On a sunny but bone-chilling New Year’s Day, this was the scene in Margate, New Jersey, where I grew up. Since the air temperature was 21 degrees, we might infer that the revelers were taking the plunge in order to get warm(er). The polar bear tradition began in the 1950s, as far as I can recall, but back then it involved just a few hard-core whackos and a photographer from the Atlantic City Press. Now, it would appear, every Tom, Dick and Harriet wants to join in the, um, fun. (Click on photos to enlarge) The pier visible to the right is called Margate Pier but actually belongs to a local angler's club that would seem to prefer fishing for sea robins and sand sharks ratgher than the blue fins that school miles offshore. Margate is situated on Absecon Island, an eight-mile-long sandbar that also includes Atlantic City and the boroughs of Ventnor and Longport. The Atlantic City skyline is barely visible in the crowd shot, but I wasn’t able to identify anyone I know. The pictures were taken by a childhood chum, Glenn Klotz, whose blog is dedicated to preserving the Jersey Shore from the depredations of dredging and the Army Corps of Engineers. Below is a shot of Margate’s most famous landmark, Lucy the Elephant, three blocks from my childhood home.
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