A new website has been created to promote Tom Davis's book, "A Legacy of Madness: Recovering My Family From Generations of Mental Illness."
The website can be found here. Also, feel free to friend and follow the book on Twitter and Facebook.
The book, which will be released Sept. 1, 2011, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Borders' websites for pre-order. Amazon describes the book thusly:
"Dorothy Winans 'Dede' Davis had worried, fussed, and obsessed for the last time. Her heart stopped beating in a fit of anxiety, soon after her wobbly legs gave way. In the wake of his mother's death, Tom Davis knew one thing: Helplessly self-absorbed and severely obsessive compulsive, Dede led a tormented life. She had moved from nursing home to mental institution in recent years, but what really caused her death?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
New website for A Legacy of Madness
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Date for Tom Davis's book, "A Legacy of Madness," has been pushed up to Sept. 1
By SUSAN DOWD STONE
Featured Blogger
The release date for award-winning journalist Tom Davis's book, A Legacy of Madness: Recovering My Family From Generations of Mental Illness, has been moved up to Sept. 1.
Davis, who created this blog, has been writing about psychiatric issues for years. His first-person accounts and interviews with those who have suffered from chronic mental illness are deeply moving and realistic.
The book is available through pre-order on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tom Davis set to release "A Legacy of Madness" on Oct. 3
By SUSAN DOWD STONE
Featured Blogger
Award-winning journalist Tom Davis, who created this blog, has been writing about psychiatric issues for years. His first-person accounts and interviews with those who have suffered from chronic mental illness are deeply moving and realistic.
The book, which is available through pre-order on Amazon.com, will be released Oct. 3.
Through his website, Coping With Life, visitors leave with an indelible understanding of the experience of mental illness through the voices of those who are challenged to manage its symptoms, interact with our mental health systems and deal with the chronic, unmitigated stigma, which can become, unto itself, a daunting recovery task.
Last year, Tom received the Golden Bell Leadership Award from the Mental Health Association in New Jersey. He was one of only six people in the nation to have received The Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship in 2004. He taught a groundbreaking course on Mental Health Issues in the Media at Farleigh Dickenson University. He has written consistently about postpartum-depression legislation and frequently invites guest bloggers to post on the topic.
With the publication of his new book, A Legacy of Madness, Tom extends his powerful advocacy force to the world of print publications.
Following is an excerpt about A Legacy of Madness:
“Dorothy Winans 'Dede' Davis had worried, fussed, and obsessed for the last time. Her heart stopped beating in a fit of anxiety, soon after her wobbly legs gave way. In the wake of his mother's death, Tom Davis knew one thing: Helplessly self-absorbed and severely obsessive compulsive, Dede led a tormented life. She had moved from nursing home to mental institution in recent years, but what really caused her death?
The story of a loving family coming to grips with its own fragilities, A Legacy of Madness relays Tom Davis's journey to uncover, and ultimately understand, the history of mental illness that led generations of his suburban American family to their demise. Investigating his mother's history led to that of Davis's grandfather, a top administrator at one of the largest psychiatric hospitals in the country; his great-grandfather who died of self-inflicted gas asphyxiation during the Depression; and his great-great grandmother who, with her eldest son, may have helped complete two suicides one tragic day.
Ultimately, four generations of family members showed clear signs of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and alcoholism—often mistreated illnesses that test one's ability to cope.
Through this intimate memoir we join Davis on a personal odyssey to ensure that the fifth generation recover their family legacy by getting the help they need to lead healthy, balanced lives. In the end, we witness Davis's powerful transition as he makes peace with the past and heals through forgiveness and compassion for his family and himself.”
I have preordered the book with the knowledge that this will not be an easy weekend read.
Instead, I expect to be profoundly moved by the kind of courage and honesty unique to someone whose knowledge of such issues goes beyond textbooks and clinical practice and comes straight from his own soul.
He writes about families you may know.
There are echoes of my grandmother who "fell on her head" - the explanation given for the dark moods and incredible rages that alternated with periods of engaging warmth, Canasta, Red Sox games and Brighams ice cream. You may recognize your brother, your uncle, or your cousin in his words.
You may recognize yourself as someone who has suffered, struggled or seeks to reverse a mother-daughter impasse which remains unresolved despite generations of pain.
Tom brings to light the accumulation of family trauma that can result when mental health issues remain unaddressed across lifetimes. But the book ultimately brings a transformational hope to those who seek a different outcome.
There are hundreds of websites where you can find information about signs, symptoms, treatment centers, complementary medicine and medication for mental illness. But there are very few online or print refuges where you can spend time with individuals who have suffered chronic mental illness and come to a compassionate understanding of its total impact.
With depression stealthily advancing to the number one position of world health crises, such understanding cannot be postponed any longer. It is time to mitigate and reverse the widening ripple of often generational transmission of mental illness and its devastating long term effects.
Tom's book, A Legacy of Madness, takes on this challenge.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
From homeless, to jail, to......worse?
“Can I stop talking now?”
Yes, Ron was told. You can stop talking.
“Can I hang up?”
Yes, Ron. Go ahead.
So Ron Troche got off the telephone, and went back to his “pod,” a big cell at the Bergen County Jail with no bars. He would go back to the bunk beds that were packed closely together, and sharing space with guys who, he said, “don’t play with a full deck.”
He’d go back to reading some book he’d enjoy - Tom Clancy, Stephen King. But in jail, there weren’t enough of them. So he’d play cards. Or maybe some television, and some boring program.Or he’d eat. If he wasn’t hungry, he’d pace. He’d go to his closet, and arrange his clothes.
Then the lights would dim, and he’d got to his bunk. The other inmates would sleep, and even snore. Ron? He’d just sit there, in the near-dark, for hours, fussing and fidgeting. When he got anxious, he’d scrape his bottom lip against his teeth.
Sitting there, he could feel his blood pressure rise, and his mind race. Other people called it “demons.” But Ron didn’t think they were “bad” - he thought everybody had them.
But they didn’t. Even the people in his “pod” - the so-called mental health unit at the jail - thought he was weird. Other inmates would poke fun at him, even though they had the same issues.
Ron was an easy target. He’s a short guy - about 5 foot 4. In jail, he was sort of quiet, and often looking scared and nervous. He was always asking for permission to do things.
