Though I’ve lived in California pretty much since graduating from Rutgers College in 1993, anyone who knows me recognizes that you can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can’t take the Jersey out of the girl.
I do make it a point to keep one foot there. For the family, for the food, for the hockey team (Go Devils!), for the “cultcha.” Although– give me California climate, grocery stores, and lifestyle any day.
It’s my Jersey roots that perhaps make me so gratified to be invited to be a part of the Hoboken Historical Society’s Oral History Project Vanishing Hoboken chapbook series. I’ve been working with series editor Holly Metz and designer Ann Marie Manca for a number of years now to keep stories of a working class industrial Hoboken from being forgotten as the city changes.
And Hoboken has changed. I’m not going to say for better or for worse. It will always be Jersey.