1930-1945 Bathing Beach, Wildwood, NJ postcard
(image courtesy of Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers Collection)
Do you like to hop in your car and drive, with no particular place to go? I can’t think of anything better than heading out on a road adventure, listening to some tunes with my favorite people beside me, talking about nothing and everything as the scenery rolls by. It’s the actual definition of a joyride [(joi-rid): a ride taken for pleasure (as in a car or aircraft)] and I’ve decided to add more joyrides into my life, starting out with a easy drive to Wildwood NJ on a quick shoobie trip to eat fresh crabs, smell the salty ocean air and experience the Boardwalk…
The South Jersey beaches hold special meaning because I spent much of my twenties working the boards each summer. When I wasn’t waitressing, fixing skee-ball machines, hawking cheap t-shirts, or scaring folks as a ghoul at Castle Dracula I was riding my 10-speed between the Woods and Sea Isle City to hang out with my friends, drinking the nights away playing a Dungeons & Dragons quest that lasted from June thru August for five years running.
As I drove toward the beach I was immediately struck by the ‘more’. As in, more houses, more people, more traffic, more density. I kept saying things like ‘that used to be…’ and ‘wow, I can remember when…’ If that wasn’t enough to make me feel – and sound – old, I made it worse by breaking two of my life taboos during the trip. The first involved stopping at a tourist trap to eat. In my defense, I didn’t know it was a tourist trap until I pulled into the parking lot, but still. Typically, a restaurant tourist trap is going to be over-hyped with under-performing food, so I was pleasantly surprised by The Crab House at Two Mile Landing. It’s hard to estimate how many people they serve on a daily basis and how many crabs get eaten each night, but it’s a lot. And tourist trap or not, it was nice to be seated next to the water, watching the boats come and go as kids played in the shallows while the sun set while I enjoyed some very tasty seafood.
After dinner, it was a quick ride down Pacific Avenue to the Wildwood Beach Ball sign at the north end of the city. Unfortunately, it was dark by then and so I missed the beach balls and the sign, but did score some primo parking, which leads to how I broke the second taboo: I immediately jumped on one of the tram cars to get to the other end of the 2.5 mile boardwalk. Back in the day I hated that tram car and used to make fun of the geezers who rode it. ‘Watch the tram car’ will forever haunt my dreams while evoking sweet memories of my days as a beach bum.
‘Welcome sign and concrete beach balls on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey’
Carol Highsmith (2017) courtesy of the Library of Congress
I am glad I got on the tram though, because it allowed me to take in the overwhelming ‘moreness’ of it all. What made the boardwalk the thing to do after a day at the beach hasn’t changed, there’s just a lot more to choose from: more rides, more games of chance, more food, and more souvenirs. I loved checking out the amusement piers and seeing rides like The Great White, a beauty of a wooden roller coaster which hovers over the beach. As a lifelong arcade rat I was a little sad to see that the pinballs and arcade games I used to love are a thing of the past, replaced by claw machines and e-slot machines. If I hadn’t been full from eating those crabs I could have filled myself with lots of latin-flavored foods or the old pizza and ice cream standbys. And if the storefront displays are any indication, it’s a ‘Barbie’, ‘I [heart] hot mom’s/dad’s/toxic men/women’, stuffed seagull kind of summer, because that’s what was for sale in every souvenir shop along the promenade. I’m still wondering how the biggest seashore pest of all has turned into the must-have memento of the year.
There were definitely some things I missed because there’s only so much you can take in during a joyride. As a music lover, I definitely want to make another visit so I can check out the Doo-Wop Preservation League, lovingly restored 50’s era hotels and miles of neon lighting which pay tribute to Doo-Wop music. That said, I’m thinking my next joyride involves Lucy the Elephant but who knows? That’s the great thing about getting in your car for an adventure. You never know where you’ll end up but it almost always will turn out to be somewhere you wanted to be.
The Grey Goddess 