“They don’t understand,” he said. That made Ron feel lonely.“I read again and again … my eyes get tired. I read a chapter or two a night,” Ron, who suffers from bipolar and obsessive-compulsive disorders, said in October. “That’s the only way I go to sleep.”
But every night was the same. Eat, drink, get anxious. All because he tried to steal tools from a Jeep. He’d get these feelings that made him sad. He missed the heroin that made him feel “normal.”
And then, by the grace of God, Ron got news that “shocked” him: He was getting out.
And the other inmates heard this, and watched him pack, in amazement. This was a guy who paced and fussed, a lot. This was a guy who talked about how he felt like crying, but had to stop himself.
How did he do it?
Ron’s ticket was “jail diversion,” a program that provides alternatives to jail for inmates with mental illness. With few community resources available to them, the goal is to steer non-violent offenders away from a life of crime, and repeated stints in county jail or state prison.
Under the program, they may get a lighter sentence. They may even get an early release, and transfer to a treatment program. The bottom line, however, is they get something that’s rarely available in a steel-and-concrete prison cell: Help.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” said John Molinelli,
Years ago, the state awarded a two-year $250,000 grant to
“I’m very anxious. I’ve been here nine to 10 months,” Ron said, in October. “I’ve done everything I possibly can. I’m ready to leave.”
But not everybody can be Ron. The rules for entering the program are strict. Funding is limited, and with few other resources available, the program turns away many more people than it helps.
“I think this is something that is going to work,” Molinelli said.
Left: Ron TrocheNationally, mental health experts - as well as law enforcement - say jail diversion is becoming a more effective and humane way of treating inmates with mental illness than locking them away in jail.
“The folks who are, by and large, served by the jail diversion programs - they’ve committed low level crimes,” Honberg said. “These are, by and large, not hardened criminals. These are people who attract the attention of the police for whatever reason.”
Hundreds of jail diversion programs, as a result, are popping up across the
In
Some critics deride such programs as “get-out-of-jail-free cards” that don’t effectively deter crime. But jail diversion advocates say they’re limiting - and, in some regions, reducing - the number of repeat offenders returning to prison. The main goal, they say, is to treat people before they do something worse.
“The point of jail diversion is to stop the cycle of having them return to jail,” said Michelle Naples, whose organization, the
When he served as chairman of Care Plus’ Board of Trustees several years ago, Molinelli said, he became sensitive to the plight of prisoners with mental illness. He heard stories from people who struggled to survive in lock-ups that lack the counseling, medical, and rehabilitation services of the outside.
As prosecutor, he has had no interest in “locking up” people with mental illness if they can be treated elsewhere, he said.
In 2002, Molinelli formed a task force that consists of local representatives of the judicial, law enforcement, and criminal defense fields. Their brainchild was jail diversion, even though Molinelli knew it came with some risk.
As prosecutor, Molinelli’s sworn duty is to prosecute criminals and punish them for their crimes. But his support was critical, he said. Without the backing of law enforcement, the program wouldn’t work.
Besides reducing the caseload for law enforcement, Molinelli views it something that’s simply the right thing to do.
“My ass is on the line if we make the wrong decision,” Molinelli said. “If one of those people in the program pushes somebody into a railroad train, then that’s the last you’ll hear of me. I’m done.”
Right now, it’s a pilot program, receiving about 10 percent of the funding that
Next year, Molinelli hopes to obtain a federal grant - perhaps as much as a $1 million - to expand the program. Until the county gets more money, however, the program will be small, progress will be slow, and the rules for entering will be strict.
“We just took a baby step,” Molinelli said. “I will never see the benefits of this program. This is 10- to 20-year program. I’d like to think by then it [jail diversion] will be the norm.”
Other jail diversion programs serve hundreds of inmates at a time; Care Plus, on the other hand, had about 17 active cases by the end of December. Many more inquire about the program, but they fail to qualify.
Only non-violent offenders can participate, and they must be
Since the Bergen County Jail is a temporary holding cell for prisoners before they’re sentenced, the program helps some inmates steer clear of a stiffer penalty - such as a transfer to state prison. The goal is readjusting to society, and avoiding a return to jail.
“Our goal was to provide a level of service,” said Gary Dock, manager of the Care Plus program. “It is a level of service that’s effective so they don’t end up back in jail.”
Mostly, Care Plus provides an “infrastructure” to inmates with mental illness that’s not normally available to them, Dock said. Case managers drive them to the doctor, help pay their fines, accompany them to court, and serve as a liaison to their families and lawyers.
They talk to counseling programs and search for space for inmates with a history of substance abuse. They reinstate their benefits that they received on the outside. They make sure they have housing, and that they can pay the rent.
They meet with the inmates on a weekly basis - at a minimum - and learn early who’s ready for the program, and who isn’t.
Every Tuesday, members of Care Plus’ jail diversion staff - which consists of a supervisor, two case managers and an intern - sit in a small, pale room at the jail’s mental health unit, and chat with the prisoners. They’re particularly anxious to talk to Mike Lang, a case manager, and worry when he shows up late.
“The jail has been extremely accommodating,” Dock said. “I have done suicide-awareness seminars at the jail and they [corrections officers] have been extremely receptive.”
Inside the small meeting room, Lang and the inmates set up chairs. A television sits there, turned off. Stacks of books are packed into case, untouched.
As the inmates walk in, Lang assesses who has an interest in helping themselves. If they’re up to it - and they satisfy the rigid conditions - he signs them up.
If they don’t qualify, they’re politely turned away. Inmates with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder get frustrated - even angry - when they hear of the program, but discover that it’s not for them.
Right: Don Cardinali
In the jail, however, he followed the rules, and attended the weekly group meetings with Care Plus representatives. Initially, he displayed a genuine interest in helping himself. But when Care Plus offered to help get him into a treatment program, Don balked.
Don stayed in jail. Weeks later, he got in a yelling match that landed him in “lockdown,” separating him from his unit. Don said he was “stripped naked” and put in a sleeveless outfit that looks like a blue pleated blanket. He calls it “a chicken suit.”
“I’m in a chicken suit, freezing my ass off,” Don said in December, “and I’m being punished for sticking up for myself.”
For Ron and Don, the process began - in earnest - in the summer and early fall. Ron was arrested in January 2004; Don in July. But every week, they had to sit in the same, small room with 10 other inmates in the
Others would walk by, wearing orange jumpsuits, and sandals or high-tops with Velcro straps. They’d walk by the tables with the painted checkerboards that were never used.
