Down the shore, everything’s alright
I am sitting on the top riser in the back row of Cape May Convention Hall. It’s 8 PM on a Thursday night down the shore, and the concert is starting at 8:01. I have a full bird’s eye view of the audience. I am the youngest one here by three decades at minimum. The lights go down, and a classic quartet of octagenarians shuffle out onstage. I half expect Ed Sullivan to pop out from the wings to introduce them. They are here to play for their people, all white bouffants and shiny bald heads sweetly swaying in their chairs. The audience is giving it all they got, toe-tapping with those first distinct drum beats of “Be My Baby” and murmuring along to the powerfully emotive vibratto of “Cara Mia.” These two hours in the dark are a trip down Music Memory Lane, the age of rock-and-roll lullabies and the Elvis Pelvis. I am amazed at how this music moves me. They are Jay & the Americans, four men in red, white and blue suits, singing alongside the likeness of the Drifters and Frankie Valli. They transport us to a different time and space, to the darkness behind theatre curtains, to the slicked down stage of Roy Orbison and his timeless crooning. The melodic delicacies of “Crying” make my mother sigh with memories and my stoic father wipe his eyes. This magic moment.
The Jersey Shore is its own form of magic. Cape May in particular gives me all the feels. As I walk along Beach Avenue (not Ocean — it still pains me that I can’t draw that personal parallel to Yellowcard), the Sunday morning air hangs heavy over the town. It’s a sleepy blanket that rolls back just enough to let the ocean breeze drift in and a gentle sun warm the pavement.
There are no chain stores in Cape May, so the most garish thing in town is the bubblegum pink that’s coated the Periwinkle Inn for 100 years. Its color has faded over time, but the intention sticks. Not to say there is a want for hue amongst these beachside dwellings. Every domicile, from the condos to the castles, is painted in a delightful grabbag of Victorian reds, blues, greens and yellows. Turrets spin up from Mansard roofs, and each gabled entranceway is couched by wild ornamental grasses and violet Lady’s Mantle. My mother and I have an unhealthy obsession with the film “Somewhere in Time” (Christopher Reeve travels back in time to the 1800s and falls in love with a pre-Doctor-Quinn Jane Seymour), and the names bestowed upon these enchanting edifices pull us back to that century. Althea’s, Angel of the Sea, Kings Cottage, Twin Gables, the Chalfonte Hotel. Of course, with their age comes history, and ghosts run amuck in this town. They fade in and out of night shadows, colluding with the flickering glow of friendly firefly families.
There are two boardwalk arcades along the ocean, and the Family Fun Arcade on Beach & Howard still houses my mechanical horsie ride. His tail has broken off since my single-digit years, his mane washed out to a dull beige — but he poses proudly on the boardwalk’s wooden flats, guarding the neon entrance to the world of skee-ball and claw machines. There’s a picture of me, faded and sun-bleached around the edges, and I’m having the time of my life on that rusted red horse. A blond bowl cut peaking out from under my trusty summer bucket hat, chocolate soft-serve smudged around a giddy grin. Soft chocolate with rainbow sprinkles is still the Kristin favorite.
It’s hard for me to slow down, it’s hard for all of us to slow down these days. But down here, getting somewhere depends solely on the strength behind your bike peddle or the fusion of the sandals to your feet. This is New Jersey. People are loud in New Jersey. But when you pull off Exit 0 from the Garden State Parkway and ride that curve over the Ocean Drive Bridge, things turn into chalky, lethargic watercolors. In this town, even the truck pumping Z100’s latest beats slows down to a calmed crawl. It shares the streets and sidewalks with toddlers and Tommy Bahamas, and no one has an agenda.
You can feel it. No one has an agenda here. Even my father, the king of planning, the guy who printed Danny-Tanner-style event calendars for our Disneyworld vacations, tells me to relax when I ask about dinnertime. And as Jay of Jay & the Americans makes his way across the stage, a dyed-brown poof of bangs flopping over his forehead, he waves hello to the mayor. Because of course the mayor’s here. Where else would he be on a Thursday night?
Originally published at thingsaregreatblog.wordpress.com on July 28, 2017.