“Sitting here in [Wildwood], looking at the pouring rain
Summertime has come and gone and everybody’s home again
Closing down for the season, I found the last of the souvenirs
I can still taste the wedding cake and it’s sweet after all these years

. . . .

There’s comfort in my coffee cup and apples in the early fall
They’re pulling all the moorings up and gathering at the Legion Hall
They swept away all the streamers after the Labor Day parade
Nothing left for a dreamer now, only one final serenade.”

– Billy Joel, “Famous Last Words”

Summer is over after this weekend.  And it ends with a bang, not a whimper!  In Wildwood tonight, there are fireworks over the beach at 10 pm.  Tomorrow, Chatterband plays at 7:30 pm at Centennial Park (Fern and Ocean) in the Crest.  And there will be Beatlemania in North Wildwood, at 2nd and Ocean at 8 pm.  Most importantly:  Wing Eating Contest, Sunday, 5:30 pm at Fox Park, Burke and Ocean in Wildwood.  What better way to celebrate the end of the summer than by stuffing your face with buffalo wings as friends, family and total strangers cheer you on and/or laugh at you?

P.S.  The world record is 182 wings in 30 minutes; and I think we all know who the record holder is.  http://www.ifoce.com/

P.P.S.  It’s Joey Chestnut.

     It was with some trepidation that I picked up Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games, a “young adult” (read: no cursing or sex) genre novel that critics were calling good enough for adults.  Sort of like the Harry Potter series.  Which would be great.  Except I think Harry Potter is derivative crap:  recycled fairy tales and Greek mythology, just with different names.

     But Hunger Games is fantastic.  Set in a near-future milieu in which climate change has led to dramatic sea level rise and widespread famine, the story is about a teenage girl who ends up in the Hunger Games, a reality TV/sports competition in which two children from each of the 12 remaining states travels to the capital, now located in Colorado, for the annual game show, the nation’s top-rated TV event.  The game, of course, is to outlast your competitors and be the last survivor.  But unlike our Survivor, here the losers aren’t just voted off the island.  They’re killed.  Either by the other children or by the natural and man-made dangers of the game environment itself.

     It’s fascinating stuff, a modern take on the bread-and-circuses of ancient Rome, with extra helpings of politics, adolescence (the girl has a problematic relationship with her mother), romance (she must choose between two boyfriends) and fashion (her designer, who makes the outfits she wears on TV, is a major supporting character).  It’s Gladiator meets Jerseylicous, with a bit of E — Live From the Red Carpet thrown in. 

     And it’s awesome.  I highly recommend it.

I admit it: I’m a geek. I like science fiction and fantasy. And,given the popularity of Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, True Blood, etc., I’m not the only geek out there. Which is why George R.R. Martin’s long-awaited Dance with Dragons, the latest installment in his Game of Thrones series, sold a record-breaking 298,000 copies on the day it was released.

Dance came out on Tuesday, July 12. I know this because I pre-ordered it for my Kindle, then got up early that morning to read a couple chapters before work.  Like I said, I’m a geek.

But whatever, it was worth it.  I finished the book last night, and it was very good, full of the interesting, complex characters; surprising plot twists; and gratuitous sex and violence for which Martin’s work is known.

If you’re a fan of Martin’s work, you probably already own this book (And if you don’t — how do you even live with yourself?).  If you’re a fan of the HBO series (Game of Thrones) based on his work, then you’ve probably asked yourself whether to start reading the books.

The answer to that question is “yes”.

Start with Game of Thrones.  Move on from there to Clash of Kings, Storm of Swords, and Feast of Crows.  The books really are spectacular:  perfect for making hours at the beach fly by.  Finish up with Dance of Dragons.

Then stop by the front desk and we’ll try to figure out what will happen in the next book.

As everyone knows, the greatest science fiction movie of all time is The Terminator.
And what makes The Terminator so great?  Killer robots.  Killer robots and love  After all, what The Terminator is really about is man’s (Kyle Reese’s) eternal struggle to find and protect true love (Sarah Connor) in the face of impending, inevitable death (Ah-nold, on
a motorcycle, wielding a shotgun) .

Well, Robopocalypse is Daniel H. Wilson’s re-interpretation of the same eternal themes –  killer robots and love — for a new generation.

