People love to knock my home state of New Jersey. I would like to argue that South Jersey and North Jersey are entirely separate entities. North Jersey is home to smog, clog, congestion, and overdevelopment, but in their defense, they are also home to Bruce Springsteen – so they get a lifetime pass for that one. South Jersey is home to a wonderful rural area my friend Burks and I affectionately refer to as “God’s Country”. And I have my dad to thank for introducing me to this once mysterious area.

My grandmother, Lillian Martin, was from the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia – a predominately Irish and Polish neighborhood where the Catholic church you attended was dictated by what your nationality was. Her father Michael Martin was an Irish immigrant. My grandfather, Thomas O’Connor, was from Woodstown, New Jersey – a quaint rural town about thirty minutes away from Philadelphia. His mother, Margaret Bones, came to America from Ireland when she was sixteen years old. Where my grandparents met however, is somewhat disputed – my grandfather insisted it was McGettigan’s Tavern in Atlantic City, but my grandmother claims it was the Atlantic City boardwalk. But somehow the country boy from South Jersey Tommy O’Connor wooed the big city gal Lilly out of Philly and over to Jersey. My “Poppy” was one of seven children, and my grandmother was one of nine. (I did mention they were Irish-Catholic, right?)

My Poppy had sisters, Aunt Anne and Aunt Mary, who lived in Woodstown well into their 150’s. I am pretty sure they were born before the Civil War. My dad would drag us down there a few times a year to visit them. It was one of the more dreadful memories of my childhood, along with being forced to finish my milk in Catholic school and seeing my sisters marrying Barbie and my Optimus Prime Transformer. The only slightly alluring thing was that one aunt always had a steady supply of Bugles corn chips in her house, and my dad always took us for ice cream at Richman’s afterwards. On one trip when I was around 12, it was just me and my dad and he tried to give me the birds and the bees talk but I thwarted his attempt. Instead, I learned everything from my friend Mark, who had two older brothers and access to a Playboy magazine; and from the 2 Live Crew’s cassette “As Nasty As They Wanna Be”. But I guess in some ways, even at the tender age of 35 years old, the birds and the bees are a lifelong learning process.

While I dreaded the visits to ancient aunt’s boring homes, I loved the drive down through South Jersey. There was something exhilarating about the open roads, the rolling green fields, the cow and horse sightings, and of course the Bugles corn chips. So when I got my license, instead of doing donuts in the local WaWa parking lot, or sitting in a mall parking lot with the hood popped and pretending like I knew what the hell all the shiny parts did; my friend Burks and I made a beeline for what we hailed as “God’s Country”. We would jump in my parent’s 1985 Pontiac Parisienne station wagon with wood grain sides and drive down to the farmlands of the southern-most parts of New Jersey. There was never an agenda, and while we had a route we usually took, the overall goal was to get lost and maybe stumble upon something bizarre. It was fun to just explore, see new places, and wonder around aimlessly. We were like a modern day Lewis and Clark, except instead of discovering uncharted new lands, we were driving down long established paved roads.

These trips were quite frequent back in high school, and the one game we played while driving was listing all the strange things we saw. Of course, we would exaggerate things quite a bit for comedy’s sake, but I recently found a list from one of the trips that read “King Henry VIII’s castle; Field of 1,000,000 Birds, Beowulf’s Lair; Alien Observatory; Old Man in Skirt”. And we had hundreds of Jersey Devil sightings confusing old “J.D.” with everything from a goat to a dude with a heavy coat on. There were times when we would be in total silence consumed by all the beautiful verdant stretches of farm land, and there were times when we’d be laughing so hard I thought for sure I would lose control of the station wagon and plow into a corn field. Over the years we found destinations along the way that we would visit – a small market in Alloway, a 6 foot tall plastic chicken along Rt. 49 (RIP), and the Bridgeton Zoo. The Bridgeton Zoo alone is worthy of its own blog. It is a free zoo that is seemingly funded entirely by whatever pennies and nickels they can fish out of the water fountain. Most of the exhibits are empty, and the so-called “exotic birds” look suspiciously like fluorescent green spray painted pigeons, and the African elephant is nothing more than a cow with a garden house tied to its face. Second rate exhibits aside, a trip to the Bridgeton Zoo is a staple of a good God’s country trip.      

