A Blog Post About My Blog, the Jersey Shore, and Hurricane Sandy

So, today I decided that I should try and clean up my blog layout a little.  I've been doing this for almost a year now, and it's been kind of an organic thing- I wasn't sure why I was doing it, or where it would go.  Someone told me when I started that a blog should have a specific focus- it should be funny, or about cooking, or fashion, or child-rearing.  I obviously did not follow that advice.  This one is all over the place. But, since I look at it as a sort of journal, about my life, then it has to be all over the place. Because that's the way I am.

I also thought, in case someone comes across my blog, it would be nice to have some sort of explanation of what it's about.  It's really not about fish, although I like them as a recurring theme.  I tried a bunch of headings, hoping to come up with something clever and meaningful, and I've already changed it several times.  And then I thought, why not change it whenever I want? Because my blog isn't really about anything- so I can change the description of it to fit my mood.

I was going to write about the hurricane today and what my family and friends are going through in NY and NJ, and how sad all the devastation of my favorite childhood places at the Jersey shore has made me this week. Instead I'll just tell this story.  When we were kids my grandfather had a house on the beach in Mantaloking where I spent my summers, starting at age 2 months. When I was around 6 my parents bought a house across the street, which we spent from the day after school got out till the day before it started, ever summer, till I was a teenager.  Some of my best memories are from those months in Ocean Heights Association.  And now it's gone. It's hard to fathom, along with the rest of the hardship and destruction that Hurricane Sandy left in her wake.

Here's a picture of my sister Bernadette and I in 1972.  We would cut through the rabbit-filled shrubs behind our house to wave to people we knew when they left our house to drive on Rte. 35 back to northern NJ.  Everything behind us in this picture is gone.