Arnie Leshin was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., but his second home became New Jersey

Like all true underdogs, New Jersey doesn’t  boast.

It lets Philadelphia take credit for the Ben Franklin Bridge and everything else that connects it to the City of Brotherly Love. It allows New York City to take credit for the George Washington Bridge, the tunnels, and even the Staten Island that links it to the Big Apple.

It does not plaster Paterson with signs saying, “Birthplace of Alan Ginsberg,” or bragging that a movie on Paterson Eastside High was filmed there.

It knows that “The Boss,” Bruce Springsteen was born there, but is proud to share him. Frank Sinatra, Frankie Valli, Richie Havens, Jerry Lewis, Flip Wilson, Ossie and Harriert, Abbott and Costello, Sandra Dee, Blondie, Ed Koch, Franco Harris, Rick Barry, Tom Heinsohn, Dick Vitale, Marvin Hagler, Ruben (Hurricane) Carter, Emile Griffin, Chuck Wepner, Jerry Molloy, and a cast of thousands … all from the Garden State.

You can also include Jack Nicholson, Paul Simon, Connie Francis, Whitney Houston, Michael Douglas, Jerry Lewis, Queen Latifah, Anne Hathaway, Bette Midler, Bruce Willis, Brooke Shields, John Travolta, Walt Whitman, former US President Woodrow Wilson, as well as Aaron Burr, Grover Cleveland, and Alexander Hamilton. And like I said, and a cast of thousands … from the Garden State.

To go on, it has Liberty Park in Jersey City and history confirms it’s the true location of the Statue of Liberty. Same with Ellis Island. Of course it sounds better to identify these historic places with good old NYC because they do lie in New York Harbor.

It’s doesn’t bother the Joisey folks to have to pump their own gas because they know it can lead to sites like Atlantic City,  Asbury Park, Wildwood. In fact, of all the states, the one it most resembles, with its watery borders is Hawaii.

It has the Jersey shore, famous for its beaches and summer havens. On the most southern tip of the state is the Coast Guard.

It has always been in a difficult location, stuck between giants — New York and Pennsylvania — much the was Poland is squeezed between Russia and Germany. A few years ago, Pennsylvania deepened the hurt by putting road signs on its side of the Delaware River, claiming “America starts here.”

Of course New York City needed no such propaganda because New Yorkers can be snobs and feel there is nothing worth knowing west of the Hudson. Of course they fail to face the reality of so many New York employees residing right across the river in high-rise apartments.

Jersey is a state that can’t be ignored. It is in the middle, the plot, the indispensable meaty part. Try to drive anywhere east of the Mississippi and eventually you’ll end up on the New Jersey Turnpike.

It’s the state that is divided into north and south as sharply as the country is but without the haunting sin of slavery. It does not dwell on its pettiness like Delaware and Rhode Island. It is richer than Maine and smarter than Maryland.

It has Hoboken, the birthplace of Sinatra and the filming of “On the Waterfront,” and “Funny Girl.” It was there, at Elysian Field that the first-ever baseball game was played. It is the other end of the Holland Tunnel. It has the “Clam Broth House,” always recognized as the premiere restaurant in the mile-high city.

It has Weehawken, where the high school there plays its football and baseball games as the traffic unloads into the Lincoln Tunnel and the passengers try to take in the action, especially those in the buses.

It has Fort Lee, where the George Washington Bridge crosses into upper Manhattan. It has Bayonne, where the Goethals Bridge takes you into Staten Island.

It has Newark, site of the Prudential Center where sports and concerts are held, aka the Big Rock, home of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, the lone professional franchise in the state named for it.

It is also home of the Liberty of the Women’s National Basketball Association, although it still says New York on its uniform, but the Big Apple lets the Garden State keep it.Just think, the Liberty traded in the famed mecca Madison Square Garden to play in Newark.

It  has East Rutherford, just a short drive to the Holland Tunnel, and where the numerously-named area was once the home of the Devils and the then-New Jersey Nets, who originally opened at the freezing Teaneck Armory for one year as the Jersey Americans.

But East Rutherford, also known as the Meadowlands right off the Turnpike, is also the home of the New York Giants and New York Jets under a deal agreed upon ages ago to allow the two NFL to play in Jersey with the NY identify, and when the Giants last won a  Super Bowl, it held a parade that began in NYC and wound up in East Rutherford.

