Repurposed T-shirt Allows for Free Beach Time
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THOSE SILLY GREEN T-shirts were our tickets in.

When I finally quit my job as a ticket taker on the boardwalk
in Long Beach, N.Y., to, you know, start 11th grade, I thought I’d
never touch my green employee T-shirt again.

And why would I?
It elicited nothing more
than memories of long,
plodding days spent clipping
tickets and scrolling mind-
lessly through Facebook. If I
had cared to listen to my par-
ents’ persistent pleas to clean
my room, I would’ve perhaps
used the shirt as a rag.

Alas, as the next year
of high school came and
went, giving way to soaring
temperatures once more, I
stumbled upon a realization:
Those silly green T-shirts were our tickets to the beach.

Two of my friends worked that summer job with me, so we
had three shirts to pass around among our group of six or seven
friends. And they always worked. The employee shirts, you see,
got us past the strict ticket takers guarding the gate to the sand.

“We work here,” we’d say, strolling ahead with cocksure confidence.

Sure, it might not have been the most honest approach, but heck,
when you’re 16, and it costs $12 to go to the beach, and you have
days and days of summer to kill, what other option do you have?
WIKIMEDIA Joshua Needelman, staff writer
. ����\
(\ Live Well Everyday.

Ind ep endent Living • Personal Care • Nursing & Rehabilitation Center
290 - 310 East Winchester Avenue • Langhorne, PA 19047
215.750.7575 www.attleborocommunity.com
Lucy Saves the Day
WHEN I WAS 6, I got lost on the
Ventnor beach. My parents and I
went to the shore every summer;
staying in the pink and white house
my grandparents bought years
before my birth was an adventure I
looked forward to all year long.

After carefully selecting the most
germane spot on the beach and securing it with our towels,
chairs and umbrella, my parents granted me the one thing I
wanted most: the freedom to run to the ocean.

Feeling the glacial waves of the sea wash over my feet was
euphoric and, like many jovial children, I began to spin. I spun
and swam for what felt like days, and when I had exhausted
myself looked up only to realize that my parents’ familiar faces
were nowhere in sight.

I started walking, panicked, in the hopes that I would stumble
upon my parents’ location. As I stared at the environment around
me, I noticed a large effigy of an elephant in the distance and it
became clear that I was not, à la Dorothy, in Ventnor anymore.

Prepared by my parents for situations such as this, I made my
way to Lucy the Elephant and asked an adult to use a phone. With-
in 15 minutes, I was reunited with my parents and all was well.

Though scary and disorienting as a young child, my experi-
ence that day serves as a pleasant reminder of how easy it is to
lose oneself at the beach. l
FLICKR Marni Folkman, summer intern
agotlieb@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0797
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM THIS SUMMER
JUNE 7, 2018
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