Happy Earth Day

Today is the 38th Anniversary of Earth Day and it takes me on a stroll down memory lane as to when I was a student at Central Regional High School we decided to do our part to save the planet…I say this with tongue-in-cheek. I’m not sure what year it was but a bunch of us who lived in Seaside Heights and Seaside Park thought the best to observe Earth Day was to ride bicycles to school. It’s probably about 15 miles from Seaside to Central and of course that means you have to ride over the bridge. Remember this was in the early 70’s and traffic was not nearly like it is now….especially in April.

I only wish I could remember how many of us made the trip but it was probably somewhere between 12-20 and in truth we used Earth Day more as an excuse to not ride the school bus. I know we left early in the morning but we stopped often and never really had the intention on arriving to school on time which would have been impossible without riding in the dark. If my memory serves me correct was stopped for a rather long rest at Huddy Park in downtown Toms River and probably did not get into school until late morning. This was a time when Central was on split sessions and our school day was over around 12:20 so we might have only made it for the last class or two. Again I’m a bit shaky on the specifics but I’m sure we ended up getting marked for an absence and had to bring in notes from our parents the next day. I don’t think they were very upset because we tried selling them on our message to save the planet but of course we know parents aren’t as
stupid as kids think they (we) are.

Anyway I’m pretty sure some of us repeated the bike trip to and from Seaside the following year but that was the second and last time for this short-lived tradition. It lasted about as long as Earth shoes which in looking back were really ugly and if you don’t remember them well….you’re just a bit too young.

Happy Earth Day!