Greeting skeeballers. Jason here. Just wanted to share a personal story with you. Yeah I know I'm the guy who is never serious and has too many beers to roll anything over a 200 but I got something on my mind. I hope you'll read on and I do apologize for the grammar, I am a product of the Fairfield Public School System. For those of you that don't know I grew up in Connecticut, lived a short time in Queens and spent many summers at the Jersey Shore. My family and friends can be found all over New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. For the past few days I have been watching in amazement over what has happened to the place of my childhood and wanted to share with you my skeeball history of the northeast. All the places I am mentioning have been affected by Hurricane Sandy in some way.

I guess its all starts with my mother, Mama Mangone. She grew up in Brooklyn NY and spent many summers in Coney Island on the boardwalk playing skeeball. She was always a huge fan of the game and quite competitive. Her love of the game was definitely passed on to me and as you know never left.

My first memories of playing skeeball were at Milford Rec later renamed Smiles and located in Milford CT. It was the place for birthday parties, well that and Arnie's Place in Westport CT but I don't remember if they had skeeball. Growing up in a time of video games, skeeball was the one game my mother and I both played and enjoyed and I will alway cherish that.

Anyone who has seen a Kevin Smith movie knows about the connection between Skeeball and the Jersey Shore. When I was a teenager I was lucky enough to spend many summers at the Jersey Shore; Long Beach Island to be exact.  Those days were spent at the beach and the nights filled with underage drinking. There is nothing better than getting drunk on Yuengling and playing skeeball at Mr. Tee's or Fantasy Island in Beach Haven NJ.

So what am I trying to say with all of this? I guess its without these and many other places in the northeast there wouldn't be a New Orleans Skeeball and Drinking League. Sadly these places have all been affected or lost. Here's a shot of Beach Haven NJ a few hours before the storm hit, haven't seen or heard anything else about it. Its not just the places, its the people. These people took myself and 2 other friends in during Hurricane Katrina. Sam and Carol in Beach Haven, Craig and Stephanie in NYC, Toni in Coney Island and my parents in Fairfield CT. Check out the pictures of my hometown of Fairfield, those pictures could have been taken in New Orleans back in September 2005.

What I'm trying to say is without the northeast there would not be the New Orleans Skeeball and Drinking League.