Classic Posts: The Central NJ Explorers

On my previous blog, I posted this anecdote. After driving back and forth many times between North and South Jersey, and getting continuously stuck in the Exit 7 area, it reminded me of times when it didn't happen very often - back in the glory days of the early 90s... Thanks to Goldman who helped me put the memories back together, back when I originally posted it.


It was 1995 and 1996, and Teaneck High School had spring break a week off from the week that most schools had off. I was still around town in Teaneck.

Also, around this time, I was getting closer with my brother, Evan. I wound up driving him places as was not yet 17, and through this I remember us getting much closer during this time than we had been before.

So one of Evan's friends mentioned to him that Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ had opened for the season, even though it was early in the spring. A trip which now at age 31 would seem relatively small to take to get to a big theme park like Six Flags seemed like an adventure at the time, especially for teenagers with little to no driving experience or with no experience taking trips like these without their parents.

So I forget if we had off of school on a weekday, or if it was a Saturday, but off we went, not thinking to call the park ahead of time (looking up their website was probably not a viable option back then). I had last been there for our 8th grade trip, where myself and somebody else (I forget who) rode the then-unbelievable and new Great American Scream Machine over and over until we almost missed the bus back.

This day, it was myself (I was 18 or 19) and my brother (15 or 16), and several of his friends: Goldman, Jay Koeppel, and Seth Kriegel (all 15 or 16).

Sure enough, after making our way all the way down the turnpike, it was too early in the season, and the park hadn't opened yet for the spring/summer.

Rather than be discouraged, we made the best of the situation. I felt like we were in the middle of a new world. It seemed very rural down there to us suburbanites. We decided to wander around and see what we came across. We drove around and soon came across a paintball place. The place was abandonded. We ran around there and stole some random shit (like beat up bowling pins). We marveled at the fact that paintball ranges existed, and that it was seemingly a bunch of random shit spread around some field somewhere. We stopped and grabbed food somewhere. We eventually came across a place called "Horse Park of New Jersey". We again marveled at the fact that we were apparently "in the country" and checked out the festivities, and chatted with some "locals". All the time we had a good time. Eventually we made our way home.



Dan Goldman has remembered and added on to the story:

The funniest part of the trip, as I recall, was a) when we started doing the rhyming couplets about each other's Moms (we were in the middle of a sonnets lesson in English at the time and I told Korean Shawn I would write a sonnet about his Mom) and b) when we got off the Turnpike and stopped at a McDonald's and people just looked at us like we were from another planet.

Even in a state as small as NJ, there are vast cultural differences between north and south, east and west, urban, suburban and rural and I guess, with our sunglasses and baggy shorts, we didn't fit the Jackson, NJ resident profile.

Right away, someone in a McDonald's uniform came up to ask us what we were doing there and when we told them we were going to Great Adventure, they laughed and told us the park was closed.

The reason we goofed was because Teaneck's spring break was a different week than the rest of NJ and Great Adventure had been open the week before when the rest of the civilized world took a week off from school. That was the root of our mistake.

Also, the best part of the horse park was not the smell, which was awful, but when Skip or Jay or someone asked some random girl whether they could get a ride...on the horse!

And don't forget the detour into Trenton when we asked some random guy on the street what there was to do in Trenton and he couldn't come up with any ideas, except "DRINK!"



Now, in retrospect, we were certainly not out in the middle of the country. In the 12 and a half years since then, I have lived all over New Jersey and taken trips to many of the corners of my state. Infact, once in my early 20s I interviewed for a teaching position at Jackson High School, where Great Adventure was. (They didn't offer enough money.) And certainly, I have been down rural roads much more rural than central New Jersey. I have taken road trips of a lot longer than an hour and a half. In short, this little excursion is in perspective now. But what is not lost on me was the feeling of exploration of that day. The feeling of being somewhere entirely new, unknown, and out of your element is one that is prominent in childhood, and can become lost as you become an adult. What seems like a silly anecdote remains in my mind as one of many fond memories of that time of my life.