{"id":485,"date":"2015-05-13T00:52:05","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T00:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/?p=485"},"modified":"2023-06-12T21:39:39","modified_gmt":"2023-06-12T21:39:39","slug":"wildwood-by-the-sea-nj-a-special-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wildwood-by-the-sea-nj-a-special-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildwood by-the-Sea, NJ – A Special Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Megan Meehan
\n\"patty<\/a>
\nAfter years spent living all over the country and travelling the world, Patty Dodge has returned to Wildwood to give her family a taste of her childhood.
\n\u201cI wanted my kids and my husband to know what it was like to grow up here,\u201d says the businesswoman and mother of four. \u201cI don\u2019t know how they would know what this was like without experiencing it. Having the opportunity to come back here and share these memories is really important to me.\u201d
\nGrowing up in nearby Town Bank, Patty Dodge, then Patty Goldsmith, worked, played, and went to school on the island for most of her young life. She attended Wildwood Catholic High School, and Wildwood High School, where she graduated in \u201879. She worked in Wildwood throughout her summers, at a whole host of locations around the island.
\n\u201cI worked the night shift at a diner,\u201d she said, recalling how she had to get special permission to do so, since she was only 16 at the time. She worked on the ferry as well, and as a waitress at Larkin\u2019s. But she always found time to enjoy the beach and the boardwalk. \u201cAfter getting off my shift at the diner, I\u2019d go right to the beach and would go to sleep there.\u201d
\nAfter graduating from high school, Patty attended Stockton College, moving to Florida shortly afterward. She then went on to live in New England and then California, where she met her husband, Jim.
\nBoth Patty and Jim are well travelled, but Wildwood holds a special place in their hearts.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s interesting is that Jim & I have travelled all over the world, and of all the places that we have vacationed at, Wildwood has been our favorite vacation spot\u201d, and \u201conce you\u2019re here you get sucked in,\u201d adds Jim.
\nThe couple says the boardwalk is a unique feature, as is Wildwood\u2019s signature old-fashioned tackiness. \u201cThe t-shirt shops, the rides, the games, the novelties, the hermit crabs\u2026 And I\u2019ve not been to any other place that has Skee-ball!\u201d Patty declares.
\nAnd has Wildwood changed? Not much, says Patty.
\n\u201cThere are some obvious differences, the new beautiful town homes and condos, none of that was here. And the rides have changed a lot. I remember riding a lot of different rides. But the overall feel is the same. Even the tram car is still here.\u201d
\nWhat\u2019s really important to Patty is being able to share all this with her family. \u201cWe chose to come here not because it\u2019s the fanciest or the most exotic, but because I really wanted my family to understand and have a sense of what it was like for me as a kid. I\u2019m so glad that I\u2019ve been able to share so much of my childhood with them.\u201d
\nLooking back, she says, \u201cI don\u2019t think I realized what a special place this was growing up. I couldn\u2019t wait to leave and get out of my small town. I\u2019ve travelled the world and don\u2019t think I\u2019ll find anywhere else that has this special place in my heart. If there\u2019s anything I\u2019d like The Sun\u2019s readers to know, it\u2019s to cherish the Wildwoods. It really is a unique place.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Meehan After years spent living all over the country and travelling the world, Patty Dodge has returned to Wildwood to give her family a taste of her childhood. \u201cI wanted my kids and my husband to know what it was like to grow up here,\u201d says the businesswoman and mother of four. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7,1,4],"tags":[32,33,35,31,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":487,"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunbythesea.com\/ww\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}