No I don’t hate the beach. Really.

My friends and family will tell you that I hate the beach. Let me correct the record.

I don’t technically hate going to the beach. While I’m there, I kind of like it. But it’s not the first thing I think of doing when I get a day off.

I have a very good reason. Call it childhood trauma.

I’ll try to paint a picture. Imagine the scene. Trenton, N.J. August, 1972. Crack of dawn.

At 6 a.m. in New Jersey in August, it’s already 90 degrees. And 90 percent humidity. We pile into dad’s 1963 Chevy station wagon, root beer brown. (Well, either it was root beer brown or it was completely engulfed in rust. Can’t remember exactly.)

This was one luxurious automobile. Vinyl bench seats, no seatbelts and a 560 air conditioner – five windows down, 60 miles an hour. There was no Interstate in those days. We’d weave county routes from Allentown, N.J. and barrel towards the sea.

That’s if the gas tank didn’t fall out. That happened on more than one occasion. You prayed it fell out near Allentown, because that was the only gas station around for miles. If we were lucky and the mechanic was in a good mood, he’d tie the thing home with bailing wire, we’d throw him some beer money. And off we’d go.

At just about the halfway mark, the farm fields turn to pine scrub and the shoulders of the road go white with sand. That’s where I’d start to get excited about hitting the waves. It was also where somebody inevitably tossed their Cheerios. And we’d have to stop to clean up. Kind of. There weren’t even baby wipes in those days and we never had water or any other cleaning gear. So cleaning was somewhat haphazard.

Today, it’s a 90-minute trip. In 1972, stopping every five miles to fill a boiling radiator, change a flat, tie up the gas tank, clean up the back seat or replace a head gasket – who knows? Four, maybe five hours? To my 10-year-old brain, it sure seemed that long.

Eventually, by the grace of God, we’d find our way to Rt. 72 and work our way to Beach Haven. We spilled from the car, a stinking mess, just in time for the hottest part of the day.

We’d grease ourselves up with what they cynically referred to as suntan oil. Know what it was? Sunburn oil. I think it was SPF minus 45. You put it on at the car and you were roasted, French-fried and fricasseed – scarlet as a boiled lobster before you got out of the parking lot.

Sunscreen might have existed in the early 1970s, but we didn’t have any. Know why? Sunscreen is expensive.

And if you thought the parking lot was hot, forget about it. The New Jersey beach in August is our little version of the blazing Sahara. We’re talking 150 degrees, easy. Sand just shy of melting into glass, charring the skin from the soles of your feet. And where we spent the next six hours cavorting, unprotected, in what felt like a Bessemer steel furnace. No shade, no shelter of any kind. Know why? Beach umbrellas are expensive.

After seven hours in the car and another 17 on the beach, we’d get a little thirsty. Know what we had to drink? “Ice” tea. Oh, there was ice in it when we left the house. But by the time we rolled onto the beach, this tea was ice in name only. A tepid, homebrew concoction that tasted like the plaid aluminum Thermos we loaded it into. And it was unsweetened. I’m not kidding. Know why? Sugar is expensive.

Hot, plain tea. You can imagine how much of that we wolfed down. No Coke, no Kool-Aid, no bug juice, no cold water, even. Nothing that came close to actually working on your thirst. Know why? Cold drinks are expensive.

And when we got hungry, we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. With hot tea to wash it down. Sometimes bologna and mustard. Man, this was livin’!

After building and demolishing a sandcastle or two, body surfing and staging sandbug races, we were wet, plastered in sand, burnt to a crisp, salted like pretzels and sick from dehydration.

That’s when gather up our crap and head back to the chariot, its interior north of 400 degrees, baking in the parking lot sun.

If you’ve never had the distinct pleasure of a close encounter with New Jersey beach sand, it’s unique. I’ve been to many beaches, all over the U.S. and in Europe. They ain’t like Jersey. In the Garden State, the sand grains are microscopic. Slightly larger than talcum powder. And, by some strange accident of geology, each grain is coated with Crazy Glue. It sticks to everything. Your shoes, your feet, your hair, the back of your neck. The cooler, the chairs, the dog, the umbrella … oh, wait, we had no umbrella. Or cooler. Or chairs.

New Jersey beach sand, defying gravity on a catamaran in Stone Harbor.

There is no point rinsing off in the ocean. By the time you walk back to your towel, you’re hopelessly covered again. And there was no fresh water anywhere near the beach back then. No wussy foot-washing stations. If you wanted to rinse off, you put a quarter in the bathhouse door. You can imagine how often we did that. There was no question in Mom’s mind that had we put as much as a big toe in one of those places, we’d be immediately drugged, kidnapped, stuffed into a burlap sack and sold into slavery. After getting scabies, whatever the hell scabies is.

Besides, quarters are expensive.

Hot, sick, exhausted. In a wet bathing suit with six pounds of sand in your butt crack, we stuck to the Chevy’s blazing hot Naugahyde like Velcro.

If we were lucky, the car would start without needing a jump. And we left. At the precise moment everybody else left. Hot as a pressure cooker, it was a seven-hour, bumper-to-bumper Bataan Death March back to Trenton.

Somehow, we survived. And just about the time you forgot the sunburn pain and the skin on your shoulders peeled and grew back, we’d pile into the station wagon and do it all over again.

And that, friends, is why going to the beach is rarely my first choice. Or my tenth. I’ll go. I’ll have fun. I’ll enjoy the chill atmosphere and particularly the natural beauty of the place.

But when I get one grain of New Jersey sand between my toes, the whole beach-bound horror-show of my youth comes flooding back. Even though we live here. Even though I can be in a hot shower within 15 minutes. Thinking about the place still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

One of these days, maybe I’ll get over it. There’s always next year.

Memorial Day will be here before you know it.

P.S. You know the old saying? The older I get, the smarter my parents get. Dad almost never went with us. Genius.