Is New Jersey Special?

Some people think that all they need to know about a person is that they are from New Jersey to know that he is rude, brash, loud, self-centered and cheap. I am determined to do my part to change that image. It is my prayer that New Jerseyans be as passionately in love with our home as Texans are with theirs.
For starters, I bought a New Jersey flag to fly next to the Red, White and Blue on the veranda of my house. It really looks nice out there with its pale yellow background upon which two women figures represent liberty and prosperity.
Now the flag is just the beginning; it has to go much deeper if such derogatory things said about us in the reality show, “The Jersey Shore” and “New Jersey Housewives” are to no longer be considered funny. Besides that, do you know people like those on the show? Neither do I, and if you say I’m sheltered, well, I’m glad I am. There are always a few spoilers in every crowd.
For those looking for things to love about our state, for starters let me offer that we have a very honorable and significant Revolutionary War history. If you have forgotten, now would be a good time to visit the battle sites and bone up on what happened here as our country struggled to win its independence. (More on this topic later)
Our slogan proclaims us to be the “Garden State” and we certainly are one of the counties that make that statement true. And as an aside, our beaches are some of the best in the world and the wetlands that surround them are beautiful.
New Jerseyans are so industrious that in spite of being some of the most highly taxed citizens in the U.S., we still manage to hover around the first or second place in highest income per capita.
Regardless of reasons, which make us proud, those are not the reasons that create love for a place. It is the things that we do for and to one another that makes a person say, “I can’t wait to get home,” after being away.
To boil down my feelings into words, I am resolved to follow the example of G. K. Chesterton when he talked of loving England. He said that if a person loved England for any reason, that person didn’t really love England. This resonates with me as true; I don’t love my family for any reason, I just simply love them. The same is true for our country.
Does this extend to New Jersey? It probably does, or could, if I were to give it the thought it deserves. How many of those who have gone before us poured their lives into the creation of our great state? Reading the New Jersey Constitution caused me to appreciate these people. The proper thing for me to do is to learn more about them, their dreams, their aspirations. As a New Jerseyans, I owe that to our next generation.
Transplants to Texas have a saying: “I wasn’t born here but I got here as fast as I could.” I hope that one day people will say that about New Jersey.
Art Hall, publisher