Restoring the Shore

I took my son and some friends and their kids to Jenkinson’s Amusement Park in Point Pleasant, NJ, a few weeks ago.  I cautioned everyone that we may only find the arcades open but, to my delight, I was wrong.  The whole boardwalk was up and running at full steam.  The roller coaster, bumper cars and endlessly looping Himalayan were all ready to rock.  The swings took my son and his friend high into the air as they sat in those little seats, gripping the chains that held them up.  They giggled as they flew in circles over a ring of flip-flops waiting patiently on the ground below them.  Toddlers and tykes were mesmerized by the docile boat and fire engine rides while excited tweens squealed over the upside down rides I still harbor leftover anxiety from, so many years later.

My son was most concerned about the water pistol games but they were up and running, too.  For 3 bucks he and his friend and I-- because you need at least 3 people to play-- aimed into our clowns’ mouths, pulled the trigger with steely determination and watched streams of water blow up our balloons.  The boys had made a pact going in that they would pick out a ball on the lowest prize shelf so that they could share it for the rest of the weekend, and when one of them won, they did. 

So, life was good on the boardwalk that day.  The wooden planks we had walked on for generations were replaced with some sort of recycled resin-type material that would reduce splinter angst for generations to come.  The arcades were humming, the hot oil was frying and my girlfriend and I celebrated the gorgeous weather and our Jersey shore weekend with a freshly made Belgian waffle topped with two scoops of ice cream.  Just for us moms.

Yesterday I had a different sort of day at the Jersey Shore when I drove down to check on my aunt’s house in Mantoloking,.  That’s the small town situated on 3 blocks of Barrier Island between the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay.  Most folks would like to think of Mantoloking as solely a bastion for wealthy folks’ spacious vacation homes, but that’s not the whole picture.  My aunt’s home is small by anyone’s terms.  A tiny bungalow, the only reason she has a living room is because my grandfather enclosed the one-car garage 40 years ago.  It’s cozy, lovely and it’s her primary residence—and it took on 4 feet of water after Sandy.             

A friend of my aunt’s owned a grand behemoth of a turn-of-the-century shore house.  The surge wave that breached the dunes took the first floor out from under the 2^nd and 3^rd and left them on the ground like a magician’s tablecloth trick.  Other neighbors came back to check on their houses only to fine that they were gone—wiped off the map.  Of the 521 homes in town, over 200 were destroyed or disappeared.  All of them were damaged.  Some were inherited, yes, and some were fancy, but everyone had worked hard to maintain them—some for generations.  To say that a wealthy person’s loss is negligible would be like telling a parent who lost a child, “At least you still have other kids.”  Loss is loss—unique and valid to everyone who suffers.  Mantoloking still has a way to go.

Some of the aged retired folks in town have had no other recourse than to walk away, their houses still split in half, roofs and walls torn off by the wind.  Piles of rubble still dot the landscape like war photos and eerie plots of sand provide new and unexpected views to landscapes no one ever expected to see-- monuments to the storm.  Most homeowners have been rendered catatonic by the decisions they face— keep or sell, tear it down or fix it up, raise it 6, 8, now 11 feet above sea level or take the risk and leave it be.   What to do?  My aunt still doesn’t know.

But it’s come along way, believe it or not.  One of the streets I turned down became an inlet the night of the storm, connecting ocean to bay and taking several homes with it.  Friends had had to row a boat across to check on their houses after the storm, but it was filled in now, good as new.  I drove past an older woman standing in her yard, her damaged house sagging behind her, wearing work gloves.  She was stone-still, staring ahead just feet from the road.  When she caught my eye, I said, “Hang in there.”  I didn’t know what else to say.

The town is coming back, slowly but surely, like other towns up and down the New York and New Jersey coast.  Townspeople, working together with FEMA, have done an amazing job re-securing basic utilities, moving the sand back to the sea, and keeping morale high and information flowing.   The beaches are open and still beautiful, the fries are still greasy, and the boardwalks’ betting wheels are spinning just for you.  Boutiques, surf shops and cafes are open.  Mini-golf is waiting.  The shore is being restored.  Get down there.