Last month I moved out of my parents' house in Jersey to a small town in New Hampshire. Officially, I'm no longer a resident of Jersey -- permanent or temporary.
The two weeks I spent at home preparing for the move were quite telling. I often found myself going out for a short errand, only to take a 20 minute segue to drive by a place I loved. I might not have gone into Sun High Orchards where my family buys their sweet corn or the Randolph Beach where I spent so many summers, but just driving by showed my appreciation.
I don't believe in really saying goodbye to places, but I do believe in acknowledging the importance that they had in my life. So here it is, a list of what I learned from being raised in Jersey.
1. It's OK to display your rough edges -- and be proud of them.
I am awful at following driving directions. So awful that when I'm driving to a new place, I often give myself a 30 minute window instead of a ten-minute one. So awful that a former editor had to draw me two maps to walk to an assignment that was less than five blocks away.
But I own up to it. I make fun of myself for getting stuck in the wrong turn lane, ending up in the EZ Pass lane instead of the cash toll one or print out five sets of directions for the same route.
It's one of my rough edges and in some twisted way, I'm sort of proud of it.
Jersey's the same way. Our trashy board walks are shown in tourism ads. Our driving skills are worn as a badge of courage. We grudgingly admit that our politicians might night always be clean-cut.
And our pride from being from "the armpit of the country" is undeniable. In embracing our rough edges, we own them and let no one else define our state's "flaws."
2. The true meaning of sports rivalries.
Jersey has an intrinsic network of sports team loyalties. There's the divide between Jets and Giants fans ("but they both PLAY in Jersey!") not to mention the mash-up of Devils/Rangers/Flyers fans. There is no uniting factor that brings all Jersey diehards together. Someone always gets left out, someone always gets pissed off.
But that's one of the things that makes Jersey so interesting.
I went to a bar last month to watch Game 5 of the Devils/Rangers series with my grandfather, dad and his friends. His friends live in a mix of towns in Northern New Jersey and when we got to the bar, a mere 40 minutes outside of NYC, it was apparent how loyalties were divided.
The bar owner was wearing a Rangers Jersey and had seemed to have memorabilia from every sports team except the Nets and Devils. Such is Jersey, where sports rivalries run deep and long. In high school there were constant arguments between Jets and Giants fans, Yankees and Mets fans.
But the rivalries add another layer of excitement to professional sports. It was definitely much more interesting sitting in a bar filled with Devils and Rangers fans trash-talking each other than it would have been with a group of people rooting for a common cause.
And when the Devils won Game 5, it made the victory in the bar that much sweeter.
3. Sometimes the best defense against stereotypes is embracing them.
Can't make left turns. Can't pump gas. What exit? The smell.
Anyone who's from Jersey and moved out-of-state has heard those and others a million times before. No, the whole state doesn't smell, just when you drive past the refineries. And maybe through Newark.
Yes, it really is illegal to pump gas. And yes, I can make left turns, I just choose not to do it that often.
But instead of trying to deny them all (I don't know what smell you're talking about) or reacting with extreme sarcasm (yes OF COURSE we call it JOISEY), it's better to embrace it.
So here's to my friends who fist pump at parties, tease their hair as high as they can and answer the question "What exit?" with a straight face. You're Jersey, and regardless of what people think of it, you're proud of it.
4. Bruce Springsteen really knows what he's singing about.
It's hard to imagine Springsteen singing about any other state than Jersey. And it's also hard to imagine Jersey without the influence of Springsteen.
I learned about my home state through his lyrics: Asbury Park, the working class, the strength that goes into maintaining a life, not knowing what the outcome will be.
Springsteen is Jersey's troubadour. He's the person politicians quote when they want to inspire, when they want to prove how Jersey they really are.
His lyrics speak of having pride in a place that's not quite perfect, and never will be. There may not be a reason for every misfortune that strikes, but there's always a reason to get past it. And that's what Springsteen, and Jersey, is about.
5. Sometimes you just need to say what you feel the moment you feel it.
My high school had a few rough edges and a bit of a not-so-good reputation. It was the type of places where parents in my hometown uprooted their kids after they completed sixth grade so they wouldn't have to attend that school.
Throughout my years at Dover, I was constantly fielding questions about the metal detectors (there were none); the drug sniffing dogs (nonexistent); and the guns the security guards and school-assigned cop carried (yes, they had them, but they never used them).
There was one characteristic that I came to admire in the majority of my classmates at Dover, one that wasn't quite taught to me in my elementary school:
It's OK to stand up for yourself.
