“No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.”—John Donne
In the winter 2013 issue of Sportboat magazine—the issue that’s just hitting the newsstands now—there’s an article I wrote called “Jersey Sure.” It’s a story of how the New Jersey go-fast powerboat community has become one of the strongest communities of its kind, a community that is—for all intents and purposes—a family. For reasons I can’t quite understand and am not sure I want to, I have been adopted into that family. Maybe it’s the vowel at the end of my last name. Maybe, as a native and resident of California, I’m a novelty. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just honored to call them family.
Now, that family is being tested in a way it never has before. Hurricane Sandy didn’t simply destroy lives last week, and by no means am I minimizing that, it changed New Jersey forever. It obliterated places like Seaside Park, Seaside Heights, portions of Atlantic City, areas in and around Toms River and much, much more. The storm created three new inlets to Long Beach Island. It made driftwood out of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, and an artificial reef out of a steel roller-coaster in Seaside Heights.
(Above photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkey/Sharkey Images.)
and then