Posts from the Past: You Know You’re from Jersey if…
From March 2004:
(Note: This coming Thursday night is “Culture Night” at Westminster Theological Seminary. We have student from over 30 different countries in our little school, and one night a year they get to show us life in their homelands. Both last year and this year I’ve been tempted to set up a New Jersey table. New Jersey is as foreign a culture as I’ve ever lived in. In lieu of a NJ represent at Culture Night, the following is my tribute to my native land, first appearing here two years ago.)
Although my wonder years were all over the Midwest, I’ve always called New Jersey (ofr just “Jersey” to us natives) as my home state. It’s the place where I went through my adolesence and met my Savior and my sweet wife.
Recently we posted over on the Rumor Board a long list of things you should know and love if you’re from Jersey. I think some of the more obscure ones need some explaining. So here’s my Lonely Planet guide to obscure Jersey stuff…
You don’t think of fruit when people mention “The Oranges”.
No, you think of East Orange and West Orange and South Orange and, well, Orange. They’re places. People live there. Not anyone I know, though.
You know that it’s called Great Adventure, not Six Flags.
Six Flags, the ClearChannel of amusement parks, bought this property many years ago, but all the locals loyally refuse to call it anything but Great Adventure.
You’ve known the way to Seaside Heights since you were seven.
I really have. All roads down the shore eventually become the Garden State Parkway. I could’ve driven to Seaside Heights when I was seven, if I could’ve reached the pedals.
(And “down the shore” was not a typo…that’s how we said it.)
You know what a “jug handle” is.
It’s a way you can make a left turn by turning right first. Or, um, well…too hard to explain. Here:
You know how to properly negotiate a Circle.
You knew that the last sentence had to do with driving.
Obvious reference to a traffic circle–or “rotary” as the Brits have it. These are found throughout New England, but North Jersey has way too many of them.
You know that a “White Castle” is the name of BOTH a fast food chain AND a fast food sandwich.
White Castle burgers (known as “sliders”) are greasy little squares of “beef” with holes and steamed in onions. “Buy ‘em by the sack!” (TM). My friend Hudson and I bought about 50 or them one night and drove all the way down to the shore and back while eating them and stringing the little boxes they came in across the back window of his Plymouth Valiant. The next day I puked harder than I have before or since.
Every year you have at least one kid in your class named Tony.
This is true. And his father is always named “Big Tony.” You do not mess with this kid.
You know the location of every clip shown in the Sopranos opening credits.
Yes, I do –> Lincoln Tunnel to the Jersey Turnpike to Rte. 3 to Rte. 46 to tract housing in Little Falls to Tony’s home in North Caldwell. See my very first post in this blog for a map of other Sopranos locations near my old home.
You weren’t raised in New Jersey — you were raised in either North Jersey, Central Jersey or South Jersey.
The LSW and I? North Jersey. Never New Jersey — puh-leaze!
You don’t consider Newark or Camden to actually be part of the state.
You mean…they are?
You remember the stores Korvette’s, Two Guys, Rickel’s, Channel, Bamberger’s and Orbach’s.
These stores were the precursors of most of today’s chain stores, thought they’re all gone now. Korvettes and Two Guys…read Walmart. Rickels and Channel…think Lowes and Home Depot. Bambergers and Orbachs were upscale department stores.
Fact is…anything in modern junk culture…Jersey had it first.
You also remember Palisades Amusement Park.
“Palisades has the rides
Palisades has the food
Come on over!
Palisades Amusement Park
Swings all day and after dark
Come and play and get cool
In the waves in our pool
You’ll have fun!
So come on over!”
If you’re over 40 and from Jersey, you’re singing along by now.
You’ve had a Boardwalk cheese steak and vinegar fries.
And Kohr’s custard and salt water taffy.
Stuff I would’ve added to the list:
–You call them the Garden State and the Turnpike (never the Garden State Parkway or the New Jersey Turnpike)
–You went to school with the son or daughter of a mobster
–You had your prom and/or wedding reception at a gigantic catering house like the Wayne Manor
–You not only listen to Fountains of Wayne, you’ve shopped there.
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March 27th, 2006 at 6:43 am
I have been hoping for SOMEONE to do an NJ display/presentation. But you’re right, it would be difficult to get people from North/South/Central Jersey to act as one state. For me, it’s South! The proud home of the Jersey Devil and cranberry bogs and pineys (local rednecks). I think you’re list is a bit Northern oriented, actually!
March 27th, 2006 at 7:07 am
Denise,
I was hoping you’d see this post! Maybe next year we can think about this earlier and put something together. There are more than enough Jerseyites at WTS to make it work.
The original, much longer list was a little more diverse. I just pulled out the north-centric references that would be most familiar to me. But yeah, North and South Jersey are almost two different states (united only by high taxes and the inability to pump your own gas!).
