More local favorites from the Admissions Staff

Continuing the theme from yesterday’s post, the Admissions team shares its favorite summer locations.

First up today is Dan, who rarely demonstrates such an alarming familiarity with reality TV, as he describes his favorite local beach location.  Because who doesn’t want to get to the beach in the summer?!

Something I’ve learned from being married to a New Jersey native is that you can get the girl out of New Jersey, but you can’t get the Jersey out of the girl (believe me, I’ve tried).  As such, our household gets an occasional hankering for some boardwalk time.  While it’s technically possible to GTL and reach the Jersey Shore from Massachusetts in a weekend, it’s a long trip that would leave barely enough time for a fist pump or two, arrest, booking, arraignment, bail, and release while still making it back by Sunday evening.

Fortunately there’s a closer, and weirder, New England alternative.  Only an hour from Tufts, New Hampshire’s Hampton Beach, is “the busiest beach community in the state” according to Wikipedia.  That may be a dubious honor given the extent of the limited New Hampshire coastline, but not for nothin’, as its Jersey compatriots would say.

Hampton’s stretch of boardwalk isn’t huge; maybe two or three blocks.  What it lacks in size, though, it makes up for in age.  It only takes a few minutes’ stroll to feel like you’re more likely to bump into Nucky Thompson than The Situation.  While you won’t find roller coasters or amusement piers here, you will find an assortment of creaky wood-floored arcades featuring some of the 80s’ most popular video games, shooting galleries that look like they employ live rounds, and basketball shot contests that use actual peach baskets (okay, I made that last one up).  The overarching aesthetic is amusement park hand-me-down chic.

Lest this seem like a backhanded burn of our northern neighbors, I’ll emphasize that Hampton Beach is, in my view, about as pleasant as a boardwalk can get.  It’s close, small, and manageable, has some historical flavor and, best of all, it generally lacks the aggressive crassness of most other boardwalks.  Doable in even a half day, it’s also loaded with great seafood joints, probably worth the trip by themselves.

After the beach, what could be better than the ice cream options that Theresa describes?

Lazy summer days lounging out back on the deck always bring back floods of childhood memories involving evening ice cream.  This was especially true the other evening, when somewhere off in the near distance, I could hear calliope music from an ice cream truck drifting through air as the truck made its way toward our street.  Back in the day, on any given summer evening, nearly all the kids in the neighborhood flocked to that white, stickered ice cream truck like little moths to a square flame — waiting for our turn to pick out our favorite ice cream treat.  I always liked the lemon Italian ice.  It was cool and refreshing and took my mind off the mosquitoes biting my legs.  Just as most of us had reached the bottom of our cones or cups of ice cream, our mothers would urge us back inside and away from the mosquitoes.

So many wonderful summers have come and gone since then.  Fast forward 25 years and oddly, things are only slightly different.  The calliope music still plays as kids flock to the ice cream truck.  They smile and laugh while waiting for their turn to pick out their favorite ice cream treat, and not long after that, the other Moms and I, who have been chatting, start urging our kids back inside.

Ice cream trucks can be hard to find, but ice cream is always a local favorite.  If there’s no truck near you, try J.P. Licks, right near campus in Davis Square, or head further down to block to iYO Café.  From a truck or a storefront, you can’t go wrong with ice cream in the summer.