New Jersey

Being born in New Jersey and living there for 12 years before our family moved to Santa Monica, I read with interest “HBO’s Mobster Saga Does New Jersey Proud” (April 6). The gist seems to be that regularly seeing some local landmarks on national television has been good for the residents’ self-esteem, demonstrating again the wisdom in the following stanza from Carl Sandburg’s “The People, Yes”:

“Once a shipwrecked sailor caught hold of a stateroom door and floated for hours till friendly hands from out of the darkness threw him a rope. And he called across the night, ‘What country is this?’ and hearing voices answer ‘New Jersey,’ he took a fresh hold on the floating stateroom door and called back half-wearily, ‘I guess I’ll float a little farther.’ ”

BARTON W. ROBERTSON

Torrance