Stuff 'n' Things

It's very early Sunday morning and I'm awake - up at 6:40 to be exact. Today we're going to Wildwood for a couple of days. We rented a car and we're heading South. I have a vague memory of seeing TV commercials for Wildwood as a kid - either that or hearing them on the radio.

It's a beach resort town in southern Jersey on a barrier beach island like the one on which I grew up, Long Beach. They have an amusement park, water park, boardwalk and beach. Long Beach used to have an amusement park but they tore it down years ago along with the bowling alley and hordes of low income housing (well actually the low income housing mysteriously burned down) with dreams of developing beach side property into casinos and hotels. 25 years later, the developers are still waiting for approval.

I remember going to that adult playground as a child with my cousins. Here we are riding the teacups. The amusment park, in case you want to see images of it, was immortalized in Joan Jett's 80's music video for her song Do You Wanna Touch Me? Joan Jett lived in Long Beach while she was working on her career and some of her best hits were recorded by Boardwalk record label which may have been founded by a Long Beach resident.

Anyway. . .enough about Long Beach. Jon and I are headed to Wildwood, where we'll be spending a couple of nights at the Starlux Hotel.

I'm looking forward to getting away from the big nasty city - from the crowds, the subways, the crowds. Because we're staying Sunday and Monday, I'm anticipating small off-season crowds on the boardwalk, at the amusement parks and on the white sanded beaches.

It should be a great throwback to the time when people really, really got into amusment parks - the turn of the 20th century, when Coney Island was Coney Island.