by I grew up on the Jersey Shore, living in Forked River until I graduated college. My parents moved a town over to Whiting not long after, where my grandparents were living in a retirement home. The nearby town of Toms River was the destination for shopping back then; both my parents worked there, and we had family there, too.
I finally got around to reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin, which is about the cancer cluster that formed in the 1990s possibly due to chemical dumping in the area. I was a teenager when the events described in the book were happening, and as such didn’t pay much attention to what was going on. It was fascinating to read about it as an adult, though. The egregious dumping of chemicals in and around the town was really stunning to learn about, especially the Superfund site on a farm that I’d never even heard about!
To lighten the mood, I also read Jon Bon Jovi : How a Kid from New Jersey Became a Rock ‘n’ Roll Legend. Bon Jovi was from Perth Amboy, just outside of NYC, but spent a lot of time in the Asbury Park music scene. I was never a big fan in particular (though I remember my girlfriend Susan was over the moon about him!). Unlike when I re-listened to Bruce Springsteen, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bon Jovi’s music was really quite good!
