Another Memorial Day weekend has passed. This signals another start to a summer season...loads of fun at the Jersey shore. Or is it?...
I've noticed more and more through the years that people can't wait for it to be summer time, yet they are so quick to complain. The complaints in my area, Ocean County, vary from person to person. However, the number one complaint is about the tourists, a.k.a. "bennies," and the traffic problems they create. Locals blame bennies for bumper to bumper traffic on the GSP and in the shore communities. "What is a Benny?" you ask....well that is the beloved term for a tourist at the Jersey Shore. Specifically, a tourist who visits the Jersey shore from Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, or New York (or anywhere near these places.) Some people think it's an acronym for those towns, I think it's more a coincidence that people choose to associate those 4 towns with those generalized regions. If you were to ask a benny, they "go down to the shore" for the weekend. The shore is a blanket term for anywhere near a beach. It doesn't matter which beach, as long as it has sand and is near the ocean.(Hence depicting the derogatory nature of the term) Locals think that bennies hog parking spaces and take over sand space. I can say that is certainly true. Just last weekend, parking spaces that were $3 and $5, suddenly jump to $20 or better yet $35 to $40 for the 4th of July. It's insane, but they will pay it. The term "benny" is used mainly in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. The benny is the equivalent to the "shoobie" of Atlantic and Cape May Counties.
What I find interesting is now that there is an influx of people moving further south across the board in NJ with the geographic shift in our state, more and more the bennies will become locals. They then begin to understand and share the frustration of the locals and voila! They discover the term benny. There are mixed reactions to this discovery, as I have witnessed. I find it funny when people are insulted that they were once referred to as a benny - almost as if they are taking the term personally. Then there are those who join in and share the enthusiasm for the word benny in the summer months. I look at that more as they are considering themselves on the inner circle now and they are sharing the frustration because they can! This only subjects themselves to further insult, because once they are found out by true locals, they never live their benny status down.
The bottom line is this: like them or not, they're back. They come back every year. It's only three months out of the year that we have to deal. Without them, our economy would be nothing! If the locals hated the bennies so much, they would steer clear of the barrier islands. There are ways to get around our love/hate relationship with the tourists. Once again this year, we'll all find it in our hearts to share our roadways and our sand with the bennies. It won't be without a few curses, maybe even a middle-finger wave here and there, but we’ll get through the summer and have our beaches back soon enough!