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Monday, July 11, 2016

On The Boardwalk (GAMES)


On The Boardwalk (GAMES)


Mrs. C just advised me that tomorrow we are going to the boardwalk and then dinner.  Every year we have to go to the boardwalk at least once.  I hate the boardwalk; Mrs. C loves the ice cream in a waffle.

Are boardwalks unique to NJ?  Probably not, but we have a lot of them.  Some are just what they are called, a walk made of boards along the beach.  Some are malls on the beach with shops, food, rides and games. 

Seaside (Remember “Snooky” and “Jersey Shore” on TV) is aimed a bit at the young party crowd; lots of bars, and carnival types hawking their games and their prizes.  You see many people lugging stupid stuffed animal prizes that they won.  The prizes are worth about .75 and cost them $8 in darts to pop balloons with.  Anyway, people enjoy this boardwalk; it gives me the skeeves.


We are close Pt. Pleasant, kind of “Seaside Light.” It shouldn’t be too bad; Mrs. C will kick my butt in the water pistol balloon contest, and wack-a-mole games.  It will cost $10 to win a small stuffed dolphin.  Then we will have a mediocre dinner followed by her a ice cream on a waffle at her favorite vendor.  I think I will survive, but I won’t enjoy it.

When I was a young lad, I used to love the boardwalk.  We walked the boards in Ocean City, N.J.  Ocean City was and is a dry town, no booze, and it is very family friendly.  My friends and I walked the boards at night on our own from age 12 to drivers licenses.  There were three movie theaters, an amusement park and lots of arcades. 

I loved the arcade games, pin ball skee ball, and especially a baseball game where you wacked a marble onto a ramp for a home run. 

The best part of these games was they cost only a dime, and if you were good you could win free games.  Sometimes you could play for 20 minutes or more on a single dime. 

One year the state ruined the fun.  They ruled the free games constituted gambling and they were not allowed. Thus my distrust of Government was born at age 13.  The ironic thing is that some 17 years later the state ruled that gambling and people losing their weekly paycheck on a slot machine would be quite all right about 15 miles north in Atlantic City.

The sting of the loss of free games in pin ball was somewhat relieved when I reached the ripe age of 13 by a new discovery…girls.  This post is already long enough; perhaps there will be more tomorrow.

14 comments:

  1. What sacrifices you make for Mrs. C!!

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  2. I never really knew what a boardwalk was, until today!

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  3. Our boardwalks here are nature paths in the woods. I've walked the boardwalk at VA beach, so I'm vaguely familiar with what you are speaking of.

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  4. A trip to the boardwalk can be a fun outing once in a while, but i'm with you on prefering the family friendly version.

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  5. I hope somewhere in an arcade, they have one of those coin-pusher machines. I LOVE the coin-pusher machine!

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  6. neat memories of simpler days. i'm envisioning 'boardwalk empire' but not quite that far back. :)

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  7. I'm with you on the boardwalk. I avoid them whenever possible. There are so many other fun places to visit.

    Have a fabulous day and I'll await the girl discovery at 13 post. ☺

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  8. I'm not a huge fan of crowds or games, so that probably wouldn't be my thing. We would sometimes go to Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid and all I would play is skee ball.

    Still, if it makes a loved one happy to go to there, then you might as well make the most of it, as you have.

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  9. There don't seem to be any boardwalks in Europe. A lot of places have restaurants with large areas of beach in the back. These areas are full of deck chairs and sun loungers with umbrellas, which you pay about $15 a day to rent. If you are lucky they come with a table. These cover the beach all the way down to the sea... In England there are long long piers for people to stroll down amidst the kiosks with games and machines to spend your money on and ice creams and candies, etc. I kind of liked the boardwalk myself...

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  10. How giving you are to suffer for the Mrs. Hope there is something there that will make you smile if only knowing you are making her smile. That should do the trick.

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  11. We all put up with a lot and do things to please our wives, like ensuring they get their waffle cone.

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  12. One of the first trips my husband and I took together when we were still dating was a trip to Atlantic City. We walked up and down the boardwalk a lot (didn't have much money for gambling). These days I'm watching "Boardwalk Empire" on TV.

    Waiting to hear about your discovery of girls.

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  13. Everytime I think of a boardwalk I think of, "Under the boardwalk, down by the seeeeeeeeaaaaaa.." I've never been but it's definitely on my list. One of the more quiet ones at this stage of the game. :) - I used to love playing the pinball machines and I always laughed at those guys who got so angry playing that they'd try and shake the machine all over the place. Me, I'm just like, yay, I didn't lose all of my balls in the first 3 minutes! :)

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  14. I was at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. I grew up in a small mining town and our family didn't have an indoor bathroom until I was in high school (1966). So the first time I walked down the board walk there in Long Branch, I thought it was the cat's meow. I'd probably be having a huge time right there with Mrs. C.

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