30-year tradition brings family to Ventnor beach for fun-filled reunion

Back in the early 1900s, two immigrants came from Italy, Carmen and Carmelo Damiani, met in America, and fell in love. They were my grandparents, and most of us here are their descendants. We started meeting for a family picnic really in 91. Now that we all came down the shore, most of us, we do it on the beach every year. Yeah, we call it Pepper and Egg Beach, because my mother made like 60 to 80 sandwiches on Saturdays, as the plaque says, at Pepper and Egg Beach. 29 years ago, we started with the games and stuff to keep the kids occupied. The kids are all grown now, and they have their own kids. The cousins are 40 of us, some have passed away, and we are definitely family. We do everything together. I recently lost my husband, and they all just came and gathered and helped me. My cousin Rita just lost hers, and the family is just family to us. They do everything for us. We're the ringleaders, I guess, you know, and we hope that our kids will keep this up. We come here every summer. We come here probably every weekend to see each other, but this day is the one we're looking forward to every year, you know. Coming with food, games, a lot of fun, laughs. Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, pizzas around 3 or 4 o'clock, and then they need their coffee too at the end of the day. We're gonna win! I like the tug of war. It's really competitive, so it's really fun to do that. Alright, ready? It's so cool that we all get to still hang out with each other every year and have this big special day. I hope that even our kids get to experience this, our kids' kids. I hope that this lasts forever.