Betting On Black: Down The Shore, Everything’s Alright

I’m a Jersey boy through and through. I love my state! I especially love the Jersey Shore! When I was super young, my parents used to pack our minivan up and we would head down to Island Beach State Park. I can still taste the ham and cheese sandwiches that hit different when you were down the shore. My parents then became friends with Kathy and Greg Brown. They had 3 daughters… Jen, Katie, and Sara. Our families would take day trips to Island Beach just about every weekend in the summer. When I got older, I used to go to the Seaside Boardwalk with my best friend, DJ, and his family. Thank you, Momma Donna, for all of the dollar bills you gave me and your son so we could win all of the cool wrestling posters. Momma Donna and Uncle John would buy us big pizza slices at 3 Brothers or Maruca’s, or we would get the Sausage Sandwich from Midway with the freshly squeezed lemonade. We would play the Lucky Leo arcades for hours to win prizes we would never use. How does 17,000 tickets get you a Chinese finger trap and a slinky? I call BS!

A few years later, my parents started to rent a house for a week in LBI. My other best friend, Karl, would come on these trips with us, and it was the highlight of our summer. Karl and I, at 14 years old,d would go to Fantasy Island, the mini theme park/arcade on the island, or head to Bay Village and go to the teen club called The Tide. My buddy Beaston and his family had a house in Spray Beach in LBI, and he brought his best friend Tom, aka Biff, with him. We got lucky that our weeks matched up, so Karl and I would meet up with them and troll Fantasy Island looking for girls. 2 years later, we were 16, and my parents rented another house in LBI, and all of my boys came down for a couple of nights. Myself, Karl, DJ, Merlin, Beaston, and Biff were all at my parents' beach house, and we wanted to pick up girls. Fantasy Island was not the spot anymore, but my brother, who was 4 years older, told us about a club that was under 21. Merlin was the first to get his license, so we packed 6 guys into a black Acura Integra and rode the 15 minutes from Brant Beach to Beach Haven. The club was called The Ketch, and we had a blast.

Pushing forward to being legal to drink, the Jersey Shore became a tad different. I just graduated from college, and so did my buddies, and we were looking to party at this legendary place they called the Jersey Shore. I found out instantly that there is no party like a Jersey Shore party. The show Jersey Shore came out in 2009 and made my area of the Jersey Shore famous. My boys and I were doing what they were doing, but now the clubs/bars were on national TV. I’ve been to the Southern beaches in Jersey, and it’s a really good time, but it does not come close to the beach towns that I grew up going to. I can’t explain why it’s better, it just is. It’s my second home. Let me roll through my favorite spots at the Jersey Shore (some no longer exist)… Jenks and Tiki in Point Pleasant. Osprey and Leggets in Squan. Parker House in Spring Lake. Bar A, Connolly Station, 509, and Djais in Belmar. Karma, Beachcomber, and Spicy’s in Seaside. Donovan’s in Sea Bright, Avenue in Long Branch. I can’t forget Headliners in Neptune. Those are just the bars, I can’t forget about the restaurants. There are too many to name!

I love the Jersey Shore, and I will always love it. My wife Michelle is smitten with the Jersey Shore as well. She went to school at Monmouth, which is literally on the Jersey Shore. She loves this place probably more than me. She and I have vacationed in LBI and Point Pleasant together, and we both agree that our summer home is at the Jersey Shore. My party days have pretty much parted ways, but I still love to watch the younger generation enjoy the Jersey Shore like me, my boys, and my wife did in our early days. Like Larry Bird said about the NBA, "Leave the game better than you found it." So to all my younger people, leave the Jersey Shore better than how you found it.