WINTER AT THE JERSEY SHORE

Spring is here and slowly slipping into summer. We have some very changing weather here in Colorado. Denver is notorious for having a snow storm in late May and a major heat wave in April. Some days the temperature can vary about 50 degrees. I still love it here and wouldn’t live anywhere else. I’m originally from New Jersey.

The one thing I miss most about New Jersey was the ocean. The many summers I spent at the Jersey Shore were always fun and exciting. Planning a day in the sun during the summer months was like having a mini vacation. I spent 2 summers in one small town that swelled from 50,000 people to 150,000 people during some months. I didn’t particularly like the hustle and bustle of the increased shore traffic or the beach teaming with kids and grownups alike frolicking in the ocean and making sand castles on the waters edge. But, the summers were short and the throngs didn’t last too long.

Although the summers at the beach were fun, the winters for me were the best. Growing up in the 60’s in Monmouth County, New Jersey couldn’t ever reveal my commiseration for my childhood there. Some of my best memories were made during the winter months in and around Wall Township, just a short hop, skip and jump from where we lived.

When Hurley’s pond had frozen over, it had given rise to a magical wonderland awaiting me and my friends. On school days, we’d wake up early in the morning so that we could pack all the necessary extras that we would need for our outing at the pond after school. We’d rush off to school on those crisp February mornings bogged down with our brown paper bag lunch, scads of books, two extra pair of mittens, a scarf and one pair of heavy duty socks.

As last period class drew closer, we all anticipated the fun that awaited us at the virgin pond. The 3:15 P.M. buzzer found us running for the bus, our skates tied by the laces around our necks. Most of us kids changed into our jeans and sweaters before leaving school so we wouldn’t miss a single moment at the pond.

There it was. It’s surface as solid and smooth as a glass table top, just waiting for the chance to transcribe the many circles and figure eights of it’s anxious patrons. One by one, the skaters would inch down to it’s bank and slowly light the ice with trepidation. It wasn’t long before the air was filled with the sounds of scuffing and shuffling, and skates skidding to an abrupt halt sideways. Laughter and smiles were aplenty and no one cared that the temperature had dipped to a balmy 20 degrees.

Chivalry was still alive in those days, and a very tangible thing too. No young girl worth her salt ever numbed her fingers to put on her own skates. It was considered a very valor thing for a young man to perch his favorite girl on one of the surrounding logs near the pond’s edge and kneel in the ice or snow to lace up her high topped figure skates. He only stopped long enough to warm up his icy fingers and check if the girl was watching him or someone else on the rink. If all was right, he would then lead her onto the ice, wrap his arms around her waist and after a few un-easy starts, they would glide around the pond while the wind turned their white warmed faces to a rosy red. In minutes, you could see small puffs of white breath expelled that gave witness to their eager exertion.

After an hour of rigorous skating, someone would build a bon-fire along the edge of the pond and little by little, those with frozen fingers, toes and noses would saunter over to the fire and sit by it’s edge hoping to defrost just long enough to regain some movement in their digits.

It was there, at the perimeter of the fire that those “oh so awkward” attempts of romanticism arrested the peaceful calm of the moment. This was the perfect opportunity for the boy to say something sweet and perhaps sneak a kiss when the young lady he was with started to blush.

This was also the perfect opportunity for the enterprising young freshman whose forethought and prediction was right on target, to begin selling dixie cups of hot chocolate from his stash of thermos bottles. Who wouldn’t part with a measly 10 Cents for a hot beverage while enjoying such a rememberable romantic moment?

I remember too, that winter when I lost my graduation watch at Hurley’s pond. It was a Sunday afternoon. I remember walking home raising my coat sleeve and sweater to check the time of day. I panicked slightly when I noticed that the watch was gone. I was almost in tears explaining to my Mom that it was an accident, expecting severe punishment for having been so careless. I found sympathy instead.

The next day Mom went down to the pond and found my watch laying on the frozen waters edge, untouched by the perhaps dozens of voracious, perilous, and sharp single-edged blades that might have skirted too close to it the previous day. I was saved. I still re-live that memory each time I spy my antique watch laying in the bottom drawer of my bedside table.

As I got older, I came to appreciate my winters at the shore more and more. When the tourists went back to the city, and the beaches became very still once again, I would sometimes stand along the boardwalk railing and gaze out in wonder of the majestic ocean; it’s never ending tides, a benevolence so many of us take for granted. I’ve learned to appreciate the untamed but complacent sea gull swooping and dipping into the cold and chilling waters for morsels of food that were almost devoid of life at that time of year. I’ve stood and watched in awe at the forceful and never-ending rhythm of mischief and blessing in those powerful waves crashing along the waters edge.

I enjoyed the solstice that winter at the Jersey Shore brought. A cold and lonely park bench sitting there in the shadow of a full moon, the spray of the crashing waves gently covering it’s exterior with mist and me, standing there bundled up with just my nose, eyes and mouth exposed taking in all the beauty of a moment most city tourists would never see.

Soon it will be summer here and we’ll all retreat to our comfortable homes with the A.C. blasting. We’ll wish for those long forgotten days of winter bliss we once knew, especially spending them on the ponds and in the oceans of our childhood paradise, New Jersey.

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