10/21/2026
As we wait for the 20th Clam Jam, we wanted to thank Behind the Benches LBI for their highlight of Pat!
Pat Harrington said good morning to everyone at Ship Bottom Beach Patrol headquarters, by name, even when half of them had been out late and nobody wanted to talk. He gave old surfboards to kids in the lifeguard program, and their parents only found out later. He talked his dad into driving him to Princeton to watch a friend’s brother play water polo.
I talked with his mother, two friends who grew up with him, and a friend from the beach patrol. Each of them told me the same thing: he showed up.
When he got sick, he kept calling people to ask how they were doing. In September 2020, when he couldn’t surf the Clam Jam, people came to him. He watched from a chair in the sand at 68th Street, and all day, friends walked up, sat down, and stayed.
Pat died that December. He was 31. The people he’d shown up for came back for him. They came to the wake, to the paddle out and to the Clam Jam, which the Jetty Rock Foundation now holds in his memory.
His family put a bench at the boat ramp in Ship Bottom, where Pat and his beach patrol friends stood every Thursday night for the summer concerts. It reads SBBP 4L / No strangers, only friends.
Read his full story here: https://behindthebencheslbi.substack.com/p/he-always-showed-up?r=56a85k&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=webPat
If you knew Pat, from the beach patrol, the lineup, Country Corner or a Thursday night at the boat ramp, I’d love for you to share a memory in the comments.
