Seat of Our Pants

The ladies are burned to a bronzed crisp. The men’s hairdos are greased into stiff perfection. The sun is shining and tanned skin is as abundant as bad taste.

This is the Jersey Shore, a surreal strip of boardwalk that has been featured in a number of popular reality television shows recently. We were in the area and decided to stop by for an afternoon to see what the hype was about.

The boardwalk itself surprised me. It has a classic old fashioned vibe. Pastel colors abound, as do fun games and the usual bad souvenir shops. The beachfront has calm water (it’s the Atlantic ocean, after all) and white sand. It’s paradise – in theory.

The reality is this: the Jersey Shore isn’t about the waves or the sand (you have to pay to access the beach anyway). It’s all about the people watching. Yes, you could make the argument that all boardwalks are about people watching and I’d have to agree with you. But this one takes the cake. It’s, well, it’s just plain ridiculous.

Most striking, in my opinion, are the extreme measures the kids (most of the people strolling the boardwalk were high school age) took their bodies to. The boys were heaving around overworked upper bodies on little chicken legs. The ladies looked like they had just rolled out of a tanning bed because, you know, you have to tan before you go to the beach to tan.

The food was terrible, as Martin describes here, but the people were unlike any we’ve ever seen. And coming from two people that just spent 14 months traveling the world, that’s saying something. If you’re in the New York area and have a half day to kill, head on over to the Shore. Pack a lunch, plenty of sunscreen and at least $7 to get to the beach. Otherwise you might have to spend your day in the shade of the carnival games, vying for one of these fabulous prizes.

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