They’d quickly glance through the big picture window outside the room where Lang and his group met. Then they would keep walking.
“How are you today?” Lang would say. And then he, and his partner, Jennifer Stratton, would sit and listen.
Usually, Lang and Stratton would only speak when they were asked a question. In some cases, Lang - a former probation officer - knew the answer before he was even asked. The inmates would be impressed.
“I have my ways,” he once quipped.
When the meetings began, the inmates would slouch in their chairs, and fold their arms. A moment of uneasy silence would quickly pass. When the time was right, they would unload - big time.
It usually came in rants and rapid-fire outbursts - usually about the food, their fellow inmates, and their strong desire to get out.
Their lawyers weren’t calling them back, they’d say. They’d call others - including family members - collect. But they wouldn’t accept the charges. They’d complain about not getting their medications - or getting too much.
They’d hear talk that they were heading to a psychiatric facility, when they thought they’d be released. They were being “screwed,” they’d say. They’d get so frustrated, some would talk about how they wanted to “hurt” somebody.
“I had all this anger,” Sherod Mair, 37, an inmate accused of assaulting a cop, told the group in August. “Marijuana was my thing. But right now, I don’t want to put anything in my body.”
They would ask Lang for help. They wanted to get back on their feet. They wanted to avoid a state prison sentence. Most had been there, they said. They didn’t want to return to the place with the “roaches and the rapists,” they said. They’d rather be in the county jail, the “country club.”
Lang would offer suggestions. Keep trying, he’d say. If you have a complaint, file it. But they wanted more: They’d ask to be a part of the diversion program.
If they were qualified, Lang would offer to do an intake, and ask a list of questions that addresses their readiness.
Most of the time, however, they weren’t ready. But Lang would politely listen to them, anyway.
During an August meeting, Don sat, looking frustrated and glum. He was clutching his arm, and slouching in his chair. His blonde hair was long, and needed a comb. He was in a room with 10 other guys, but he looked cold and alone.
For Don, it was the same old story. For some time, he wasn’t hearing from his lawyer, or anybody else he could reach on the outside. That week, somebody threw his underwear behind the washing machine. He was frustrated, angry, confused. He was rambling.
He carried his honeybuns in a pillow sack because an inmate picked on him, and tried to steal his food. He would keep his coffee grounds in a plastic bag, roll it up, and stick it in his sock.
“I lost my job. I lost everything,” Don, a self-described musician who worked in radio and recording studios, told Lang. “I appreciate you coming here, but I feel like I hit a brick wall on a motorcycle going 100 mph … No wonder I’m mentally ill, because I feel like I’ve been beaten to a pulp.”
Then he went silent, and waited for the others to finish. He had to wait a long time. He would raise his head, or his hand, and get ready to speak. But somebody would butt right in. They had similar issues, but they rarely felt compelled to include him.
The others spoke about how they had everything, too. They were ex-stockbrokers who lost money in the 1987 crash, they said. Or they lived in nice houses “near golf courses,” they claimed, and didn’t belong in jail. They wanted out.
“I knew what I was doing when I did it,” said Phillip DeMarco, 44, who was accused of threatening a state Superior Court judge. “I don’t like to take medications, second. I don’t like to be around people with mental health issues.”
Many of them - but not Don - had a history of violent offenses. Or they were
Most thought there was nothing wrong with them. They were framed. They were innocent. It was a conspiracy. In that August meeting, they went on and on about it. For two hours, Lang politely listened. Besides offering some advice, that was about all he could do.
“We can’t physically case manage them,” Dock said. “But it’s [the meeting] our opportunity to guide them through the system.”
By the time Don finally got to speak, again, he was tired. He kept apologizing for what he was saying, or what he was about to say. He didn’t want to keep Lang there too long. But it was his only opportunity, he said. He just wanted some attention.
“I just screamed out loud from the other end of the room,” said Don, complaining about the underwear incident. “I just scared the hell out of everybody.”
Then he went silent, again. Five minutes later, he left. Just minutes later, Lang did, too.
Every week, Lang came back. And every week, he got the same crowd. Nevermind that most of them didn’t qualify for jail diversion. They still attended the meetings, and they were still hopeful they could find a way in.
By mid-September, however, some hurt their chances of ever getting any kind of help. They were arguing with the other inmates. They got into fights, and found themselves in “lockdown.”
When Lang visited on Sept. 14, one inmate stood outside his cell door, pulled his “chicken suit” down to his waist, and waved through the meeting room window. Few were amused by the gesture, and most ignored him.
Inside the meeting room, there was tension. Phil was complaining about how everybody - his attorney, his family - was stealing his money. He was bitter, paranoid. There was nothing wrong with him, he said. Yeah, he used cocaine before. But he was fine. Everybody else was crazy.
“I don’t have any compassion for people going around robbing people,” he said.
Phil was talking quickly, and loudly. Others struggled to get a word in, but Phil would raise his voice, and drown them out.
Bill Lillo, another inmate, told him not to monopolize the time. But Phil kept going, leaning forward in his chair, staring at Lang, gesturing with his hands, and ranting and raving about his sorry life.
“My life has been sh-t,” he said. “I’m sitting here in jail, and it’s not fun. … I really try to write letters on my behalf, but it’s getting nowhere.”
Even Lang had had it. Normally, he let people talk. But he got tired of Phil and his rambling. “Where are we going with this, Phillip?” he said. “Because it’s not going anywhere.”
Phil finally quieted. Then he acknowledged something obvious: His mouth always got him into trouble.
Within minutes, the tension abated. The give-and-take got better. Some inmates even joked. A few started to smile. Phil just sat there, quiet.
Some asked Lang if they could meet with him later. One of them was Bill. He had a laundry list of issues. When the meeting ended, Lang gave him the benefit of his time.
Bill told him everything: He was busted for drugs. He had been in a car accident, and he was still suffering from the lingering effects. His pain felt like a “toothache in my eyeballs. That’s why I started smoking marijuana,” he said.
The 51-year-old had been in therapy with a psychologist. But why would his eyes swell up whenever he stood near a vacuum? Maybe he wasn’t getting the right medicine.
“My body is in atrophy. I’m curling in up into a ball,” he said. “It’s unfair. It’s unfair treatment.”
He and Lang shook hands, and Bill left. Afterward, Lang was asked if he could help him. He shook his head, no. He wasn’t a county resident.
