Summer Musings 2013

Hello campers,

It's been quite a while since I blogged, I've been meaning to get to my writing for quite a while but life has this inconvenient tendency to intrude on my plans.  But summer is here and, while the time might be right for dancing in the streets, my body isn't.  I do however have all of these pent up rants and observations that I figure I'll roll out over the next month or so.

I am privileged to have a small vacation home on the New Jersey shore.  People who do not know me that well figure I must be able to afford the property because I make such a killing as a psychologist.  Closer friends know that my in-laws were gracious enough to, not only pass on their mortal coil, but also to pass on a nice wad of cashola to their offspring.  Not all parents do this you know.  My mother died when she was young and so anything she may have accumulated over the years went to my father.  My father, taking some bumper sticker literally, spent anything he had and then some while he was still alive, leaving not even enough money to bury him. (Although there was a lively discussion about not in fact burying my father, neither me nor my brothers had storage space in our homes.  Ultimately we had to cave in and come up with the money to inter him.)  Actually, my father did have assets, but he left them to his 30-year-old girlfriend instead of his sons.  How my father, at 67, had a 30-year-old girlfriend is the subject for a different essay.  Suffice to say it was not because of his money.

Back to the vacation home.  Our small house is situated in a residential section of our beach community meaning that we are neighbors with mostly full-time residents and not in an area filled with McMansions.  I do however rub elbows constantly with the nouveau riche who live closer to the ocean.  Today's rant therefore is about the rudeness and entitlement of many people who have more money than they do class.  While I am certain that there are kindhearted, polite, and affable wealthy individuals, they don't seem to have houses on the Jersey shore.  Perhaps they all live in the Hamptons or on the Cape.

Some of the worst behavior, as any wait person will tell you, occurs during feeding hours.  Nowhere else have I observed such a concentration of eccentric demands coupled with miserly tips.  It is my belief that this is one of the reasons the prices are so high at many of the restaurants in shore communities.  It is an asshole surcharge, and is superior to spitting in a customer's food.

Other obnoxious mannerisms and behavior can be found at any retail establishment in a wealthy shore community.  I don't know what the clothing store equivalent is of spitting in a customer's food, but I hope there is one.

Ever notice how people in very expensive automobiles are the least likely to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians and people riding bicycles?  New Jersey has a law that cars must stop for people in crosswalks but I think the law was passed just to provide amusement to drivers ignoring the rules.  I have often thought that the safest way to cross at a busy intersection while at the Jersey shore is to fling a bunch of quarters in front of me as I walk.  Regardless of the fact that many of the drivers are already wealthy, I feel fairly certain that they would not miss the opportunity to make $.50 or so and thus stop their cars to collect the change.

I do a lot of bicycle riding when I'm at the shore and I make it a habit to nod or say good morning to most if not all of the people whom I pass.  The incidence of return greetings is inversely proportional to the wealth of the neighborhood.

Those of you who know me know that I almost always wear a cowboy hat when outdoors.  In fact I often wear it indoors, and occasionally in bed.  The most frequent snarky comment that passersby make is, "Where's your horse?"  My favorite answer is, "He's outside grazing… With your mama."  This is not always received with the sort of amusement I think appropriate.

Sitting on the beach is an enormous pleasure.  I do the same thing when I sit on the beach at 62 years of age as I did when I was 15; read, drink, and look at women.  I have noticed that my gaze is not nearly as welcome today as it was 47 years ago.  Nevertheless, I do not think it rude.  If a person is going to go to the trouble of wearing a bathing suit that does little to conceal, indeed accentuates, their primary sexual characteristics, I feel it would be churlish of me not to gaze approvingly.  I have even thought of making a bunch of placards, as at the Olympics, with my score for how well any individual manages to cover their naughty bits with the least amount of cloth.  I feel certain that this would be a source of hilarity on the beach and well received by all concerned.  Oddly, Carolyn objects to this behavior, even though I have offered to make her a duplicate set of cards.

There are some positive behaviors one can witness on the finer beaches.  If someone is drowning or otherwise in distress while in the water, perhaps 100 people will stand on the beach watching them.  They won't go into the water to provide assistance but they send their moral support to the poor victim; or else they place bets on the outcome I'm not actually certain.

I may have other observations as the season progresses, so stay tuned.