Jersey Shore Magazine
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/141619
with me far inland. Now, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sandy, these photos stand out stronger than before. My friends have shown me the photos of the destruction, the losses, and the recovery, which is now being contemplated and mapped out. But many have said they didn't take photos when the subjects, locations, and structures were everyday sights. Like so many things, when they become commonplace, they lose some of their magic—until they are gone. Much of what my photos recorded has become as transient as a sunrise. Like an old postcard, much of what they captured is gone but for fading memories. Yet the lure of what remains will charm those who follow. Gordon Hesse is the author of "All Summer Long: Tales & Lore of Lifeguarding on the Atlantic," "Children of the Sky - The Odyssey of Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca," and "Cuban Blues." He lives in Arden, Delaware. Nature's Supremacy and the Indomitable Heart of Humans by Emanuel di Pasquale A s p r i n g 2 0 1 3 Emanuel di Pasquale is a poet and Professor of English at Middlesex Community College in Edison. He is coeditor of the anthology "The Poets of New Jersey" and author of numerous books of poetry including "Genesis" and "The Silver Lake Love Poems." He lives in Long Branch. • will all be in the ocean cavorting with the gulls," I tell a neighbor who caught walking pneumonia during the storm, when the pots of boiling/ steaming water we used to heat our homes became a mother figure to me and others. For eleven straight days, how we would hug those pots and inhale the steam to keep from freezing in the blue cold night at the Sea Verge apartments. But the stores are open and shoppers are bargaining; the coffee houses are open and people drink their lattes and read the papers. Michael Angelo's Pizzeria is back in business, and the three star restaurants: Sirena, Avenue, and McLoone's are doing fine. People wait patiently for a parking space. But the garbage by the Morris Avenue parking lot stinks up the place, foul odors permeating the air. (I worry about poison in the air from the acrid smell.) Youngsters leave their bikes' imprints on the sand half covering the streets, and I push on and complete my six-mile walk along the living ocean. s h o r e fter the sandblast from the Storm, Pier Village in Long Branch seemed to have retreated to the Jimmy Liu and the pizzeria days: a deserted, frightening place—stores, restaurants, and Gold's Gym all seemed abandoned, and the boardwalk was all torn up. It's early January, and it still is. The huge parking area by Morris Avenue became a garbage dump (still is). To this day, a fence keeps beachcombers off the sand and ocean, and the sea gulls huddle closer than ever, their occasional high flights filled with plaintive screams. Two or three roll with the waves just past the breakers and try to catch a fish. People (older people in particular) still walk but the missing boardwalk and the fence and the sand-strewn streets make it difficult to navigate against slow and not so slow moving traffic. It is beyond human understanding how cars are allowed to drive from South Bath Avenue to Morris Avenue. One would think that Ocean Boulevard would do. After all, there are no stores on that stretch, no real reason for traffic. Still, people seem nicer to each other, nodding, smiling, hailing the 'warmer weather.' "Soon it will be July, and we j e r s e y witnessed people confronting their mortality when they strayed beyond their limits in powerful currents and, literally, beyond their depth. Then life events—marriage, a child, changes in jobs—took me away from the shoreline to Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. As the years went on, I became aware of the longing to return. This led me to write my first book, All Summer Long: Tales & Lore of Lifeguarding on the Atlantic. Drafting this book involved interviewing more than thirty lifeguards and numerous people for whom the ocean was a dominant part of their lives. In the process, I became acutely aware of my love affair with the shore, its culture and its beauty. Almost always I carried a camera with me. The camera helped me to see details more sharply and in new contexts. I found that each time I came to the beach, I noticed subtle beauties and the degrading of the environment as high-density condos replaced cottages and stultifying traffic highways choked with increasing numbers of vehicles. For refuge, I began to go to the Henry C. Phipps Estate, now Island Beach State Park, the largest reserve of undeveloped barrier island in New Jersey and one of the largest in the United States. It had been the seasonal home of Lenape Native American tribes. Today, much of it is nearly the same as when Henry Hudson sailed by centuries ago. I began to appreciate the fall fragrances of bayberry and beach plum, the natural system of dunes, the wildlife, and the beauty of the barrier island, still much of it as it had been widespread one hundred years earlier. To many people, there might be little remarkable about such commonplace sights as sunrises over the surf, dune fences and grass, jetties, pavilions, and boardwalks at night. To me, they have been subtle visual poems and melodies about the times and the timelessness of the Jersey Shore. I spent hours photographing these images so I could take a piece of these beauties and the neighborhood of my youthful memories along 23