In this chilly February moment it’s hard to imagine, but just a few short October weeks before Hurricane Sandy decided to reconfigure not only the shoreline, but also the spirit of LBI – and failed – my wife, Z, and I slipped back into shorts and T-shirts and returned to our summer home away from home. It was part of a “Big Chill”-type assemblage of old and current friends.

We’ve done this for quite a while now, in one form or another.