Just four years into my career, I already thought reporting was boring.

I was a guy with a writing pedigree who broke big stuff while working as a top editor at the Rutgers University paper, The Daily Targum. My girlfriend liked my writing so much that she'd sit in my New Brunswick apartment and read my stories aloud.

I hated it when she did that. But I guess she saw something in the cadence and rhythm of the language that was envigorating, because I sure didn't. I was always a little too shy to accept my own attributes.

Out of college, I worked two-plus-years at a small daily in Delaware, then nearly two years at the Ocean County Observer. My cadence and rhythm and writing skills were restricted to stories on council meetings, wastewater treatment facilities and guys who got up at meetings and always had a lot to say, even if the late-night meeting was already three hours long.

I wanted to break out. I wanted to live the life, and live the dream I planned for myself when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. I wanted to be a writer and a reporter, and I wanted to go beyond the confines of a meeting room and write about everybody else.

I wanted to write about their problems...not mine. I wanted to write about their accomplishments, and salute their triumphs. Not mine, and not those of the public officials.

Four days after I was hired The Press of Atlantic City, I got it. I found the Barnegat downtown, down at the east end of E. Bay Avenue. I found my voice. I found my rhythm and my cadence.

I found fun, and I found a reason to stay in this profession, the only one I've ever had.

A committeeman by the name of Kendal Klix, who died three years later of cancer, took me on a tour of the downtown soon after I started at The Press in August 1993. He offered to do it just hours before, and when he did, I laughed. "Barnegat has a downtown?" I asked him.

"It sure does," he said in that western drawl of his, which stood out among his fellow Jersey committee members.

I had worked as an intern and as a full-time reporter in the Manahawkin area for my entire career. I knew what towns were like down in southern Ocean County. I thought I had them covered. I thought they were all like Route 72, or Bay Avenue: suburban sprawl, with houses that had big yards, a Wawa or two and five gas stations, all with a convenience store that sold Beef Jerky and tobacco dip.

I went on the little tour as a get-to-know visit. My expectations were so low that I tucked my pad in my pocket, and got ready to just walk around and listen to the nice man with the drawl talk about something that just wasn't there. Or, perhaps, it wasn't there yet.

I drove up Route 9 north and, following his directions, made a right at Bay Avenue, not a left. I saw a row of old buildings, antique shops and an ice cream store.

I was stunned. I realized, geez, if I had ever made a right on Bay Avenue instead of a left before then, maybe I would have seen this. If I wasn't so hot about getting home every day, and getting to the Garden State Parkway, I could have taken a little more time and seen something new.

Kendal showed me around, and showed me the antique shops that he said would anchor the place. They sold baseball cards, pianos and guitars at these places. I almost bought a guitar with no strings, but I resisted the urge.

The last place we stopped at was the ice cream store, the Hurricane House. I saw what looked liked Gower's drug store in "It's a Wonderful Life." I saw the big silvery levers that served fountain sodas, as well as little wooden tables and drapes cut out of 1910.

"This is one of my favorite places," he said.

Suddenly, I had more than a downtown story, a story about rehabilitation. I had more than a story about a township that was tryng to survive by enhancing its history.

I had history, scenery and setting. I had place and time. I had description, and the background for a story that was lively and engaging. I had an interesting story to tell, one that went beyond something political.

What was really cool was that my paper, The Press of Atlantic City, gave me the space, and encouraged me to be a writer and not just a reporter. The paper that gave me my start as a manager a year later said they wanted more than the briefs and the burrow-pit stories that bored me in Delaware.

The Press wanted "tales," and "break-out pieces" with big pictures, and here was one of my first.

At the Hurricane House, I sat on swivel chair and spun myself around, like I used to do when I visited these kinds of places that were always well-preserved in the older towns of North Jersey, but seemed non-existent at the Jersey Shore. I stared at the wooden tables that were uneven in the legs. I saw "Hurricane House" painted in the windows, fronting the streetside view of antique shops and trees. It made me feel like a hourse-and-buggy was going to pass by at any moment.

I was hooked.