New Jersey is becoming California

 

The image I have always had of New Jersey is that it is a place where men work on their cars in the driveway while listening to old records of the sixties on a rather loud radio playing WCBS FM. Today, though, a number of developments are leading me to believe that New Jersey is becoming more like California. 

A few years ago I went to Los Angeles and at the Safeway in Santa Monica I went in to buy some food for my room. The clerk eyed me suspiciously when he saw I didn't bring a burlap bag with me to bring said groceries home. "I'm from New Jersey", I apologized, before he sold me a reusable hemp bag with a picture of Big Sur on the front. Now, New Jersey is not going to be offering free plastic shopping bags anymore. My kitchen is knee deep in plastic bags now as I hoard them until May. 

Of course the next way New Jersey is going to become California-ized is when ordinary people can legally buy pot in dispensaries. When I was in college you could buy "Colombian" or occasionally "Vietnamese" from your colleagues on the dorm floor. As a treat, he might sell "hash". Today you are supposed to choose among a wealth of varieties they never had at school. You can choose indica or sativa, tinctures or gummy bears, vaporizers or buds. I have no idea what I'll buy when that happy day comes next week. I know I'll have to bring my own bag, preferably a hemp one. 

Next year, people will be coming to New Jersey to use the slot machines, sports bet, buy pot and obtain an abortion. New Jersey will still have Democratic senators and most young women will be sporting tattoos. Just like California. Hope some of that new revenue goes to pay my pension. 

It could really happen

Marijuana may become legal in New Jersey. It's hard to believe but it was a pivotal point in Phil Murphy's platform and now he is the governor elect. For an aging baby boomer, it is hard to believe.

Whenever people asked Phil Murphy how he is going to pay for all those pensions, pre kindergarten, and balance the state budget, he said he would legalize marijuana. Even for conservatives who never liked the idea it made sense. Dollars have an evil attraction to the human soul.

Marijuana could be the next casino gambling. When Atlantic City was the only place that had it on the Eastern seaboard the state made out like bandits. Then other states discovered it and Atlantic City became just another tired city with  slot machines and a boardwalk. The same thing could happen now. Two years from now, Red Bank, Montclair, Asbury Park, and Hoboken will be the hip places on the East coast. Greta Gerwig will even make a movie in the state.

Eventually, though,  New York will legalize it and things will be back to where things were.  All the hip people will be back in Brooklyn and L.A. and New Jersey will become just another tired east coast state with Polish ice.

Addenda:
Mother son interactions before and after legalization.
Mother: What did you do at Johnny's house last night?
(Before) Son: Oh we just listened to the Buffalo Springfield and ate apple pie.
(After) Son: Oh we just listened to the Buffalo Springfield and got stoned on Colombian and ate apple pie.