No Vacation for Mom

When I was a baby, and for at least half a dozen years before I was born, my family spent the summer in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. Every year at Memorial Day Weekend, my father, mother, sister, brother and eventually me would arrive at a house rented by my father’s company as part of his compensation. At the end of the weekend, my father would return to his job in Philadelphia and my mother would stay at the Shore cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids. As she liked to say, “Everyone else gets a vacation. I just move my job.” 

The situation might have continued but I, unintentionally, saved the day for my mother. Having been misdiagnosed, I would stop breathing, turn blue and, on one occasion, get rushed to a hospital in Philadelphia in a neighbor’s car. All this fell on my mother’s shoulders. My father was in the city. The next summer we all were. 

Summers in the city meant as I grew up, I was free to serve as “a friend.” You know, the person parents allow kids to bring on vacation so they don’t complain that they miss their friends. That is how I got to create memories of just about every town at the Jersey Shore (most at the southern end). I’ve continued to add memories ever since. 

I will admit that a lot of my favorite memories are old. For example, I knew little about current-day Ventnor when I started writing Greetings from Ventnor City - and I still don’t know too much. My fond thoughts about Ventnor harken back to childhood days at a guest house with my parents. I’ve gotten back to Avalon as an adult but when I think of Avalon I think of being dressed for cocktail hour in hotels that are long gone. I was too young to recall anything of Wildwood Crest. Everything I know, I know from old photos.

Throughout the years, I’ve updated my knowledge with occasional trips to many towns up and down the Jersey Shore but I know them as a tourist. So does Meg. I love learning what’s new in town as she does - which given the pandemic created quite a challenge for the upcoming book set in Avalon. That’s a story for another day.

© 2024 Jane Kelly