"I've had it! I'm sick to death of Asbury Park! I'm selling my house and leaving!" he ranted as I collapsed at an adjoining table.

How many times had I heard that over the years? How many times had I thought it? And how tempted were Dave and I to hop up and join him?

Asbury Park activism definitely isn't for the faint-hearted, as we learned after opening a gallery here in 1996. We'd been homeowners since 1988, but it wasn't until I quit my professional job and started spending every day on Cookman Avenue that we really began to appreciate what a challenge rebuilding Asbury Park would be.

The last two weeks had been particularly frustrating, with endless committee meetings spent trying to balance endless needs (recreation, a senior center, Springwood Avenue, downtown parking, unemployment, transportation - you name it) with the daunting prospect of a $4 million budget deficit in 2004.

And even the good news - a $1,000,000 community development donation from Asbury Partners, an offer to start a capital fund-raising drive for a senior/recreation center - was treated with jeers at a city council meeting.

And then, of course, there was the Mischief Night vandalism of our freshly restored house - the house we'd labored over all summer - leaving us with shattered light fixtures, a ruined front door, and a torn up porch.

"So where should we go?" I wondered out loud. "Arizona? The Caribbean? South Amboy…?"

Each of us knew what our final destination would be: Back home to Asbury Park.

The Asbury Park where seniors rocked out at Stone Pony dance parties. The Asbury Park where people came out on Saturday mornings to haul trash off abandoned lots. The Asbury Park where a tiny knot of residents had gathered that November morning by Sunset Lake to honor the under-recognized local heroes of a half dozen foreign wars.

Because Asbury Park is a city of heroes and, as I stood there during those Veteran's Day services, I couldn't help thinking about three of my favorites.

There's Robert (Bob) Sanders, of course, who ran away from home in 1947 to join the 24th Infantry regiment - the last Black unit in what was then a completely segregated Army.

Before his 17th birthday, he found himself jumping out of airplanes as part of the "Triple Nickels," the all-Black 555th Airborne Unit - a feat that he repeated 364 more times in the course of a 20-year career that took him to Korea, Vietnam and Europe.

"I was scared to death on that first jump," Robert admitted, "but I was a lot more afraid of the sergeant than I was of the damn height!"

The same fearlessness and sense of adventure that led him to join the Army at age 15 (his friends forged his parents' signatures on his admission papers) sent him and his neighbors out to do battle with local drug dealers last month at age 71. (The neighbors won; the dealers moved.)

And in the seven years I've known him, he's never been afraid to stand up for what's right, even when thugs without a hint of his courage tried to label him "Uncle Tom" or worse.

And, of course, there was that famous incident, five or so years ago, when a group of public officials had him improperly arrested - ironically on the eve of Veteran's Day - for (legally) attempting to videotape a public meeting. He still carries a Xerox copy of the check he won for compensation damages, and cheerfully whips it out to remind them.

Robert never loses his faith in - or his sense of humor about - Asbury Park, and I visit him every time I need to remember what I'm doing here. That's when I'm not talking things over with Anne and Lawson June, of course, who usually have homemade treats and a Diet Coke waiting in the kitchen when Dave and I run out of steam.

The Junes are the other reason I've always believed in Asbury Park. You won't see them making speeches at a microphone, although Lawson once served as our deputy mayor.

What you will see them doing, if you look behind the scenes, is helping to organize holiday parties for kids as part of the Northwest Block Watch (Lawson is its long-time president), opening their doors to children in crisis as part of a Safe House program, or graduating from the city's first Citizens on Patrol class (Lawson is the new program's co-founder and director).

And, like Robert, you'll find them working hundreds of hours in the background to ensure that, in Asbury Park, the good guys eventually win. (A word of caution: Annie Myrtle June may look like a quiet woman but, as she once warned her errant teenage son, "I'm not the type of mother who says, 'Wait 'til your father gets home!'")

And, just this month, the NAACP of Greater Long Branch honored their 30-plus years of community service at its annual Freedom Fund Luncheon.

My list of Asbury Park heroes has grown considerably over the years, as new people get involved and old residents come together - sometimes for the first time after years of suspicion and working at cross purposes - but these three are my touchstones.

The day after our house was vandalized, I reached into our mailbox and found a stencil that Dave and I had ordered for the front of our house - a favorite quote by Thoreau.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined," read the words that now run across our house in purple paint, just above our damaged, plywood-covered door.

And somehow I know that, just like our splintered front door, Asbury Park is on the mend.