I Like Jersey Best

Well, not really. I'm very happy to be in western Kentucky.

On one of the NPR news programs yesterday - probably Marketplace, since the subject was financial instruments - some NJ politician said that New Jersey Turnpike bonds are very safe because there's no other way to get from New York to Wilmington. I said, "Of course there are other ways."

There's the old joke of someone saying they live in NJ and another Jerseyite asks, "Which exit?" I lived in NJ for 28 years and couldn't tell you which Turnpike exit I lived near, because I rarely used the Turnpike. There are plenty of other roads to get wherever you want to go.

Although it is one of the smaller states, it is quite diverse. When most people from elsewhere think of it (if they think of it at all), they do think of the Turnpike corridor with its industry and its bedroom communities. But if you go south and east of that road, you'll find rural areas and the great Jersey shore. Cape May is my favorite. It's an old whaling town, and now has fishing 'party boats' going out every day. My father-in-law used to go down from Philadelphia on Friday nights, spend the night in a little, old-fashioned motel across from the docks, and get up early to go out on the Porgy II for a day of fishing. He always caught something.

And I'm told that the northwest section of the state is also rural, although I've never visited the area. It is also hilly - quite different from the flat sandbar that is the southern section of the state.