There's an odd tradition here in Sea Bright, every Christmas morning the volunteer fire department visits the entire town, each nook and cranny, red lights and sirens and airhorns blaring, with Santa riding atop the hook and ladder truck. In seasons past, they used to commence this racket at 7am, surely waking (or scaring) every last resident out of their long winter's nap.
Today at least they were nice enough to wait until 9am to start. But here they are again, as usual, maybe a bit slimmer in ranks (I didn't see any of the usual reindeer-clad members arrayed on the ladder), but with Reed Murphy dressed as Santa, he who was of questionable ability as a council member, but proved his worth in disaster management these past two months.
It's a sad statement that, of the 1400-some residents of the town, only maybe 100 or so are currently able to live here, the rest having been torn from their homes by the storm. Or rather, their homes having been torn from them, in the most literal sense of the word. Still, tradition can bind wounds that seem unhealable. It's nice to know that someone is thinking "normal" and making the regular events that mark time here happen more or less according to schedule, in spite of all we've been through. And thanks for the late start, I appreciate the extra couple hours of sleep!
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