When we started these trips, it was 1993 and God’s Country was mostly untouched and undeveloped. But as the years passed, more and more developments and homes were built to where God’s country is virtually non-recognizable in some spots. Urban sprawl has splashed in, and now there are McMansions, cul-de-sacs, and soccer moms in SUV’s that could fit a small army as far as the eye can see. It certainly isn’t a bad thing, but we decided to take the God’s country trips to another locale.  

After some mapping, extensive internet research, and getting lost – we decided on the towns and area along the Delaware Bay in extreme Southern Jersey. There are coastal towns and areas called Sea Breeze, Gandy’s Beach, Turkey Point, and Shell Pile that were practically screaming our name to come check out. When you hear a name like Sea Breeze, it’s almost like you can already taste the daiquiri. And I know we both foolishly expected some resort, but when we made the 15 minute ride off the only main road, we came across a shanty town with a few ramshackle homes. Sea Breeze has a pretty neat history though, it was indeed a resort destination back in the 1800’s – you can read about it here. Our first trip was in 2004, but since then Sea Breeze has had a rough time – a seawall built in 2007 has collapsed, and now the state of New Jersey has purchased all the homes and will be knocking them time and preserving the wetlands. I haven’t been there in over a year but the homes were still there. In fact, another blogger visited recently and took these pics. If you want to check out “The Breeze” I would recommend doing it soon! (If the homes are even still there)  

One of the more interesting places is Shell Pile, where there literally are piles of shells. Shell Pile was once home to a bustling oyster industry, but in 1957 a disease called MDX wiped out 90% of the oysters which left Shell Pile to become a ghost town. There is a bar and restaurant called Al’s Hideaway, which on our January 2, 2004 trip at 9am was obviously deserted. We dreamed of visiting someday and buying Al’s Hideaway T-shirts that read “I Got Shucked at Al’s Hideaway”.  When we finally made it there a year later, we expected to see salty old sea dogs in yellow slickers telling tales about the angry and unforgiving sea, we were again surprised to see a very normal crowd. Even better, we bought actual Al’s Hideaway t-shirts, but they didn’t include any oyster or sexual references.    

I am amazed that there isn’t more development in and around these coastal towns. Since the Jersey Shore is so expensive to buy a home, I thought that certainly this could be a more affordable place to go. Yes, please try not to laugh at my half-assed real estate prospecting. This coming from the guy who has a hard time paying the mortgage for a house that cost less than what most people pay to remodel their kitchen. But apparently most of the area is protected marshland that cannot and should not be built on. So this area is now safe from the ills that plague some Jersey shore towns where greased up meatheads and douche bags descend on in the summer to vacation, fistfight, and date rape. The worst thing that can happen in Shell Pile is a run-in with the Jersey Devil.  

Lately, when we do a God’s Country trip, we try and make it down to the Sea Breeze/Shell Pile area, look for the Jersey Devil, and have a drink at Al’s Hideaway. But with my responsibilities of fatherhood, and Burks’ having to work Saturdays as a United States postal carrier, it has been tough to get down there. Don’t get me wrong, we still love the old-school God’s Country trip. In recent years, our favorite thing on a summer night after work is take the old route down to Woodstown and visit Cream Valley Custard. The running joke is that as “City Boys” we are from the future and are so much more advanced than the simple folk in Woodstown. The sad reality is that most of the other ice cream patrons drive luxury vehicles that cost more than my rowhome. A night I still laugh about is when Burks and I went to Woodstown and hit golf balls at a driving range, got dinner at Woodstown Diner, then hit Cream Valley for soft serve ice cream. This is in stark contrast to what most, correction, all other guys my age do. Like play fantasy sports, and watch UFC fights where two half naked skeevy looking guys beat the Red Bull out of each other in a cage.

If you are a New Jersey resident, and want to do something interested and different – take a trip down to God’s Country. The scenery is beautiful and there are all kinds of wacky places to check out – the Cowtown Rodeo and Flea Market, the Bridgeton Zoo, and a giant pile of oyster shells. And keep in mind, Jersey Devil jokes never get old!

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