Southern Exposure

                                                                                           My college roommate was from south Jersey, a foreign and exotic land where people call sub sandwiches "hoagies," pronounce "coffee" as CAH-FEE (when everyone knows it's CAW-FEE), make obscure references to "Pineys," and root for the Phillies. When they refer to "the city," they mean Philadelphia. (We say "the city" and we mean the real one.) Though we spent a lot of time making fun of each other's accents, we had two important things in common--classic films (see previous post) and a love of the Jersey shore. In the summers I sometimes visited with her and her family in Stone Harbor, my first experience with the south Jersey beaches. Quieter, less crowded, and without the carnival atmosphere of some of the places I was used to, I came to appreciate towns like Avalon, Margate, Ocean City, and of course, Cape May, which will get a well-deserved post of its own. So if your idea of the Jersey Shore comes from a certain reality television show, you need to take a long drive down Parkway South, where the exit numbers are lower, the sand is whiter, and the people are really friendly. Even if they don't tawk like we do.

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