the rix mix

Wonder Ship Bar & Cocktail Lounge at Stretch Inn, Somers Point NJ.

There were evenings when the bars & juke joints on Bay Ave. could be heard across the bay in Ocean City, advertising the amusements that dry island didn't offer vacationers. The rest of Somers Point was quiet, with modest houses & bungalows; grass struggling to grow in a sandy soil that favored blueberries, corn, & poison ivy; crushed quartz in the concrete streets glistening under the streetlights; a sweaty, malarial nighttime climate; clouds of mosquitoes emerging from the marshes at dusk. I loved it.