Putting those Jersey shore summers away...

While talking golf to a co-worker today, the conversation evolved into Jersey shore miniature golf. Ah, the irrepressible joys of youth.

My personal fave was Monterey (which I as a seven-year-old dumbhead pronounced "mon-tree") Miniature Golf in Lavallette. Probably because it was the first one I ever played at, and they had the standard minigolf whizzbangery which impressed the crap out of me (give me a pipe which carries a ball down a few feet and spits it out elsewhere and I was a happy camper). But what was really cool was that they had an early-bird special where you could play two rounds for one fee in the morning. Man, that was a fun place to kill a couple of hours.

Then there was D&G Golf in Ortley Beach, fun because it was a block away from the family beachhouse. It's a laundromat now. Progress.

There was also Smugglers Quay in Seaside Heights. I only played there once, as a teenager. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because before it was Smugglers' Quay it used to be Rainbow Rapids, undoubtably the most dangerous waterslide ever built. This waterslide consisted of concrete channels where you skimmed along on a mangy styrofoam mat. And if you fell off that mat (as you eventually did), all of a sudden your midday watery fun became a symphony of scraping, with cold filthy runoff washing away the remnants of your ass cheeks.

Anyway, they converted once a better waterslide with tube technology ran it out of business.

And then there's Barnacle Bill's, which was a mediocre golf course but had a kick-ass arcade, and I wasted many a quarter there playing Zoo Keeper and Scramble. I read a year or so ago (couldn't find the link) that Barnacle Bill's was a hangout for classic video gamers since they carried a lot of the old coin-ops but don't know if that's the case now. If so, they probably cost more than a quarter. Progress.

So, screw yer highfalutin PSPs; this is the type of old-timey fun that will always make me smile. Especially when I remember all the times when I clanged my ball off that damn metal loop-the-loop thing and threw my club down yelling Yosemite Sam-esque streams of obscenity.