Sunday Pages: Down the Shore

Greetings from Ocean City, New Jersey

Dear Reader,

Ocean City, New Jersey—not to be confused with the more-heralded Maryland beach town of the same name—is a special place for our family. This is where my wife used to come on family vacations in her early childhood. “Just think, kids,” her mother, Barbara, used to exclaim, on dismal February afternoons in the 1970s, “Ocean City!”

Twenty years ago this summer, we came here to scatter Barbara’s ashes, as this was her favorite place in the world. We’ve come here with friends, before we had kids. We’ve come here with the kids, and here, we watched them progress from merry-go-round only to kiddie rides to roller coasters to—this year—the once-unthinkable nirvana of us not having to accompany them to the amusement park area at all. We’ve always had a nice time in Ocean City, despite it being a dry town—“Dry Island,” as one enterprising clothing company calls it.

We decided to come this year because Aimee Mann was playing a show at the Ocean City Music Pier, and aside from fifteen minutes of an ear-splittingly loud Led Zeppelin cover band with an affinity for the five bad Led Zeppelin songs, we’d never seen a show at the Pier. The show, which also featured the comic stylings of Jonathan Coulton, was outstanding. And there was some cosmic symmetry to it. Twenty years ago, as I mentioned, maybe even to the day, we’d brought Barbara’s ashes to the shore, not knowing exactly how to dispose of them. We’d been drinking cocktails all evening with our friends, and watching The Big Lebowski, which ends—weirdly, I always thought—with the scattering of ashes. Walter and The Dude scattering the remains of Donnie (“He was a good man. And a good bowler.”) inspired us to do the same with the remains of Barbara. And who played the nihilist sidepiece who sacrifices her toe for the cause (if not for the ethos) in that movie? Mirabile dictu: Aimee Mann!

Bit-of-a-stretch symmetry, sure, but symmetry just the same. And not the only kind. We happened to be here during the kids’ spring break in 2019—and that’s when the Mueller Report dropped. I read the thing at the kitchen table of a particularly lovely beach rental. And I was here this past week, when FPOTUS racked up his third indictment—this time, for his prime mover role in the January 6 coup attempt. When I told LB this, she texted back: Stay there. (Full disclosure: I was also here in August of 2020, during the pandemic year, and no big news dropped, so the magic doesn’t work every time—but still!)

Ocean City was founded in the late 19th century by four Methodist ministers who did not want their seaside Christian retreat sullied by public drunkenness. The sale and manufacture of alcohol has been legally banned on the island since 1909. This does not keep revelers from imbibing, of course—prohibition never does; to the contrary, in 2017, Ocean City was named the drunkest town in all of New Jersey, putting it in the running for drunkest town in the world.

I mention this mix of religiosity and inebriation because Ocean City is as reliable a proxy for the mythical “guy in Ohio diner” so adroitly lampooned by the New York Times Pitchbot as can be found in the Northeast. It’s something of a bellwether for how Middle America thinks. In the 2020 election, Trump won here by 4,195 - 3,369. He beat Hillary Clinton by about the same split in 2016. The island leans Republican but has plenty of Democrats, too—as well as one quixotic resident, presumably sporting one of the Che Guevara t-shirts they sell at the Surf Mall, who, every election cycle, keeps stubbornly pulling the lever for the Socialism & Liberation Party candidate.

In Ocean City there are a lot of flags. Every house has a few, snapping in the breeze. In addition to the ubiquitous Stars and Stripes are banners for various sports teams—Philadelphia is heavily represented here in South Jersey—as well as college and university affiliations, including some I’ve never heard of. I was pleased to spot a healthy smattering of blue and yellow Ukraine flags. What I did not see was a MAGA flag. Not a one. Or a Fuck Joe Biden flag, or any of that ugly garbage. And I walked a lot, all over the island, all week. Even the t-shirt shops on the Boardwalk, which in 2020 offered plenty of Trump-themed wares, have pared down considerably.

And this is how it should be. One of the many unpleasant consequences of Trump’s presidency was the willful politicization of entertainment. He wanted us to never not think of him. He wanted to infect our thoughts, so we could have no respite. He wanted no safe spaces, anywhere, ever. Our guard was up, always. This is why he bitched and moaned about NFL players kneeling during the anthem. This is why he dispensed his valet…er, his veep, Mike Pence…to baseball games and Broadway musicals. It was strategic. He denied us the luxury of peace and quiet we spoiled Americans take for granted. You know, like strongmen do.

Indictment #3 dropping felt different than when the Mueller Report came out. I happened to be back at the rental place, with my computer open for the first time in three days, when Jack Smith was expected to speak. So, while I had the C-SPAN feed streaming—and half-listened to the excruciatingly boring interview about health policy they were re-running to fill time as I puttered around the kitchen—I felt no obligation to wait around for him to come out, or to stop what I was doing to read the indictment, as I had in April of 2019 with the Report. Trump isn’t the draw he once was—for me, or anyone else outside of Maggie Haberman’s immediate family. I waited half an hour, Smith didn’t appear, I shut the laptop and went back to the beach.

And it didn’t even occur to me to watch the arraignment. Not out of lack of interest, but because I had better things to do. I’ve seen that movie enough times; I can wait for it to come out on DVD. I wasn’t going to let that filthy crook spoil my week off.

The first step in our recovery from the MAGA era, it seems to me, is to reclaim our leisure time. We need it. And we deserve it. When we are on vacation, we should be on vacation. We should all of us—Democrat, Republican, Independent, Socialism & Liberationist—be able to leave politics behind with our worries and cares for a few days, and, united in purpose, enjoy the simple, glorious, splendor of a summer day at the beach.

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Photo credit: Stephanie St. John. The beach at Ocean City, N.J.