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| Casino Pier Seaside, NJ. Rollercoaster in background now in ocean |
No power, fuel
shortages, limited transportation, lack of shelter and heat has made life
almost impossible to bear. My heart and prayers goes out to the victims and
their families of Hurricane Sandy and wishes for a quick recovery and
rebuilding to those affected by the devastation. It’s little comfort to say
material things can be replaced, lives not, when you’ve lost absolutely
everything.
Last night dh and I
sat in our favorite local bar/restaurant having dinner and watched the relief
concert telethon at NBC studios Rockefeller Center with numerous artists: Jon
Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Christina Aguilera, Jimmy Fallon,
Sting, Steven Tyler and others singing familiar songs while a banner ran with
information where people could call or text in to donate toward the relief. www.redcross.org or 1-800-733-2767 (1-800-RED-CROSS) Spread the word on Twitter by #SandyHelp.
To donate for
Hurricane Sandy disaster relief click Here:
Others involved in
the telethon included Matt Lauer, Jimmy Fallon, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Bacon,
Tina Fey and Danny DeVito.
We stared at the
TV, watching the horrific devastation with tears in our eyes and texted in our
donations. In Pennsylvania, we were fortunate. Many are still without power. I
can look down the street from the restaurant and see houses that are dark, a
traffic light out, trees down. I know of friends who had damage to homes and
smashed cars. Kids still aren’t back to school, but this is nothing compared to
what has happened in NJ and NY.
Watching the
pictures of the Jersey Shore was especially heart breaking because I grew up in
New Jersey (Northwest) and spent many summers visiting Seaside Park, Asbury Park,
Point Pleasant, Cape May and Wildwood.
As a kid, we camped
at Ocean View Campgrounds. We started out in a tent then moved up to a pop-up
trailer. At the time, I didn’t know we camped mainly because we couldn’t afford
to stay in a hotel. Camping was fun, and I always got a thrill walking over the
sand dunes each summer to see the ocean. We’d build drip sand castles from wet
sand, body surfed until our fingers were wrinkled, our hair stiff with salt
water and our lips turned blue. Our parents made us sit in the sun to warm up until
our lips were back to normal color before we could go swimming again. We’d eat
half our peanut butter sandwiches and feed the other half to seagulls.
When we
got older we rode bicycles on the boardwalk before 10 AM. In my memories, I can
still smell the salt air breeze and creosote wood of the boardwalk. At night,
we compared our treasure of seashells, played cards, chased lightning bugs,
roasted marshmallows and visited the amusement rides on the boardwalk. I loved
riding the scary ones with my dad. Like the big rollercoaster you might’ve seen
partly submerged in the ocean after the storm.
Electronic games? iPods? Computers? They weren’t invented yet.
As a teenager, I’d
get up at 5 AM and drive down to the shore with friends to beat the weekend
traffic. We’d get to Seaside before the boardwalk and vendor booths opened.
We’d sleep on the beach. Slowly, we’d hear the metal shutters slide open on the
individual booths, and the click-click of the game wheels, smell the onions and
peppers cooking. A huge slice of pizza and frozen custard on a cone was the
treat of the day. And is still my favorite. I held hands with a boyfriend on
the scary rides, who later became my husband and later again my ex-husband.
Still good memories.
The Jersey Shore
will never be the same, but it will be rebuilt. Jersey folk are tough and
good-hearted people.
The Best and Worst of Mankind Emerges in Disasters
I’ve heard from
friends in NJ how tempers are flaring. People can’t get gas, and some are
stealing gas from cars. Without gas people can’t get to work. Relief efforts
don’t seem fast enough. Swat teams have to step in to keep things from getting
out of control. But after living through Hurricane Andrew in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida in 1992, I know the best of mankind also emerges. I’ve been hearing of
random acts of kindness:
Here in PA, a
grocery store offered to replace food items up to a dollar amount if you lost
food. A local hairdresser offered free shampoo and blow drying for those
without hot water. Barnes and Noble in Bethlehem set up extra power strips in
their café so people could come in and charge phones, computers, etc. While a
few neighbors helped us with a tree that had fallen in our yard, a utility
vehicle stopped and the guy asked if we were doing okay. I’m sure he'd been
working some long hours. Power cords were stretched across my street where
neighbors with power were sharing with those without. Our neighbor was plugged
into our outside outlet.
I’ve read where
people were giving away pizza in NYC, a doctor was giving free medical care, a
Tweet from @TheDutchNYC offered free soup and salad, someone with a jetski was
rescuing people in Fairfield, NJ, people with power offered charging stations,
not to mentions the endless hours rescue workers, police, firemen and utility
crews and many other workers were putting in insane hours to help.
There’s a Hurricane Sandy Acts of Kindness Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/HurricaneSandyActsOfKindness?ref=stream&filter=3
Please share any random acts of kindness that you heard about.
At the Friday night telethon concert, Jon Stewart ended with the words, "Jersey strong, man. Keep your heart in it.''
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