The Day I Died Down The Jersey Shore
In the late seventies and early eighties, my friends and I spent summers down the Jersey Shore. It was different each time: sometimes a week, or weeks, or a month, or the full summer in houses that were just steps or blocks from the beach.
We rented along that stretch of ocean between Manasquan and Asbury Park, a different town every year.
A different town, and each town a different story.
This is the story about the day I died down the Jersey Shore.
Spoiler Alert: I did not die.
At that point in my life, scotch wasn’t even a glimmer on the horizon. Scotch was an old man’s drink. My friends and I were beer drinkers with a side of shots. That’s what we drank in the bars back in Old Bridge and surrounding towns.
However, at weddings, when I was younger, I would try various drinks at wedding receptions. Open bars are an excellent time to experiment.
Gin, vodka, tequila, bourbon, (even scotch) and any combination of them all with mixers. They even had whiskey sour fountains (it was a magical time to be alive).
Do you know what they call this type of drinking?
Incredibly stupid, that’s what they call it.
Never mix your alcohols; stick with the one that brought you and ride it till the end of the night.
Unfortunately, I did not learn that lesson until I was well into the eighties (the decade, not my age).
Why does that matter?
Because in nineteen-seventy-nine, my friends and I rented a house for the summer on Franklin Avenue in Seaside Heights…
...and we treated that house like a two-month-long wedding reception.
At one point or another, we drank everything we could think of. We discovered ways to get drunk that we never knew before.
We discovered beer balls (no, not those).
Utica Club Beer Balls.
Five gallons of beer in a small plastic ball (about the size of a basketball) with a small tap. It was a quick and easy way to drink beer; throw the ball in some ice and get drunk (like we needed easier ways to get drunk).
It stated on the box that the beer came in non-reusable plastic balls, but we found a way to re-purpose them.
But that’s another story (literally).
One of the more dangerous alcohols we discovered was Mogen David 20/20, or MD 20/20.
Why was it dangerous?
The alternate nickname for this alcohol was Mad Dog 20/20.
It was a blood-red-colored wine that would punch you in the stomach, steal your wallet, and then disappear into the night.
Mazel Tov.
With all that, we still drank beer.
Pabst Blue Ribbon was a fan favorite at the time, although I can’t stomach it today. My brother, however, still drinks it, so one day I asked him why.
He said, “It won a blue ribbon.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “back in 1893!”
We discovered something else at that shore house: we liked cold drinks.
Not just cold drinks with ice in the glass, but cold from the freezer.
And that’s when I died (sort of).
The preferred concoction of the group was vodka and lemonade, equal parts of both, in a one-gallon glass jug, and popped it into the freezer.
My concoction was gin with Hi-C, equal parts of both, in a one-gallon glass jug, and popped it into the freezer.
Let me step back and say that at this time in my life, I had an ulcer, or just a very bad stomach. Once or twice I ended up in the hospital with intense pains in my abdomen.
OK, back to the shore house.
One night (ha, one night!) I got really drunk on my frozen concoction of gin and Hi-C. In the Seaside house, there was limited sleeping space, so I normally slept on the couch in the living room.
And that is where I passed out that night.
Fortunately for me (and everyone else), that couch was merely steps away from the bathroom.
So when I woke up with a start in the middle of the night, with that intense feeling that every drunk person has experienced at one time or another.
I needed to throw up.
Three long strides later, I found my head in the toilet, and the contents of my stomach splattered like a Jackson Pollock canvas across the porcelain and the walls.
This was all done in the dark, hence the bad aim. So imagine my horror when I finally turned on the light.
There was blood everywhere.
This was it, I thought, I’ll be dead by morning.
I guess I made a loud enough commotion because within seconds a few of my friends were in the bathroom with me.
“Look at all the blood,” I said to no one in particular as I pointed to the walls and toilet.
Wait, did I hear laughter?
“Al,” someone said through definite chuckles, “that’s not blood,” then paused and said, “it’s Hi-C.”
I was adamant, it was blood. My blood, all over the walls.
No matter how many times they told me, I could not be swayed.
It took several minutes before the logic of their comments broke through my alcohol-soaked brain.
It was Hi-C, not my blood.
I didn’t die that night (well, maybe of embarrassment), but nothing else.
I cleaned up the mess in the bathroom the next morning, and I definitely learned my lesson from the night before.
No more gin and Hi-C for me…
...it was gin and lemonade for me from that point forward.
What, did you think I stopped drinking?
I mean, it’s not like I died.
