I'd tell people I was from the Jersey Shore and I always got the same look. Suddenly, they saw me with one hand on a surfboard, and the other flashing that pinky-and-thumb, Sean-Penn-inspired "gnarley" sign-thing.

"Wow...surfer...waves...RonJon..." they'd utter.

Puh-lease, I'd think. I was a ride operator and a french-fry hack at seaside snack bars. I picked up dug-into-the-sand cigarette butts with my bare, blackened hands and tossed them away for $1 an hour.

To me, standing on a surfboard was like standing on a tightrope. Krazy-glue and staples couldn't keep me on top of those things.

Yeah, I've always loved the beach. But, when I was young, I found the beachgoer image so, dare I say, ugly. Sand stuck in my bathing suit. Wet shoes. Wet, sticky hair. Sand, sand, sand...

That, and the image I had of half-naked people boozing it up at Marz, Cheers, Tradewinds or any of the local bars and clubs - the Snookis before there was even a Snooki, if you will - were enough to make me want to live the rest of my life in my bedroom, flipping baseball cards and listening to Lez Zeppelin on my Sony Walkman.

Ah, if only it was yesteryear. Saying you're from the Jersey Shore, 25 years later, means something completely different, and maybe even something worse. The responses make me want to grab a board and "surf main."

"Do you ever watch......the Jersey Shore?" they always say.

My response?

"You've got to be kidding me."

Now, let's face it: I can't blame people for following the summer-goings-on of DJ Pauly, Angelina and JWOWW (did I spell that right?) anymore than I can blame people for slowing down on the Garden State Parkway to leer at an overtuned tractor-trailer.

But what bothers me, again, is the image. The image I want of the Jersey Shore is, frankly, something closer to the laid-back, surfer-dude impression that forced me away as a kid, but I now embrace.

That's the image I want in my mind, and I hope it stays that way, long after the Jersey Shore MTV show burns out and seeps into the pop-culture landfill, just underneath "The Macarena."

That's the image I want for Patch.com, and how I want it presented in the news coming from Long Branch, and Manasquan, as well as the news from Toms River. I want the balance of trouble and tranquility, whether it's in the form of Brick Township news, Berkeley Township news, Manchester news, Wall Township news or Howell Township news.

I want the news of balance, and balance is what Jersey Shore news, and its image, is supposed to be about. It's not just about Snooki, and not just about trouble. The Jersey Shore is tranquil, serene, fun and family-oriented.

The image I prefer is the beach that can be crowded, sure. But, at dusk, or in the fall, it's a peaceful place, with water that washes in and out, and a little pond forming for kids to play in.

It's a place to party, sure. There are the bars and boardwalks in Long Branch, Asbury Park, Manasquan, Belmar and Seaside Heights, and plenty of news from those towns, too. But it's not all about the booze and the beer. It's about the volleyball, the surfing, the football-tossing and the kind of fun, family stuff that still attracts the singles as well as the family guys, just as it has for more than a century.

You see it in Brick, Toms River, South Seaside Park and Point Pleasant, where the local townfolk have kept the cottages and family restaurants that cater to those who preserve rather than destroy.

In Manasquan, there's Gee Gee's, where burgers are still broiled on a grill, not fried on a large, greasy plate of steel. The fries come with a pound of cheese dumped on them, wrapped in a healthy-sized piece of aluminum foil.

In the arcade, people can play the games that got us into video games in the first place; not the swinging cranes that tease us every time, and always fail to pick up the large, stuffed Stewie from The Family Guy.

The boardwalk has no boards; just a paved path that starts and ends in Manasquan, lined with cottages that overlook the waves that roll in and out, all day long.

It's also in Long Branch, one of the last Jersey Shore communities to be nearly free of the commerical boardwalks, booze and bad boys that have made the region a punchline.

In Long Branch, there are high-rise hotels and apartments, private beaches and parking lots. But there are few bars and even less fights that have made for quite a plot-line on the Seaside-Heights-based MTV show.

In Long Branch, there's still the "Wind Mill" - the original one, with the actual wind mill hanging from the peak of the pointed-roof, and the window seating next to a door that never stays completely closed, letting in a gush of cold air every five minutes. The fries are still crinkly and the hot dogs are bigger than my hand.

There's Max's Hot Dogs, once a 25-seat hotdog stand in 1928 that has evolved into a 200-seat full service restaurant that offers "favorite American delights for everyone," according to its wesite.

There's "Freeloaders Beach," which ain't free anymore. You used to be able to sneak on there and nobody ever bothered. But the flat, soft sand that's carved under a sand ridge is still a great place for surfers, especially during the hurricane season when most of the tourists stay away.

And many still get on for free (sshh!).

Some of the good haunts are gone. A friend of mine and I used to go to "Cheers" nearly every week. We kept hoping we'd see Bruce Springsteen - he supposedly wrote the "Thunder Road" lyrics and the "Born to Run" words and music in Long Branch - and kept wishing he'd pop in on Bobby Bandiera, a guitarist with Southside Johnny and Asbury Jukes.

He never did, at least when we weren't there. But we did get some 80-year-old guy who'd sing "Kansas City" as Bandiera strummed away.

The bar and the old guy are gone. But the beach and the boards are still here, throughout the year. Cold and rain are no reasons to stay away; that's what a wet suit is for.

Here, they take the surfers over the Snookis.