There are some differences.  Here, the conflict is more macro.  Instead of one Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 trying  to assassinate one woman, while one man  protects, and in the process woos, her, in Robopocalypse we have a war between man and machine that is told on a global scale.

Also, the struggle is more intellectual.  Instead of the villain being a physical paragon of savage indestructability played by the most successful bodybuilder of all time, here the main enemy (“Big Rob”) is a disembodied artificial intelligence program.  This is appropriate for our era, one in which Google, which just produces code, trades at $531.99 per share, while General Motors, which manufactures actual machines, trades at $31.58.

And the love story in Robopocalypse, unlike Terminator, isn’t one of romantic love between a man and a woman, but one of fraternal love between two brothers.  But it’s a love story nonetheless.  Are we our brother’s keepers?  Can we count on family when the chips are down?  Can they count on us?  And who is “family”? These are the big issues of the book, and the author does a good job of wrestling with them.

More importantly, of course, Robopocalypse is a heck of a fun read, full of gunfights, car chases, tragic deaths, and come-from-behind victories.  And did I mention the killer robots?

In sum, this is a book worth taking to the beach.  For extra irony, you may even want to read it on your Kindle.

If you want to know what’s going on in the Wildwoods, www.wildwood365.com is the place to find out.  It’s on my short list of daily reads.

When I was a kid, I would vacation for three weeks every summer on Cape Cod with my dad and his extended family.  I enjoyed those vacations because I was able to spend time with my dad and with the grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins I rarely got to see after my parents divorced.  I also enjoyed those vacations because, unlike at home where I had to work in the family business (Guess what that was?), in Cape Cod I didn’t have to do much of anything, except sometimes mow the lawn at my grandfather’s cottage, and I could spend whole days at the beach, doing two of my favorite things:  reading and swimming.  I’d read for an while, swim for a bit, then repeat the cycle.

There weren’t any bookstores nearby, and Amazon didn’t exist during those long-ago days of my youth (the late 70s & early 80s) but luckily my Uncle John (“the good-looking one” as he described himself, to distinguish him from my other Uncle John) had an extensive collection of used paperbacks over at his house.  So I would leave my grandfather’s house in the morning, sneak through the yard of the evil old lady who lived behind him and who, of course, hated children cutting through her lawn, and go over to my Uncle John’s to borrow a book to take to the beach.

The book I remember the best from those days was Jaws, by Peter Benchley.  That book frightened the heck out of me.  In retrospect, it might not have been a great idea for an 8 year old on his summer vacation in Cape Cod to read a book about a monstrous great white shark that eats men, women and children during the summer in Cape Cod.  It was fun, though.  And that book did give me a healthy respect for the ocean and its denizens.  Since then, I’ve made it a point to never swim in deep water, at least not unless there are lots of other swimmers nearby to lessen the odds that I’ll be the one a shark targets.

And I’m still here.  Haven’t been eaten yet.  In fact, it may be that that long-ago beach read saved my life …

So, in recognition of the possibly life-or-death importance of reading books at the beach, we will be starting a new, on-going feature here at www.crusaderresort.com/blog: Beach Books.  Each week I will recommend a book to read at the beach and tell you why I think that particular book would be worth your while.

My first recommendation is, of course, Jaws, for all the above reasons.  And now you can buy it on Amazon (new for $4.13, used for a penny) and have it delivered to your room here at the hotel the next day.

Just don’t let your little ones read it until they’re a little older than I was.

In 1944, we bombed Wildwood.

Ok, we didn’t exactly bomb
the town of Wildwood, so much as the marshes, beaches, bays and ocean
surrounding Wildwood, but still  . . . the Navy trained dive bombers
here in preparation for service in World War II against Japan.  The air
was filled with planes:  Wildcats, Corsairs, Dauntlesses, Catalinas,
Helldivers, and Hellcats.  And the town was filled with pilots,
so many that the base — called Naval Air Station Wildwood — couldn’t
hold them all.  The Navy actually paid to house enlisted men at the
Davis and Admiral hotels (obviously, this was because the Crusader
hadn’t been built yet).

