How would you spend your time if you were going to spend a couple of hours on the boardwalk in Atlantic City? Would you visit a casino? Would you spend some time on the beach? Maybe you’d check out the large selection of factory outlet stores or indulge in the continual feast of beach food down the older section of the boardwalk and buy some beach souvenirs.
Would you believe Dave and I spent last Saturday morning on the boardwalk in Atlantic City and didn’t do any of these things? Instead, after walking in the hot sun for forty-five minutes, we chose to spend $12 a piece (with a military discount) to tour the Ripley Museum; believe it or not!
The reason we were in town had nothing to do with Atlantic City except that it was near the home of a college buddy who was hosting a party for a whole crew of folks, many of whom hadn’t seen each other in almost forty years. After spending almost seven hours in the car on Friday crawling around DC and Baltimore we were ready to stretch our legs a bit and the Boardwalk seemed a likely place.
We were big fans of Boardwalk Empire so the thought of retracing Nucky Thompson’s footsteps seemed like an appropriate way to spend our time. However, the modern day boardwalk bears little resemblance to that of the twenties and thirties. The wooden facades are long gone, replaced by modern casinos with “themed” fronts facing the ocean.
In one spot there was a small park with a replica of a covered wagon. It may have been part of a casino, otherwise I’m not sure of its significance. Certainly if folks in New Jersey loaded up covered wagons some time in history, it was to go somewhere else, and definitely not Atlantic City!
Poles along the beach side are topped with TV’s broadcasting commercials and playing popular music so you can’t even look out at the ocean without having your thoughts interrupted. In fact, the benches faced the Boardwalk and were conveniently situated near charging stations, so visitors never had to worry about waning battery life on smart phones. God forbid!
Also gone are the natty dressers. It would have been nice to see men in crisp linen suits and straw hats escorting women in loose fitting lawn frocks, but they, like Nucky, there too are from a time long past. Replacing them are hoards of the beach-clad from all nations; most of them revealing much more of their bodies than I’d prefer to see.
So, with a lack of things worth looking at on the Boardwalk, Dave decided to humor me and we retreated into the air-conditioned world of Robert Ripley where it wasn’t impolite to stare at oddities. Believe it or not!
Thanks, Monica; made me feel as though I’d been there -without spending a dime!