You had the Pineys; up north we had the “Jackson Whites,” descendants of 19th century inter-marriages between escaped/liberated slaves and local North Jerseyans. Until fairly recently, they had been ostracized from the general community and had settled in their own little “town” outside Jackson, NJ. Unfortunately, they became the subject of many scary (and totally fictitious) stories told around Boy Scout campfires, since our district camp was only a few miles from their settlement.
March 27th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Mark,
I like the “jug handle” thing. In Moscow, in order to avoid waiting in traffic the marshroutka (microbus) drivers simply cut across residential parks, playgrounds, and if needed drive on the sidewalks. It was always a “prayerful” experience riding with those guys.
Cheers,
Cynthia
March 27th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Cynthia,
Jug handles are actually a much more efficient way to handle left-hand turns at major intersections. Downsides are the land space they consume and the fact that you have to know in advance which intersections you need to be in the right lane in order to turn left. The latter is how we tell the natives from the dang ferners.
March 27th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
I’ve never in all my days heard it called a “rotary” here.
It’s a roundabout.
(The “rotary” is only a club….)
March 27th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
“what exit?”
March 28th, 2006 at 7:45 am
John, is that a remark on the large number of exits in North Jersey which have no sign until you’re right at the exit? Rt. 46 was notorious for that.
March 28th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Apparently, this is a common question to ask…that Jersey-ites know where they live only by which exit from the turnpike. I have no idea which exit. 3 or 4 I think? Either way, it’s still a hike from there to the Pinelands. And besides, why take the turnpike when 295 runs parallel, for FREE?? (at least in South Jersey)
March 28th, 2006 at 9:47 am
:slaps head: Duh! Of course, Denise. I remember that now. We lived too far from the Turnpike to use that expression regularly, but I do remember people asking that.
March 28th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
yeah-
Those of us from the northeast who have, perhaps, a less informed heart for Joyzey find ourselves asking that question of anyone we meet who lives in the Garden State. so often, in fact, that I think the question has become a standard joke. To many of us, New Jersey IS “THE TURNPIKE”.
For me, however, this position is softened greatly due to the,expression of divine love and goodness, the foretaste of the heavenly feast— proof, like beer, that God loves us and wants us to be happy — those bushels of edible sunshine that are trucked out of the state each July and August… Jersey Corn.
ODE ON A TURNPIKE COLD FRONT
The virga drops its crystal tears,
to slake the thirst of yellow ears
wrapped in silk and summer green
Beyond the shoulder where are seen,
in fields of optic lines arrayed
horizonward — what God hath made, in August born,
the husked horns of Jersey corn.
March 28th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
I’m speechless.
Two years ago this post received no comments.
Now I get original poetry.
I’ve obviously come upon a higher class of friends!
March 29th, 2006 at 11:56 am
So, _steve, should we take offense?
March 29th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Err…I meant since leaving Mrs. Foster’s third grade. Yeah. So you’re included. Yep.
April 5th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
thanks for the tips as i am two months or less from moving into Collingswood, NJ…. it will take me any where from 40 to 90 minutes to get to school…. but lucky for me i will be attending part time so i will only have to make the treck for the next eight or so years!!
any other tips for a transplant to south jersey? and will i get made fun of for using the word “yall” representing my southern roots?
April 5th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Ken,
I’ll have to call upon Denise and my other South Jersey readers to help you out. As has been pointed out to this North Jerseyite, the Southern NJ is a whole different state.
April 8th, 2006 at 7:54 am
you don’t know me, my friend rachel from lookout mountain pres sent me this cause I am from NJ. read my blog in a couple of days… i am working on a little nj thing of my own
April 8th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
I can’t help myself. Even though I was born in Montana and started school on an Air Force base in Germany, New Jersey is my home. Toms River, to be exact, exits 80 and 81 on the Parkway (a.k.a., the Garden State).
I lived at the Shore. I went to the beach. Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, Ortley, and Island Beach State Park was where I hung out every summer and winter.
My mother has had the same phone number since 1966, but three area codes: 201, 908, now 732. There used to be only North Jersey (201) and South Jersey (609).
The rule of the Jersey circle? Don’t make eye contact. If you do, you’re doomed.
I remember when Great Adventure opened, safari park and all.
I remember when Eatontown was THE place to shop…before the Monmouth County and Ocean County malls.
The city meant New York. Philadelphia…that was a black and white movie with Katherine Hepburn.
Senior Prom included the obligatory watching the sunrise on the beach.
Bruce Springsteen played at the Stoned Pony in Asbury Park and my older brother and sister saw him there before he was famous.
Classmates by the name of Testa, Sabatino, Mariano, Sorrentino…you get the picture.
And don’t forget the diners…Olga’s at Route 70 and 73 being the Queen Mother.
Ahh…I can smell the boardwalk pizza and french fries now…