For most of my life, I've spent part of each summer in the beach town of Avalon on the New Jersey shore, where as a kid I bodysurfed, ate bologna and cheese sandwiches, and only left the water to take naps on old sheets that I'd repurposed for the sand.
Avalon, the barrier island on the coast's south side, has always had a reputation as the playground of Philadelphia's well-off. It's even more well-off now than it was the first summer I spent “on the coast.” But its core identity remains the same: Avalon is casual. No one dresses up. And when you spend a day there, the only goal is to do not much at all.
As a journalist, I've written about the food, traditions and quirks of the Jersey Shore for nearly 20 years, publishing two books about the region and contributing several articles to this newspaper.
When my dad bought a vacation home in Avalon in 2020, he gave each of his kids a university flag for Christmas. As is tradition in Avalon and the surrounding towns, the flags were supposed to be displayed inside the house. I didn't know why we did this, but most people did, so my University of Tampa flag hung on the second floor balcony along with my brothers' school flags.
I currently live part-time in Avalon, and during my sunrise runs I love to photograph all the interesting flags I pass by: sports-themed flags, Ivy League flags, and even a custom-made flag made from multiple college flags sewn together to represent all my family's alma maters.
I'd assumed the flag-raising tradition was just some local quirk not worth explaining, until The New York Times published a story revealing that, according to interviews and photographs, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, the symbol raised on January 6, had flown at the New Jersey vacation home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. last summer. (The story came after the Times reported that an upside-down American flag had flown at the justice's Alexandria, Virginia, residence following the 2020 presidential election.)
I was working at my dining room table at Avalon when the news of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag broke.
That day, I received two types of text messages. The first was from a friend far away: “Why are all the people on the coast flying their flags?” The second was from a local: “Why didn't he fly his college flag like everyone else?”
While I couldn’t answer the second question, I decided to explore the first in a recent article published in the Style section.
I contacted local historical societies, libraries, and a few university librarians and archivists to find out when and why the tradition began, pored over photos in history books I unearthed at the Avalon Free Public Library, and spoke with people in other coastal communities, including Rehoboth and Dewey Beach, Delaware, who told me no such tradition existed in their towns.
The investigation turned into something of a treasure hunt: We spoke to researchers from four nearby universities, all of whom admitted they had no idea when the tradition began.
On a Sunday afternoon in June, photographer Michelle Gustafson and I spent more than five hours walking around Avalon and the surrounding towns, searching for the best or most unusual flags. It was a beautiful day with blue skies, and many people were outside and eager to talk. When we found a flag we wanted to learn about, we knocked on the door.
There were school flags too. One house had three custom flags representing 13 schools. There were also sports flags, Pride flags, Grateful Dead flags. No one knew when this tradition started, but everyone was proud of their flag.
I got some answers from flag scholars, who tell me that flags were traditionally used by coastal towns to signal between ships, but they couldn't pinpoint where the flag originated in Avalon.
So I dropped by the Avalon Historical Society's monthly teatime and interviewed some longtime residents. No one had any answers, but visitors shared their memories. One 85-year-old resident recalled seeing a college flag hanging above the lifeguard dormitory in 1948.
No one knew when it happened, but everyone was sure about why: Flying the flag was a way to share pride in their school, their children's school, their team, or, for some, their political beliefs.
I don't write about the Jersey Shore as much as I used to—I feel like I enjoy it a little less, and since quitting the mantle of “Jersey Shore Jen” (my first Twitter handle), I've been trying to relax and not have to rack my brain for topics—but now that I live there part-time, it's been a fun challenge to explain these hyper-local traditions to a national audience.
My dad found the incident amusing and told me to hold the flag up when the photographers arrived, and Michelle took my picture with the flag, despite her humid, frizzy hair, after a full day of coverage on what for everyone else would have been a perfect beach day.
Whatever his reason for flying the flag, my dad loves it. It celebrates the accomplishments of his four children, and even though none of us went to an Ivy League college, he still flies the flag high with pride.