If you live in New Jersey, the summer always brings on thoughts of the Jersey shore. Memorial Day is the traditional start of the summer season. Often disappointing, the Jersey shore can be wet and cold and clammy, like it is today. Still, it always beacons to the Jerseyite as that potential paradise, a quick ride down to Parkway, to that bucolic if crowded institution, the shore.
Our family did go to the shore occasionally, but it was an occasional, not a frequent excursion. My mother sunburned easily and my father could not swim, so at best we made it there maybe twice a year.
One year my maiden aunt told my father that she had rented a place in Avon for a few days and we could meet her on the beach. Avon was a pleasant Jersey town, a little more exclusive than Asbury Park, and the family looked for a nice excursion that would check off the shore as well as the Aunt Rose visit from the calendar.
It was a pleasant day. Once we got to the beach my older brother took his shoes off. One foot in, he stepped on a bee. The foot swelled up and he had a bad allergic reaction. Aunt Rose waved to us in the distance. My mother looked at Jim and (she was a nurse) decided he needed to go the emergency room.
My father yelled at his sister, "Sorry Rose we have to take Jim to the hospital. He stepped on a bee. So long!"
Aunt Rose yelled, "But you just got here!"
We drove back. Leaving Avon, I piped up with
"Look, there is a sign for a hospital"
"Look, there is a sign for a hospital"
Mother: "No I don't trust these south Jersey hospitals. We're going to Hackensack."
By the time we got to Hackensack Jim's swelling had dissipated. We went home and I went to Pete's Pizza on Essex Street and got a pie. My shortest trip to the shore.
