![]() Since the pickled pepper industry virtually collapsed when the name Peter fell out of favor, I’ve had no choice but to return to my roots if I want to make the rent this month. ![]() Business in New Jersey is always steady because most of the shells on the beach actually are washed-up pieces of Grandma Betty’s dentures she lost on vacation last year. Instead, I have returned to Seaside Heights to stand on the boardwalk and convince frazzled tourists whose kids thought it would be a good idea to go to the beach in below freezing temperatures that their lives would be a little better with the purchase of a Blue Mussel shell, or a Knobbed Whelk. When I was informed that the shutdown would mean implications for our agency, I was crushed ( NOT a shell pun). I thought that I would never have to see another goddamn sand dollar again. By 25, I became head of the Seashell and Crustacean Commission. At the age of 23, I was the youngest person to ever be hired to an upper-level position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Same shells, same greasy, sun-soaked tourists, year after year. Selling seashells by the seashore isn’t the worst job, but there’s no room for growth or upward mobility. Now, they are shocked and dismayed that I have been forced by the recent government shutdown to return to the family business. When I graduated from Yale with my bachelors in marine biology, they could not have been more proud. Growing up in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, my parents always envisioned a brighter future for me. During the off months, father picked pecks of pickled peppers to make sure we had enough food on the table. It was the first job my great-grandmother had when she came through Ellis Island in 1917 at the age of 15, and it was the last job my mother had before she retired. ![]() I never thought it would come to this, but I’ve had to resort to selling seashells by the seashore to make ends meet.įor generations, the women in my family have sold seashells by the seashore. ![]()
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