This is an old Exxplorer Blog from MySpace in 2009....
Lennie is the only member not from the area. Our Band biography always says that the band is from West Keansburg NJ. The entire time we were in Germany in 2009 Lennie kept asking where West Keansburg was. It got so annoying that I wrote this blog on the way home from playing concerts in Germany. It happened to also be a night when Priest were playing somewhere in NJ...
Exxplorer Blog....
A history lesson for Lennie...Since you are so interested in where your band is from here it is...
West Keansburg is the original part of what is today known as Hazlet
Township New Jersey.
If you take away one fact from this lesson; West Keansburg is not part of, nor
does it have anything to do with KEANSBURG.
The original part of West Keansburg is west of the 9th Street Park and it was
known as Canary Island. This section produced such “famous” people (at least
when I was a kid) as Alan Stanchowitz and Helen Pistolla ..
So there
The normal part of WK is between 13th street (including Munroe Ave and Johnson
Terrace), to 1st street by the little bridge leading into Keansburg. If you see
the Marina Bar or the Belvedere you are no longer in WK...Some of the people
from this area are Jersey Joe Petzel (Star of Maury Povich), Mike Mammana, John
Boy Hinton, Finster and the original version of Exxplorer. It was at MM's Garage
on the corner of 8th and 10th Street that Exxplorer was formed....Everyone on
this side of WK knew “The Marshalls” and the "10th Street Wall"
Depending on which side of the park you lived on, your mail was delivered by
either the Keansburg PO (East of the park where I lived) or the Keyport PO (west
of the park). If you ordered the Asbury Park Press in the 70's, I was your paper
boy..... If you lived in the trailer park and received the Star Ledger I was
your paper boy.
Real West Keansburgrians know that the "true" West Keansburg is on the beach
side of Route 36. This is how we all went to school. West Keansburg School
(today a Brookdale Community College Annex) was where the kids on the beach side
of Route 36 went to grammar school and the kids in the "fake" WK on the
non-beach side of RT36 went to Lillian Drive School.
The other side of the highway is pretty cool, as it includes the Bar H and the
most partying part of WK known as the "Hood"....But even though they were cooler
than us, they were not the real WK. Though I must say our coolest and some of
our best friends came from this part of town. When we reached Junior High they
melded us all together at Lillian Dr and that was kind of weird. We
got our asses kicked a lot..... This part of WK produced Joe Poss,
Gene Kelly, Chubby and his brother our original Exxplorer Manager Joe Merola.
Back in the 70’s if you played organized baseball in Hazlet Township there were
only 2 teams that mattered.
"West Keansburg Fire Company" and "The Volunteers". They were both sponsored by
the volunteer fire fighters in town and I never quite understood the difference
between the 2, except that Joe Poss was the catcher on West Keansburg Fire
Company (Mike Nicholls the pitcher) and Rick Poss pitched for the Volunteers
(Along with a guy from 8th street named Steve).
There is another part of WK that is EAST of the real WK and borders Middletown
along Palmer Ave....On the West Keansburg Totem Pole this is considered the
lowest....:) It is barely WK. People from this area of WK include Don
Schmidt, Marty Wurtenburg, along with the late, and beautiful Yvonne Cerligione.
The one thing EVERYONE IS WK had in common was that Judas Priest and the Olde
Tymer Bar seemed to bring us all together :)
So to all my WK Friends have fun at Priest Tonight .....
So Lennie there is your West Keansburg lesson for the day....
Later
Ed