Musings from a Jersey Girl
By Caren Caterina May
What is it about a Jersey girl? We are a timeless, classic, confident, spirited bunch. Love songs and movies and tales have been written about us. And jokes—lots of jokes. We have big hair. We say “cawfee” and not coffee. We don’t pump our gas. They even say that you can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can’t take Jersey out of the girl. I’ve moved quite a bit, and I’ll say this motto rings true.
Now, picture a Jersey girl who lives at the Jersey Shore. We are a very special group of gals. And it’s a combination of our inquisitive nature, lust for life, and cares-thrown-to-the-wind attitude that fuel our passion for trekking along the beach on a freezing cold winter day—the kind of day where the breeze is stinging your eyes and sand is pelting your skin—to zig-zag across the shoreline hunched over in search of washed-up treasure. Every Jersey Shore girl knows the off-season, when the locals have the seaside all to themselves, is the best time to beachcomb. I’d like to think our motto is “Sandy hair. Sandy toes. No matter the season. Don’t care.”
Jersey Shore girls appreciate the finer things in life, like a nice manicure or a night on the town. However, we feel most at ease in our jeans and sweatshirt, flip-flops or muck boots on, ready to head out for a day of treasure hunting. Getting our nails dirty…c’est la vie. You could almost say it’s therapeutic digging your hands in the sand and sorting through the tiny pebbles that accumulate on the wrack line, in hopes of catching a glimpse of color that elicits a squeal and happy dance. After a while of digging and sifting, you’ve been gifted a personal hand scrub and exfoliation session, infused with sea salt and seaweed.
I do love a great adventure. Search for fossils at a nearby creek: check. Peruse a woody area while camping to look for insect-eating plants with my son: check. Try a new bay beach in search of whatever flotsam and jetsam washes ashore: check.
I haven’t always lived at the Jersey Shore, but visited frequently during my childhood. I am blessed to have called this glorious part of the Garden State my home for the past two decades. I credit my dad for instilling in me a love of beachcombing and I am delighted to pass this hobby down to the next generation through my son, Joey.
In my youth, my parents would wake my brother and me up early on Saturday summer mornings and announce we were packing up the car and heading down the shore. I recall the excitement as I selected my bathing suit and beach toys for the day. My father would be busy filling up our cooler with sandwiches, fruit, chips, cookies, and drinks.
We lived about an hour from the shore and as our car finally crossed over the bridge to the beach—making that infamous rumbling sound as we drove over the metal bridge grates—my soul was filled with joy. The beach was my happy place, where we would spend the entire day soaking up the sun, splashing in the ocean, building sandcastles, playing boardwalk games, going on rides, and eating delicious fries (with malt vinegar, of course), pizza, ice cream, saltwater taffy, and funnel cake. We would dust the sand off our feet with towels before getting back into the car to head home.
My dad loved going into the ocean or taking a well-deserved nap in the warmth of the sun, but he also loved spending time digging through the sand for pieces of sea glass and beautiful shells. He taught me that not all the best sea treasure is by the ocean—sometimes, you have to skim the wrack line, comb through the seaweed and mussels and sand fleas—to find the good stuff.
Those wonderful childhood memories and the innate drive to seek the thrill of new discoveries unveiled a new love—digging around rivers to find old glass bottles and other charming whatchamacallits and tchotchkes hiding in the trenches, most of which have little to no monetary or intrinsic value other than to the eye of the beholder.
So, I created my own riddle: What do an old College Inn glass jar, a two-and-one-half inch cola bottle, an old Bayer’s bottle with a tiny clam stuck inside, and a Jersey Shore girl have in common? They can all be found at what I deem my favorite secret spot. The aforementioned pieces were unearthed along the Metedeconk River, a tributary of Barnegat Bay, in Ocean County, New Jersey. These discarded pieces of trash have become my treasure, and searching for more is a fascinating pastime that this Jersey Shore girl just can’t seem to shake.
One day, I was reading on the internet about old glass scattered along the Metedeconk, a short drive from where I live. I decided to venture out to one particular area and I discovered a path through some woods that led up to a muddy embankment. The river tide held back just enough that I could comfortably stand on some sand and pebbles.
That’s where I began to find bits and pieces of old pottery shards and unique glass where the water receded. Most of the glass did not have the beautiful frosty patina of true sea glass, but I loved being able to read writing on the pieces I found. However, some pieces were just as pretty as sea glass, weathered by time and tide with pitting and tiny C-shaped marks.
I began spending an hour or so each morning doing a quick search before running my errands for the day. Sometimes I would have to step in the water just a few inches but the soles of my old Ugg boots quickly wore out. I realized I needed a different plan for hunting along a river, so I purchased a pair of muck boots.
I had been thinking for a while that it would be great to put some of my favorite sea glass in a bottle with a cork. Eureka! That same month, I found my first glass bottle wedged underneath a large piece of driftwood. After I pulled the bottle out of the water, I noticed the cork was still plugged in and the bottle full of brackish water. The bottle itself had limited writing, but the details on the bottom were quite helpful. I grabbed my phone, and thanks to Google, found out it was an old one-half gallon Owens-Illinois liquor bottle from 1941.
I had inadvertently pushed the cork back into the bottle trying to get the liquid out and the cork was now stuck inside. Challenges, however, don’t stop a Jersey Shore girl and I quickly learned a new party trick on the internet. Just search “how to remove a cork from inside a bottle.” It’s quite impressive and your friends and family will be astounded by your new talent.
