‘I love the parade. I’m recommitted and happy to keep doing it until I die or drop dead on the parade route’
OCEAN CITY – Get Jeff Shirk to a Halloween Parades Anonymous meeting stat.
It is an addiction he just can’t quit.
You can recognize it right off the bat when he introduces himself.
He doesn’t say he’s the successful adviser at Fortress Financial on Asbury Avenue.
He doesn’t say he’s the husband of well known author Jennifer Shirk.
“Hi,” he says. “I’m Jeff Shirk from the Halloween Parade.”
That is how everyone in the greater Ocean City community knows him because two weeks ago he marked his 20th year running the beloved Ocean City Halloween Parade.
Shirk pulled a Michael Corleone from “The Godfather Part 2” last year, which was supposed to be his 20th. The parade was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, his and Jennifer’s daughter was in college – no longer the tiny little girl when he began – and he thought to himself, “What a great time it would be to give it up.”
But just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.
The “they” would be all the people who have gotten used to him running the parade and pledging more support and help. Include Shirk himself, who decided he just couldn’t quit.
“I guess I’m going to keep doing it until I die,” he said, laughing.
Shirk almost never watches the parade he begins organizing two months in advance every year. He spends more than two hours ahead of time trying to manage all the entrants and get them in order and once it kicks off walking up and down the parade route making sure everything is OK and collecting vendor fees.
“I miss a lot of stuff, which is a shame because I love that parade, but I get to see the chaotic start at Sixth and Asbury. We’re down there at 5 p.m., a bunch of us, and the parade doesn’t start until 7:15. It’s organizing chaos,” he said.
Only once, he said, did he allow himself to relax. His mom and dad were in the crowd. He went into the audience – who regularly pack both sides of Asbury Avenue along the parade route – and watched the parade for a half-hour straight.
“I thought it was great. Other than that, I never know. My only gauge, now that my father has passed on, is my mother. She said, ‘That’s the best one I’ve seen.’ That sounds good to me because I have no clue.”
Fellow Ocean City Exchange Club member Ed Price became his right-hand man and has been with him for 19 of the 20 parades. As for himself, he got involved when he came to Ocean City 21 years ago and was trying to meet people in the community. He told Exchange Club member Tom Heist, who said he knew a perfect way to do just that.
That’s when, Shirk likes to joke, Heist “tricked him” into running the parade.
Heist told him after seven years of running the parade he was thinking of getting out so Shirk shadowed him for a year and then took it over.
Because he said he’s excessively orderly by nature, Shirk took Heist’s “binder of scrap papers six inches think” and organized and computerized it. He’s so organized now, he says, he can tell you exactly the size rubber bands needed to hold the “no parking” covers on the parking meters.
For 20 years now, however, “I never found somebody to trick,” he said, laughing again.
Seriously, he doesn’t want to quit.
He sticks with it because of “the joy of running an event in town so many people love. I’m always trying to make it one of the best events in town. I think it is second longest running Halloween parade in the tri-state area.”
He’s constantly tinkering with the parade, whether removing cars full of politicians years ago (what kids want to see them?), eliminating the mystery marcher because people stopped guessing who it was, adding new elements, or figuring out what to do after discovering late that the company they use for the parade floats has gone out of business.
Shirk notes the parade has never been stopped because of bad weather. Once when he wondered what to do in case of rain, he “called the old pro himself at the time, (former Ocean City publicist) Mark Soifer, and Mark just said, ‘What it is, it is. If it’s raining, it’s whoever shows up. Just send it down the street.’ Ever since then, it is Mark’s words of wisdom. Just send it no matter what. Unless it’s a monsoon or a hurricane. So I’m thankful after two months of work to have a nice night.” Ironically, one of the best weather nights for the parade was a few days before Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012.
Shirk appreciates all the help he gets from the Exchange Club members, his assistant Debbie at Fortress and various other organizations and believes with an influx of new members the club itself will become re-energized.
He, too, is re-energized.
Unless someone tells him they want to take over, expect to see Shirk walking up and down the parade route (sans costume).
“I love the parade. I’m recommitted and happy to keep doing it until I die or drop dead on the parade route.”
“I’m looking forward to the next – I don’t want to say 20 years – but we’ll see.”