Cape May County’s last bridge toll collector inspires Springsteen-esque song

He’s the last bridge toll collector in Cape May County, stationed above Townsends Inlet until E-ZPass takes over April 1. And now, in addition to an Inquirer story, the unassuming bearded Rick Shetler has inspired a song.

The Springsteen-esque song was written and performed — no, not by Bruce himself — but by Billy Aronson, a Doylestown-based musician whose day job is delivering coffee to offices. (And also not the Billy Aronson of Lower Merion who is the playwright who originated the concept of the rock opera Rent.)

Aronson heard the story being discussed on WHYY’s Studio 2 podcast while working in Bucks County delivering coffee and water to offices (also a job with a precarious future).

“This is like the perfect Bruce Springsteen song,” Studio 2’s Avi Wolfman-Arent told cohost Cherri Gregg. “You know like, ‘The last toll collector … last toll collector on the county line...’”

Aronson, who does a mean Springsteen impression (he says he typically will use a kazoo in place of Clarence Clemons' saxophone parts when he covers Springsteen songs), says his brain caught fire behind the wheel.

“When Avi jumped on that last week, I was in my delivery vehicle,” he said in an interview. “When you get my wheels spinning, I can’t stop. I had the song written, at least my portion written, by the time I got home.”

Well I’m leaving Townsends Inlet under cover of the night.

They surrendered me to technology, it just don’t feel right.

Came knocking on the door, said we don’t need you anymore.

I’m the last toll collector down the shore.

His lyrics, with two extra verses supplied by Wolfman-Arent, nail it, though in real life, Shetler was not overly philosophical about his life’s work, or particularly sorry about his forthcoming E-ZPass-induced retirement.

And the interview with The Inquirer was conducted in a less-than-poetic conference room at the headquarters of the Cape May County Bridge Commission, with a commission lawyer sitting in; another layer of the clash of bureaucracy and nostalgia which, Aronson said, got creative juices flowing when he heard about it.

But none of that mattered when Aronson got going, imagining the interior life of a man who spent an expansive career in a booth, having innumerable if truncated conversations with people passing by. “I got very wistful about it,” he said.

For 40 years and change I been collecting tolls.

But it never took a toll on my soul

From my youth there in the booth I always spoke the truth

Now i’m the last toll collector down the shore

The song’s, um, bridge imagines the toll booth as “a nest of glass that helps me pass the hours and keeps me warm.”

The five tolled bridges that connect Cape May County’s barrier island are going all in on E-ZPass beginning April 1. Shetler is retiring after 40-plus years. Some toll collectors will stay on as bridge tenders to open the bridges to marine traffic. All but the newly constructed bridge connecting Longport and Ocean City will still require someone to open them for passing boats.

“It’s another sign of depersonalizing the social interaction,” Aronson said. “It’s ironic because I have E-ZPass now. I swore it off for years. But going over Burlington-Bristol bridge occasionally I’ll still go through the cash lane so I can talk to somebody.”

» READ MORE: Cape May County's last bridge toll taker nears the end in a booth above Townsends Inlet

The Inquirer story led to a wave of nostalgia about the toll collectors on the bridges of Cape May County, including from LuighÁine Shiavone Schultz, the daughter of toll taker Sam Shiavone, who recalled on Facebook that her dad used to fish off the bridge on the midnight shift.

“My dad loved his job,” she wrote. “He met so many people, famous and not so famous. He fished on midnight shift and gave most of them away! He’d forget his lunch, and I’d take it to him … sometimes on purpose I believe. End of an era.”

Up on the bridge, the understated Shetler just smiled as he was played a snippet of the song by a reporter paying the toll, and said he’d have to give it a full listen before knowing exactly what to make of it.

Aronson, speaking by phone on a break from his coffee delivering duties, said he spent three years about two decades ago playing regular gigs in Cape May County bars as part of the Wesley Ochs BaNaNa Trio Project — spots like the Bayshore, the Boiler Room, Kelly’s, Two Mile Landing — and got quite familiar with the toll taker at Grassy Sounds, connecting Wildwood Crest and North Cape May.

“Grassy Sounds, that was my guy,” Aronson said. “It was kind of nice, coming from a gig. We’d chat for a second, or maybe a minute if nobody was behind me.”

Currently Aronson has a new album out as part of his “Bill’s Department Store” project, and performs with another Billy (Billy B. to his Billy A.) as the Billys Be Singin’, also known as Billies B Singin. They’ll be performing at Tod the Mod’s Starving Artist Cafe in Stockton, N.J. at 1 p.m. on Sunday, and Aronson said it’s possible they’ll debut “The Last Toll Collector.”

Here are the rest of the lyrics, beginning with the bridge. (And here’s a link to the full song.)

Oh I landed on this Island Like a bird lands in the storm

A nest of glass, that helps me pass The hours and keeps me warm

But the winds of change are bringing a chill

And I can’t quite close the door.

Oh passing through was easy, it’s the staying that gets tough.

Yea, soon the tides will wash aside every dune and every bluff

I miss every poker card shark who tried to keep the score

I’m the last toll collector down the shore.

I’m the last toll collector down the shore.