Dear Mom & Dad: August 1st

 

Well it's the first day of August.  It's also a Saturday.  It's a summer Saturday which means sailboat races on Barnegat Bay.  And today is the 50th annual Sanderling Regatta which was renamed in your honor 4 years ago.

Usually this particular race would fall on a Saturday in July, but this year...well the only reason I knew it was happening was because I got an email from your friend (and mine...sort of) Mrs. P which notified me.  Otherwise I would have had no clue.  I wouldn't have even known if it still existed.  I'm glad it still exists; even though on the club calendar it gives the time as 10-11 AM and we all know that it takes much longer than that.  Additionally there is "Fiesta Night" which starts at 5 PM (supposedly), which I know would thrill you mom.  (Is my sarcastic tone loud enough here?)  After all, eating and drinking must take precedence over sailing, right?  (Well I'm old enough to remember when it didn't but...)

While it was nice of Mrs. P to let me know, it would have been nicer if someone from the club who was running the race reached out to me.  (There must be SOMEONE who has some sailing knowledge who is doing this, right???  I don't know who that would be, but...) But I guess once both of you died it was no longer worth any effort to include the daughter of the people it had been named for after their decades of work to make it go off without a hitch.  (Okay, I know there were plenty of hitches over the years.  But no one else knew unless you told them.  You RAN that race.  You MADE that day.  You planned for weeks; maybe months to make sure all the pieces were in place.  Or at least as in place as they could be.)

Would I go back if asked?  Maybe?  As I've said before,  I'm reluctant to go back.  There are too many unhealed wounds; too many memories that could be destroyed.  Just too much.  But if I was asked...Maybe...maybe I would have gone.  

While the weather in PA is iffy today, the weather on the island is supposed to be decent.  Or maybe not; the weather this summer has been unpredictable moving from extreme heat to cold and clammy.  Which reminds me of one of the last years you ran the show when a storm came barreling in and you could hardly see the boats docked off the pier; only for it to be sunny and beautiful a half an hour (or so) later.

I don't miss the race, but I do miss YOUR race.  Your presence there.  Your planning.  Being there to see it all from beginning (donuts and coffee from Dunkin) to middle (the lunches from your favorite Jersey Mike's location on Mantoloking Road) to end.   (Where you would be annoyed because the evening's "event" would be pushing everyone out, when this WAS the event...it just wasn't recognized as important to the non-sailors/club drinkers.)  Unsurprisingly, I also miss being able to get a thirsty lobster.  (I should have tried to steal the recipe, but it wouldn't have been the same.  It wasn't so much the about the actual award winning drink, as it was having it made for me on the day...if that makes any sense.)

And so the race goes on.  Without you (or me), but with your legacy.  I hope it's upheld for as long as the briny shores of Barnegat Bay will allow.

With love,

Me