Jersey Shore Magazine
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/141619
From The Publisher although I was with it, had resigned myself to living in a B y Saturday, December 1,hope. One monthgetting onour homeIand many of our possessions were depressed state with little earlier, 2013 marks our thirtieth year of publishing magazines, guidebooks, maps, internet sites, and beautiful books about the Jersey Shore. In addition to our two seasonal issues of JERSEY SHORE (spring and fall/ holiday), we also publish during the summer months our popular guidebooks and maps, JERSEY SHORE Vacation Magazine, the JERSEY SHORE Vacation Map, and LONG BEACH ISLAND Vacation Guidebook & Map. Our publications include a companion website, JERSEY SHORE Publications Online (www.jerseyshorevacation.com), the internet's largest and most informative site about the central and northern New Jersey Coast. destroyed by the storm, and the shore was still in state of chaos. Only two weeks ago, power was restored and school started up again, but the challenges that were ahead seemed insurmountable. In addition to attempting to restore our home, which suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage—way more than the $250,000. maximum flood insurance we had, I was faced with keeping this business—this very magazine—and our book publishing division, all about "the Jersey Shore," going in a business climate that was virtually non-existent. Many of our long-term customer's businesses had been damaged or were washed away—they physically weren't there any more. One of our sales offices was flooded. And rumors were afoot that our government was going to make us and thousands of others raise our homes.1 For the past thirty years, my professional and personal life centered on the Jersey Shore. When I wasn't working on creating magazines and books about it, I was living it, enjoying life with my wife on the Metedeconk River while raising our three young children. Now, I thought, all that I had worked for and what my work was about had been destroyed in one night. My sub-conscious had been affected, and I was experiencing all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that I had been reading about—the invisible scars—including reliving the trauma over and over, nightmares, and frightening thoughts of the river rising back up. I had to go to my home each day but I wanted to stay away as it was ground zero. I didn't want to watch the news or read about the storm. I was emotionally numb and felt little joy. I had strong feelings of worry and even unfounded guilt—maybe I deserved this—but not my wife and kids. My thoughts were scattered, and my memory was failing me. I was tense and on edge and had a few angry outbursts, which I will always regret, that were not me. But I was not alone. Almost everyone I ran into had their own story and their own sadness. Over and over I heard "I keep crying" or "It's not the same. Things will never be the same." On this Saturday, I had a full schedule and, like each day now, was determined to get on with it. First, my girls had a J.V. basketball game at their school, St. Peter School, in Point Pleasant Beach. (The faculty of this school and many of the parents whose children attend it had just helped us recover and move what we could from our home as well as supported us emotionally. We literally could not have done it without them, and this school and those families will forever hold a place of love in our hearts.) After the girls played, friends from North Jersey, Anthony and Gloria Ingrassia, stopped by the school while on their way to a birthday party in Toms River to see how we were doing and to give us an unexpected gift of such generosity that no words can express our gratitude. (They would not want me to publish what it was, but as hard as it was to accept—as it was hard to accept the generosity from the families at St. Peter's—it allowed me to feel love again.) We will be forever grateful to the Ingrassias. That evening, my eleven-year-old daughter's friend, Julia, and her younger sister, Amelia, were performing in The Nutcracker at Point Pleasant Borough High School, my alma mater. We had known their parents, Mike and Christine Benol, for years and had recently gotten to know them better, and we loved them both. As I walked into the building, I was surprised to see Charlie Dilatush, owner of the Bay Head Cheese Shop, whose business was destroyed (as well as every other business in Bay Head) by almost seven feet of water. (The Cheese Shop will be reopening in April, and many of the businesses in town will be reopening this spring and summer.) Sitting behind a table, she was selling her famous cheese dips, which are the best, and her husband, Scott, was performing in the show. More than an advertiser in this magazine for years, I had become friends with these people. As Charlie and I embraced, tears welled up in both of our eyes. We were both going to keep going, keep getting on with it. I walked inside the auditorium, sat down, and took in Tchaikovsky's ethereal music. As I sat there in the dark, with my wife and three children beside me, and watched these two beautiful young girls smile and dance their hearts away, four words from a far away place came into my mind crystal clear as if God were speaking to me: "THE JERSEY SHORE LIVES!" —George Valente, Editor and Publisher www.jerseyshorevacation.com • Subscriptions and Book Orders, Toll Free: 888-22-SHORE 1Raise them ten feet it turns out, if you're in the "V Zone," at a cost for us of $100,000. or more or our flood insurance will become $31,000. per year making our property worthless. If this happens (and they say it will), and we can't raise our home, this will render our property unsellable, and we will be forced to tear down the very home we are rebuilding to sell the land and loose all equity we had left. Prudent or not, that the people who work for our government would lay this on thousands of Jersey Shore residents who are still reeling from this catastrophe is insane and unforgivable. It should be our choice, not theirs, and they should leave us alone. Those elected officials who are not fighting to keep this from happening to us should resign in shame, or we should vote them out.