Long before there was a Godawful TV shore featuring the worst aspects of human behavior, there was the NJ Shore. To go "down the shore" was to go on vacation for generations of New Jerseyans. My grandparents had a vacation home on Barnegat Bay in Silverton Township. Seaside Heights was across the bay on the barrier island. Based on news reports and photographs, I am reasonably sure that the house my grandparents used to own either no longer exists or has been severely damaged.
For as long as I can remember, until my grandparents sold the house when I was in my late 20s, summer meant weekend and week-long treks down the shore. Sitting in traffic on the Garden State Parkway on Friday nights, watching the mile markers and exit numbers pass, my cousins and I created an entire lore about the various landmarks on the drive down the shore. We were forced to listen my grandmother's 8-track tapes while riding in my grandparents' Cougar (which my grandmother pronounced as Coo-GAR for extra pretentiousness), in the process discovering the pure cheese that is Don Ho amid the Lawrence Welk and Mario Lonza and occasional show tunes. To this day I still know far too many lyrics to Don Ho songs.
My grandparents shore house started out small, but then got an addition tacked one as more grandchildren arrived. The furniture was classic fusty late 60s chic, with plastic covers on the couches until all the grandchildren were old enough to know better than to sit on them straight off the beach. There were bunk beds for the older grandchildren, at least until my oldest cousin and I hit puberty and got properly separated into "adult" rooms. A screen porch off the kitchen was full of every board game known to man at the time, all of which we played endlessly while my grandparents slept in late.
We spent every day at the beach, building sand castle complexes that frustrated the guys responsible for the breach maintenance and generally making nuisances of ourselves. On cloudy days or days when there was too much wind off the bay to hit the beach, my two oldest cousins and I would go on endless bike rides around the neighborhood without anything resembling adult supervision.
On particularly special evenings, there would be a trip to the Seaside Heights boardwalk, with rides, Kohl's frozen custard, wheels and games of chance. Dinner at Baiamonte's Italian restaurant. The fiberglass cow on top of the steakhouse by the bridge over the bay. I rode my first roller coaster at Seaside Heights. And my first flume. My grandfather was fearless enough to accompany me and my oldest cousin on most of the crazy rides we wanted to try, even after my cousin threw up on him in the "Octopus."
The smell of the bay, both good and bad. (Bad when the seaweed would wash up onto the beach and start rotting in the sun. Good when the wind would be off the ocean). Crabbing with my grandfather, catching blue claw crabs with nets and stakes and then having them barbequeued on the grill after the sun went down.
The entire Seaside Heights amusement pier was wiped out. I'm sure they will rebuild, but it won't have the same wonderful kitschy vibe as the original.
I wanted to take my nephew for a weekend down the shore this summer, but schedules and life didn't work out for doing it this summer. Now I wish I had tried harder because there isn't "always next year."
Edited to add: Various news reports suggest that the antique carousel at Seaside Heights may have survived the storm intact and undamaged. It's a 100-year old artistic icon.
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