Confessions of a Shoobie
I heard about a year ago that there was a Margate City Facebook thread that calls out the Shoobies – disses them, complains about them, ridicules and hates them. If I were to replace the word “Shoobie” with almost any other description of a class/group/phylum of people, we’d have a problem…a serious problem.
It is a derisive term, born out of a tradition of day trippers who brought their lunches in a shoe box, and spent the day at the beach.
Now it means anyone who doesn’t live here full-time but takes advantage of the beach in the summer. Owning a home here doesn’t count if you also have a home elsewhere. Paying real estate and school taxes doesn’t exempt you. The only thing that does is living in one of the shore towns year-round.
Most of the business rely on the summertime residents, summer rentals, and day visitors to make their living – home repair, builders, landscapers, plumbers, electricians, markets, ice cream shops, boutiques, restaurants, basically any business you pass on one of the main streets – cease to exist without the income from the Shoobies.
But still, we’re hated, resented, ridiculed and shunned.
I understand that folks show up on Memorial Day and think that these towns are like the mythical Brigadoon and are asleep the rest of the year. I understand that parking gets more difficult, restaurant reservations harder to get, traffic, trash, noise, all accelerate. I understand, and there are times I agree. In a drive around the block over Memorial Day weekend I was honked at 4 times by impatient drivers behind me (I was pausing for pedestrians and a bicyclist). So, yes, I get it.
I saw a post of someone decrying the horror of teens gathering near the Wawa – it was video of a peaceful – yes, busy, but peaceful scene of young teens looking for each other. Too young to frequent bars and clubs, they go to the corners where their peers collect: Wawa, tennis courts in Longport, etc. Sure, there have been “incidents” over the years – a fight or two, but for the most part, they are just “hanging out.”
When I was a teen, we hung out on the Boardwalk in the Chelsea neighborhood. That’s where gobs of teens gathered, looking for one another and an evening of socializing. Sure, there were some incidents, sometimes the police were forced to scatter us, and then back we came. The same thing is going on now and being complained about by many of the same folks who likely hung out on Chelsea Boardwalk in the Boomer days.
I am a Shoobie. I confess it. I own a home here, I spend several days a week here all winter long – frequenting restaurants, when reservations are easy to get, taking class at the JCC when parking is a cinch right out front, walking my dog off leash on the beach, but still, I am a Shoobie. I own a home in Pennsylvania, I vote in Pennsylvania, and I pay most of my state taxes in Pennsylvania.
I’ve been forgiven for my Shoobie status by some of my full-time friends and I have occasionally jumped on the anti-Shoobie bandwagon (when I was honked at for the fourth time, for example), but I am a Shoobie. I wear the badge proudly; I am lucky and grateful for this status – owning two homes is a privilege I don’t take lightly. Though, to quote my sister, you know you have two homes when you’re always smelling the milk!
So, bring on the disdain, bring on the disgust, resentment, hatred, criticism. As my mother would have said, they’re just jealous. Well, maybe so, maybe not, but this much is clear – we must find a world in which we can peacefully co-exist. Certainly, in these times of global war and conflict, the Shoobies vs. the Permanent Residents war should be one we can conquer.
Amy Brewstein
Margate City, NJ