Weeks later, Don was getting ready to leave. The Care Plus people were ready to help him, and spoke of getting him into a treatment program.
Don just wanted out. He still hadn’t heard much from his lawyer. He had fines of more than $4,000. What if he got out, and he couldn’t find a job? He’d go crazy.
Maybe Lang could help him with that. He and others from Care Plus met with him, and talked to him about his options. Don listened politely, but didn’t agree to anything. But to Care Plus, he seemed receptive.
Care Plus offered promise - certainly more than any other program. No other program talked about release. That’s all Don cared about. He didn’t want to consider anything else.
Don looked forward to a new life, even if he didn’t know what it was going to be like. For once, he felt good enough to laugh, and joke a little.
“I’m just praying that everything takes shape,” Don said.
He was to be sentenced on Oct. 12. Prior to that, Care Plus helped him get everything in order. The organization would provide him the safe landing, help him pay his bills, and possibly get him in touch with his family.
His attorney, Diane D’Alessandro, was working on a plea deal: The charge of fourth-degree possession of methadone would be dropped. Fourth-degree public alarm would stick. Maybe he’d get probation, and no additional jail time.
On Oct. 12, around 9 a.m., in Superior Court Judge Eugene Austin’s courtroom, his name was read aloud. Only Don wasn’t there.
There was a snag: The assistant prosecutor, Susan O’Donnell-Voorman, wanted him in treatment, and she needed an answer immediately. Without an agreement, he would stay in jail until the matter was resolved.
Care Plus hadn’t nailed down that end of the bargain yet. In the courtroom, Stratton sat in the audience, talked to D’Alessandro, and tried to work something out. The attorney asked: What about partial hospitalization?
“We could get him into a program, but this may not be what he wants,” Stratton said. “We have to get him somewhere.”
Later that day, Care Plus dispatched Brad Storey, an intern in the program, to talk to Don in jail. He discussed his options. This time, Don didn’t like any of them.
Don had gone through several rehabilitation stints over the past two decades. Forgive him, he said, for being skeptical.
“It’s like - what is it? - checkmate,” Don said later.
After Storey left, Don went back to sleep. Hours later, he rose from his bunk, and looked straight ahead. His stare was blank, and empty. He was angry. He was frustrated.
Seventy-six days in jail, he said. Another 30, 60, 90 in rehab. Hell no. He had it. He wanted out.
“I had my expectations high. They’re dashed … That’s a curveball,” he said, later. “You know what that means? Another institution. I don’t really need to do that again … I’ll go find some dive hotel for $40 a night.
“Right now, I’m 76 days clean. I don’t need to go back to these street drugs,” he said. “We’ve gotten beyond the point of fairness. I can’t allow this to keep going on.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 18, it was raining hard. The sky was dark and gloomy. Inside the meeting room, the mood was worse.
No basketball today at the court with the barbed-wire fence. No sunshine coming through the window. Just darkness and depression.
On this morning, the inmates were peculiarly quiet. This time, they had to be prodded to talk.
“Every one looks so gloomy,” Stratton said.
“It’s a gloomy day outside,” Perry Jackson, an inmate, said.
Don was there, too. But he showed up very late. At first, he quietly waited for everybody else to talk. But when he spoke, he didn’t stop. This time, he didn’t roll over.
Right off the bat, he kept pointing at his stomach, saying it “it hurts. It hurts!” He didn’t know why. He was still angry, and a bit manic. He felt like he was “screwed,” he said.
He hoped to be on the outside, he said, taking care of his sick mother. Now he’s feeling sick, he complained. He was convinced that he was going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
“They tell me, ‘In three weeks you’re going home.’ Then they say ‘three more weeks, you’re going home,’ and then ‘three more weeks your going home,’Ÿ” he told Lang. “I don’t believe it’s fair. I believe I’ve served my time here … If I have to go to a funeral in a jumpsuit, then that’s going to be a very bad thing.”
Lang said he’d try to help, but he didn’t offer much else. Don thanked him, and then apologized. Then he went silent again.
Later, Sherod Mair spoke. He asked if he was qualified for the program, or a related program. But Mair had a violent offense on his record. This time, Lang didn’t mince words. He looked a little weary himself.
“No,” he said. So Sherod left.
Ron was there, too. He was the one guy who was alert and ready. His eyes were wide open. He sat straight up in his chair, and fiddled with his fingers.
Ron was entering the jail diversion program. His focus was on leaving the jail, and what he planned to do on the outside.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He pushed a guy out of the way while he was robbing a car in Carlstadt. He faced a five-year state prison sentence for his offense.
But Ron has a 21-year-old son, and a mother who was worried sick about him. If that meant he had to swallow his pride, and comply with the terms of jail diversion, so be it.
He admitted he had a problem. While in jail, he didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t complain about the food, or getting beat up. If he kept doing everything right, he was told, he’d get out.
“I’m ready to leave,” said Ron. “I can’t sleep on top of that.”
For Troche, Lang agreed to do an “intake.” On Nov. 3, the day after Election Day, he arrived, holding a stack of papers. This time, no one - other than Ron - would meet with Lang.
Ron sat there, his tattooed arms resting on his thighs. His leg was shaking. Occasionally, he glanced through the window. But mostly, he stared straight ahead, and waited for Lang to guide him along.
Lang handed him one form after the other. Ron glanced briefly at each, and signed what he could.
“If you had some goals,” Lang asked, “what would they be?”
“To get my license back,” Troche said. “My father’s got no tombstone on his grave. I want to put that on.”
They put together a plan that would help map out the next few months of Ron’s life. They talked about treatment programs. They talked about jobs.
If it was agreeable - and for Ron, it usually was -he simply nodded “yes,” signed the form, and moved on.
On the other side of the meeting room window, the other inmates grabbed their food. Don was one. He was carrying his pillow sack, and later, a food tray.
At one point, Don slowed up a little, and made a quick glance through the window. He saw Ron and Lang. His eyes were sad-looking, and he was frowning. Then he picked up his pace and, carrying his tray, disappeared from sight.
Lang kept asking questions. He asked who won the presidential election the day before. “Bush, right?” Ron said.
Lang asked him whether he felt somebody was following him. Ron said he’d heard voices before, but not lately.
Lang then quickly glanced through the windows. Ron kept looking out there, so Lang was curious.
