Remains the same April 20, 2024
Everything remained the same, unchanged over the months
since our last coming, a chill air of mid-spring swirling around us as we took
the stroll to the green merry-go-round building and then to the casino, all
still in disrepair, like the bones of some prehistoric creature nobody wants to
acknowledged existed, as off the beach, in those vacant places where old clubs
once thrived, yellow dinosaurs dig up the earth, or deposit massive lava flows
of concrete, foundation of a new era in which we who remember the past will
have no place, we, the extinct species who still ache for what once was,
knowing it will never be again.
The chill discouraged others from coming out, or perhaps
fear of pending rain. One couple we met had stopped here on their way from
Atlantic City to their home in Bloomfield, to rest, to pay homage, having lived
through that age when music filled the streets, along with the rumble of
hotrods along Thunder Road, the ghosts of those giants hovering nearby in the
ruins, but unable to resurrect what had been, plaques decorating the walls of
old institutions that have since been converted to more mundane us, condos
where the upstage club was, empty lots for other venues like the Student
Prince.
We come here to remember or perhaps forget, trying not to get
swept under the riptide of change until we are ready to surrender and let our
lives flow out into the endless sea.
We saw no whales this time as we did on our previous visit,
just the choppy waves and the mirage they create that look like the fins of sea
creatures when they are not.
We, of course, stopped to pay homage to Clarence whose bench
sits near Madam Marie’s on the boardwalk, a ritual we engage in each time we
come as if to honor his memory and the memory of the place to which so many of
us came in the aftermath of success, looking to find nuggets in an already expired
gold mine.
We got coffee and then strolled out to the side of the
boardwalk where fewer tourist go, catching site of a family spread out in beach
chairs as if unable to wait for warmer weather to justify their pleasure.
We did not take the longer walk to Deal or Sunset lakes, but
made our way back into Ocean Grove, to the still closed pier that stretched out
into the sea, then down Main Street, and eventually back to Cookman to glimpse
the changes here, most of which were hidden from view as the one time thriving
downtown struggles to embrace the new age and people who do not carry the
burden of memories the way we do.
Even then, it all felt special, the way Woodstock in its decline
feels special, the way Cape May with its determination to retain history feels
special. We walk in the footsteps of giants and feel the earth rumbling under
us as if we were giants, too – a pleasant idea we carried back during the long
drive home, rain coming later, to wash away our woes
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