Exit Zero A SPECIAL ISSUE TO COMMEMORATE THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF CAPE MAY’S SPRIGHTLY SHEET
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SUMMER 2013
Happy 10th Birthday To Cape May’s Peppiest Periodical! WELCOME to a very special edition of Exit Zero which celebrates the 10th anniversary of our launch. Yep, we first hit the streets on July 4, 2003. It’s been that long. Regular readers will notice a couple things... 1. We’re a LOT bigger than our regular edition — almost four times the size. This is because, to celebrate the historical theme, we wanted to look and feel like an old Cape May newspaper from the 19th century. This
Cicada Invasion? Not So Much.
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theme is carried through into our ads, which were brilliantly executed by our graphic designer Doree Bardes. 2. This issue ain’t free! Why? Because we spoil you enough with the weekly edition. You can’t get EVERYTHING for free! It’s still a bargain at $1! To help us celebrate, we have featured 10 kids (either locals or regular visitors) who are also 10 years old this year. You will see their photographs featured
throughout the issue. Snappy idea, eh? What you’ll also find on these pages is a selection of some of our favorite articles of the past few years, which we feel provide a useful, inspiring package that’s meant to help you get the best out of your Cape May vacation — or your everyday life, if you’re a local. Enjoy the paper. Enjoy Cape May. JACK WRIGHT Editor/Publisher
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WELCOME TO A NEW VOICE IN CAPE MAY YOU can buy T-shirts in town featuring the slogan, “Cape May, A drinking town with a Victorian problem.” Leaving aside the obvious point that those kinds of T-shirts, like novelty answermachine messages, stop being funny after around a tenth of a second, they still provide the kernel of a thought. Cape May doesn’t have a Victorian problem, but we at Exit Zero, the town’s new weekly entertainment newspaper, think it has something of an
image problem. The pioneering folks who saved Cape May in the 1970s by getting together to preserve its Victorian heritage, in the face of a blinkered city council, cannot receive enough praise, and their legacy lives on through the good works of the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts. In fact, it’s hardly a legacy since most of them are still alive, kicking and contributing as much as ever. However... Cape May is more than just the finest collection of Victorian architecture in the country. It’s America’s original beach
TRAINING DAY: D. J. Draus and Greg Oldham of Cape May Beach Patrol.
resort, and we think that’s an image that needs to be cultivated. Not to the detriment of the Victorian message, but in conjunction with it. We often hear people in this town waxing on about Martha’s Vineyard, the Hamptons and Key West. And to be sure, they’re all beautiful beach resorts. But think about it: what do these places have that Cape May lacks (okay, we’ll give Key West the nod for total hours of sunshine)? As well as boasting a Victorian wonderland that ranks among the finest Continued on Page Two
By staff photographer Maciej Nabrdalik
Cape May Is Among The Top Five Beach Towns In The US
BY DIANE STOPYRA
F YOU’VE been reading the papers lately, maybe you’re bracing yourself for insect catastrophe. We’re referring to the 17-year cicadas known as Brood II which have been growing underground for — you guessed it — 17 years. They’ll emerge locuststyle — up to one billion of them per square mile, according to the The Huffington Post — when the soil reaches 64 degrees. A repulsive siege, in the oh-so-scary words of the news media, will take over the east coast, from the Carolinas to New York, essentially ruining your summer and your lunch. The Philly Post predicted a Garden State Parkway covered in “an apocalyptic swarm of screeching bug-missiles on rumspringa.” So… should you be hiding your children? Packing up and heading west? Plugging your ears with balls of cotton when you sleep? We called an expert to find out what we can expect in Cape May. “You can expect to be disappointed,” said Michael Raupp, Professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland. Uh-oh, we thought… We’re really in for it. “Cape May is a little out of the range. The nearest counties to you guys that will experience the Brood are Atlantic, Cumberland, and Burlington.” Huh? Then why should we disappointed, we asked of Michael. Sounds to us like we dodged a bullet. Or, in the words of The Philly Post, billions of bug missiles. We’re avoiding a summer of sweeping crunchy exoskeletons from our porches... that’s what the 17-years leave behind after they mate and die, according to National Geographic. And we’re bypassing the deafening song the male cicadas create when courting the females… a noise that will cause permanent hearing damage, according to Gizmodo.com. Continued On Page 15
Adam Olson, from Edina, Minnesota, loves to boogie board in Cape May — Adam is one of our featured 10-year-olds in this anniversary issue, and you can find his interview on page 18.
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BY DIANE STOPYRA
APE May is a little like that annoying kid in high school who received all the awards — dean’s list, MVP, perfect attendance, you name it. Our National Historic Landmark city and its assets have been honored time and again. Remember our placement on Budget Travel’s “10 Coolest Small Towns in America” list in 2012? Or how about TripAdvisor naming Sunset Beach the 24th best sandy stretch in the nation? The Albert Stevens Inn on Myrtle Avenue? It’s 18th in the world’s B&b rankings, also according to TripAdvisor. And the Mission Inn on New Jersey Avenue? Number 25 in the
country. You might think another award would be ho-hum at this point, but the most recent honor bestowed upon our charmed city — a number five designation among the Top 10 Best Beach Towns in the country, according to a recent Parents magazine article — has us buzzing. Never mind that Parents has a readership over two million strong and a Facebook page with nearly one million likes — it’s the methodology behind their Top 10 piece that caught our attention. “I use the TripAdvisor service, myself,” article author and Parents Contributing Editor Karen Cicero told us. “And of course we value people’s anecdotal experiences,
but our surveys are not typically comprised of only that.” Instead, Karen, who says the piece had a year-long gestation period, started out by removing all towns with poor water quality from the running, using information provided by the National Resources Defense Council. “I was surprised,” she said. “We began with hundreds, and eliminated about 50 percent right there.” After that, Karen knocked out all beach spots with no lifeguarding services (at least another third). “Parents are watching their own kids on the beach,” Karen said, “but rip currents can happen any time, and having a trained professional is important.” At this point, Cape May was
still in the running, so Karen called the city to see about one not-sominor detail — whether or not we suffered great devastation, like so many of our unfortunate neighbors to the north, at the hands of Hurricane Sandy. “It made me very happy to hear that Cape May had been spared,” said Karen, who is herself a Cape May vacation vet. “I have a 10-year-old daughter, Katie, who we brought to Cape May about two years ago,” she told us. “I live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and my family has vacationed often in Wildwood, but I always wanted to try Cape May, and I was charmed by it, from beginning to end. We loved the old-fashioned carnival nights offered by Congress Hall,
and the welcoming vibe of the city. My daughter still asks to go back.” (Check out a blog post on Karen’s Cape May experience by visiting parents.com/blogs/goodyblog/2013/05/33709/.) Karen was especially impressed with the Nature Center on Delaware Avenue. “It was Katie’s favorite memory,” she told us. “She participated in a program that allows kids to cast their net into the ocean, and discover the little critters that come into it. The experience stuck with her. And I remember thinking how affordable it was.” It is inland activities like this that were also taken into account Continued On Page 2
SEE PAGE 34 FOR THE BEST CAPE MAY MONEY-SAVING OFFER YOU’VE EVER SEEN!