A Fistful of Fig Newtons by Jean Shepherd Read Free Book Online

sequined bustles jostled for reservations to spend a weekend, or perhaps a honeymoon, in its rooms, finished in polished teak and a curious combination of nautical and pseudo-Bombay décor.
    The Margate Elephant still stands, distinctly Jersey, radiating elephantine vitality; dignified in the W. C. Fields manner, yetslightly mad, a true Jersey work of art rivaled only by the Flagship, which decade after decade has sailed bravely upstream against the traffic on Route 22, its steel flanks rakishly cutting the potholed concrete, forever heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel bound on its own sinister voyage, currently carrying its cargo of cut-rate furniture.
    The Flagship could very well be the Margate Elephant of the twenty-first century, with committees of earnest, fluttery ladies circulating petitions for its preservation as a “historical monument.”
    There is something different about New Jersey. What it is, is difficult to define, but as a student of Jerseyana I can only describe some of its vague outlines. Jersey, we all know, has replaced Brooklyn as the subject of stand-up comedians’ gags, everywhere. A comic in a nightclub in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, can get an instant laugh by just belting out, “New Jerseyanski!” and rolling his eyes. The audience collapses, most of all any New Jerseyites that are in the crowd.
    It has been said by official pundits that you can take a man out of New Jersey but you can never take New Jersey out of the man. How can you best describe this mythical Jerseyite?
    First of all, there’s his driving. Sullenly reckless, lacking the kamikaze verve of the Californian, he is the world’s most dogged and dedicated tailgater. Any time I am a thousand miles from the state, driving along innocently, and a rusting Plymouth Fury lurches out of the blackness and clings tenaciously to my rear bumper, threatening to climb up over the trunk, I know without even seeing him that a Jerseyite is on his way to Disneyland.
    He has learned his New Jersey driving eccentricities negotiating that distinctive automotive hell known as the New Jersey Traffic Circle. Totally unknown to most of the civilized world, New Jersey’s traffic circles stand alone in their Margate Elephant–like craziness. The first time I saw one I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. After a lifetime of driving in other parts of the country, with conventional staid overpasses,viaducts, crossroads, stop-lights, etc., etc., suddenly I found myself going madly round and round, surrounded by hordes of blue-haired ladies piloting violet-colored Gremlins. In and out they wove. I passed my turnoff four times before I got control of my mind and was hurled out of the traffic circle by centrifugal force, back in the direction I had come. Good grief!
    But now, after years of New Jersey life I have become a master of the Hackensack Hesitation, the Clifton Carom, the Lyndhurst Lurch, the Camden Creep, the Vineland Veer, and, of course, the Fort Lee Finger; all necessary maneuvers for a skilled pilot in the gay, mad world of Jersey driving.
    Then, of course, there are other indelible Garden State characteristics. There is something truly lovable about summer at the New Jersey shore. Millions of sweltering Jerseyites packed chock-a-block into tiny wooden cubicles in a physical intimacy with one another that is rivaled only by the more densely packed districts of Calcutta. I once saw a happy New Jerseyite, clutching in his fist a can of Piels Real Draft Style beer, suddenly seized by a fit of sneezing in his Jersey shore cottage. In the next cottage the top of his innocent neighbor’s tuna salad sandwich flew off violently and lodged in the curtain rod amid the summer cottage cobwebs. That slab of Arnold Stone-ground Wheat bread caused much friendly snickering in the neigborhood and a lot of talk down at the local gin mill, which, of course, is decorated with plastic anchors, fake fish net, and for some reason a portrait of Woodrow Wilson done in