“Are they holding a tray for you?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Ron said. “I hope.”
“Eating OK?” Lang asked.
“I’m not even hungry,” Ron said.
Lang went back to writing. Finally, Ron stopped shaking his leg, and looked right at Lang. His stiff look loosened.
“My mother - I don’t know if she’s helping me,” Ron said. “You’re the only one who is.”
“I’m trying,” Lang said.
Monday, January 24, 2011
In war, killing is down; suicide is up
For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congress.org.
The reasons are complicated and the accounting uncertain, according to the website — for instance, should returning soldiers who take their own lives after being mustered out be included?
But the suicide rate is a further indication of the stress that military personnel live under after nearly a decade of war, the website states.
Figures released by the armed services last week showed an alarming increase in suicides in 2010, but those figures leave out some categories, the website says.
Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009, the website says.
The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle, the website says.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Darren DeGraw, Manville and PTSD
Sometimes post-traumatic-stress disorder can take years to manifest itself. For Darren DeGraw, my Point Pleasant Boro High classmate from 1985, it took 11.
Darren was 39 when he died in 2006 in Lake Worth, Fla., of possible heart failure, according to The Princeton Packet. But what happened in 1995, shortly after joining the Manville, N.J. police force, may have been what ultimately did him in.
Darren, who had also lived in Barnegat, resigned on June 30, 2005 from the Manville force because of the PTSD he suffered from following a 1995 shooting, his ex-wife, Donna DeGraw, once told The Princeton Packet.
Even as he suffered, he apparently showed the same leadership spirit he had as a high school student, hoping to revive a community that had a wrecked economy and a population that suffered from a debilitating and deadly illness.
But there is only so much a person can do to save themselves, especially when they face the tragedy of depression and trauma that not only affects those around them. Mental illness is often a force bigger than ourselves. For Darren, it was a force that - despite the good life he led - was too big to conquer.
READ MORE
Thursday, December 30, 2010
What I've learned
Almost five months have passed, and I've done my best to move on with my life after so many years of doing the same thing.
Ironically, moving on, and doing something else, also meant reconnecting with the past.
The first was my job, and leaving behind The Bergen Record to become the Jersey Shore regional news editor for Patch.com.
I never thought I'd ever see myself at the shore again, other than quick visits to Sandy Hook. But here I am, publishing old photographs of me standing outside the charred remains of the OB Diner in 1989 in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., or pointing at the fallen garage doors of a landmark bar at Jenkinson's Beach and Boardwalk, also the victim of a 1989 fire.
Or there I am, standing in the front yard of our Point Pleasant house, with my arm around my brother, flashing a wide smile.
I also have a publisher, Hazelden, that has agreed to publish and distribute my book on mental illness by the end of next year. The book will explore the history of my family, and its connections to OCD and other disorders.
That, too, has led me to sift through old photographs - many of which were shot before I was around - and reconnect with my family's past, way back to when my grandfather was the personnel director at Greystone Psychiatric Hospital in North Jersey, and was a sufferer of OCD himself.
I've felt so much more inspired as a writer, because now I've been given license to talk about myself and the things that matter most to me: Family, hometown and history. At Patch.com, I've written about that history for my column, Shoreview.
Four months into this, the ideas never stop.
Shoreview: A Point Pleasant Story
Back in the 1980s, at Rutgers, I was the Jersey Shore kid. I was asked so many questions about it that I sometimes thought I was the only Jersey Shore kid.
My answers, however, were always so lame. I never had an exciting story to tell. What I had to offer was always more goofy than glamorous.
Ultimately, everybody probably thought I was the only Jersey Shore kid who was dull.
"You're from the Point Pleasant?" they'd say. "Do you surf?"
"Sure," I'd say. "Poorly."
"Wow, but, you live at the Shore," they'd say. "You must have a lot of money."
"Well, no," I said. "My father had to work as a bartender in the summer because he couldn't make enough as a principal."
"Oh...," they'd say. "I bet you're a great swimmer."
"Actually," I told them, "I took three swimming lessons at the River Avenue beach, and failed all three of them."
"Oh, OK."
"The teacher once got so frustrated with me that he picked me and threw me into the water..."
"OK, that's good...."
I'd try to spice it up. Yeah, we swam—at Sportsman Island in Brick, or in the Manasquan River at the end of River Avenue, because Jenkinson's was often just a little too crowded.
The sand was always a little too itchy. When I got older, my stomach could never handle too much booze, so I sipped Budweisers and chugged sodas while I watched everyone around me get plowed at Martell's Tiki Bar.
Yeah, I worked at the beach. Only I was running rides on the boardwalk and wearing an ugly green shirt with food and grease stains; not OP shorts with a shirt from the Brave New World surfshop.
I had a tan, yeah, but not a sexy Tony Hawk tan. My tan was a shirt tan.
Yeah, I fished. Caught some fluke once in the Point Pleasant Canal. But my mother made me throw everything back. I guess you could say we "fished for sport."
The more I talked, the more you could see the disappointment sink into their faces. Girls would hang out in my room and ask these questions, all excited to hear me speak. Then they'd slink away when they found out I was, well, no more exciting than they were.
Isn't that just like some people, though? They just don't get it. What they didn't get is that what we lacked in wealth, we gained in the richness of life.
What they didn't get was that Point Pleasant Borough—or "Point Boro," as it's known—is like many other well-preserved towns in New Jersey. Sure, it doesn't have a glamour of a place like Hawaii or Florida. It's too cold between September and May to be a destination resort.
But I'd always choose it first. It's a place that, after many years away, you could still come back and call it your own.
It always was—and still is—a close-knit community, a town that cares about its football, its small businesses and its people. Point Boro is a town that has a main street—Bridge Avenue—that is really a patchwork of small strip malls. But it's simple, and everybody knows where everything is.
We had one high school, a middle school and two elementary schools, allowing many of us to grow together from kindergarten to high school graduation, and beyond.
The class leaders are now among the town's leaders, and they've carried that "Panther Pride" with them from the Student Council and National Honor Society to the Borough Council, Planning Board and the Chamber of Commerce.
My family's Barton Avenue house (see picture) was knocked down soon after my mother's death in 2003. But I guess I qualify as one of those people, too, who resisted temptation and stuck around, or came back after getting a taste of glamour that the rest of the world supposedly provides.
