The Bayman: A Life on Barnegat Bay

Product Description

A native son of Barnegat Bay shares an insider’s chronicle of a culture that has all but disappeared. Merce Ridgway, bayman, musician, and storehouse of folklore and philosophy, opens our eyes to a beautiful, simple way of life barely imaginable to most Americans today. It is a story that celebrates the bay, the Jersey Shore, and the Pine Barrens from a man who traces his family’s roots in New Jersey to the 17th century, and whose great-grandfather was first keeper of records of the Barnegat Life Saving Station. The Bayman shares, with all who will listen, a lifetime of wisdom, values, generosity, and truth — all of it bounty from the bay.

Review

A wonderful book about a vanishing world. –The Trenton Times

If anyone wants to understand what it is about this nearly vanished lifestyle that has created such a fiercely dedicated following, here it is, explained in a way that makes you feel the sun, the lap of the water, the cries of the shorebirds or the smell of freshly cut cedar… But readers don’t have to be fans of pinelands and bay culture to enjoy Ridgway’s almost musical text. Ridgway alternates from fond memories of days gone by to bitterness about the loss of a lifestyle, but mostly, we learn about a man and the impact that his environment has made on him. –Beach Haven Times

A story filled with love and humor and occasional sadness. — from the Foreword by Angus Kress Gillespie, Associate Professor of American Studies, Rutgers University
Winner of the 2001 NJ Studies Academic Alliance Author’s Award for ”An outstanding depiction of life along the Jersey Shore.”
An accurate, colorful account of the waterman’s trade… a clear view of life in the pines and on the bay before the population boom started. — Asbury Park Press
A fascinating, salty work about a nearly lost way of life. — Wooden Boat
Merce Ridgway’s book is a type of love story, full of poignant remembrances of young love, mature respect and righteous indignation over the pollution and habitat loss of Barnegat Bay… Though he is now far from his beginnings, Ridgway’s love of Barnegat Bay continues. It continues in his music and in this generous book. — The SandPaper
A fascinating, salty work about a nearly lost way of life. — Wooden Boat
Moving without being too sentimental. — Whole Earth Magazine
A happy example of the absence of literary polish working in the author’s favor… Its workmanlike, conversational intimacy is exactly what allows it to read so well. Merce Ridgway’s loving memoir offers a footnote or two for each of a hundred different interests; and enough charm, wit, and warmth to draw its readers into the whole story, no matter which specific facets might originally have piqued their curiosity. — The Beachcomber
Journey into an era of the bay that has all but disappeared. If you love the bay, don’t miss this book. — New Jersey Fisherman
What distinguishes this book from other tales of ecological and cultural decline are the utterly persuasive details. –The Star-Ledger

From the Inside Flap

“A wonderful book about a vanishing world.” — The Trenton Times If anyone wants to understand what it is about this nearly vanished lifestyle that has created such a fiercely dedicated following, here it is, explained in a way that makes you feel the sun, the lap of the water, the cries of the shorebirds or the smell of freshly cut cedar… But readers don’t have to be fans of pinelands and bay culture to enjoy Ridgway’s almost musical text. Ridgway alternates from fond memories of days gone by to bitterness about the loss of a lifestyle, but mostly, we learn about a man and the impact that his environment has made on him. — Beach Haven Times An accurate, colorful account of the waterman’s trade… a clear view of life in the pines and on the bay before the population boom started. — Asbury Park Press A fascinating, salty work about a nearly lost way of life. — Wooden Boat Merce Ridgway’s book is a type of love story