Letter from Wildwood, NJ

First of all, welcome to ManAboutForty's blog. It has been a while in incubation. Getting these things set up takes time. (For me anyway.) There's been a serious period of absorbtion - getting one's head around the concept. ManAboutForty of 2009 is young enough to have kick-started in tandem with the technology genesis of the eightys. But in 2009 he's advanced enough in years to take his time adapting to the business of blog. I mean, sending out your stuff in e-mails on Mondays, to report on the glorious weekend emotions, was supposed to be the 'new thing'. That was the advance from letter-writing, right? We still used to write letters to each other in college in the nineties. And even after college - while we still had no jobs - until ... well - until we got work e-mail addresses and mobile phones. Then communication became so much simpler, so the letter-writing more or less stopped. Trouble is - the e-mails stopped then too!

Starting a blog, I'm told, means you need to have something to write about - preferably something that people might like to read. The blog kind of has a single, coherent raison d'être. And a name that might fly the flag of this raison d'être. You're asked by the hosts to supply a 'description' of who you are - an 'About Me'. I suppose it helps blog readers to choose blogs of interest...

I still write letters to people. And send the odd e-mail on Mondays when the emotional experiences of a weekend get the better of me. So I do have things to write about. And some people like to read them. Over the past I-dunno-how-long, then, I've made several attempts to look into setting up a blog. Some of my family and friends have them already, so that was a big help in the absorbtion process. You could read their blogs and see the ties that bound their themes. But each time I had the evening put together to 'do it', the time turned by while I read these other blogs. Sometimes I got as far as clicking on the 'Create New Blog' button, only to find the requirement to complete the on-line details too daunting, and besides, it was getting late by now and I still hadn't written the thing I had planned to write and would never write it if I spent the time setting up this blog...

Nonetheless the process was moving ever so slowly forward. Even if the mechanics of setting up the blog repeatedly fell at the first hurdle, this was for a good reason: to write. To submit reports surrounding the experiences and emotions of living in Galway, Connacht, Ireland, being a father to three children, husband to their mother; attempting to play out the final start-stop quarter of my own prime, but mostly prioritising time-out to preparing three novices for theirs.

The blog's name sort of came to us (me and the raison d'être) one evening earlier this week. Then the three of us (me, the raison d'être and the name) sat up until the early hours of this morning getting the thing set up. We didn't stop until ManAboutForty came to life.

Then, this morning, 20th November 2009, like many things that finally fall into place by some kind of providence, the material for ManAboutForty's first blog presented itself. It seemed perfect. It would bind lots of things together. The 'About Me' sentence falls a bit short, but this material could summarise nicely who ManAboutForty is. So what better way to complete the set-up than with the maiden blog itself.

You see, this morning, I read a note that I had made a few weeks back, that today was the fortieth birthday of a good friend from college. This friend has never worked for MI5, but for the purposes of this blog, and to protect his identity (slash reputation!) I'll call him M—. M—, like me, has also become a father of three since we parted ways in the early nineties. He hails from a small, rural town (if that makes sense), on the Roscommon/Galway border, and it happens that he went to secondary school there with a girl called G—.

Pay attention now for a few paragraphs, please, so that you may get maximum benefit from this blog.

You see, that girl called G—, also went to college with M— and me, and now shares the joy and torment of teaching and loving the same three novices that ManAboutForty loves to teach. G— is my wife. Hope you're still with me.

Back to M—, then. No sooner was I reminded of M—'s birthday, than I thought of a letter that G— and I came across here at home one day a few months ago during a tidy-up. The letter was from him - M—. It was written, not to me, but to G—. All those years ago, early nineties, while we were still in college. When we still wrote letters, as I said. That's the scanned image above. Looking like the piece of history that it is. From a time when ManAboutForty and his cohorts lived wild and free. From Wildwood, New Jersey, where M— and another friend went for a summer to work.

ManAboutForty's first blog is his "Happy Birthday" to M—. Even if it only got started on his fortieth birthday, and didn't get finished until the Sunday because of all the 'time-outs' of life-about-forty. But part of the reason for the delay is the epic length of this script - a product of the sheer wealth of time that we had back then. (And that's with even leaving a few bits out.) I've done my best within the limitations of typed text to reproduce the layout. Where that wasn't possible I've scanned a bit.

