A Beautiful Day in the Strangerhood

Dispatches from the
front lines of human interaction...

All about us nobody people and our funny little stories and the feelings we all have.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

My Kind of Town

It was a sunny Thursday afternoon in August. Absent the occasional article assignment, I sat in the corner of my kitchen, my office, surfing the web. The location: South Amboy, NJ, a town that comprises one square mile that juts the brown waters of the Raritan Bay. From the shore, you can take in the splendor of Staten Island.

At around four o’clock, music suddenly blared from the street below. I craned my head over the plants lining the windowsill but I couldn’t make out Mystery DJ; all I got was a glorious view of the white vinyl siding on the building next door. DJ paused “Save the Last Dance” to heckle someone visiting the ATM. He yelled into the mic, “Hey! Get me a couple of $20s!” Later, during “Born in the USA,” he called to someone entering the local pizza joint, “Grab me a slice, will ya?!”

I immediately emailed Woody, who’d made the journey from Brooklyn the previous year for the Memorial Day parade. He’d come to revel in our small-town majesty: the high school bands, Girl Scout troops, Little Leaguers, the long line of refurbished mail trucks. I knew Woody would eat this up. He responded instantly: “Who is this guy? You must go introduce yourself.”

I refused to go downstairs, saying it was more romantic imagining The Entertainer: He was stocky, with dark brown hair and a mustache. He wore cut-off shorts and one of those “South Amboy” t-shirts one can purchase at the local Foodtown. I believe he drove a pick-up and that, most likely, it was red. It was definitely GMC or Ford. No imports for this guy.

I certainly couldn’t fault DJ for being a Frank Sinatra fan, but I figure the reason he kept playing Sinatra, and Springsteen, and Bon Jovi, is because they’re all from Tha Jerz. As the grand finale that August afternoon, he ad-libbed in Sinatra’s “Chicago”: “My kind of town…  SOUTH AMBOY is!”

My kind of town. South Amboy is.

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