14th Street. Ship Bottom, NJ

I snapped this self portrait of myself sitting on the hand-rail overlooking the 14th street beach in Ship Bottom, NJ. It was during a late October flat spell in 2001. I was still living at the "Summer Place" on the island year round and attending education classes at Stockton State college in Pomona. The deck on 14th street represents more than just a platform of wood on which to gaze out at the ocean, to me and most of the other locals who live on 14th street it holds more of a sentimental meaning representing a special place in time where we gather in the morning to check the surf, drink a coffee, and bullshit about great days surfing our break.

We treat the platform as a pedestal, which holds more History upon its planks than what the average beach comber could ever imagine. This History is special for those of us who consider the place their backyard, playground and proving ground. A place where most of us slipped in to our first winter suit, waxed a board, learned about the sandbar shifts, the current and rip. A place we gathered at night with friends and drank our first beer or slept till sunrise. Most importantly, this place represents the close bond we all share as wave riders. I like to come here alone and sit, watch the ocean and contemplate life for awhile. The solitude of the atmosphere surrounding the platform is more than just a muse, a canvass of creative motivation or scenic orgasm. The platform is the gateway to my church, my love, if you will. The electricity in the air and the closeness to something larger than life itself courses through my body and makes the hairs on my arms stand erect, chills my bones, and brightens my eyes. I stood on the summit of many mountains, carved through waist deep powder, driven the parkway at 110 mph, and nothing can ever compare. The feeling is pure love.

On this particular day I was thinking about all the people who had lost their lives on September 11th. Only a few weeks before I snapped this photograph one of our own wave riders was in the Trade Center as the planes crashed that day. I haven’t seen Dominick in years and last I heard he was in the secret service and stationed in New York City, his office was in the World Trade Center. He was hanging at this spot before I could even appreciate what it represented. I thought about him and the horror he experienced that day. What he had to do to survive. Did he jump? Did he burn? Did he make it out? I wished he could have been there with me that day looking at the ocean, surfing the shore break with our eyes, talking shit about all the big hurricane swells we rode together. It was weeks after the tragedy and still no word on his whereabouts. I just sat there for hours wishing the waves would bump up so that I could paddle out and be closer to that feeling, closer to something larger than life.

Just as I decided to leave the platform to go home I felt that electricity, that vibe in the onshore wind. I heard a familiar voice behind me. “Billy Boooy!” I turned and there was Dominick walking up the boards to the platform. I was taken back like I just witnessed the dead walking. He was alive. He was on LBI. He was home. We hugged and smiled wide eyed and laughing. He said that he had been on the floor below where the 1st plane had hit the tower. He nearly escaped and in the process he saved 11 people including 3 children from the food court below. I never had been so happy to see him. It was like sitting in the lineup of a huge swell by myself and seeing a familiar face paddling out from the inside section, a feeling of safety and comfort knowing that if I went down hard someone would be there to pull me up for air.

He was a hero to me growing up as a grom. He surfed like a cat on acid, dropping in on 10’ closeouts that everyone else would back off from. He charged on big days and it all makes sense to me now that 14th street shaped him to be that courageous in other situations. The platform, the entrance to the ocean, the one spot that holds so much meaning to the few of us who love it so much, has a mysterious gravitational pull that keeps us all coming back for more no matter where we end up in the world. Dominick is stationed in Iraq today and will forever be a hero in the the eyes of the 15stwr.