Wednesday.....Culture.....Ocean City, N. J.

It's midnight and I'm beat. We had to do some travelling and took advantage of it by staying at a Bed and Breakfast in Ocean City, New Jersey. It had been about seven years since we had been there and I remember now why it was of my favorite beach towns. It's a dry community, fairly religious and conservative in its entertainments. The last time we were there they initiated a no smoking policy on the boardwalk so I boycotted it for life. Maybe the fact that I hardly smoke the pipe anymore helped me overlook such blatant tyranny. I don't think that I ever saw more people enjoying themselves as much as Thursday night, family night, on the boardwalk. There were magic shows, dance contests and music every few blocks and karaoke! I was real worried at one point that I was going to go up and pick an Elvis song but I knew that I would have followed a 10 year old singing the Jonas Brothers. We stopped to watch a French Fry Eating Contest and the young teen who came in second was in the Michael Jackson dance contest just after it. Everyone thought that he was going to keel over. The afternoon was spent watching the 100th annual Baby Parade and I mean there were over 300 babies in decorated mini-floats passing by. It was great. You have to go to Ike's for crab cake if you go there. The beach is unlike all the other ones we visit. The sand is at a lower level and you get an interesting perspective in looking straight ahead, and not down, to see the waves coming in. Also, unlike the condo beaches, this scene was off of a postcard with 20 rows deep of umbrellas and hundreds of people in the water in front of every lifeguard stand. I needed this break, for my mother, who orders clothes for me from B. B. King, reminded me that the U2 Summit was only a month away in Pittsburgh. The ride home was anything but pleasant for my XM was not working, no Rush and no Mark Levin! No talk radio means that we have to listen to country music which is my wife's favorite. I am convinced that every man who listens to country music, either is crying in his beer because he lost his girl, or getting drunk and celebrating at the bar because he got rid of his girl. Now just a little bit of logical deduction tells me that this must mean that of all the women that listen to country music, half of them now wind up with the guy crying in his beer, making him twice as miserable as he already is; and the other half wind up with the guy getting drunk in the bar, making her twice as sad as she already is! I knew what Philadelphia would be like in the afternoon rush but went that way anyway. I think that half of Philly's population was on this two lane highway where we inched along for an hour. At the other end we hit road work on the turnpike. I was beat by now and got off early at Monroeville to get out of the bumper to bumper. The GPS lady I think that her name is Hillary said take the second right after the toll booths. I had started talking back to her quite a while back. Stopping at a service plaza, she will give the old recalculating and I answer back I'm only stopping for gas. I've even told her to shut up a few times. Anyway, getting off the turnpike a little bit early, she said take the second right in which I told my wife I'm not listening to her. I wound up heading east instead of west and my wife softly uttered I'm not listening to her. We made it home safely, thank the Lord, and here I am catching up on blogs. It's a small world as the saying goes, of the three couples, and one son, at our breakfast table, one's daughter went to college where our son did, the other lady was from McKeesport, up the road from where I grew up and the third couple was from Johnstown. They talked about how they liked John Murtha, as he brings so much back to Johnstown, and I just smiled. Sorry, I don't talk politics at church or Bed and Breakfasts.