My hands don't make an oar shape lately. I've forgotten what bait smells like. I owe a seafood favor to someone and will have to acquire the goods elsewhere and then hope they stay frozen and TSA personnel don't confiscate them for looking like a menace to air travel. I guess St. Croix USVI is a hard location to ship fresh lobsters or shrimp to.
I finished an interior job and started a chainsaw project yesterday. Formidable as is the Stihl 211, I felt like one termite in a very large forest of tangled and blown down spruce trees. Taking a break, I looked across Matinicus Roads, past Ten Pound Island and the Hogshead. All the outlying ledges and islets were sharp white against a blue black ocean. Everything else in every direction was gray, so the black blue and white had a glow of their own, appearing hemispheres removed from the way the area looks in summer. We are Spitsbergen and a summer island paradise depending on the calendar.
I've also been working the sit muscles pretty hard and going back to law school in a manner of speaking. I've started legal research work. I was never the legal analyst, so this is a good chance to fill some gaps in my education. Lots and lots of screen time and ass time only broken by feeding the stove and school children.
That's the beauty and the peril of this life. I'm able to do a bunch of really different things as long as I don't mind being cold, inhaling urethane fumes, dodging falling trees and hardest of all, using my brain while sitting still. As long as I don't mind always being half a step ahead of delinquency notices and calls from customer service professionals who may monitor my call for training and quality assurance.
So today, the snow was whipping and my sinuses pretty well malfunctioning and I decided not to flog myself. What a luxury. I've had many years of dragging myself through court, correctional facilities, sterns of commercial fishing vessels and school while very much under the weather.
On one occasion, I was scheduled to be in front of a superior court justice who is now a federal prosecutor. I was scheduled to be in 2 courts at the same time, which is a fact of life for criminal defense counsel. I was sick as a dog, but apparently indispensible to the justice system and sorely missed by Delahanty. Neither court would accommodate the other, so I went to one and then the other. The judge called me to his office and assembled an audience to watch the verbal horsewhipping. I knew full well that on docket days there is infinite flex in the schedule and that no business made my presence a critical requirement. I guess he had a bad day, for which I feel long term gratitude because I decided that day to stop taking those kinds of cases where I wound up broke with holes in my shoes and a sour disposition. Thanks for helping me along the way, your honor.
We have time for our kids, mindless media entertainment and mid week jammy days. We make up for it the other 11 months. Like Lisa says, this is what January is for.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Chapter 2, Cellar Stairs
Chapter 1 appears earlier in the blog.
The next morning, Patrick opened the cellar door and better understood the lack of evidence of the tenants’ departure. The bottom of the stairs was under an avalanche of black plastic bags. The adventurers discovered one of the island realities left out of waiting room magazine pieces: there’s no place to get rid of anything. Properly, at least.
There are, however, plenty of woods and ocean bottom. Combustion gets rid of a lot. Refrigerators shoved down one of the steep bluffs often beached themselves in storms the following winter.
Patrick’s own early visits in the summer mingled the sea fog and beach roses with smoldering plastic and damp paper fires. Some times it was just a few things burned in a fifty gallon metal drum with air holes punched in it. Sometimes it was a massive upside down dumping into the sky of a black oily column of former rope, styrofoam, vinyl siding scraps, insulation and anything else inconvenient and combustible.
When he was sterning for Ray Moody, one trap came up full of jelly jars, catfood or tuna cans and a plastic Bart Simpson head. When he first had his own boat, one of the playful and properly pedigreed fishermen left him ice teas and beers, nicely chilled from the ocean bottom and giving refreshment along with the little chill that goes with being reminded who’s in charge out there.
Trash was a different matter here. You learned how much stuff you create just by living in the 21st century and adjacent to the United States of America. You learned that washing out meat trays with hot soapy water because the recycle program will take them was a lot easier than not doing it and having the smell and mess and attractiveness to pests. You get good at punching down cardboard boxes, nesting cans and doing every other trick to work the volume numbers more in your favor and have a little more living space for yourself. It is a part time job that on the mainland Patrick and family, along with most of the republic usually delegated to holes in the earth and waste trucking companies.
There were only actually 8 bags trailing up from the bottom of the cellar stairs. Pat would huck them up into the kitchen, sort through, wash what needed to be washed, haul it to recycle and compost, toss the animal products- if there were any- on the rocks for the gulls, burn a little, bag a little to haul back to a proper garbage receptical on the mainland.
He’d done it before. His own. Summer renters’. Dumpers’. Sorting through, trying to clean up and organize, trying to help things find their way along. When Patrick was practicing street law- criminal defense, child protective and divorces for poor people with no stocks to fight over- a crusty old DA, constantly in the news for blunt and intemperate remarks had told him “I’m really just a gahbij collecta. A human garbage collector. That’s what I do.”
Patrick on the other side of the courtroom aisle, and with 20 years’ hindsight hoped that when he did that work, he was more of a recycler, helping along those mixed up souls at the bottom of the cellar stairs of society.
---
---
Conversation deep underground. Rock. Aquifers. Magma. Motion. Rolling old green mountains with thick coats of dirt and trees. Inland to ocean waterways. Large lakes. Drier. Unclothed rocks. Brown corduroy rolling hills. Prairies with barbwire fences poked into the frozen ground. All talking around their table, passing the ancient message. It vibrates up through the soles of human feet separated by thousands of miles. In a courtroom in Montana.
The next morning, Patrick opened the cellar door and better understood the lack of evidence of the tenants’ departure. The bottom of the stairs was under an avalanche of black plastic bags. The adventurers discovered one of the island realities left out of waiting room magazine pieces: there’s no place to get rid of anything. Properly, at least.
