#30, New Jersey NJ (Been There, Done That)

My fonder memories of New Jersey centered around vacation times while a kid in New York. My parents had a good friend who let them use their little cottage on a lagoon by the ocean near Staten Island. We went there many years and it was probably the first time we as kids all got to go out on the borrowed boat. It would be many more years until we learned to water ski. We also took trips to Atlantic City where I had my first taste of saltwater taffy. Still like it to this day. I get some handmade fresh water taffy whenever we go to Gatlinburg.

Heading out to the ocean

Playing in the waves

First time eating crabs

While we played in the sand and the water of Jones Beach not far from Brooklyn on the south side of Long Island, there was another place that we spent summers as us kids got older. Southwest of Jones Beach was the coast of northern New Jersey, just around the corner through the layrinth of streets and bridges. We had been given permission to use a friends summer house on a lagoon off the ocean, and that had allowed us the chance to use their boat while were there and go fishing while we rode on the waves. We would all put on those puffy orange life jackets and climb into the boats for a ride to the ocean and the smell of salt water. This was the only time and place we'd get to ride in a boat and we soaked it up as best we could. Sometimes we try fishing or putting out a trap and we seemed to catch more crabs than anything else. I remember one my mom caught a small white shark, less than a foot long, with a fishing pole. We got it off the hook and threw it back.

So that's how I know we had a great time in the ocean. We liked to go out every day in the ocean and get knocked around by the waves. In the second still above it seems like the waves were maybe three to four feet tall and we just jumped in them anyway.  We were little kids and we weren't afraid of the water in the least. There's a 5-minute section on the four of us just jumping around like we were having the time of our lives, because we were. We had taken swimming lessons on that very beach and knew how to swim. I imagine that's why I like it so much today.

That third picture shows a plate full of cooked crabs. We always seem to catch a lot of them and that was where we learned what seafood was. They were small crabs with not a lot of meat in them but I can remember us picking out the meat and using it as a garnish on a salad. But just the idea of putting a hook in the ocean and pulling up something that you would eat later was amazing. Once my dad went out on the ocean with some friends on a larger fishing boat and came home with a huge fish over two feet long. I remember we had fish for dinner many times until it was gone. I don't really remember if I liked fish or crab that much but there's a good chance I did since I love seafood today. I've enjoyed my share of endless shrimp at Red Lobster and New Jersey may be where it all started.

The 8mm Bell & Howell 252

I don't remember that we had a still camera when we were that young but somewhere along the way after I was born my dad got a Bell & Howell 252 8mm camera that was only video with no sound. These little reels of film were pasted together into larger reels and we have nine of those larger reels in digital form. Us kids recently put them all on cd's and now we can watch them anytime we want. Those first three pictures are not from a bad still camera, they are screen shots from watching them on my desktop and converting them into a still image. Most of my memories of early life were reinforced by watching these whenever mom or dad got out the projector. This movie camera in this recent photo is not dad's original movie camera, as we don't know where it is or what happened to it. But my wife saw this one in an antique store and bought it for me in 2023. I know everyone has a video camera on their phone and take them all the time, but back in the day this was a pretty big deal.

Until next time,

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)