Jersey Shore Exodus Modified
Once again, summer ended all too fast, and vacationers here in the Wildwoods were seen cramming as many memories as possible into the trunks of their cars and the storage areas of their SUVs. The exodus started Monday morning and by late afternoon, only stragglers remained, although the island by no means cleared out completely.
It almost seems that Labor Day was only yesterday. Oh, wait. . . Labor Day was only yesterday. I meant Independence Day. Once The Fourth of July gets here, the two remaining months of the season get sucked down the drain in what seems like only a couple of weeks or so. That’s largely due to the “panic factor” instilled in the minds of those fortunate enough to spend their summers at the Jersey Shore. Just when things finally get rolling, the brakes start to fail, and the whole darned summer slams into Labor Day and screeches to a halt. Well, that’s the way it used to be, but the process has undergone some modifications.
We now have “shoulder seasons,” as some like to call them. Used to be that some things on the boards and around town opened on weekends starting around Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday, sort of nudging the summer season into gear. By the day after Labor Day, everything pretty much closed up until the following spring. Not so, anymore. Many of the visitors, as well as many business owners, seem reluctant to turn out the party lights.
Back in the 70’s, motel owners started scheduling tours in the fall for senior citizens who rolled into town on tour buses, and part of the town stayed open to accommodate them; mostly shops, and some restaurants. Seniors required very little in the way of entertainment, as long as they could browse around a bit and eat their three squares a day. They also found the off season prices more tailored to their fixed incomes. Over the next couple of decades, the concept mushroomed, and promoters scheduled weekend events that brought in people from all age groups. Autumn weekends now get pretty crowded here, with the various ethnic festivals, the “Roar to the Shore” (motorcycle groups), and whatever else someone can dream up. The tour bus trade hasn’t dried up completely, but most seniors don’t get all that excited about motorcycles, especially at two in the morning. Turning off the hearing aids effectively silences the crickets, but hardly masks the clatter of the bikers’ engines.
In the past, the island rolled up the sidewalks in the fall for one very good reason – the hired help, meaning teenagers, went back to school. The largest enterprises now import hired help, and offer bonuses for staying beyond the season. Some even offer bonuses for staying at least until Labor Day, because most college students in this country head back to campus during the last week or two of August.
Summer visitors used to unpack their memories once they got home, and put them away in safe places, where they could take them out once in a while and briefly relive them. In this day and age, that is no longer enough. Everyone seems to want more. Each weekend of the fall, they return and attempt to dredge up a few more memories, just to ensure they’ll have enough for (as my grandmother used to call them) “the hard days during the winter.” Right around Columbus Day weekend, the scavenger hunt ends, because memory picking wears pretty thin by that time. There’s not much that out-of-towners like to remember about some cold, desolate, barrier island at the Jersey Shore, even though many year-rounders cherish the time as a welcome change.