BY THE SEA, BY THE SEA, BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA

Hoboken and the Jersey Shore are intertwined in this story. 02/20/2016

By The Sea, By The Sea, By The Beautiful Sea

New Jersey residents refer to its ocean beaches as the Jersey Shore. In summer time, Hoboken’s residents flocked to Rumson, a few miles inland from the ocean towns of Asbury Park and Point Pleasant. There beaches featured long sand bars that helped create gentle waves, perfect for body surfing. I could swim far out from shore, and stand up in waist high water.

I spent at least a week at Rumson every summer with a group of high school pals. We rode a train a few miles to get to these beaches, always trying to avoid paying the fare by hotfooting it from one car to the next, a step ahead of the conductor. One day an enterprising young man from Hoboken stole a car from a Rumson resident in order to avoid riding the train. He abandoned it near the beach, swam all day, took the train back to Rumson, and bragged to us about his theft. His criminal act far exceeded ours.

Kenneth “Cueball” Moore forgot to bring his bathing suit that year. We decided to steal one for him from the local Woolworth’s. I helped distract the salesgirl while Jimmy Kenned snatched the suit. We escaped, undetected. Back at our boarding house digs, Moore discovered we had swiped the bottom of a girl’s suit and could not pull it up past his thighs. Jimmy used a knife to rip open the elastic band, put it on, gave Cueball his to wear and said, “Let’s go swimming.”

Our boarding room cost ten bucks a week for two occupants, including breakfast and lunch. We tried to sleep all four of without paying for the extra two. My pals and I rented rooms at boarding houses during our vacations. For ten bucks, you could have a place to sleep, and enjoy home cooked breakfast and dinner. In the middle of the night, the woman proprietor barged in to our bedroom. Jimmy Kennedy slipped onto the floor, wrapped in a blanket, trying to avoid detection, but the angry woman discovered him and kicked us out. We spent the rest of the night lounging on the dock, laughing about our expulsion.

The next day we met a group of local boys and challenged them to a football game. One of their players suffered a broken arm during a pile up. His folks could not wait for us to head out of town.

During that summer of 1943, while basking in the sun on the beach at Point Pleasant, listening to Perry Como’s hit song, Till the End of Time play repeatedly on a jukebox from the boardwalk tavern, my life seemed dreamlike.

These days, while lounging in my backyard pool, Perry still crooning in my brain, it seems the summer of 1943 never really ended. I now float on waves of nostalgia.

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