Paul Goldfinger. © Ocean Grove Tent Village #2. June 30, 2017. Blogfinger.net photograph.
Joan (L), Ed, and Linda “porch sitting” at Tent Village, Ocean Grove, NJ.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.
Joan and Ed Poehlmann are from Ohio and they have been spending their summers in an Ocean Grove tent for the last 48 years. They must like it a lot.
Tenters come from all over the country. It’s like a village; sort of a mini-camp ground. The colony has about 100 tents and traces its roots all the way back to the founding of Ocean Grove. It was in Founders Park where a group of Methodist ministers met near Wesley Lake; and they stayed in tents. You can see tents in large numbers in the 1880 engraving which we recently posted .
OG engraving. Click on it to make it larger
I don’t think I have ever had a conversation with a tenter—until yesterday, when, while biking by, I saw some beautiful light filtering through the flags, and I asked three of them sitting on a porch if I could step into their space to take a photo.
They were friendly and chatty and they not only agreed, but they adjusted a flag that had gone topsy-turvy and they laughed at my jokes.
Their community has its own customs, rhythms, and life style. They like to sit on their porches and chat with neighbors, and their conversations often focus on tent life.
Ocean Grove, outside their boundaries, must seem almost like a foreign place to them. They told me that people driving by stop their cars, stare at them, roll down the windows, take a photo, and then ride on without a word.
But these tenters are used to gawking tourists. I told them who I was in the hopes that they would tell me some lascivious tenting secrets. They sort of rolled their eyes as if to say, “…if you only knew!” But mum’s the word when it comes to the tenting life.
One of their customs is to celebrate Christmas in July. I love that idea and we often emulate it with Yule-time music at odd times on Blogfinger.
Over the years we have posted many images of the tent village, and this summer we will be doing a progressive photo essay on the subject. The tents are the most photographed objects in town.
The most exciting thing tenters do is “porch sitting.” That is their quaint way of saying, “sitting on our porch.” From that vantage point they can keep an eye on the neighbors and the tourists and the kids.
They can also listen to Gordon Turk wail away on that giant Hope-Jones organ and they can hear 78 year old Neil Sedaka when he tears up this summer in the Great Auditorium and sings, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.” Neil, at your age, waking up is hard to do. Another special moment is if they spot Ronald Naldi, the Metropolitan Opera star who stays in a tent each summer.
Sitting with Joan and Ed was Linda Nittoli from NY State. I asked if she was a relative. She said, “No, I’m a visitor.”
“Oh,” I said jokingly, “You’re a freeloader.”
“Yes,” she said, “and I’m very good at it. ”
You have to understand the context of this exchange. We were in the midst of joking about a variety of subjects, and these tenters love to laugh—thus the “freeloader” designation was greeted with good cheer. (actually, belly laughs); It seems that Linda has visited here before.
When I told them that I was Blogfinger, their reaction was very positive. They like to follow BF when they are home in Ohio. I said, “Why, oh why, oh why oh—- would you ever leave Ohio” (to paraphrase some lyrics from Wonderful Town.”*)
*”why, oh why, oh why, oh —
why did I ever leave Ohio?
why did I wander to find what lies yonder
when life was so cozy at home?
Joan told me about her grandson who “grew up in this tent” and repaired bicycles on the grass. Now he is a sailor on a huge US Navy aircraft carrier where he repairs ejection seats on jet planes.
So now I have a whole new perspective on the tenters’ life. One of those tenters should write a memoir about it.
And, to keep them entertained until Neil Sedaka shows up, here he is with this song that he released in 1962:
