First Posted 21 April 2004

My building has this low shudder, every now and again. It's a bit disconcerting, like a low scale tremor you might feel on the west coast. The rumble and noise of the heavy machinery out on the beach are the cause. It's a twenty-four hour-a-day operation to replenish the beach on Absecon Island. Finally the downbeach communities have relented and agreed to have their beaches replenished as well and the whole island will now have the beaches it once had twenty years ago. Kind of. The reason those other communities on our isle were originally opposed to the project was the fact we will have to put dunes on the beach. That's something new to our coastline. And the dunes are almost a story high, blocking the views of those several million dollar homes that line the beach in the more restricted sections of our shared barrier-island strip of land. So as you can imagine, the few very wealthy residents in their floor-to-ceiling window bungalo/mansions had tried to block saving the beach for the tens of thousands of residents and millions of visitors (can you say "shoobie") that live in and visit our little corner of the world. In the past, we would only add to the Atlantic City beaches. But after all the expense, and after a few winter nor'easters, all the sand would wash away to the more southern community of Wildwood, on whose beaches you now actually have to drive to get to the ocean. So I will put up with the shudder, and they will have to put up with looking at dunes so all of you can come on down this summer and enjoy our brand new, wide, fresh beaches. You see, I don't go on the beach, and the shudder will end soon, and I live in a penthouse overlooking the beach and ocean so I don't care about the dunes. "If you have a tan, that means you work in the fields"-Marie Antoinette