Back to Seaside Dec. 28, 2024
My grandfather built many of the bungalows in Toms River,
which became a regular summer retreat, and we often crossed the bridge over the
bay to take in the carnival like offerings Seaside offered.
In the 1940s, my aunt, Alice, worked as a hostess at the
Stewarts Root Beer stand on Route 37, which was still standing in 2012, but gone
during this trip.
There are two such resorts side by side, Seaside Heights – a
mecca for teenagers, and Seaside Park, a more affluent community.
While my family went to Seaside Heights, the family of the
local doctor took up summer residence in Seaside Park, something my childhood
friend at the time (the son of the doctor) never let me forget (nor did he let
me forget the private school he attended while I went to a more mundane
Catholic school).
I actually made two trips to both seaside communities during
the summer and fall of 2012, one just after Labor Day, the second, just after
Sandy.
The photos from the first visit largely reflected the Seaside
I recalled at a kid with one huge element missing: the Chatter Box, a night
club where all of the popular bands played – something like a scaled down Stone
Pony. Even our band played there in 1980.
Seaside Heights was the location of my gang’s drug-laden
trip in 1969, when Pauly discovered that Hank had rented a bungalow and
convince me and other members of the gang to impose on him – Pauly frequently
doing such things. I was on pass from the Army and during Pauly’s search for
drugs became known as the skinhead hippie at the various parties we invaded.
Later that same summer, I went to Seaside on my own on a pass,
got into a fight under one of the piers with some meathead over a girl we were
both trying to court.
After my family moved to Toms River in late 1976, I became a
regular visitor winter, summer and the other seasons, frequently going to the boardwalk.
Oddly enough, Hank – one of my three best friends – started visiting there,
too, winning albums at Lucky Leo’s and frequenting the pubs where he eventually
encountered his girlfriend, Rona, a strange character who I’ve not seen in
decades, but long gone from those digs.
This trip was down memory lane, driving down the Parkway to
Route 37 and then into Seaside, marking those things that remained the same and
those things missing. Most of the changes were subtle, odd items such as the
rent a boat for crabbing place that my uncles used to go to, replaced by
condos.
The boardwalk for the most part on the Seaside Heights side
looked the same with only a few concessions open off season (the guys at the balloon
target range were defrosting their allotment of balloons on the sunny
boardwalk).
The big changes were on the Seaside Park side where a fire
had broken out post-Sandy, gutting the claustrophobic cavern-like concessions.
Some of the older concessions survived, but not the amusements or the carousel,
a portion of which was replaced by an exclusive club, living up to the town’s
reputation for serving the upper crust.
We strolled up the Seaside Heights side first, then back to
the Seaside Park side, taking a breather in one of the enclosed arcades, where
we also bought some chocolate.
The trek recalled several photos I had from this place, one
showing my uncles Harold and Frank walking with my grandmother here – a shot
taken at some point prior to 1989, most likely Christmas because that’s when
Harold paid a visit there. The other photo is of my mother against the backdrop
of a winter beach.
Seaside Heights differs from Asbury Park in that it – like Wildwood
far to the south – retains its blue collar sensibility, and has yet to be
gentrified the way Asbury has. Where as Asbury gutted that aspect of its past
to become a community more like Seaside Park, Seaside Heights brought all the
old feelings back, even though the amusement pier was closed for the season,
and walking there again was like walking down memory lane, recalling all those important
moments I might not have fully recalled had we not returned.
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