they al­ways look the same."

He's right. It's been a few decades and Ralph's Lounge is now a dining room, but the main bar at "the Anch" still looks the same. Sitting on a bar stool there last sum­mer, I was struck by how many patrons seemed to walk in the door and sur­vey the land­scape with a look that says they were there long ago, and have been coming back ever since.

"You want to re­live the mem­o­ry of what you had the year be­fore," the Geator told me. "That's why I call my place Memories."