I hit a nice mark today: the Ocean City chapter is done and ready to be handed over to my assistant. Assistant? I've hired another area freelancer to call all the places I'm planning on writing about to make sure I got the phone, address, website, and hours of operation right. It's a blessing to have someone take that weight off my shoulders, even if it's going to cost me. This way, I can get back to the writing and hopefully produce a better book (which will lead to better sales, thus paying for the cost of hiring an assistant).
I learned a lot about why Ocean City is the way it is today e.g. no liquor. At all. You can't even BYO to any of Ocean City's restaurants. That's because the town was founded by four Methodist ministers, and the Christian mentality stuck. You couldn't even shop in Ocean City on Sundays until the late 1980s. I don't mind that this particular blue laws fell -- and I'm sure the shop owners appreciate the extra day of tourists those weeks during the high shore season.
Even if the no-liquor law might keep some people away from Ocean City, the town's never lacking in families that vacation there for that reason, and I think it's helped the town stay family friend whereas you've got bars bumping until the wee hours of the morning in Avalon, Stone Harbor, Sea Isle and Wildwood. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not exactly what you want to wake your kids up at night.
Housekeeping note: writer extraordinaire Matt Katz has started a blog called "The Engaged Guy." Read it here. And if you're wondering how he "proposed in a magazine article," click here. It's one of the coolest things I've been able to do as a freelancer. Good luck, you two crazy kids.
What I'm Listening To: Felicity, Music from the Hit Television Series. And stop laughing. I bought it for $1 at a yard sale, and it has songs from Aretha Franklin, Remy Zero and Peter Gabriel.
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