I was wondering how many of you still live in the Garden State and how many live elsewhere.
It is ironic that someone who loves New Jersey as much as I do has now lived over half his life outside New Jersey, but as they say: "Life is what happens to you while you're making plans."
I left New Jersey in 1970 for Manhattan, moved to Massachusetts in 1972, to Los Angeles County in 1989, to Texas in 1992, to New Orleans for five weeks in 1992, then back to the Dallas area. I moved to Wisconsin in 1997 and to Florida in 2004.
I still have my mother, three brothers, and several nieces and nephews in Ocean and Monmouth Counties.
Like most exiled New Jerseyans, my first order of business upon leaving the area in 1972 was to secure a supply of Taylor Pork Roll. Amazingly, I can now buy it in my supermarket in Florida, the first place I have lived where it was available since leaving New York.
My greatest source of Jersey pride in recent years was when Jeremy Glick, who lived in my old town of Upper Saddle River, and Todd Beamer, another Jerseyan, were among the heroes on Flight 93. I told people at the time, that one subject they didn't teach at al Qaeda training school was: "Never try to push around people from New Jersey — because they'll push right back!"