The bay taught the boys before the school did. You went out in the
boats with your father when you were small enough to sit on the
gunwale and not fall off. You learned the tide, you learned the
mud. You learned where the beds were and how deep to rake.
The Navesink Indians knew this bay a thousand years before us.
The oyster middens are still along the shore if you know where to
look. That's not folklore. My uncle used to walk us out to one on
a Sunday. He'd pick up a shell and hold it up to the light and
say, this is older than the borough. This is older than the
country. He wasn't wrong. In the good years we ran four boats.
Then the sixties came, and the Parkway, and the day-trippers went
past us to Belmar. We kept clamming until my knees gave out. My
grandson is a lawyer now. He never learned to rake.