Sunday, July 3, 2011

The Question to Everyone's Answer

I've mentioned repeatedly, if not incessantly, that I grew up in New Jersey where the standard question from a non-Jerseyan (or as they used to say in Sayreville a 'some jamook') is always 'what exit?' In mine it was Exit Nine. And when I was a kid, there wasn't a whole lot going on south of that, but all that changed when Great Adventure opened in Jackson in 1974. Like Jersey wasn't already rough enough to grow up in, someone thought shipping lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) to The Pinelands was a stroke of genius.

It seems something we don't do real well in Jersey is count, since there are press reports this weekend that a runaway baboon has been spotted in the backyards and highways of southern New Jersey, and the thought is perhaps it's an escapee from Great Adventure's Monkey Jungle except they don't. know if one is missing. Terrific-we're just starting to live down The Real Housewives of New Jersey and have given up explaining that the guidos and guidettes on Jersey Shore are jamooks, dammit, and now we have monkey-gate.

If you live anywhere outside a major city in a less than built-up area, this isn't nearly as breathlessly exciting as some of these news reports make it sound. You've probably had more trouble with raccoons getting into your trash on Siena Drive than you'll have with a rogue baboon (seriously? That's what the descendants of Edward R. have come up with, rogue?) running and gunning at the cans you keep behind the garage. It's almost enough to make me think of dusting off my Mickey the Monkey impersonations, which would please some of my siblings and none of my Mother, so I shan't.

As you can tell from reading/listening/watching any of the stories, it's been a slow news week in The Garden State and the rest of us love this kind of sideshow. Despite murmurings to the contrary, there is NO truth that the baboon answers to either Chris or Frank, reviving, however faint, those hopes of bi-partisanship. Nothing like outsiders to help us unite. Now who's curious, George?
-bill kenny

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