In my department in the Scholastic New York office, there are *a lot* of Jersey girls. Whenever I learn a colleague is from New Jersey or has New Jersey connections, I make sure to ask them: pork roll, or Taylor ham?
For those of you who don't know, the first full week of July (this year, that's July 2-8) is Be Nice to New Jersey Week, a silly little holiday (probably developed in jest, to be honest) that is taken pretty seriously by a bunch of us here. It's a week when people should refrain from sharing mean jokes about the state; I recommend that people embrace all the state's positives instead (especially as we wait out the current state budget shutdown!) – including, but not limited to: our beaches, Bruce Springsteen, and local diners.
Two years ago my colleague and officemate Suzanne wrote about Be Nice to New Jersey Week and put together some lists of great Jersey reads. This year, to honor my home state, I headed into the Archives with Deimosa to find some vintage New Jersey coverage in our classroom magazines. (I've had this post brewing since I spotted this first issue on an earlier #ThowbackThursday excursion!) Here's what we found:
Junior Scholastic, October 28, 1964 - Cover Story: State of New Jersey Tercentenary: Folklore and Folk Heroes
As if that wasn't cool enough, we went back even farther and found this amazing issue from 1938 dedicated entirely to New Jersey. The pages were so delicate Deimosa had to hold the book and turn them for me!
Junior Scholastic, October 22, 1938 - Cover Story: This Issue: New Jersey
Gina Asprocolas
