My twin brother, Daniel Joseph Cipollini, and I were born in Philadelphia at the Methodist Hospital on Oct. 22, 1940, a year before Pearl Harbor. That was when my name was Gloria Virginia Cipollini. Nick and Mary Cipollini were our parents. We were first introduced to Long Beach Island and especially Beach Haven the summer after we were born. We took some of our first steps on the original Beach Haven boardwalk, later blown away in a hurricane with no name.

Danny and I were brought to the Island by our parents for most of the summers of our youth up until high school, when my brother decided…