Columns
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•October 21, 2022
There’s No Passing Up This Year’s Classic; Jersey Thing Become an Arkansas Thing
If you have an outside thermometer, go out and make nice since it’s about to take a wild and crazy ride. How the heck is Steve Martin doing these days?
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•October 19, 2022
Old Barney Loses Its Champions
In November 1922, Barnegat Lighthouse faced a new threat to its existence. It wasn’t from a storm with battering waves, but from the loss of support in Washington, D.C.
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•October 17, 2022
Poacher Busts Just Keep on Coming; A Bass Bonanza of All-Time Proportions
We are suffering through the latest the traffic signals have been left on in the fall. The big turn-off must await the rescheduled Chowderfest this weekend. Of course, suffering might be a bit much…
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•October 15, 2022
Weather, Whales and Events Pick Us Up After Storm Punch
Sometimes I don’t know how we get through the day without positivity quote memes on Instagram.
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•October 12, 2022
Fight Against Oil Pollution 100 Years Old
When Frank Appleby was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1920, he and New Jersey U.S. Sen. Joseph Frelinghuysen became the champions in Washington, D.C. who were leading a fight to save…
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•October 6, 2022
A Breakdown of Nor’Ian’s Worst Possible Storm Track; Cantore Blowing in the Wind
Is it me, or are we all pretty much quietly wishing to see Jim Cantore get washed away during a live broadcast?
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•October 6, 2022
Ian Morphs Into a Nor’easter Storm Thing; You, Too, Might Be a Born Asparagus Reader
It goes without saying – yet I shall – Ian the Demon was as bad as a ’cane comes … and then some. The then some was the totally unnecessary ass kicking it planted on us, for days on end. Ian has…
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•October 5, 2022
100 Years Later, Barney Still Shines
As you stand at the base of Barnegat Lighthouse and watch workers remove the scaffolding to expose the refurbished historic icon, you cannot help but wonder what might have been.
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•September 29, 2022
Vying for Air Supremacy
In the summer of 1922, America was in the midst of a historic transformation. The nation was still recovering from the horrors of World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic that followed. In the…
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•September 28, 2022
Acupuncture for Damaged Plugging Shoulders; Tapping Into the Meyer’s Hole Menagerie Pack
I’m sort of short-winded this week. Yes, I of over-verbalness – more than once cited by the word police for offering columns exceeding the posted limits – am running on empty, which tangentially begs…
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•September 28, 2022
Places Enjoyed by Many May Now Belong to Few; Rocky Fling With Fiona, Mess of Hurricane Ian
It would seem that an awful lot of folks on Long Beach Island, and even those for whom this is a part-time home, are pretty upset at the news of the Long Beach Island Grade School being sold to a…
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•September 22, 2022
Writing Locally Inspired Screenplay; Lusty Eyes on Miss Fiona
I recently had an idea for a screenplay about Long Beach Island. I’m currently working on the script and wondering if you have any Hollywood connections?
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•September 22, 2022
One Bad Clam Can Spoil the Fluke Barrel; Old Barney’s Closed Days Are Numbered
September is living up to its namesake motto, as in “It’s better in September.” It has been just that, overall. Of a.m. autumnal evidence, we are experiencing increasingly regular cool, pine-scented…
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•September 15, 2022
That’s One Way to Suck Up Microplastics; We’re Now Running on Holgate Time
I won’t harp on this, but Sept. 10 was the peak of the hurricane season and there was virtually nothing cyclonic to peak upon, short of the wilting remnants of H. Earl.
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•September 14, 2022
‘Pine Rats’ and the Jersey Devil
In searching for the origins of the Jersey Devil legend, evidence seems to show the connection of the Leeds family to the supernatural had its roots in the humorous writings of Ben Franklin in Poor…
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•September 14, 2022
Tragic News Amplifies Water Awareness This Time of Year
This is normally a pretty joyous time of year for the folks who gravitate toward the surf/beach/ocean/Liquid Lines community, yet we have to start the column with some terrible news.
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•September 10, 2022
Gone But Possibly Not for All That Long; New Jellyfish Is A-Sting in the Surfline
I know it seems as if most summerites have flown the Island coop, but I’ll dare to say it’s an iffy departure. Dollars to donuts, there will be a bounce-back effect, an odd homage to pandemic times –…
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•September 8, 2022
Romanticizing September With Tropics on the Rise, Plus Levels of Hurricane Preparedness
We do a lot of romanticizing about September around here.
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•September 7, 2022
Ben Franklin and the Jersey Devil
When we think about legendary monsters, names like Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch and Loch Ness monster jump to mind, but these stories usually deal with sightings and not where the creature came from.
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•September 1, 2022
Cedar Bridge Tavern Central to History
Longtime readers of 200 Plus know the Cedar Bridge Tavern has been of special interest. Since it was first mentioned in 1982 as a site of a Revolutionary War skirmish, I have followed its…
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•August 31, 2022
The Bag Ban That Didn’t End the World, Small Wave Repeats and Tropical Awakenings
Have you been checking the numbers? Have you been going to the stats every day to look at hospitalizations, seven-day averages and (gulp) even deaths? Figuring that the end of summer was a good time…
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•August 31, 2022
Hurricanes Don’t Read Preseason Prognostications; Fishing Trip That Shoots for the Falling Stars
Lo and behold, it’s already time for waxing autumnally, atmospherically-speaking. Most weather agencies now accept Sept. 1 as the official meteorological start to fall. May the September equinox…
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•August 25, 2022
Bayside Bad Guys With Wings; When First Aid Gets Overexuberant
Monday’s downpour was quite a flash flooder. You’ll see some photos within this issue of The SandPaper.
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•August 25, 2022
Driving Through the Deep for Coffee Fix; Small Swells Keep It Interesting
We needed the rain. Perhaps not all at once, though ….
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•August 21, 2022
Cownose Rays Horsing Around in the Surf; Orcas With Attitudes Come Crashing Down
Island beachlines felt a glorious influx of milder surf waters, compliments of downwelling north winds. Adding awesomeness to the warmer-ness was acrylic-clear water – and the first notable stingray…
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•August 17, 2022
ALO Longboard Classic Checks All the Boxes as Beyer Takes the Win; Waves and Weather Do a Switch
It’s going to take more than cold water, understaffed shifts, small waves and humidity to bum out LBI’s surf community this summer. In the past several weeks, we have seen all smiles at the Jetty…
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•August 16, 2022
Bittersweet Symphonies Abound as Summer Gives Way to Fall
August is cooling off and beginning to foreshadow the end of summer days. The general energy has matched this pattern, as it has been an overall somber week or so in music history.
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•August 15, 2022
Arctic Shark Does a Nonstop to Belize; Days of Saying Something Are Here
Ocean temps remain in a bather-maddening pendulum mode – ups and downs far beyond what we usually feel nowabouts.
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•August 11, 2022
Sharing Surfing Can Be a Powerful Thing, So Can Upwelling in August
Hopefully your family is having a good summer. Now that the sandbars have formed, hopefully the kids are running across the flats at low tide and flopping into the water. (That is, when there aren’t…
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•August 10, 2022
Gruesome Discovery Explained?
During the summer of 1913, almost three years before the famous shark attacks along the Jersey Shore, the nation was shocked when the Asbury Park Press broke a story on Aug. 25.
