☀️➡️🍂 Changing of the seasons | Down the Shore

A few years back, my teenage children ditched me on the Wildwood boardwalk. It took a few minutes for the moment to set in, to see that I’d crossed into some new era of parenthood. Had I built my last sandcastle? Would they ever hug me tightly again, high atop the Giant Wheel on Morey’s Piers?

“Dad, it’s fine,” my oldest daughter, then 13, said to me that night before she sprinted away with her brother.

That’s life. Time moves like the tide, but the memories won’t completely wash away. I wrote about the experience for The Inquirer.

I’ve been traveling to the Jersey Shore — almost exclusively in the Wildwoods — nearly all my life, and those trips are one of the ways I’ve measured time. Summer never really began until I rode the Golden Nugget ride on Hunt’s Pier.

When my parents first bought their condominium in North Wildwood, I was 21, and recall jumping in the Hereford Inlet after a long night at the fabled Irish Weekend. Then I became a dad and a reporter, using that condo as my office during Hurricane Irene, then abandoning it for a fire station during Superstorm Sandy.

I watched my children grow up there, quite literally because of the ride height requirements and the left-behind flip-flops that don’t fit come Memorial Day. They’re not just summer memories. I’ve spent many Easters there, scrambling for pastel eggs on the sand or yelling instructions at wrestling matches in the convention hall. I’ve fallen in love, went back to heal heartache, then fell in love again, on the beach, one blustery day in February.

In June, I found myself back on the beach in North Wildwood, staring joyfully at my 11-month old daughter, Penny, as she ate sand and baby clams in the surf. My hair might be graying but I have at least another decade of new rides, of body surfing and, possibly, wrestling matches.

It’s easy to wrap yourself in nostalgia, but I’m trying to appreciate the present, too — the unexpected changes, the demolition of an old favorite anything for something you might love just as much. There’s a million things I miss at the shore — like this, and this, and this, too — but for my little, unexpected daughter, the Jersey Shore is all new and fantastic. Her favorite pancake house may not even be built yet!

Again, time is passing. This is the last Down the Shore newsletter of the summer, but we’re entering what many say is the best season of all: September. With that in mind, you really should experience the annual Irish Fall Festival in North Wildwood at least once, while you’re young. Raise a lukewarm pint of Guinness and belt out the lyrics to “Dirty Old Town” as I once did. It’s Sept. 23-25.

📮 Let me know what your favorite offseason memory is. Do you Thanksgiving there? How about Christmas? Send responses by replying to this email, or find me on Twitter or Instagram.

— Jason Nark (🐦 Tweet me at @jasonnark. 📷 Follow me on Insta at @jasonnark. 📧 Email me at downtheshore@inquirer.com)

What’s Airbnb’s most-booked destination this fall? Miami? San Diego? No, The Inquirer’s Erin McCarthy reports, it’s Ocean City. According to AirnbnB, “America’s Greatest Family Resort” is the company’s top destination this fall, beating out a host of college football towns.

Would you love to live in an old fishing shack? Gawking at fancy shore houses is a fun thing to do. The Inquirer took a peak inside one couple’s converted shack in the Town Bank section of Cape May. They left Medford, Burlington County, to live there full-time and wheelbarrowed 20 tons of sand to make the beach bar perfect.

Oysters aren’t just delicious, they’re also helping to stabilize the Jersey Shore’s shrinking coastline. The Associated Press reports that projects are underway in places like Barnegat Bay and Beach Haven to deploy oysters, which grow on cages planted by volunteers and form barriers.

Celebrity sighting: Top Gun: Maverick actor Miles Teller, a Downingtown native who spent summers in Cape May, was spotted all over the Jersey Shore town in August: the Lobster House, a liquor store, an ice cream shop, and the Ugly Mug.

🔥 Burning Sands: Ever see those pictures of Californians strumming guitars by a bonfire on the beach and think, why not Jersey? Well, Brigantine will be hosting a beach bonfire Sept. 17. Wildwood will be having one Oct. 22. Long Beach Island’s last “Fire pit Friday” appears to be Sept. 2.

⛺️ Beach camping: It’s almost never legal to camp on the beach anywhere in New Jersey, but from Sept. 9-11, guests can camp on the beach in Wildwood through the Morey’s Piers Fall Beach Jam. It’s a kid-friendly event, not Margaritaville, and the $99 fee includes ride admissions and a Saturday barbecue.

🎵 Tale of two musics: Cape May County is hosting two very different musical festivals in September. The 2022 Exit Zero Jazz Festival is a Cape May staple. It runs from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2 at venues all over town. Continuing the rise of country music at the Jersey Shore, Boots at the Beach festival begins Sept. 16.

🍤 Festivals of food: September is festival season at the Jersey Shore so skip breakfast and head down. There’s the Downbeach Seafood Festival in Ventnor, starting Sept. 16, the Off the Hook Seafood & Musical Festival on the Atlantic City boardwalk starting Sept. 17, and Avalon’s Arts & Seafood Festival Oct. 8. If you prefer pretzels and bratwurst, the Icona Avalon is hosting an Oktoberfest Sept. 30.

Shoulder Season (noun). A phrase to describe the time between peak season to offseason. For the Jersey Shore, that’s generally Labor Day to late October. While locals and a few savvy tourists always knew September was arguably the best month to be on the beach, loading up the events calendar, marketing the season, and giving it a name — shoulder season — is relatively new. The first mention I found of it, locally, was a September 1983 Philadelphia Daily News story touting the “golden season” at the Jersey Shore. “A peaceful melancholy seems to fall over the days,” the author wrote.

Longtime Cape May hotel manager John Cooke, a venerable newshound, said that anymore, September is almost an extension of August. He considers October the new “shoulder season” and, being a Cape May resident, argues that the Victorian resort town is the best place to stretch the season to its limits.

Stone Harbor!

A dozen Black families settled in this Cape County town a century ago. Amy Rosenberg wrote about a documentary — Miracle on 81st Street — that was made about those families last year.

Many readers sent in the right answer, but Susan Walton was the first.

On Oct. 5, 1938, long after most tourists had gone home for the season, a man died in a most unusual way at the Jersey Shore. What happened to him?

A. Fell off Lucy the Elephant

B. Shot by Nucky Thompson

C. Attacked by a lion

D. Crushed by a pinball machine

Because this is the last newsletter, I’ll tweet the answer — and the archival Inquirer story covering the tragedy — later this week.

Reader Bridget Brown (Hi, Bridget!) seemed to explain, more eloquently, what I was trying to say about time and memories.

The end of vacation isn’t just a return to work and the real world. Leaving those perfect summer weeks in Ocean City marks the closing of another year. A lifetime of returning to the same place every August as life changed us and for us. To return, almost as in ceremony. Time takes on new meaning there — it bends and extends — it feels as if when we’re there, the years stretch on forever, yet when we’re there, the days fly by. Remembering. Lying on my grandparents’ bed at dusk, listening to the clank of the roller coaster six blocks away, the delighted screams of children; waking to the curtains flowing in the early morning breeze and seagulls crying outside my window; boardwalk miles run with my mom; playing Trivial Pursuit sprawled out on the living room floor; my first beach days as a mom; my last long walk with my dad. Every year measured by Augusts. Some easy, some hard. Every year different, every year the same.

Have a wonderful shoulder season. Walk on the beach in the winter. See you next summer.