PERHAPS IT WAS HAVING TO MAKE new friends in a new school every few years, each time my old man was transferred. Or how, as the short kid, I was always picked last…or simply picked on. I had friends across many cliques, but never truly belonged to any of them myself. My grades earned me multiple nominations for the National Honor Society, whose inevitable rejection was always rooted in my steadfast ambivalence toward team sports, scouting, and drama club. I was never idle, mind you…it’s just that none of those things interested me. I enjoyed the outdoors, books, movies, music – all sorts of music. And there was the water, of course. I’ve always loved the water – Cancer, you know? No fresh water, for my money, ever quite measured up to the sea.

While the Jersey Shore has long drawn those seeking some form of escape, I spent my formative years there longing to leave it. Truthfully, I’ve always been an outlier, if not an outsider, be it by nature or nurture, and I most closely identify with those of a similar stripe.

Not long after moving to Maryland, I began publishing a storytelling zine called Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore!, which you may fairly consider a precursor to Beach Badge in both format and style. Throughout its 15-year run, Smile, Hon garnered some popular and critical acclaim. It was a two-time finalist for Utne’s Independent Press Awards, received numerous local honors and accolades, and at least one person told me that they, in fact, moved here because of it.

Yet, curiously, almost from Smile, Hon’s inception, I was entertaining the idea of applying its basic formula to my native shores. Though I’ve now been in Maryland for as long as I lived in Jersey, the Baltimore zine continues to stand dormant, as it has for nearly a decade, while I introduce this fifth installment of Beach Badge…three hours from the closest Jersey beach.

Over the years, I’ve never lost touch with the shore. Would I have felt the same way had I grown up elsewhere – would I have been every bit the outlier? Perhaps. However, of this much I am certain: my time in Baltimore has given me perspective I never would have found had I stayed in Jersey. Indeed, had I not left the shore, it is unlikely that Beach Badge, at least as it stands, would have ever happened. I am especially touched that it has found devoted audiences in Asbury Park and Atlantic City – fellow outliers in their own right.

The words of another outlier, Nelson Algren – the Detroit-born novelist buried in Sag Harbor, Long Island, whose life’s work is all but synonymous with Chicago – come to mind: “No book was ever worth the writing that wasn’t done with the attitude that ‘this ain’t what you rung for, Jack – but it’s what you’re damned well getting.’”

Beach Badge is a haven for all those who, like me, have no place at the shore, and maybe never will, despite the sand in our hair, the salt in our veins. I invite you to share your own stories here, or simply sit back wherever you are – be it upon sugary white sands or a concrete stoop – and enjoy those of our fellow outliers.

William Patrick Tandy

Editor & Publisher

June 2024