The Tilt-A-Whirl and Me

When I was in my early twenties, I spent quite a few summers at the Jersey Shore. My friends and I didn't often ride the amusements, so the times we did stand out. Especially one particular night, one of those nights you might want to forget but somehow you never can.

We were a fairly large group who shared a house in Sea Isle City. A large group with varied culinary skills. The night in question, one group cooked an African cuisine. Another group cooked something less exotic and less memorable but no less spicy. We all shared every dish. 

As soon as we finished dinner, we ran out of the house and jumped into the hearse that one girl's boyfriend drove-very cool at the time--and headed for the Wildwood Boardwalk to ride the "big rides."

You may see where this is going.

The first ride we ran to--and I recall we ran--was the Ferris wheel. Now, to call this amusement a Ferris wheel is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, it was a big wheel. And  yes, it had individual cars. However, the wheel tilted as it rotated and the cars, actually cages, spun and flipped. All at the same time. We bad no idea what was up and what was down. Today I cannot imagine the amount of money it would take to get me on that ride. But back then? We jumped on eagerly and got off feeling fine.  And ran to the Whip. 

Now, the Whip was an amusement that my mother deemed too rough for little me, possibly because she was aware of the concept of whiplash. However, I was no longer a little girl and my mother wasn't there that night. So, we leapt into a car and let the ride, without the benefit of seatbelts, jerk us around like crash test dummies testing the effects of forty-mile-an-hour car crashes. We loved it.

Thinking that we should take our riding down a notch for a break, we ran to what I thought of as the calmest, most soothing amusement: the Tilt-A-Whirl. There were no bright lights flooding the ride that sat on the edge of the pier with a lovely ocean view barely visible in the moonlight. Even though there was erratic spinning involved, the overall mood was calm. I leaned back, breathed in the sea air, and gazed out over the ocean. Everything changed in an instant. At least for my stomach. I'll get to the point. I threw up in my lap.

I was very considerate and had extraordinary aim. The car did not have to be hosed down. I, on the other hand, did. I won't paint a picture. I'll let you visualize a twenty-something woman being hosed down beside the Tilt-A-Whirl. The teen-aged operator didn't seem non-plussed. Apparently, it happened. 

I tried to find out if amusement parks still have hoses near rides. The answer I got was some do especially near particular rides. Want to guess the first ride on the list? The TILT-A-WHIRL! Now they tell me.

© Jane Kelly 2025

My Third Summer

A post I made on Facebook recalled that my mother refused to spend any more summers in a beach house saying, "Everyone else gets a vacation and I just move my job."

My family had been spending summers in Wildwood Crest for at least a dozen years by the time I was two and a half. Oddly enough, the rental house was paid for by my father's job. Every executive at his company got a summer house in Wildwood Crest.  I don't know why. The only explanation I can offer is: it was the fifties. (Aside: At some point my father's perks included a car but I recall stories of my father taking the bus down from Philadelphia for weekends in the early years. Why give someone a house but not a car to get there? Maybe that's why they eventually threw in the car.)

Anyway, back to my third summer. That was not an easy summer for my mother, mainly because of me. I came close to death several times. Not sure why. I got something--no one is still alive that would know what-- got misdiagnosed, was medicated incorrectly, and lost the knack of breathing. Most of the time my father was at work in the city. My mother was alone at the shore without a car which in a way didn't matter because she couldn't have driven it anyway. 

The story of that summer was always told to me in a casual way. Nothing to see here. "Mother used your illness as an excuse to stop spending summers in a rented beach house." Decades later my brother apologized to me because he would get scared and hide. I swear he said under the bed. I think Rick was expecting too much of a twelve year old boy. Until he told me that, I had no idea of the impact my episodes might have on the rest of the family. 

I don't think I fully grasped the seriousness of the situation. The story was related as "Hey, remember when Janie almost died?" I knew a summer neighbor had driven my mother and me to Philadelphia. That was serious. But one story my sister told me when I was in my fifties made me understand.

Rosemary was old enough that summer to remember my mother scooping up a limp baby and running out of the house yelling, "Help me. Somebody help me. My baby's dying."

Wildwood Crest neighbors helped and, spoiler alert, I didn't die. 

As a kid, I was disappointed we no longer went to the shore for the summer, but hearing that story makes  me understand why my mother never wanted to be in that position again.

The silver lining was after we stopped going to the shore, I became a 'friend.' You know, the kid parents always took along on vacation to keep their own kid out of their hair. I was a 'friend' up and down the Jersey coast line. So, when it came time to write murder mysteries set at the Jersey Shore, I had fond memories of a wide variety of towns. This was important because it did not seem plausible that a body would wash up on the shore of let's say Ocean City, on a regular basis.  

Ironically, the town I have fewest memories of is the town where I might have spent the most time. Recently I have been back. I don't expect to recover old memories but I might get to make some new ones.

© Jane Kelly 2025