After years of reporting that brought me to places as far and disparate as Afghanistan, I'm excited to be back, and to have come full circle since my buddy, Bill Borden, and I were editors of our high school newspaper, The Panther Print, 25 years ago.
I'm the regional editor for Patch's Jersey Shore news, and I'm proud to be back here, and to have the capacity to bring news back to Point Pleasant Boro and Point Pleasant Beach in a way that, many would agree, hasn't been provided in a long time.
Over the past two decades, I thrived on breaking news stories and covering political scandals involving wayward governors and brazenly corrupt public officials.
I felt the sting and the pain that thousands - even millions - felt as I watched the World Trade Center lay in ruins back in 2001, and then later, when I saw the remains of the victims as the towers' parts and pieces were transported to the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island.
I appreciated the excitement of the reporting world, and I'll miss the glory of writing stories that could shake up an entire state. But I'm glad to be back here, in this understated paradise, where I hold my weekly staff meetings in Pat's Pizza on Route 88, and greet my school classmates who always, every Friday, stop by for a slice.
Growing up, we had the Boardwalk nearby. Yeah, we surfed. But much of that stuff happened in Point Beach, or "the Beach," the Point Pleasant with the ocean view.
What many didn't know, or didn't realize, is that you could have just as much fun slightly to the west, in the "Boro," just being kids.
You could have just as much fun sucking down 32-ounce "Big Gulps" of Coke at 7-Eleven on Bridge Avenue, skateboarding in the parking lots of those same strip malls and hanging out in a treehouse that was hidden in the thick patch of woods at the end of Dorsett Dock Road.
When we were young, many of our roads were dirt. Acres of land were covered with maple, cedar and pine trees, shadowing the swamps where the now-endangered "Pine Barrens Tree Frog" lived in peace, and with a buffer.
We enjoyed being with our families and reslished the idea that our town was so far removed from the troubled neighborhoods of the north.
A bunch of people wrote in our senior-year yearbooks, back in 1985, that they wanted to leave and live in Californa, Florida or someplace "cool." They wanted to get away from the place that, sure, had a beach, but was never really something they wanted, desired or dreamed for.
But many of them came back, or they never left, because they realized that the best place to live was the "Joisey" seashore town with the pizza joints, bait-and-tackle shops and the still-unpaved stretches of land that, in essence, never really changed.
My family lived in a Levittown ranch that, back in the 1970s, had a sesspool in the backyard bubbling every time the toilet flushed. That surely doesn't happen anymore, but the ranches are still there, blending in with the dwindling pine trees that once filled the area.
One of the biggest moments of my childhood, down on my Barton Avenue block, was when they brought in the sewer pipes so everybody could flush their toilet without a worry. But it was also cool for a kid to have these big, hulking cement tubes laying around, waiting to be sunk into the ground. You can do some pretty cool skateboard flips in those things.
One kid from my block would skate almost to the top, flip his board around, zip to the other side of the pipe and do it again. He zipped back and forth, like he was riding a skateboard in a swing, and attract a crowd of kids who would lay their boards on the street, sit on them and watch for hours on end
I'd tell this story to the Rutgers folks and they'd raise their eyebrows, and act like I grew up in the swamps of Mississippi.
No, I'd tell them. Sure, it wasn't Hawaii. It wasn't even Florida or California. But it was - and still is - paradise.
For more, read HERE
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Something other than Snooki
I'd tell people I was from the Jersey Shore and I always got the same look. Suddenly, they saw me with one hand on a surfboard, and the other flashing that pinky-and-thumb, Sean-Penn-inspired "gnarley" sign-thing.
"Wow...surfer...waves...RonJon..." they'd utter.
Puh-lease, I'd think. I was a ride operator and a french-fry hack at seaside snack bars. I picked up dug-into-the-sand cigarette butts with my bare, blackened hands and tossed them away for $1 an hour.
To me, standing on a surfboard was like standing on a tightrope. Krazy-glue and staples couldn't keep me on top of those things.
Yeah, I've always loved the beach. But, when I was young, I found the beachgoer image so, dare I say, ugly. Sand stuck in my bathing suit. Wet shoes. Wet, sticky hair. Sand, sand, sand...
That, and the image I had of half-naked people boozing it up at Marz, Cheers, Tradewinds or any of the local bars and clubs - the Snookis before there was even a Snooki, if you will - were enough to make me want to live the rest of my life in my bedroom, flipping baseball cards and listening to Lez Zeppelin on my Sony Walkman.
Ah, if only it was yesteryear. Saying you're from the Jersey Shore, 25 years later, means something completely different, and maybe even something worse. The responses make me want to grab a board and "surf main."
"Do you ever watch......the Jersey Shore?" they always say.
My response?
"You've got to be kidding me."
Now, let's face it: I can't blame people for following the summer-goings-on of DJ Pauly, Angelina and JWOWW (did I spell that right?) anymore than I can blame people for slowing down on the Garden State Parkway to leer at an overtuned tractor-trailer.
But what bothers me, again, is the image. The image I want of the Jersey Shore is, frankly, something closer to the laid-back, surfer-dude impression that forced me away as a kid, but I now embrace.
That's the image I want in my mind, and I hope it stays that way, long after the Jersey Shore MTV show burns out and seeps into the pop-culture landfill, just underneath "The Macarena."
That's the image I want for Patch.com, and how I want it presented in the news coming from Long Branch, and Manasquan, as well as the news from Toms River. I want the balance of trouble and tranquility, whether it's in the form of Brick Township news, Berkeley Township news, Manchester news, Wall Township news or Howell Township news.
I want the news of balance, and balance is what Jersey Shore news, and its image, is supposed to be about. It's not just about Snooki, and not just about trouble. The Jersey Shore is tranquil, serene, fun and family-oriented.
The image I prefer is the beach that can be crowded, sure. But, at dusk, or in the fall, it's a peaceful place, with water that washes in and out, and a little pond forming for kids to play in.
It's a place to party, sure. There are the bars and boardwalks in Long Branch, Asbury Park, Manasquan, Belmar and Seaside Heights, and plenty of news from those towns, too. But it's not all about the booze and the beer. It's about the volleyball, the surfing, the football-tossing and the kind of fun, family stuff that still attracts the singles as well as the family guys, just as it has for more than a century.
You see it in Brick, Toms River, South Seaside Park and Point Pleasant, where the local townfolk have kept the cottages and family restaurants that cater to those who preserve rather than destroy.
