Summers in New Jersey

"The Notebook" is on TV tonight. I love that movie for so many reasons. Cheesy love story that hooks chicks all the time, I'm sure. Who doesn't fall for a soft-spoken Southerner who reads poetry? But tonight while watching that movie I looked at the scenery and realized another reason why that movie appeals to me - it reminds me of summers at my aunt's house in New Jersey.

Now I am sure when I say, "Summers in New Jersey," one thinks of "Jersey Shore," GTL, or something you would see on the Sopranos. There's a lot in NJ to make fun of, surely. But my aunt lived (and still lives) in a sleepy little town called Bayville, just outside of Toms River. Every house I remember there has a dock in the backyard with a little boat (or if you had a lot of money, a big boat). I caught my first fish off the boat that docked in my aunt's backyard. I inner-tubed - because I couldn't swim - in that water after climbing down a little ladder off the back of that property.

When you think about the classic "I summered in...," that's what Bayville was for me. Think about a bog with knee-high grasses. Waterways everywhere you look. Riding a rickety bike with no gears, and back then, no helmets, to the store for a soda or an ice cream. Getting eaten to death by mosquitos because you were out too late catching fireflies. Heading out to the pizza place that, well, you didn't really know what it was called because everyone always called it by it's nickname. Waking up in the morning to the sound of the water and the din of those insects you only really hear in the summer. Those sounds and sights fill the movie I am watching now - takes me back. Magnolia trees are replaced by maples and weeping willows, but so many of the visual memories are the same.

I think Bayville also represents to me one of the first chances I ever had at a little freedom. I think staying at my aunt's house was the first time I ever slept over anywhere without my parents. I can't recall how long I actually stayed at my aunt's house at a stretch; it was probably only a weekend but it felt like two weeks for me. After a time I got to know the girl across the street and her family. Michelle was slightly younger than me and she lived in Bayville all the time and I thought that was exotic. My aunt, at the time, only visited on weekends and summers but she lived in NY full time. Now that my aunt's older, she lives permanently in Bayville. I think Michelle's parents still live across the street. Michelle and I were "summer" friends who did a lot together. She took me on bikerides; she and I would sing into hairbrushes along to Air Supply records.

I lost touch with Michelle after high school. We really only had letters back then. No e-mail, no Facebook. I heard after a time that she was diagnosed bipolar and I hope she's OK. She and I shared some secrets too, just like friends do. I wonder if there were things she couldn't tell me then about how she processed information and feelings. But I had a lot of fun with Michelle and I liked spending time at her house. As much as I loved my aunt's house, I think I felt safer at Michelle's. That's a story for another blog.

My kids don't know that you can live in a house that isn't surrounded by fences and where you can run without boundaries- but that's what Bayville has. We didn't have DSs and cell phones and 425 channels then. When we went outside to play we did just that. We ran and ran and lay down under trees and looked at the sky, swam and rode bikes and got so sunburned you were peeling if off for days. We weren't BUSY.

We have a lake behind our house now, a little man-made mega-pond, and it's separated from our house by only a block wall and a street - but that's not close enough. In Bayville, you literally have the ocean in your backyard (or at least the Forked River in your backyard). But sometimes I sleep now with my window open and hear the little geyser at our end of the lake and, when I wake up and keep my eyes closed, I hear the water and it sounds a little like morning in Bayville.

I Google-Earthed her house tonight. I don't know how old the image is. I don't see a boat in the back dock anymore. I don't recall if my aunt could even drive the boat. I suspect the boat went away when my uncle died. I want to take my kids out to Bayville and show them the freedom you can get from the confines of a city. I see my kids run around now in their bathing suits (and the SPF 30 we never dreamed of wearing then) and know they would love the open-endedness of it. I have to get them out to New Jersey someday to show them it's not all hair and spray-tans.