In sticking up for yourself, if saying what you feel ruffles a few feathers, so be it. If the words you string together to prove a point aren't the most eloquent, so be it. And if your reaction causes a bit more viciousness to come your way, so be it. At least you said what you wanted to the moment you wanted to say it and you don't have to go around carrying those words around in your head, just begging for the perfect moment to be said, because they've already been spoken.
6. Accents aren't always a bad thing.
I used to talk really fast. LikehowmanywordscanIfitintoonebreathIbetitcanbemorethanthirtymaybefifty.
Fast. Coupled with my slight "aw" accent, I was quite the interesting study when I first went away to college. I wanted more than anything to blend in with the rest of the 2,000 or so undergrads in my class (with their even-paced tones and almost rhythmic way of speaking) and forget Jersey entirely. A new beginning.
Unfortunately that was not to be the case. The more anxious I got about meeting people, the more my accent surfaced. WhichledtometalkingsuperfastandthenforgetwhatIwassayingonlytocutoffmidsentenceandfeelsuperembarrassedandevenmoreanxious.
But there's something to be said for accents. My slight Jersey accent became an irreplaceable part of my character and a constant reminder of where I came from. (Which as a freshman in college is very important to remember).
7. Roots -- and your loyalty to them -- matters.
Wanderlust. We've all been afflicted with it at some point, that desire to leave where we grew up and live somewhere entirely different. Some of us leave, only to be drawn back fairly quickly by some sort of force that won't let us be away for too long.
Then there's those of us who leave and never give a second thought to coming home. Or, for most of us that move outside of Jersey (and I really don't know how much authority I can say this with, just based on experience) and develop a strange give/take relationship with our roots: alternatively praising and dismissing the first place that became familiar to us.
Jersey tends to inspire strong feelings in people: they either completely love it or entirely hate it. For whatever reason, there is no middle ground.
So that makes its defenders that much more necessary. While I momentarily cringe when someone insults really insults where I come from, I can almost understand it. Just like I hope they will understand when I retort with a swift, and often brutal, defense.
I'm proud of where I came from and while I might not always like to admit it, I'm loyal to the tiny town on the top of the hill where I road my bike through the woods, got into my first fender bender and bought my first bottle of wine.
8. Every piece of land means something to somebody.
Across the street from the block I lived on in Jersey is a deserted wooded area filled with remnants from my hometown's iron ore mining history: sink holes and cow bellies with undisclosed depths. The woods descend from the top of the massive hill my town is built on down to the valley, into a favorite sled riding hill.
Ten or so years ago a development group that had possession of the land tried to orchestrate a condo complex on it and I got my first taste of small town politics. My father was part of a group of townspeople who vehemently opposed developing the land and wanted to leave it as is.
I was recruited to distribute pamphlets in mailboxes that listed the reasons why a new condo development would disrupt the peaceful, quiet town (or as quiet as you can get for a suburb in Jersey that has a major highway running through it).
At the time I didn't quite understand my father's dedication for a plot of woods that I regarded as creepy, but I was fascinated by the dividend between the "outsider" development corporation and the town resident oppositions. It was a somewhat twisted dedication my father's group had to the woods defense: we may not want to build on this property, we might not like this property, but we'll be damned if an "outsider" makes a decision about our town.
9. Confidence.
Jersey Girls have a reputation.
As a woman, as soon as you connect yourself to Jersey, the stereotypes flood in: big hair, big make-up, big mouths and a certain lack of refinement that a lot of "outsiders" frown upon.
Maybe that's where the old joke stems from ("Jersey girls aren't trash, trash gets picked up!") And maybe that's where people begin to mistake being upfront for looking for fights.
But there is one undeniable characteristic that the "typical" Jersey Girl has that often gets overlooked as something negative: confidence. The ability to stand up for what they believe in, regardless of the consequences. To wear heels that are too high and skirts that are too short, yet still command the respect they deserve.
10. People always find a way to survive.
Perseverance. The town I went to high school in is a mix between blue collar and middle class families that deserve financial aid to put their kids through college, but won't get it because their salaries rank too high on the national scale. There's throwbacks who's families have lived in Dover for generations and remember when the town's sections were classified by which European country its inhabitants immigrated from.
And then there's the mix of the new.
If you drive downtown between 7 and 9 a.m. on weekdays you'll see them crowding the streets surrounding the train tracks. Some are holding styrofoam cups of coffee while others stare down at their scuffed work boots and blue jeans. Some have papers, but most probably don't. They're waiting for a landscaper or maybe builder to come by and offer a days work for unreported wages.
And they'll be there every day.
