Erika’s Little Silver Memoir #1
As we get toward this album’s release into the wild, I’ve been reflecting on our inspiration for the band’s name, the mile-square town of Little Silver, NJ, where I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Like everywhere else, it has changed. Little Silver is now crowded with New Yorkers who found a Jersey Shore haven for their families. The town has since widened its main streets and gained some traffic lights to keep up with its increased fancy car-count, but back in the day it was a sleepy, mostly working-class town that housed one gas station, one luncheonette, and was only 4 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
My parents picked the town in 1977, based on its proximity to the beach and because, as my mother told it, she loved the name. The story goes that in 1667, white settlers bought the town from the Native Americans for ‘a little bit of silver’. So pleased with their deal, the settlers decided to name the town after this victorious exploitation.
Still, we loved the name.
In the next weeks, I’ll be posting anecdotes about the characters in and around my family who lived there. Stay tuned if you want a break from the news and any other, perhaps more worthy passages of time.