The other Jersey Shore

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I'd tell people I was from the Jersey Shore and I always got the same look. Suddenly, they saw me with one hand on a surfboard, and the other flashing that pinky-and-thumb, Sean-Penn-inspired "gnarley" sign-thing.

"Wow...surfer...waves...RonJon..." they'd utter.

Puh-lease, I'd think. I was a ride operator and a french-fry hack at seaside snack bars. I picked up dug-into-the-sand cigarette butts with my bare, blackened hands and tossed them away for $1 an hour.

To me, standing on a surfboard was like standing on a tightrope. Krazy-glue and staples couldn't keep me on top of those things.

Yeah, I've always loved the beach. But, when I was young, I found the beachgoer image so, dare I say, ugly. Sand stuck in my bathing suit. Wet shoes. Wet, sticky hair. Sand, sand, sand...

That, and the image I had of half-naked people boozing it up at Marz, Cheers, Tradewinds or any of the local bars and clubs - the Snookis before there was even a Snooki, if you will - were enough to make me want to live the rest of my life in my bedroom, flipping baseball cards and listening to Lez Zeppelin on my Sony Walkman.

Ah, if only it was yesteryear. Saying you're from the Jersey Shore, 25 years later, means something completely different, and maybe even something worse. The responses make me want to grab a board and "surf main."

"Do you ever watch......the Jersey Shore?" they always say.

My response?

"You've got to be kidding me."

Now, let's face it: I can't blame people for following the summer-goings-on of DJ Pauly, Angelina and JWOWW (did I spell that right?) anymore than I can blame people for slowing down on the Garden State Parkway to leer at an overtuned tractor-trailer.

But what bothers me, again, is the image. The image I want of the Jersey Shore is, frankly, something closer to the laid-back, surfer-dude impression that forced me away as a kid, but I now embrace.

That's the image I want in my mind, and I hope it stays that way, long after the Jersey Shore MTV show burns out and seeps into the pop-culture landfill, just underneath "The Macarena."

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