"Really? You're from that Jersey Shore place that's on TV? What's it like?"

Ever since I started college a few months ago, this is all I've heard from the people I meet. It's hard to describe my hometown to people who have never seen it with their own eyes, but I try anyway. Usually my explanations begin like this:

"Well, I'm from a place called Wall Township. It's the third biggest town in my county, and a calm place most of the year. We get a lot of tourism in the summer months, but otherwise it's really peaceful."

I was born and raised in Wall. It hasn't changed much in the past 18 years…still a large town of strip malls and farms. By strip malls, I mean a huge place like the Gap to small local businesses. And by farms, I mean anything you can think of that will grow in New Jersey. I've seen everything from emus to blueberries being grown.

Wall is a plain and comfortable place to live, whether I'm playing wall ball in the park, messing with the day cops, or loitering at the nearby beach with friends. There's always something to do in Wall, and it will always be my home.

Even now in the snowy north, near Rochester, N.Y., where I'm living until I'm done with college, I remember the relative warmth of my hometown. When I close my eyes, I can almost taste the long afternoons I idled away swimming at the beach or sleeping in the warm fields near my house.

It's the real Jersey Shore – nothing at all like what you see on TV!

EDITORS NOTE:  The author, Danielle Delp, is a Wall resident who is a prolific writer for the student newspaper at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she is a freshman. She graduated from the Marine Academy of Science and Technology in Sandy Hook in June.