What started as a hobby of collecting sea glass, shells, shark’s teeth and fossils, coral, driftwood, and the occasional dried-up sand dollar, starfish or urchin—took on new meaning. After finding my first old bottle, along with all this beautiful pottery, I was hooked. No longer were mornings spent on the beach with the tumbling ocean waves and calls of seagulls serving as companionship. Chit chats with others hunting for sea glass and shells were now lost at sea; my little river spot was empty except for the old-timers fishing and crabbing from a nearby dock.
I had collected over 50 bottles, mostly from the 1940s, and other awesome bits and pieces after a couple of months. And that is when I realized, I must have stumbled upon an old bottle dump. I was ecstatic. Not all the bottles were easy pickings. While some were literally inches under the sandy, muddy water, some of the more stubborn ones were stuck in the side of the embankment with tree roots gnarled over them.
I had now developed a better plan of attack for bottle hunting—armed with my arsenal of recyclable bags from the food store, a mini shovel, a small trowel, and an extendable scooper. A small UV flashlight was also added to my “toolbox” after finding pieces of uranium glass.
Every time I found new bottles, I couldn’t wait to get home and examine any markings. I loved using my journalistic skills as a former local newspaper reporter to dig around and research the history of the bottles, including company trademarks/logos, manufacturing/patent dates, where they were made, and use. A handful of my bottles were produced by Owens-Illinois, Anchor Hocking, and Capstan. I have plans to catalog the bottles in a binder with their photos and historical background. Researching the old pieces is really fun. The more writing on the bottles, the better. And some are just plain hilarious. Who wouldn’t want to find an old bottle that once contained hair preparations?
Our slop sink was constantly full. I began using denture cleaner to help clean the bottles and brushes to scrub out the grime. Bottles that needed more tending to sat in a big bucket outside in water and bleach.
In addition to bottles that once contained alcohol, perfume, medicine, poison, beauty products, and food-prep, I have also found pieces of Depression-era glass in shades of yellow, pink, and teal, plus light bulb insulators, milk glass, Boyd’s porcelain canning jar liners, bonfire glass (including a perfect trifecta of UV bonfire glass), bottle stoppers (both glass and porcelain), and beverage glasses. Really, anything that looks interesting and aesthetically pleasing, natural or manmade, comes home.
I have also found many pieces of beautiful pottery shards (many with crazing, the web of tiny cracks on the surface) in an array of textures and colors. Some of the porcelain pieces have a uranium-based glaze and glow with a UV flashlight. One day, I hope to create a bistro table with an inlay of some of my favorite pottery pieces and make a mosaic design.
When I find a pottery piece, I imagine the lady of the house using her finest dishes during the holidays. Whoever she was, she was a Jersey Shore girl and now I get to carry on a bit of her legacy. I would love to tell her, “Your blue and white Chinoiserie pattern was gorgeous.”
Now, building up an eclectic collection of found treasure during your excursions is the easy part. The fun part. No one thinks to themselves, “Where am I going to put all of this stuff when I get home?” Please tell me I’m not alone here. Finding old bottles is a problem, albeit a good problem. Glass bottles take up space. They are a variety of sizes. They are fragile. I decided to repurpose my son’s old baby changing table that lived in our basement and housed some books and toys. The table became my “museum display,” containing the old bottles and other doodads. At first, I tried to arrange the bottles by color and size. As my collection grew, the overflow of bottles was moved to bins stored in the garage.
Honestly, I have no idea how to showcase all the pieces. My husband, bless his heart, said he would put up shelving for me to display all the bottles, in addition to my sea glass and seashell collection from over the years. He laughs when I tell him my hobby is “cheap.” After all, I could be collecting coins or stamps or antique dolls.
A reason I love finding an old glass bottle is the chance to peek into a small window of history. It’s where the bottles and sea glass come full circle. I wonder if my beautiful brown sea glass comes from Clorox bottles. Did any of my white sea glass come from cool art deco-style bottles, like the ones I have on display? And my jar of cobalt blue sea glass most likely came from one of my favorite finds—a Milk of Magnesia bottle in very good condition that was sitting just a few inches under some muck, beckoning for someone to reach in, grab it, and give it new life.
Do I really need 20 old canning jars? Probably not. How about dozens of bottles once containing whiskey or gin or scotch or bourbon? I don’t think so. A jar full of vintage pieces of broken china? Belongs in the round file. But family and friends who visit our home always take a look at the assortment of bottles and baubles all meticulously laid out for viewing pleasure. As I gaze at people studying my passionate hobby of glass trash, my feelings shift from the throes of embarrassment to pride. I enjoy seeing someone pick up a bottle and admire the uniqueness of its shape or wording the same way I do. The “oohs” and “aahs” garnered by my plethora of pottery is also very rewarding.
So, this Jersey Shore girl will keep at it, head held high with dignity. There’s no walk of shame here, even when I’m lugging several bags of loot from the river to the trunk. What can I say—beachcombing is my cardio.
And may I add, nothing is more fashionable and fabulous than seeing a middle-aged woman sporting hot pink camouflage muck boots, crouched in the sand, water, and mud looking for treasure. A good splash of brackish water from the wake of a passing boat—especially when there isn’t a lot of room between the receding tide and the embankment—is my new eau de parfum. I’ve even walked into the grocery store after beachcombing to do my food shopping, my coat soaking wet, fingernails caked with dirt and smelling like old fish water—with bright eyes and a smile.
But hey, the fishermen up above on the dock think this Jersey Shore gal is cool. I’ve had many come up to me afterwards and ask what I found that day. We enjoy a good laugh while exchanging small talk and pleasantries—and while they are catching their dinner, I’m hoping to catch a blob top.
Learn more about bottles
Learn more about identifying bottles by shape and color, the history of bottle manufacturing, stoppers, marbles, and more. Articles ›
This article appeared in Beachcombing Magazine Volume 50 September/October 2025.
All photos courtesy of Caren Caterina May
