Jersey Shore Magazine
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/141619
Bible said about building your house on sand. "Everyone who keeps on hearing these messages of mine and never put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house and it fell with a great crash." (Matthew 7:26-27, International Standard Version 2012). "They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood." (Job 22:16). But these weren't just houses, they were peoples' homes. They had a place in the hearts of the people who lived here over the generations, a shimmering place in their memories: the bracing scent and roaring sound of the ocean carried in on a sea-breeze working its way into their dreams at night, the haunting gong of a buoy, a first kiss under the boardwalk, gulls gliding above a sparkling tideline… These were their first vacation homes that they worked hard to get and expanded for the next generation. It wasn't just the beaches with bathing suits and flip-flops. It was the boardwalks too. They had their own style of clothing: T-shirts and shorts and sandals; their own special foods: frozen custard, cheese steak, pork roll and sausage sandwiches; their own characteristics: bars with rock bands and nightlife, thrill rides and games of chance. These boardwalks were the heartbeat of the Jersey Shore. Belmar, with a special ceremony attended by Governor Christie, has begun to rebuild their famous boardwalk by driving the wooden pilings twenty-five feet-deep into the sand so that the sand can exert more pressure from below to keep them in place. Hopefully the job will be completed by Memorial Day, the unofficial beginning of the summer season. Things will not be exactly the same by the summer of 2013. My bet is that by mid-March on a warm draft of air and southerly wind, a wavy chevron of geese, honking and appearing like a sign in the sky, will bring spring back with them. The ducks and swans will return to the waterways. A favorite place of my best friend Joan, the Manasquan Inlet, will come alive again with white-winged gulls skimming over the fishing boats and jetties. She walks along the shore there when she needs to get away from the day's stresses. "There is something about the place that brings me out of myself...allows me to breathe again," continued on page 18 Sandy's Wrath A tsunamis of wind and water coiled wave-ridden rips boardwalks upturns boats shifts boulders shreds trees breaches island streets. Cars evacuate over one-way out bridges all TV channels go with the weather dead dark in night rain. Morning. The great pine tree that quilted the grass with needles stands; the house next to it gone. Belongings strewn and redistributed by water and wind, fall into odd places: a boat on a trestle, a car up a tree a baby's rag doll in the rose bush. In the shed my shore books lay swollen with the real sea. Down the shore an immense weeping and wailing of people replace the sound of wind and rain. In school we learned storms swallowed the mighty Spanish Armada and changed the course of history. Sandy, you marooned your name in our homes and streets, left a sinkhole in our hearts remade history at the Jersey Shore. Fifty-five thousand tons of sand and debris. For days we dwell by firelight and candles. I bow to the fate that saved my house from floating into the river and bay. Already, cries of restore the shore fill the air. Outside a full moon draws the tide closer and somewhere a generator idles the night away. —Frank Finale 17