Jim Lavender waters his plants and flowers on Park Place.
By Tim Kelly
“What Happens on the Porch Stays on the Porch.”
The slogan is emblazoned on a wooden plaque on the porch of Barbara and Vincent Rosica’s Ocean City home on Third Street.
“A lot of things happen on this porch and we just want people to relax and enjoy themselves,” Barbara explained.
“My husband is the big partier,” she said. “And some of our kids, too.”
Barbara and Vincent are parents to four grown sons and a daughter, and grandparents to 13.
“It can get pretty loud on the porch,” Barbara noted.
Despite Barbara’s sign’s admonition about keeping everything on the porch, she is the first one to admit the porch itself makes quite a statement.
“This is where we sit, this is where we talk, where we laugh,” she said. “It’s just a very happy place. We just love being here.”
They sold their Pennsylvania home 11 years ago and moved to Ocean City full time in the home they bought in the early ’60s.
A wooden U.S. Marine figure guards the garden of Barbara and Vincent Rosica.
We picked the Rosicas' porch as an example of what we’ll call “porch pride.” All over Ocean City, you will find thousands of others, making their own statements, silently but eloquently. There are religious and sports shrines, displays of decorative flags, and of course finely manicured gardens and lawns.
Below the Rosicas’ porch are American and Marine Corps flags, and a wooden Marine figure standing guard over their plants and flowers.
“My husband is always out here,” Barbara said. “They call him the Mayor of Third Street.”
Her husband demurred during a recent visit. “My wife is the one who put it all together. She’s the one who makes it all possible,” he said.
No matter who was the more responsible party, the Rosicas aren’t alone. A number of the couple’s neighbors have taken the same attitude about turning their porches into a creative expression. 
Pam Moran looks out from her Third Street porch among a few of her personally designed and handmade flags.
A few doors down is the home of Pam Moran, Ocean City’s “Flag Lady,” and her husband Mike. Pam creates and sews her own collection of decorative flags, including party flags, Philly team flags, college flags, Ocean City-themed flags and too many others to list in this article.
Pam creates a design, uses a projection device to make it flag-sized, traces a pattern for each piece of fabric and sews it all together.
She doesn’t like the reverse image seen on conventional flags. So she actually makes two flags for each design and sews them together. That way they always show the correct image regardless of how the banner flaps in the wind, she said.
Pam’s branching out, she said, and recently made an ice cream-themed flag currently flying outside Annie’s Carousel Ice Cream at Third and Atlantic.
Another Third Streeter, Nancy McKeaney and husband Frank, have erected a shrine of sorts to Nancy’s love of strawberries.
There are strawberry decorations and a huge strawberry flag. “They call me Strawberry Nancy,” she says.
A nearby resident on Corinthian Avenue has an array of Villanova basketball memorabilia on the porch, including three flags commemorating each of the Wildcats’ NCAA championships.
Ryan Barish stands in front of his huge selection of porch and lawn decorations at his shop at 1350 Asbury Ave.
For Ocean City residents looking to add to their porch or lawn displays, particularly those who are sports fans, Ryan Barish is the man to see. He’s the proprietor of The Perfect Exposure Photography and Sports at 1350 Asbury Ave.
Barish has flags, handcrafted wooden lawn decorations, banners, posters, art pieces and an array of other sports, collegiate and show biz memorabilia.
His storefront displays hundreds of his wares, to the amusement and sometimes consternation of his neighbors.
“The hardware stores actually refer people to me,” he says of his massive inventory. “One of my neighbors (annoyingly) said, ‘Do you think you can fit any more stuff out there?’ and I just laughed and said, ‘I’m not sure, but I’ll try.’”
He’s certainly a role model for anyone wanting to decorate their own statement porch or lawn.
On Park Place, Jim Lavender made his statement with flowers and lush green vegetation at a home he shares with his partner Jerri Tomita.
“She (Jerri) does a tremendous job with this garden. It’s really doing well,” Lavender said during a recent hot and muggy day. “It requires care and lots of water, but the garden is doing well.”
Jim Lavender waters his plants and flowers on Park Place.