In Manasquan, there's Gee Gee's, where burgers are still broiled on a grill, not fried on a large, greasy plate of steel. The fries come with a pound of cheese dumped on them, wrapped in a healthy-sized piece of aluminum foil.
In the arcade, people can play the games that got us into video games in the first place; not the swinging cranes that tease us every time, and always fail to pick up the large, stuffed Stewie from The Family Guy.
The boardwalk has no boards; just a paved path that starts and ends in Manasquan, lined with cottages that overlook the waves that roll in and out, all day long.
It's also in Long Branch, one of the last Jersey Shore communities to be nearly free of the commerical boardwalks, booze and bad boys that have made the region a punchline.
In Long Branch, there are high-rise hotels and apartments, private beaches and parking lots. But there are few bars and even less fights that have made for quite a plot-line on the Seaside-Heights-based MTV show.
In Long Branch, there's still the "Wind Mill" - the original one, with the actual wind mill hanging from the peak of the pointed-roof, and the window seating next to a door that never stays completely closed, letting in a gush of cold air every five minutes. The fries are still crinkly and the hot dogs are bigger than my hand.
There's Max's Hot Dogs, once a 25-seat hotdog stand in 1928 that has evolved into a 200-seat full service restaurant that offers "favorite American delights for everyone," according to its wesite.
There's "Freeloaders Beach," which ain't free anymore. You used to be able to sneak on there and nobody ever bothered. But the flat, soft sand that's carved under a sand ridge is still a great place for surfers, especially during the hurricane season when most of the tourists stay away.
And many still get on for free (sshh!).
Some of the good haunts are gone. A friend of mine and I used to go to "Cheers" nearly every week. We kept hoping we'd see Bruce Springsteen - he supposedly wrote the "Thunder Road" lyrics and the "Born to Run" words and music in Long Branch - and kept wishing he'd pop in on Bobby Bandiera, a guitarist with Southside Johnny and Asbury Jukes.
He never did, at least when we weren't there. But we did get some 80-year-old guy who'd sing "Kansas City" as Bandiera strummed away.
The bar and the old guy are gone. But the beach and the boards are still here, throughout the year. Cold and rain are no reasons to stay away; that's what a wet suit is for.
Here, they take the surfers over the Snookis.
For more, read HERE.
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Shoreview: A Howell Story
I was the happiest guy to ever finish seventh place.
Fifty yards ahead of me, with about 100 yards to go, was Mike Devlin, the fastest guy on the 1983 Howell Township Cross-Country team. My fiery coach at Point Boro High, his face beet-red and his soiled eyes leering at me, pointed at Mike's backside and fired off an order.
"Go get him!" he yelled. "Beat him, and we get the shut-out."
I did.
When Mr. Seyfried barked, you bowed. When he wanted speed, you spun.
Soon, the distance was 40 yards. Then 20, and 10. With just 20 feet to go, I lunged past Mike, head and all, and stretched out a split-second advantage for myself. I probably saw too many of those photos of Jesse Owens from the 1936 Olympics, thinking I could lunge, run and win, just like Jesse. It worked.
I was always hoping I could win something. Anything. Before then, I didn't win much. I didn't get the girls. I got picked last in kickball. I got cut from the baseball team. I got cut from the basketball team.
That day, on Oct. 18, 1983, in Howell, I did. Yeah, it was seventh place. Yeah, I didn't really win. But it was a triumph, and it was my first real one. Whenever I'm tested, I think back to that day, at Howell Township High School, when a little extra effort went so far.
Whenever I'm behind, I think of Devlin's backside, and I remember how I caught up, and passed him at the end. I think of that extra "oomph" I had in my steps—the extra juice of adrenaline that made me catch up, and launch into a fully loaded sprint.
I didn't win, but I did preserve Point Boro's shutout, a 15-50 clobbering of Howell where the top seven runners were all from the same team. That team was ours, and I was seventh.
Whenever I hear of sports, and how people want to cut them, or reduce the funding so the sport is reduced to something meaningless, I wonder: If they could only feel what it's like to be 50 yards behind somebody, feeling helpless, only to conjure enough spirit in the last seconds to triumph.
When I did it, it became something so memorable, even 27 years later, with my best running days behind me.
I always wanted some taste of victory, the kind of success that others enjoyed. I was always hoping I would be faster. Sure, I did well in school. But sports were the social barometer. The better I did, the better things were.
It had little to do with making friends. It had nothing to do with school spirit. It was all about the spirit of the self. It was about finding the ability to achieve.
That spirit carried over into my journalism career. I never had the greatest connections. I didn't have the money to go to the best schools, the ones that pushed people through the doors of Columbia and into the hands of a big-time newspaper.
In my career, everything always seemed to be running behind. Despite the many successes I've had, the newspaper industry has suffered for much of the past 20 years. Many solid reporters have left. News holes have shrunk considerably.
Here, at the Howell Patch, where I'm helping to manage Howell news, I feel like I'm catching up again. With Patch demonstrating the foresight to capitalize in the market of digital journalism, I feel like I'm running ahead again.
Until that Howell meet, at age 16, I had no idea how to summon that spirit. I didn't understand the idea of coming from behind, and succeeding. I watched athletes do it and thought it was something magical. After Howell, I learned something quite different.
For more, read HERE.
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Shoreview: A Brick Story
Beyond the tree-lined roads and horse farms, and far away from the traffic that routinely packed the Laurelton Circle, my father made his living, one day at a time.
It wasn't always easy getting out of bed at 5 a.m. every day, for 20 years, and facing a few hundred chatty kids who packed the small classrooms of the aging Herbertsville Elementary School.
Stan Davis was a teacher, then principal of a school that was so crowded, there wasn't enough room for an all-purpose room. Gym class and lunch were always held in the classrooms, right at the students' desks.
But my father got up every day, anyway, for 20 years, and he didn't really ever want to let go of the old-fashioned simplicity that long defined the Herbertsville section of Brick.
"Once in a while the horses would get loose and get on school grounds," he told me recently.
Eventually, in 1983, he would leave to be principal of Drum Point, and then retire 13 years later before settling in Ocean Grove and Manchester. Eventually, we would all leave, thinking our greener pastures were much farther away.
But we never stopped thinking of the trees, the roads, the horse stables and the old school as "home."