Enough from me for now - I'll just let the Letter from Wildwood, NJ explain the rest. It's pure history and pure poetry rolled into one - many times better (and much more time-efficient) than watching a whole series of "J-1 Visa"-type documentaries on RTÉ. (By the way, M—'s other college friend was J—. You'll see him throw in his few shillings' worth along the way, as was always J—'s wont.)

215E Magnolia Av

Wild Wood

NJ 08260

6/11/91

Dear G—,
This is the 17 page letter that I promised in jest. However we have no radio, no TV, no money and no food, and besides we're bored so you can get a letter.

It's been a funny auld week. The weather has been hot and clammy one day and cold and wet the next. We did get one day of heavenly sunshine however. Job-wise it has been also a bit up and down. At the moment we both have jobs. We are working our arses off in the Armada Motel. J— is a "maid" and I'm a laundry engineer. (I wash, dry and fold sheets.) We were also expecting to get another job (i.e. "security, food, shelter" - J—), but this hope was brutally dashed for at least another few days.

-2-

Myself and J— are living in an "Efficiency" Apartment. There is one room encompassing a kitchen, dining room, study, conservatory, bedroom, and of course a bathroom. As you can gather, it is incredibly efficient.

Wildwood

Wildwood is a wonderful place.

"The sun shines out of everybody's ass, everybody is so nice you can tell it's false, it's a show for the visitors" - J—.

It's like Salthill gone crazy (only worse). The boardwalk is two miles long and lined on both sides by arcades, pizza parlours, casinos, T-shirt shops, T-shirt shops, $5 stores, 99c stores.

Perhaps the strangest things about the boardwalk are the sounds. At first it seems like a constant jumbled din of tangled noise, however, you can pick certain characteristic sounds like "100 shots a dollar".

-3-

"Come on buddy a free shot"

"Free fudge" being shouted by stall minders who are getting paid probably less than us. The one sound that really annoys everybody over here is the recorded warning blasted out by the sightseeing tram car that shuttles people up and down the boardwalk. It goes something a bit like this:

WATCH THE TRAMCAR

WATCH THE ...

WATCH ... ...

This may seem harmless, but after 14 hours on the boardwalk it gets to you.

-4-

We expect to be working on the boardwalk some time next week (Touch Wood) ... It will be just like working on the bumbers in Ballygar carnival.

The only sort of normal sound on the boardwalk is the screaming of low flying seagulls and they sound even louder and more "out of tune" over here than they do at home.

The Tourists

At the moment most of the tourists are either 18-year-old kids who just graduated from college (Hi-school) or army veterans who walk around with little green army caps on their head so we'll know them.

-5-

The street around our apartment is full of students (Hi-school). All they do is sit around for most of the day, maybe go to the beach, whistle at the pretty girls who walk by, or roar loads of abuse at each other ... That is during the day. At night this street is crazy. J— reckons it's because we live close to the "pub lane". The legal drinking age over here is 21 so I think all the kids must be drinking home brew.

The thing that really pisses me off is that every American kid has a car, and every American kid's car has a very loud stereo. I eventually found out that the kids hire mega disco speakers and put them in the back seat of their convertibles. They then drive around the city at about 3-4 am and blast out rap and Hip Hop to all the streets.

-6-

It is a little bit off-putting to be woken up at three o'clock in the morning to the sound of "Who's in the mother-fucking house?" Eventually we learned how to sleep through this. The trick is to listen to Def Lepard on a walkman at full volume before you go to bed. If you can sleep through that you'll sleep through anything.

The army vets are just a little bit different. For a start they all appear to be veterans of WW1 as they are all (or rather look like) about 90. They are also grossly overweight. It is easy to see why, as all they seem to do is sit around the pools in their motels, swapping old army stories and drinking beer.

-7-

Speaking of beer, last night we went to the Irish pub here. It's called the Harbour Inn. We were worried that we might not get served as J— is not quite 21 yet. We got really worried when the bouncer at the door asked us for ID. However, when he saw the front of the Irish passport he let us in. It is a strange kind of Irish pub insofar as it is not painted green, the bar staff are not walking around in leprechaun suits and there isn't set dancing every Wednesday night. In fact it's just like an air-conditioned Laffey's or Hole In The Wall.

There was a band playing there last night. They played some blues, rock, etc but nothing Irish. The truly brilliant thing about American bars is the Pitcher of Budweiser. This is a big jug of Bud that holds approximately 4 pints and costs only $4.

-8-

You could get locked for £5 over here.