And can’t forget that there’s also horse trotting racing run at the East Rutherford Race Track, and it’s been there longer then the stadium where the Giants and Jets play, while there’s not much doing in the old Brendan Bryne Arena these days.

Of course the Giants and Jets once played in the Bronx and Queens, respectively, while the Liberty began in Manhattan. The pro soccer Red Bulls first played at Randall’s Island below the Tri-Borough Bridge in Manhattan, and now play before big crowds at the Harrison Arena in the Garden State of

course.

Must be something in that New Jersey air that these teams (and high-rise occupants) like.

And the Nets, the nomads of the all franchises, went from Teaneck and changed their name to Nets for good, before arriving in Queens, then to Long Island, next to Rutgers University in Piscataway, and back to East Rutherford when the Byrne Arena was completed. Now they play in Brooklyn, where it all began for me on the other side of the East River.

So please leave the jokes for another place. There are good folks in New Jersey. They will never change its name to Princeton. They will never throw those juicy beefsteak tomatoes at the taunting hordes. They will always provide salt to sprinkle on their sweet corn. They even have gardens in the winter.

I lived there long enough to learn the the Garden State is like a wandering apostle, can teach us humility, and it is not so much a state as it is a saint.

Read on to learn much much more …..

New Jersey has 127 miles of beautiful beaches, from Sandy Hook to Cape May. The World Book calls it one of the great coastal playgrounds of our country. Then there’s diversity, and the northeast has the Palisades towing over the Hudson River with spectacular trails.

The southeast has the beaches and pine barrens. The northeast has mountains, lakes and horse country such as Bedminister, Far Hills and Gladstone. The southwest has farmland in what includes two thirds of of New Jersey, and which produces more blueberries and eggplants anywhere.

That farmland, over one million acres, is why we are the “Garden State,” Forty percent of the state remains wilderness y forest. The grandeur of the Delaware Water gap, the unique features of the Highlands, hundreds of historic sites celebrating the Revolution.

Can’t forget the best tomatoes and sweet corns, the over 50 state parks and forests, all of 300-acres in making it the third largest state park system in the USA.

Of the Fortune 500 largest companies, more than half have a facility in the state, which puts the state as the top 10 producers of a number of products, such as chemicals, apparel, rubber, plastic, stone, clay, glass, textiles, food producing equipment, painting, leather, electrical machinery, furniture.

There’s birding, which during the fall migration, Cape May is ornithologists heaven. It has one of the finest, most accessible ski resorts in the land. There are 800 lakes, 100 rivers and 1400 miles of trout streams and ski slopes.

Then there are the “firsts”.

The first railroad locomotive (Paterson)

The first boardwalk (Atlantic City)

The first seashore resort (Cape May)

The first national historic park.

The first free public library.

The first incandescent lamp.

The first motion picture invented (Fort Lee)

The first full length motion picture, “The Great Train Robbery” (Paterson)

The first photograph was built in NJ.

The first band aid was made in NJ.

The first mason jar was made in NJ.

The first collapsible umbrella was made in NJ.

The first light bulb (Thomas Edison).

The first seaplane was built in Keyport.

The first Indian reservation (Watching Mountains).

The first medical center (Jersey City).

The first skyway highway (Pulaski Skyway).

The first baseball game (Hoboken).

The first tunnel under a river (Holland built by NJ).

The first radio station and broadcast (Paterson).

The first FM radio broadcast (Alpine) by Mayor Thomas Armstrong.

The first submarine ride was on the Passaic River invented by James Holland.

The first brewery in America (Hoboken in 1642).

The first drive-in movie theater (Camden).

The first scheduled ferry service was in NJ.

The first volunteer first aid squad in the US was organized in Belmar.

The first intercollegiate football game was played between Rutgers-Princeton.

The first mail delivered by rocket  was sent from NJ.

The first direct dial long distance telephone service originated in NJ.

The first radar off the moon was bounced from NJ.

The first Yacht club originated in NJ (Hoboken).

NJ has the most diners in the world.

NJ has the most shopping malls in one area.

NJ is the world leader in cranberry and blueberry production.

NJ has the largest seaport in the country (Elizabeth).

NJ has the second-highest  waterfront falls on the East Coast in Paterson.

NJ began game of Monopoly with the names of actual streets in Atlantic City.

NJ originated the Miss America Pageant (Atlantic City).

Oh, and George Washington slept here.