Riders on the Winter Storm

In addition to my many other sojourns to the South Jersey Shore at least once a year I take a roundtrip ride to this same locale with one of my old friends, Tony Mecca. The last several years we drove down in July to participate in Crabby Ed Sherretta’s Hootenanny held in his big back yard just outside Cape May. Everyone brings potluck food and drink plus their kids and dogs if they choose to. A bunch of truly local musicians start showing up with potluck instruments and gear. After the food is laid out blue-collar banquet style on the big kitchen table and counters and the barbecue is lit and the booze tap turned on....There begins a quintessential long summer day that melts into a classic fire-fly summer night at the shore full of sweet live music, laughter and high-spirited conversation. But this year Tony and me reverted to our old ways and took the back roads drive in late winter several weeks after the first big storm in December.

Wanting to crack some of the ice that had gathered in our minds it was the contrast of seashore winter that we were after and a chance to drink in the serene desolation of that season when you are as far away from summer as you can be. You are in the middlespace of things with a long view to boot. After being cooped-up for so long and trying to regain ballast from the psychic turbulence of the holiday season the contrast makes you feel like you can take a very long breath in and let an even longer breath out. Taken in the right doses, the wintry shore can be a very refreshing, calming and invigorating tonicas long as you can get back in the heated car when you’ve had enough.

Besides being an old friend and fellow seashore aficionado, Tony somehow finds time to wear several hats and he wears all of them very well: father, husband, son, salesman, coachjust like millions of others out there in our frenetic Republic. In addition to all of the above mentioned credentials there is one more that is just as important and integral to him as the others-he is a long practicing artist. Mecca is a musician and a composer of his very own hybrid brand of rock, rock n roll and folk. To date he has made four album length cds. He has a tight little band that he both records and plays live with throughout the year. To support all of this he has a first-rate website that he built from scratch. I often ask myself, our mutual friends and Tony himself-Where do you find the time?! His answer, of course, is simple and true if not exasperating: When you really want to do anything make sure you really want to, put it in your appointment book and when that day arrives-do it.

In our often absurdly molar-grinding crankedup world Tony Mecca is not alone. Many of us in one form or another have the same load of responsibilities and burdens, if not more. We strive and we struggle; we thrive, run amok and somehow muddle through. But what we don’t seem to do enough of is relax, observe, reflect, contemplate and-in general-look up from our lives. At least for a day or more every now and then especially when you feel like your life is an inch from your face and you’re scraping your head against the sky. And this is where our annual winter seashore road trip comes into play-and it pays off every time.

First we talk the trip up in advance: What back roads we might take? What time of day we should leave? Where we might have breakfast, lunch or dinner enroute to or from our destination? In a very positive way we make a very simple thing into a big deal. And then somewhere in the middle of this verbal ritual Tony finds time to make a very eclectic cd mix which will serve as our soundtrack. Every ride we take has a unique home made mix which can be comprised of any artist from Captain Beefheart, Zappa and Dr. John to Humble Pie, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Purple Monkeys and John Prine. There is nothing like it in on your local radio station and we dig it all day long.

We let the holiday season pass and simmer down. Then about two weeks after New Years day we made our move. It was a clear but very cold 10a.m. Friday morning when we left the rock salt stained streets of South Philadelphia for the empty two-lane blacktops of South Jersey.

The night before there had been a light but steady snowfall which left the roads clear but the woods, fields and meadows heavily dusted. The wind picked up as we drove closer to the coast and every now and then a punching gust would blow a swirling cloud of snow from the tree tops, a hedge or a fallow field. The trees and the hedges would shudder with the force of the gust and the dead corn stalks in the field rose up from the dead and quickly died down again. First we would hear it whooshing then we could see it and feel it buffeting the car. Along with the music we were enveloped in it all had a quiet refreshing edge as we drove on and the snow crystals covered the windshield and lightly blanketed our mechanical four-wheeled womb.

After almost three hours of musical meandering through Cumberland and Cape May counties we finally reached Route 9. We drove south on 9 to Cape May Court House where we turned east to the New Jersey Parkway. We took the Parkway to its southernmost end at what many now refer to as Exit Zero, Cape May. All along this last stretch of highway we gazed as much as possible at the unending sky over the passing dormant frost covered Salt Marshes.

At our first stop we had an excellent seashore lunch at a counter style establishment snug up against the Trawler stacked harbor in Cape May. The victuals served here were basic yet classic: snapper soup, clam chowder, fried flounder with tartar sauce and cole slaw; cod fish cakes with stewed tomatoes and baked macaroni followed by fresh brewed coffee. Our fortifying lunch was indeed a fresh fine sampling of the delectable bounty brought forth from the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean just outside the door.

We decided to visit what was left of the Concrete Ship S.S Atlantus in its final resting place since 1911. What remains of its twisted hulk lies about 40 yards offshore in the Delaware Bay just off of Cape May Point at the south end of Higbee’s Beach.

The Delaware Bay can best be described that day as wild. Beautiful and wild. The freezing wind was hooking and howling down at about 20mph and pushing white-capped waves one on top of the other straight onto the gravelly beach where the pebbles rattled like a primitive percussion instrument being played by God. From the shore to about 20 yards out the rolling water was thick with slushy ice. Beyond the hard-breaking waves the swells heaved up and down like an immense setsheets billowing slowly in the wind. At first we just looked at it all and let it cast its spell. It felt like deep brain tissue massage.Then we got out of the car and took pictures, posing like shivering little kids, impatient to break from the pose and hustle back into the car.

After crossing the last drawbridge before Cold Spring Inlet and the open Sea we were quickly into one of my favorite areas of Wildwood Crest-The Crown Jewels of Motel Row: Armada, Blue Fin, Royal Hawaiian, Admiral, Jolly Roger and all the rest. The contrast, which we were seeking, was a bit sad but not gloomy. And how could it not be? On a warm summer night these aging well-kept palaces glow like neon votive candles. There’s laughter and the tinkling of cocktail ice along with someone cannon-balling into a pool full of aqueous underwater light. I drive through here (often out of my way) on any given summer evening when all of it languidly pulls you in like the full moon August stars high above it all.

After taking in long empty blocks of Wildwood and North Wildwood in their Twighlight Zone vacuum we reached our final destination, Twenty-Sixth Street and the Boardwalk. We parked close to the Boardwalk ramp and marched up against the icy wind to this fabled intersection and found exactly what we were looking for-an utterly deserted place without another living soul in sight. The contrast between that January day and any balmy summer night loomed larger than anything we had taken in thus far. It was like the difference between the Earth and the Moon. Every store, stand,shop, restaurant, game and ticket booth was shuttered or boarded up and battened down. All of the rides were silent and still. They resembled a mixed herd of mechanical dinosaurs caught in a sudden Ice Age. Stretching for at least a half-mile to the surf the beach was covered with a thin layer of frosted snow. There were barely any birds on the ground or in flight. The only sign of human life could be found in three or four lonely trawlers working close off shore. We took some pictures of one another and it almost felt absurd. Aside from the kicks, the airing out and the leisure for our souls I have a sense of what we were really doing up there and at all the other empty places we had stopped at that day and it was no big mystery: We were quietly trying to remember every special moment spent in these places and hoping for as many more to come...Memory and hope...We walked down the ramp and piled into the car. On the way out of the island we stopped for coffee and hot chocolate. The ride home was another set of old familiar back roads. We finished with the music and didn’t talk much. The fullness of the day was very evident if not praised aloud.