JetStar

How sad! The locally-famous Seaside Heights rollercoaster / victim of hurricane Sandy was finally dismantled and removed from the sea a few days ago. I couldn’t bear to follow the story, though.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a beach person. In fact, I pretty much hate the beach. But I had some very fond memories at Seaside Heights –

Beginning The Silmarillion there at age twelve; writing a story (“The Planet of the Grapes”) that same vacation; winning two Billy Joel albums on a boardwalk spinning wheel; going down dozens of times in my late teens and early twenties with friends, drinking, smoking, having an awesome time thanks to youthful immortality; spontaneously driving down there with my buddy in the pouring rain, stalking a deserted boardwalk, buying a pink hat for my girlfriend; playing miniature golf atop the boardwalk stores, feeling the ocean breeze on my face and the camaraderie of good friends (as well as the ubiquitous Budweiser and Marlboros); reading Dean Koontz on the sand next to my bikini-clad girlfriend; that awesome boardwalk pizza!

And, of course, riding that rollercoaster a hundred times, from age ten to twenty-five. It never grew old.

Haven’t been down there in almost twenty years.

So sad.