That was Then, This is Now

My parents with the cake made by Deborah's friend Lindsey of Elegantly Iced

I guess you could say my father was a Navy brat, but in reality, he didn't move around that much. My grandfather was Commander of a destroyer during WWII, which spent much of its time in the South Pacific. There was only so much following the family could do. My Dad and his mother lived in Key West, Florida, for a stretch, but after the war, they settled in a sleepy little town called Beachwood, New Jersey, and that's where my dad lived until leaving for college.

My mom grew up in Newark -- about 65 miles farther north -- and a far cry from Beachwood. Now, while you've probably never heard of Beachwood, you might have heard of Newark — New Jersey's largest city — if for no other reason than that Facebook's head honcho, Mark Zuckerberg, recently pledged a gift of 100 million dollars to Newark's school system. (Sure, the timing of his donation -- the mega billionaire's first public act of philanthropy -- just happens to coincide with the opening of an unflattering movie about the Facebook founder and therefore can easily be construed as damage control, but a hundred million dollars is a hundred million dollars.)

My mother often speaks wistfully about her childhood in Newark. "It's a shame," she says, referring to her hometown's subsequent decline. Whether or not Newark's ongoing struggles can be attributed to six days of rioting in 1967, my mother sees it as a watershed moment in the city's history. Maybe she's right, I don't know, but I do know that the city she describes in stories of her youth no longer exists. Then again, neither does the small town where my father grew up.

Deborah, knitting in the parking lot of the Beachwood Yacht Club

My parents decided to hold their 50th wedding anniversary party at the Beachwood Community Center, located next to the Beachwood Yacht Club on the banks of Toms River. My father's brother still lives in Beachwood with his family, and while at the party, my aunt and cousin told me stories about two recent drug busts on their street this past summer. "There are five summer rental houses on the street," they said. "And they don't care who they rent to."

My father's other brother, Tom, an artist with a long, graying beard and one lung, told us stories in between breaths from his oxygen tank. He looked down the bay at the nicely rebuilt boardwalk that follows the shoreline and described what it used to be like: "It didn't used to be up on stilts like that," he said. "It used to be right down near water level, and it meandered in and out of the woods. We used to go running down that thing stark naked in the middle of the night and go skinning dipping with the jellyfish."

It was a beautiful day. The yacht club was hosting a regatta, and windblown sails could be seen through the community center's bayside picture windows. A group of my father's childhood friends, referred to as "The Beachwood Gang," had a table to themselves and were reminiscing about childhood sailing antics. My mother interrupted their stories as she brought me around to reintroduce me to everyone. I recognized some people by sight, while others I only recognized by their names. "This is Tommy Walsh," my mother said, introducing one of my father's more notorious friends.

"Oh sure, hi," I said, "I know you, you're my godfather."

"That's right," he said, "I did a good job, didn't I?"

I'd met the guy maybe twice in my life.

"Sure," I said, "You'll get no complaints from me."

"I remember when Jamie was about three years old," my mother said, "and you said to me, 'Are you still calling that kid Jamie?'" (As opposed to something more "masculine" like Jim or James.)

"I remember," he said. "And are you?"

"Yes."

Tommy rolled his eyes and then turned to me. "And you? What do you call yourself?"

"I call myself Jamie."

From the way he shook his head at the travesty, you'd think I was a boy named Sue.