This is usually how a conversation goes:
"Where are you from?"
"Northern New Jersey"
"Oh so your right by the city?"
"No."
"How far are you away from the Jersey shore?"
"Far."
Then the conversation shoots off into something along the lines of New Jersey being so populated and having no farmland and you get in traffic everywhere because there's a different mall every mile of every highway in the whole state.
But no, in my area, it's not the case.
I am from Hardwick, New Jersey. I'll bet against anyone that even if you're from New Jersey you haven't heard of it. It's in Warren County. I'll bet only about 10 percent of the Jersey population that doesn't live in it doesn't know where it is in the state. Even the people in New Jersey or, dare I say, Pennsylvania, don't know where the Delaware Water Gap is when I say that's where I live.
There are small towns in New Jersey, and the 908 exchange area is the cream of the crop (farm pun). I just came home from college after four months this past weekend, one of the first things I see when I passed Mackey's is...a tractor holding up about 10 cars behind it. I drive down the street of my house and the old farmer is out once again to take care of the cows. There are seven deer in my driveway, not really caring for the car coming towards them.
Hardwick is the 556th most populated town in New Jersey. How many towns are there? 566. It is an hour from New York, two hours from Philly, and two and a half hours from the first beach of the Jersey shore. So what does the 908 really have?
It has hard-working, blue collar people. People that sit on their porches to wave hi to every passerby, which isn't a very large number. Roads that aren't lined and probably won't be seen on a map. Driveways that look like they lead to nowhere. Delis and pizza places that you'll know every person in. Football and baseball fields in the middle of corn fields. Chain businesses that go out of business because the locals know where the real stuff lies. Farmer's markets. Horse stables bigger than most houses. Speed limit signs that don't exist. Old trucks. Hay bales on the side of the road. People that ask how your grandma is when you haven't even seen them in a couple months. Families that spread across generations in the same place.
So, New Jersey isn't all what you think it is. It's not all traffic full cities with guidos with snapbacks on. There are people with Skoal rings that wake up to tractor sounds and move on out for the day.
Here's to you, 908. Never change.
