For many, Ocean City is filled with fond memories that grow fonder and multiply with each passing summer. The beach, bay and boardwalk are the stuff of youth and innocence, romance and rebellion, family and fun.
And it’s often the smallest of things that trigger the flood of nostalgia.
Such was the case for Diane Spencer Kennard, who saw something more than a pair of boardwalk benches when she looked at our “Daily Beach Report” image from Sunday morning (above).
For Kennard, the benches represent a love both of her husband and of the seaside town that he couldn’t stop talking about. She shared her story on our Facebook page, and we copy it here:
The bench on the left is “our bench.” Twenty-eight years ago, while we were still in college in Chattanooga, TN, we would go to the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and sit on a bench in front of a fountain in their gardens and he would tell me all about Ocean City, NJ where we would honeymoon.
He told me specifically of the north end where we could see Atlantic City in the distance. The day after our wedding, when we arrived in OC, the first thing we did on the boardwalk was to walk all the way from the Port O’Call to this bench. We sat and talked about the wedding, and all those times we talked about this trip while sitting on a bench in Chattanooga.
Ten years later, he gave me a diamond ring for our tenth anniversary while sitting on this bench. We have been married a little over 26 years, and we still visit our bench every year, along with our kids who are now grown, and relive old memories and make new ones!
Now, our daughter is planning her honeymoon in OCNJ next summer.
Thank you OCNJ for providing a place for four generations of our family to make memories and grow our family legacy!
I don’t know if anyone will read this, but I just had to write it.
See her post below in its original form on the OCNJ Daily page (and “like” us to get Ocean City updates in your news feed).
