-Wet matchboxes don't burn up by themselves-

My expansive study of Cape May, NJ history isn't expansive enough here, and there are so many other sources that are more worthy. And I don't entirely trust the below average student not to cite this page in their next term paper. Think I'm kidding? It has happened before.

doppler radar midwest segment
Originally uploaded by benedict monk.

Two observations from the study are worth mentioning. First, the hotels. Stroll about their lobbies or gift alcoves, and you'll see a history of class-struggle, embezzlement, and fire. Fire most of all, I think, since construction ledgers indicate blocks of sulphur as a major building material, and butane as a varnish. Seriously, they might as well have made balustrades out of matchsticks, judging by the number of fires each and every building has endured since Queen Victoria.

Second, the renewed speculation about the shore-killing storm destined to annihilate the place. The last big storm ripped through a century ago, they say, so we are overdue. Without consulting my almanac - since the gulf stream certainly hasn't - I'll go out on a sunken pier and suggest that this speculation is founded in guilty empathy.

Specifically, the kind of guilty empathy you get from watching too many loops of the weather channel's latest meterological snuff film.