entertainments from the other side (of the finish line)

after i got off the shields tonight, i took my bike from ida lewis (the scene of the crime) to the shipyard to pick up my car and go to the party. 

slightly south of the main gate there was a big LBTBP (for anyone not familiar with the Long Beach Township Beach Patrol...) lifeboat hitched up and ready to be towed back to LBI.  my heart stopped.

i have very fond and very vivid memories of all our years spent on the island.  particularly my high school years and early college.  but i do not recall them often.  i've put them away back on a shelf, and keep them for myself and not much else.  glorious times, but bittersweet.  we were beautiful children by the seashore existing in a town suspended in time, and a world without consequence.  it reminds me of my mother's childhood there, and it's a stressful memory as much as a wonderful one.  i respect it as a very real time that is gone and there is no real urgency to recreate.

but when i saw our lifeboat, suddenly i was eighteen.  nighttime.  we were out on the beach in front of the pounding surf.  lights from tiki torches flickering from the other side of the dunes.  music from a live band floating from upwind with the sound of a dozen familiar voices.  the night of the mayor's cup races.  making love on the beach with (insert lifeguard du jour)  and basically just being young and stupid and seizing our glory days. 

i didn't know the kids standing beside the lifeboat.  i rode by.  to them, i was just another new england sailor fresh off the water and heading into the big shipyard.   they were really young.  maybe eighteen, nineteen.  i could see myself standing there.  ten years ago.  i wanted to tell them so many things.  but i guess it's hard to look into the eyes of your replacement.  they're the ones at the lifeguard parties now.  for a moment, i almost felt sad.  and phased out.  i'm not the be all end all of long beach island anymore.  i am a stranger to them now. 

as i locked my bike up at the shipyard, i ran into a few good Newport faces.  "Hey, Gigi."  they all call me by my first name here.  i'm okay to not look back.  i've arrived.