With his wife and daughter in tow, Jason Benson, formerly known as Mr. Boardwalk, returns to Atlantic City after 20 years away. Though he's trying to make up for concealing his past, he gets overwhelmed by the changes he sees:
Right here on this spot my life was remarkable before I spent two decades holding back my memories. I'm the Hoover Dam of nostalgia. Now the dam has burst. Recollections flood my head—stuffing steaming hot pretzels in brown bags on days so sweltering that people on the boardwalk looked wavy; ringing up sale after sale; scraping salt that had caked on the wooden pretzel boards and the oven; the daily spectacle of men and women, boys and girls ambling up and down the boardwalk.
I can't stand the sight of what's no longer here. So I turn my back and walk on, fast, Ruth and Eileen scrambling to keep up. I can't tell if their faces are sympathetic because, right now, I can't even see where I'm going.
Right here on this spot my life was remarkable before I spent two decades holding back my memories. I'm the Hoover Dam of nostalgia. Now the dam has burst. Recollections flood my head—stuffing steaming hot pretzels in brown bags on days so sweltering that people on the boardwalk looked wavy; ringing up sale after sale; scraping salt that had caked on the wooden pretzel boards and the oven; the daily spectacle of men and women, boys and girls ambling up and down the boardwalk.
I can't stand the sight of what's no longer here. So I turn my back and walk on, fast, Ruth and Eileen scrambling to keep up. I can't tell if their faces are sympathetic because, right now, I can't even see where I'm going.
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