Osprey Days

I am at the Osprey, Manasquan’s quintessential Shore bar for beautiful twenty-somethings, except that tonight most people here have not been twenty-something for two decades. I came with Pat, one of my college fraternity brothers who hung out at the Osprey the first few summers after graduation, all those years ago.

What brought us back is Salvation, the band that in the late 1970s and early 1980s packed the house with young men and women singing, sweating, drinking and, like Springsteen sings, Growin’ up.

Actually, it’s not the real Salvation; the band, two of whose members died, is down to brass player and singer Denis Qulligan in a one-man show to benefit Special Olympics. It’s not the real Osprey, either, not with this middle-aged audience.

Last summer Pat and I stopped in on a night with the regular crowd, my first visit since 1982.

Some things had changed. The “World’s Longest Bar” was gone, replaced by smaller ones. The crowd seemed dressier than in the days when we walked in off the beach, bathing suit and sandals. These twenty-somethings also seemed more responsible. When we frequented the Osprey it was, let us say, the pre-drunk-driving-awareness era. Now, limos and taxis park on Main Street, waiting to take revelers home.

But the essential does not change. Young men still lean on the bar, drink in hand, eyeing the groups of young women.
 
I interview Kristen, from Morristown, who says her parents met at the Osprey 33 summers earlier. Another young lady in a tight blue dress takes the dance floor. She is a show stopper. Before long, the whole club is looking at her.
 
When the song ends, I go over and tell her I am writing an article about the Osprey. The music makes it hard to hear. She takes my reporter’s notebook and scribbles, “Carolyn.” From Cherry Hill, she says, 25 years old. Then Carolyn writes, pretty explicitly, what she really wants tonight.

I’m flattering myself to think she is interested. Still, it feels good. But Pat and I are twice her age,   and we leave early. Walking to the car, we talk about the uncertainties of health after 50. “We’re at the age where anything can happen,” Pat says. He is graying, as am I. But his eyes still have that mischievous twinkle.

We also leave the Denis Quilligan benefit early, and go eat. These days nothing is more enjoyable than dinner with the wife and kids. Pat and I laugh about Carolyn’s note: a beautiful blonde writes sexual suggestions — but I leave the Osprey that day feeling sorry for the poor father who has no idea his daughter is flirting with a 52-year old guy.

We are all grown up. Now we are just trying to put off growing old.

A personal essay by NJ My Way editor Roger E. Hernández

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