Long Beach Island, New Jersey
How does an area centered on catering to crowds of tourists
manage to keep people safe during the heavy tourist season? Long Beach Island
is coping in the time of the pandemic. It has been a family tradition to come
to Long Beach Island for about a week every summer and we hoped since March
that this year would be no exception.
Early in the pandemic my in-laws, who invite us down ever
year, mentioned that there would be new social distancing guidelines for the
beaches and restaurants, that LBI had moved quickly to adapt.
The beach is still too crowded on some days. While being
outdoors is a help; it’s still not safe enough during the heavy morning hours
to go there. I went to bring my kids to the beach and quickly turned around
when we saw the size and density of the crowd.
One of the key tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic is that
things that were once routine now require serious decision making. Can my kids
play with that little girl in the pool? Can I take my girls to the beach to
build a sandcastle? Those were no-brainers in the past; not anymore. There
won’t be easy answers for a while.
Whether or not people wore facemasks on Long Beach Island is
random. Being from New York City, we feel naked without them, but people from
this part of New Jersey have not had the same level of virus infection to make
mask-wearing second nature and it’s not as real to them. Shortly before coming
down to Beach Haven, we saw that lifeguards in nearby towns had an outbreak of the Coronavirus, not from their time on the beach as
lifeguards but from partying together after hours.
You can hear people partying into the night and see them
moving unmasked and in irresponsibly large groups everywhere. The island is
full of visiting young people and people old enough to know better traipsing around
as if there is not a global pandemic still raging across the country.
If you tried to lecture everyone acting foolish about how to
wear a mask or distance, you would do nothing else. Calling people out or
trying to deliver street justice would quickly evolve into fistfights or some
other unproductive screaming match ripe for the viral internet montages of
hostility that are already plentiful. Instead you do your best to lead by
example; keep the mask on if you are near people, keep six feet apart.
There is not much you can do but do the right thing and keep
away from people who don’t. It is easier to do here than in New York, so this
still counts as a vacation. Things are not going to be back to normal soon and
it would be a rancid lie to pretend otherwise.
Life in this vacation spot goes on; those businesses that
have survived on Long Beach Island have adapted well. The Chicken or the Egg is still in high
demand and they offer only outdoor seating and to-go orders; the Jersey Devil
sandwich still provides a terrific serving of pork roll and I was able to feast
on their Buffalo shrimp again. My wife and I had a date night at the excellent Artisan Café that made an amazing
Italian mac & cheese and moved its dining outdoors as well. Buckalew’s created an outdoor beer
garden and has very on-time pickup service.
The SurflightTheatre survives not only from the Coronavirus but from Tropical Storm Isaias that knocked over its outdoor tent. We were still able to
enjoy a Frozen musical with the kids and a comedy night featuring Mike Marino and Sheba Mason—outstanding.
This past Saturday I walked the beach at night. There were a
few other people walking about in the darkness, some with cell phone
flashlights, and a patrol vehicle that drove back and forth. Only a few yards
away from masses of humanity, I took comfort in seeing two shooting stars and a
blood orange moon that looked like a nighttime sun.
I stood in awe of the moon, which was sitting low in the sky
and casting its bright colorful light over the sea. The thunder of the Atlantic Ocean drones on, its waves crashing to shore in a
powerful chorus When our world appears cracked, nature has a way of putting
human civilization in perspective.
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