Anyway, you can experience all of
this at the Aviation Museum, located a 10 minute drive from our hotel.  I
went there this past weekend, and it was very cool.  There are numerous
aircraft to look at.  Even better is the art on display:  patches from
the different squadrons, plus lots of recruiting posters.  Some of the
art was pretty spectacular.  You can see how the government put some
talented artists to work in support of the war effort.  Best of all is
the short documentary about the Air Station which is shown in a theater
furnished with old airplane seats.  (They have built-in ashtrays!  It
was legal to smoke on planes in those days!  How crazy is that?)  I’m
not usually a fan of documentaries, but this one was really interesting
(and short) and gives you the flavor of those days — the excitement,
fear, and patriotism.

All in all, the Aviation Museum, which
is free, is a great way to spend a few hours of your vacation.  (And
while you’re there, be sure to check out the photo of the civilian staff
who worked at the base — one of those secretaries was my grandmom!)

One of the best things about the Wildwoods (aka North Wildwood, Wildwood, and Wildwood Crest, aka “the Island”, aka “down the Shore”) is the beach. Today is the first of what will probably be many posts in which I extoll the virtues of our beach, which are legion. Many of the strengths of the Island’s beach are well-known: it’s free, it’s big, it’s uncrowded, you can buy an ice cream sandwich on it without getting off your towel, etc., etc. But today I want to focus on one of the lesser-known virtues of our beach.

It is one of the best beaches in the world for running. In_the_world!

Why? Because it is firm, flat, safe, and clean.

Here’s the thing you have to understand about me: I’m 6’3″, 230. Which means, in running terms, I’m a “Clydesdale.” Well, Clydesdales don’t generally run on the beach. Because we sink. We’re too heavy and we sink into the sand like it’s thick, wet snow. Or maybe quicksand.

But not here. Here, once you reach that sweet spot between 10 and 20 yards from the water, the sand beneath your feet is firm and supportive. Even a large person like me can run smoothly. Some beaches, I’ve sunk so deep that when I ran I spent more time going up and down than forward. Not here.

Similarly, there are some beaches I’ve run on where the slope is so dramatic that as I ran alongside the water, one foot was always 7 ro 8 inches higher than the other. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Ft. Lauderdale. That’s some awkward running form right there. And the imbalance puts too much stress on one leg at a time, particularly the ankle, and leads directly to injury. Not here. Our beach is really very level. I’m sure it’s not a perfectly flat plane, but when I run here, it _feels_ absolutely flat. I notice no slope at all. Which means I can run with good form and not get hurt.

Speaking of not getting injured, I’m sure you runners out there are aware of the growing “barefoot equivalent” running movement. Many very intelligent people have noticed that less wealthy peoples, like the Kenyans and the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico, run with less sophisticated, less protective sneakers than Westerners use, and yet we get injured far more often than they do. This has led some to try running in simpler shoes, to see if that’s what is the causative factor in preventing injuries. Many have concluded that it is, and have then taken the idea to its logical conclusion and tried running barefoot. Well, there are people who swear by this. The problem, of course, is that in most areas in the modern world, you can’t run barefoot because you’ll step on broken glass or a rusty nail and cut yourself badly. So the shoe companies have come out with sneakers that are “the next best thing to running barefoot.” Nike has the Nike Free, which is apparently very thin and pliable. Vibram has the most interesting product: the Vibram Five Fingers, so called because it has holes for each toe, like you’re wearing a glove on your foot, except the sole of the shoe is made of Vibram rubber to protect you from sharp objects. Ninja shoes, I’ve heard them called. I, of course, own a pair. And they are pretty awesome and they have prevented injury since I’ve been wearing them. I used them all winter, when it was too cold to run barefoot.

But now that it’s summertime, guess where you can run barefoot without cutting yourself? That’s right — the beach here at the Wildwoods. And it’s glorious. I like to feel the sand beneath my toes and I like to run into the refreshingly cold water every so often, too.

And finally, our beach is safe. Meaning, you’re not going to be mugged. For example, I like to run on the beach at night. All alone, under the shining stars, just me and the planet. It’s so beautiful. And I’ve never felt anything less than completely safe.

Yeah, you can’t do that on the streets of Philadelphia.