Rachel Vanace

Jersey Shore locals refer to tourists as “shoobies”. The term comes from the 1920s when people would day trip down to the shore and bring their lunch in a shoe box. These “shoobies” hail from New York, Pennsylvania or Northern New Jersey, but they all flock to my hometown for their summer vacations. With them, comes excitement and liveliness, but they also negatively shake up the entire atmosphere of our normally quiet beach community. During the off-season one can expect to be the only one on the entire beach, but in July you feel like you are in a can of sardines cooking in the summer sun. Traffic and chaos follows them wherever they go yet the locals countdown the days until they return each summer. When I think about where I came from, the same memory always plays through my head. I am a young girl, sitting on a boardwalk bench eating a vanilla ice cream cone with chocolate sprinkles. The cold, creamy goodness in my mouth counters the feeling of the golden, summer sun on my skin. I watch the mindless tourists stroll along admiring the beauty I get to see everyday, and I am filled with a sense of gratitude that I get to grow up somewhere people travel long distances to reach and spend their hard earned money to come visit.