To my boardwalk.
Wildwood - this patchouli-scented place of leather-jacketed hawkers, a bumpy, turquoise-colored, giant slide that was too big for me to ride, and talking tram cars - just wasn't for me.
And even though it has changed a lot since those days in the 1960s - it now sports what may be one of the nicest water parks in the nation at Morey's Piers and a far tamer boardwalk experience - and though I have come to know several other lovely boardwalks along New Jersey's 127-mile coastline, Ocean City's still remains the boardwalk of my dreams.
Sure, Cape May has its very romantic macadam seawall Promenade, which has passed as a boardwalk since its wooden one washed away in 1962. It's a great place to take wedding photos and it has a couple of stores, a restaurant, and a tiny convention hall, but there are no amusement piers on Cape May's boardwalk.
Which is OK, because the beauty of Cape May's boardwalk is found in the fact that one can actually stroll it - no, promenade it - the way the Victorians who built much of the town would have done.
On one side, the beach and the sea stretch out, creating what may be one of the most picturesque places along the Atlantic Coast, the point where the ocean meets the Delaware Bay at New Jersey's extreme southern tip.
On the other side is a genteel collection of beautifully restored Victorian-era structures that have helped earn the entire town the coveted National Historic Landmark designation.
Almost its polar opposite, far up the coastline, is Seaside Heights' big, brash boardwalk. This is where creamy Kohr Bros. custard and Skee-Ball originated. And the place still retains the flavor of the 1950s. The barkers hawk things from sausage-and-pepper sandwiches to spins of the big wheel on Casino Pier.