Now, as the Jersey Shore regional editor for Patch.com, and with the introduction of this Brick Township Patch site, I'm back. We're back. Now that we're back, I want to give light to a town that - in many places - never lost it's quaint, rural feel and its pleasant, peaceful views along the muddy banks of the Manasquan River.
I want to provide Brick news, Jersey Shore news, that was once provided and defined by people who stayed for years, and who never wanted to go away, either. Don Bennett, who worked for The Ocean County Observer for decades, and Pat Miller, a veteran of The Asbury Park Press, were among those people. Now they work for Patch.
I want to give light to the community my father saw more than 50 years ago, when he chose Brick over schools up north, because there was opportunity for jobs and for raising kids safely that wasn't elsewhere.
"At the time (in 1958), there was a lot of tremendous growth. A lot of the houses were inexpensive," he said.
Yes, Brick will always be known for Routes 70 and 88, as well as Brick Boulevard and Chambers Bridge Road. It will always carry the weight of the suburban sprawl, the corked-up jughandles and cars that clog nearly every interesection, and nearly every highway heading south and west.
For 23 years, the Laurelton Circle has been gone. But the lines of traffic are, on occsasion, still there, occasionally piling back to Kmart, just as it did in the 1970s and 1980s. Drivers still pause with fear as they creep through the remodeled intersection, and get confused as they mix up their 70s with their 88s.
"But it is a lot better now," my father said. "You don't have that congestion you used to have. It used to be terrible there at 4 p.m."
There are still places that remind me of the Brick of my youth. The aging Herbertsville firehouse, where I first saw Santa Claus (and screamed), is still there, too, even though brown, box-like condominiums replaced much of the scenery that surrounded it.
"That firehouse was a meeting place - they used to have to have a lot of social activities there," my father said.
Herbertsville Elementary School is still there, too. Only now it has a remodeled facade, giving it the look of a new school, even if it still has the one-story-high classrooms where my father taught during the 1960s.
And they are still crowded.
A lot of development has come to Herbertsville in recent years. But a lot of what was there, 40 and 50 years ago, has remained. Anybody going there could see why, perhaps, we moved down there in the first place.
They could see a community where my father made his living, and nearby, raised a family who never really wanted to leave, even when our house in Point Pleasant was knocked down seven years ago.
They would get a sense that there is a place where people still live, peacefully and happily, one day at a time.
For more, read HERE.
In Barnegat, I Was No Longer Bored
Just four years into my career, I already thought reporting was boring.
I was a guy with a writing pedigree who broke big stuff while working as a top editor at the Rutgers University paper, The Daily Targum. My girlfriend liked my writing so much that she'd sit in my New Brunswick apartment and read my stories aloud.
I hated it when she did that. But I guess she saw something in the cadence and rhythm of the language that was envigorating, because I sure didn't. I was always a little too shy to accept my own attributes.
Out of college, I worked two-plus-years at a small daily in Delaware, then nearly two years at the Ocean County Observer. My cadence and rhythm and writing skills were restricted to stories on council meetings, wastewater treatment facilities and guys who got up at meetings and always had a lot to say, even if the late-night meeting was already three hours long.
I wanted to break out. I wanted to live the life, and live the dream I planned for myself when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. I wanted to be a writer and a reporter, and I wanted to go beyond the confines of a meeting room and write about everybody else.
I wanted to write about their problems...not mine. I wanted to write about their accomplishments, and salute their triumphs. Not mine, and not those of the public officials.
Four days after I was hired The Press of Atlantic City, I got it. I found the Barnegat downtown, down at the east end of E. Bay Avenue. I found my voice. I found my rhythm and my cadence.
I found fun, and I found a reason to stay in this profession, the only one I've ever had.
A committeeman by the name of Kendal Klix, who died three years later of cancer, took me on a tour of the downtown soon after I started at The Press in August 1993. He offered to do it just hours before, and when he did, I laughed. "Barnegat has a downtown?" I asked him.
"It sure does," he said in that western drawl of his, which stood out among his fellow Jersey committee members.
I had worked as an intern and as a full-time reporter in the Manahawkin area for my entire career. I knew what towns were like down in southern Ocean County. I thought I had them covered. I thought they were all like Route 72, or Bay Avenue: suburban sprawl, with houses that had big yards, a Wawa or two and five gas stations, all with a convenience store that sold Beef Jerky and tobacco dip.
I went on the little tour as a get-to-know visit. My expectations were so low that I tucked my pad in my pocket, and got ready to just walk around and listen to the nice man with the drawl talk about something that just wasn't there. Or, perhaps, it wasn't there yet.
I drove up Route 9 north and, following his directions, made a right at Bay Avenue, not a left. I saw a row of old buildings, antique shops and an ice cream store.
I was stunned. I realized, geez, if I had ever made a right on Bay Avenue instead of a left before then, maybe I would have seen this. If I wasn't so hot about getting home every day, and getting to the Garden State Parkway, I could have taken a little more time and seen something new.
Kendal showed me around, and showed me the antique shops that he said would anchor the place. They sold baseball cards, pianos and guitars at these places. I almost bought a guitar with no strings, but I resisted the urge.
The last place we stopped at was the ice cream store, the Hurricane House. I saw what looked liked Gower's drug store in "It's a Wonderful Life." I saw the big silvery levers that served fountain sodas, as well as little wooden tables and drapes cut out of 1910.
"This is one of my favorite places," he said.
Suddenly, I had more than a downtown story, a story about rehabilitation. I had more than a story about a township that was tryng to survive by enhancing its history.
I had history, scenery and setting. I had place and time. I had description, and the background for a story that was lively and engaging. I had an interesting story to tell, one that went beyond something political.
What was really cool was that my paper, The Press of Atlantic City, gave me the space, and encouraged me to be a writer and not just a reporter. The paper that gave me my start as a manager a year later said they wanted more than the briefs and the burrow-pit stories that bored me in Delaware.
The Press wanted "tales," and "break-out pieces" with big pictures, and here was one of my first.
At the Hurricane House, I sat on swivel chair and spun myself around, like I used to do when I visited these kinds of places that were always well-preserved in the older towns of North Jersey, but seemed non-existent at the Jersey Shore. I stared at the wooden tables that were uneven in the legs. I saw "Hurricane House" painted in the windows, fronting the streetside view of antique shops and trees. It made me feel like a hourse-and-buggy was going to pass by at any moment.
I was hooked.
For more, read HERE.
