“Jersey Shore 2017: The
Experience”
8/18/17, “A Familiar Boardwalk”
Ventnor City, New Jersey
It’s all so familiar. Even though it has been four years since I
have been here, it looks as familiar as my hometown. It is a place I have been well over a dozen
times. I have probably been here at the
tail end of more summers than not. The
four years since my last visit have done nothing to dull my memory of this
boardwalk, these beaches, this building, and especially this apartment. Even before I walked in the door of the
apartment, I could recall the layout, every nook and cranny, as well as I can
my own.
I am now out on the balcony,
smoking my favorite pipe, as I look over the Atlantic Ocean and enjoy a crisp
breeze and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. I have experienced this view and these sounds
from this balcony more times than I recall.
I have watched more tennis matches in this apartment than I can
count. I have walked this familiar
boardwalk more times than I could ever know.
It is all so familiar, and I suppose it is a fitting place to begin my
last trip before I leave for Hawaii at the end of the summer. I promised it would be a summer to remember,
and it has been, but the best is yet to come.
It has been a chaotic day, but it ended well, and I am now fully
relaxed. The day began before 7 AM, as I
had an 8 AM inspection, and I wanted time for breakfast and a cigar before my
inspection. I woke up to pouring rain,
which dampened my plans for the morning, no pun intended. I still lit up my Caoba and went to get my
bagel, leaving my cigar outside the deli.
I got my favorite from my local deli, a whole wheat bagel with lox spread,
along with a coffee.
After breakfast, I
retrieved my cigar and biked to my inspection, with my two bags for the trip,
in the rain, and left my cigar outside.
I actually had only eaten half my bagel with the intention of having the
other half for lunch. After the
inspection, the rain had let up, but my cigar was drenched, so there was no
hope of relighting it. I biked to Grand
Central and got a little lost in the maze of underground passages, coming in
from the hidden 47th Street entrance. I soon made it to my building and used my
lunch hour for my workout. I got a
vanilla coffee protein shake to pair with the rest of my bagel for lunch. It certainly didn’t taste like health
food.
After work, I headed to the Port
Authority with two of my coworkers, one of whom was taking the subway uptown,
the other of whom was taking the bus home to New Jersey. I had plenty of time to kill, or so I
thought, so I went in search of dinner.
I had intended to eat inside the Port Authority, but the options were
not appealing. I instead found a deli a
couple of blocks away where I got a grilled turkey and bacon sandwich on whole
wheat bread. That was good. I then lit up an Oliva and smoked it
outside. My bus was at 6:30 PM, and I
wanted coffee and a power bar for the ride, so I figured I would need to head
inside at 6 PM. I got the coffee and
power bar and went to print out my ticket, which was a process.
When I got there, I was dismayed. It wasn’t like an airplane where, if your
flight is at 6:30 PM, they start boarding your flight at 6:10 PM, and you get
on the 6:30 PM and have a reserved seat on that flight. It was first-come, first-served, and there
was a massive line waiting for the buses, which came sporadically, but at least
once every thirty minutes. I thought I
might be waiting two hours, but I was actually on a bus by 7 PM. It was still pouring, and the drive was slow,
but I spent most of it looking at various options for trips for the next year
or so, now that I have a better idea of what my early 30s will look like. I looked mostly at The Philippines, but also
at Thailand and Vanuatu. If my reader
does not know where Vanuatu is, I don’t blame him or her. It is a tiny island nation in the South
Pacific, and it requires at least three flights to get there, and I would need
a four-day weekend just to see the capital and the one World Heritage Site that
is right by the capital.
Soon enough, we
were in Atlantic City, and I got off at the Tropicana Casino, where my mother
was awaiting me, due to some confusion in our plan for the evening. I had intended to have a cigar at the casino
and gamble a little before walking to my grandmother’s place along the
Boardwalk with the rest of my cigar, though I worried that the rain might put
pay to the last part of that plan. In
other words, there was no point in my mother coming to meet me. She took my bag of clothes, and I went into
the casino and lit up a PDR. I was in
heaven. This was my kind of town. I found a blackjack table in the smoking
section and sat down.
While it is my
practice not to mention dollar amounts in this Travelogue, I can mention
quantities. I bought chips for eight
times the minimum bet of the table, and I kept betting the minimum bet. I was up and down, though never up more than
one times the minimum bet. At one point
I was down half of my buy-in, though. Eventually
I ordered my drinks, a Scotch and a side of water. Not long after my drink came, I was even
again, and I got pretty much the best thing you could get at a blackjack table:
two aces. I split my hand and won on
both hands. I was now up twice the
minimum bet, so I walked away.
It was a
nice amount of money, but, in my mind, I was actually up ten times the minimum
bet, since I got back my original investment of eight times the minimum bet,
which I was prepared to lose, plus the winnings of twice the minimum bet. I then wandered around the casino with the
rest of my drink, smoking my cigar.
Once
I finished my drink, I headed out and walked to my grandmother’s place with the
rest of my cigar, ditching it right before I entered the city limits of
Ventnor. It was all so familiar, the
boardwalk, the building, the apartment. Soon enough, I was inside the familiar apartment, and I was greeted by
my grandmother and my parents. We took
some ceremonial pictures, said our hellos and goodbyes, and made our plans for
the morning.
I then found a picture of
myself dated June 1998 in the small bedroom.
Nineteen years ago. I was
ten. I surmised that that picture had
been there untouched for those nineteen years.
I then went out to the balcony, where I will sleep tonight, lit up my
Ardor, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can
publish and get to sleep.
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