Unfortunately (fortunately) we had work this morning so we could only stay in the bar for about an hour last night. ... That's enough of mundane matters, now for the important things...

-9-

The Beach

Wildwood beach is world famous. ("If you're an American the world is New York I think." Now it's world famous in Rosommon.) It stretches for miles with golden sand and blue clean water with crashing white horses. Every 50 yards there is a life guard, and every 100 yards there is a shop to sell you whatever you'll be stupid enough to buy. (I bought a blue baseball cap.) I think Bórd Fáilte should hire me to do their brochures for Rossnowlagh Beach ...

As I said before the beach stretches for miles and on a sunny day it is covered with bodies. Most of these bodies are beautiful brown bikini-clad American girls, or bronzed big-muscled American adonises. There is also, however, a fair sprinkling of lobster-red or snow-white Irish who tend to stand out a LITTLE.

-10-

Modesty prevents me from telling you what colour I am at the moment ...

A most impressive feature of the beach is the lifeguards who stand on their stands and wave their mahogany arms about like windmills, pointing at people, pointing at waves, pointing at sharks ... They are also whistling perpetually at people. However, nobody seems to know who the whistles are intended for and nobody seems to care. They keep up this hectic schedule from 10am to 5.30pm. Then at 5.30 they quit. People still swim in the sea. It seems to be a case of drown if you like...

-11-

That about sums up the beach. I'll bring you (yawl) back a sea shell.

-12-

-13-

As you can see from the last page I am running out of things to say about Wildwood so I'll give you my impressions of New York

New York

We landed in JFK in NY on last Friday (14th). My first impression was how huge the airport is. There are miles of runway everywhere. When we eventually disembarked (alighted, got off) the plane we were led like sheep through corridors, up stairs and around corners until we came to U.S. customs. Me having "nothing to declare except my genius", as a fellow Irish man once said, got through immediately. However, J— had to explain the presence of a strange Irish porter cake in one of his bags. They decided it wasn't a bomb and let him through.

-14-

We spent our first night in America in a YMCA hostel in the west side of NY. We were later told that this was the pits.

Out first night was constantly interrupted by police sirens and drunken brawls around the hostel. There was no air conditioning in the hostel so I was pretty hot and uncomfortable.

The part of NY we saw was big and dirty. There were people lying around on the streets. There were four lanes of traffic speeding without care for pedestrians. I soon learned that walking half way across this wide road was not a smart thing when I nearly got run down by a convertible tearing down the middle of the road.

The area I was in was pretty seedy. In fact I got offered a reduce price ticket to go see some EXOTIC DANCERS.

-15-

Luckily I was wearing my +miraculous medal so I wasn't tempted.

Brief interlude. It has started to rain again in sunny Wildwood. Wish you were here??

Back to N.Y.

We stayed in J—'s uncle's house on Long Island for two nights. We met their family, their son's fiancée and her family. We okayed the marriage. We also got our first ride in a convertible. It was wonderful until it rained. Did you know it takes a long time for a convertible to convert back to an ordinary car. I got soaked.

We came from New York to Wildwood on the bus. It only took 4 and a half hours. It reminded me very much of the Longford bus from Ballygar to Galway, as the driver seemed to stop at every town along the route.

-16-

I promised you 17 pages and being a man of my word you'll get 17 pages. I'll have to figure out some very witty way of filling up the next page and a half. I could maybe write a poem or a song but would probably consider it cheating so I'll just continue writing until I get some inspiration.

It's still raining.

I've just remembered that you were thinking of going to England for the summer. I hope you get a nice cushy job if you go. I hope you get this letter. If you see [several other class-mates listed here] give them my best and pass on any worth while element of the aforementioned verbal diarrhea.

-17-

Could you please keep this letter safe as I feel I might want to read it again sometime. If J— and I decide ... to stay over here I would like this opus to be presented to the museum of human endeavour in M— Memorial Hall in Ballygar.

I don't know about you but I never thought I'd see the end of this letter. I feel like I've been talking to you on the phone for the last hour so I'll hang up. See you in September. Enjoy the summer. Hang tuff!!

Loads of love,

M—

-18-

P.S. I'm expecting a 34 page letter back ... All the best in the results ... This letter was probably written on ozone friendly, recycled sugar free, fat free, and colesterol free paper. It doesn't taste as good as Irish paper. [an arrow points to a corner of the last page - nibbled off]

-19-

7/22/91

...

Hear you're working ... Hope you're still sane.

I got a job as a maid.