There are, however, plenty of woods and ocean bottom. Combustion gets rid of a lot. Refrigerators shoved down one of the steep bluffs often beached themselves in storms the following winter.
Patrick’s own early visits in the summer mingled the sea fog and beach roses with smoldering plastic and damp paper fires. Some times it was just a few things burned in a fifty gallon metal drum with air holes punched in it. Sometimes it was a massive upside down dumping into the sky of a black oily column of former rope, styrofoam, vinyl siding scraps, insulation and anything else inconvenient and combustible.
When he was sterning for Ray Moody, one trap came up full of jelly jars, catfood or tuna cans and a plastic Bart Simpson head. When he first had his own boat, one of the playful and properly pedigreed fishermen left him ice teas and beers, nicely chilled from the ocean bottom and giving refreshment along with the little chill that goes with being reminded who’s in charge out there.
Trash was a different matter here. You learned how much stuff you create just by living in the 21st century and adjacent to the United States of America. You learned that washing out meat trays with hot soapy water because the recycle program will take them was a lot easier than not doing it and having the smell and mess and attractiveness to pests. You get good at punching down cardboard boxes, nesting cans and doing every other trick to work the volume numbers more in your favor and have a little more living space for yourself. It is a part time job that on the mainland Patrick and family, along with most of the republic usually delegated to holes in the earth and waste trucking companies.
There were only actually 8 bags trailing up from the bottom of the cellar stairs. Pat would huck them up into the kitchen, sort through, wash what needed to be washed, haul it to recycle and compost, toss the animal products- if there were any- on the rocks for the gulls, burn a little, bag a little to haul back to a proper garbage receptical on the mainland.
He’d done it before. His own. Summer renters’. Dumpers’. Sorting through, trying to clean up and organize, trying to help things find their way along. When Patrick was practicing street law- criminal defense, child protective and divorces for poor people with no stocks to fight over- a crusty old DA, constantly in the news for blunt and intemperate remarks had told him “I’m really just a gahbij collecta. A human garbage collector. That’s what I do.”
Patrick on the other side of the courtroom aisle, and with 20 years’ hindsight hoped that when he did that work, he was more of a recycler, helping along those mixed up souls at the bottom of the cellar stairs of society.
---
---
Conversation deep underground. Rock. Aquifers. Magma. Motion. Rolling old green mountains with thick coats of dirt and trees. Inland to ocean waterways. Large lakes. Drier. Unclothed rocks. Brown corduroy rolling hills. Prairies with barbwire fences poked into the frozen ground. All talking around their table, passing the ancient message. It vibrates up through the soles of human feet separated by thousands of miles. In a courtroom in Montana.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Snow Cover
I'm sitting on a dry dead spruce limb. It's frozen into the pond. My 2 younger kids are crazy for ice skating, so here we are, lacing up on the frozen pond. We explore the inlets and coves and islets within the little island within Penobscot Bay in the Gulf of Maine. There is the sunset. Over there is the hut, collapsed and almost consumed by the woods at the far edge of the pond. Here we are. Lucky. Privileged to be in this natural wild windy fresh place, twirling, gliding.
I've never been to a rink. Only ponds. Dark murky mosquito-y places in the summer. Silver gray places in skating season. We're here 'til dark. All week.
I'm thoroughly out of touch with the water. The ocean and ocean's work is all consuming, until it's done for the year, when it ceases to exist. Now there is the computer keyboard to tap and the woodstove to endlessly feed. Future work to plan. Inside fix-ups. A long trailing list of tasks at least a quarter of which will be on next winter's list unless their malfunction presents some emergency. One thing on the list was a pair of bedrooms.
The two younger kids roomed together in a cozy, basically big closet sized room. The 34 clowns coming out of the vw beetle have nothing on those two. Conventional figuring of cubic feet provides no explanation how all that stuff could fit into such a tiny space. The contents of that room took up the entire rest of the upstairs while I tried to prioritize, give away, strategically save and distribute all the thousands of items- toys, puzzle pieces, disembodied lego heads, fourteen thousand crayons/pencils/markers, long lost jammy bottoms, remnants of smuggled candy and fruit, homework and, of course, a couple of dozen socks that probably were originally sold as singles.
When spring comes, the some of the other single socks will emerge from the dead grass around the yard.
I'm nowhere near ready for that. I need Snow Cover. I need time to catch up and I need the limits imposed mercifully by the season.
I've never been to a rink. Only ponds. Dark murky mosquito-y places in the summer. Silver gray places in skating season. We're here 'til dark. All week.
I'm thoroughly out of touch with the water. The ocean and ocean's work is all consuming, until it's done for the year, when it ceases to exist. Now there is the computer keyboard to tap and the woodstove to endlessly feed. Future work to plan. Inside fix-ups. A long trailing list of tasks at least a quarter of which will be on next winter's list unless their malfunction presents some emergency. One thing on the list was a pair of bedrooms.
The two younger kids roomed together in a cozy, basically big closet sized room. The 34 clowns coming out of the vw beetle have nothing on those two. Conventional figuring of cubic feet provides no explanation how all that stuff could fit into such a tiny space. The contents of that room took up the entire rest of the upstairs while I tried to prioritize, give away, strategically save and distribute all the thousands of items- toys, puzzle pieces, disembodied lego heads, fourteen thousand crayons/pencils/markers, long lost jammy bottoms, remnants of smuggled candy and fruit, homework and, of course, a couple of dozen socks that probably were originally sold as singles.
When spring comes, the some of the other single socks will emerge from the dead grass around the yard.
I'm nowhere near ready for that. I need Snow Cover. I need time to catch up and I need the limits imposed mercifully by the season.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Old Fisherman Goes Zig-Zagging Home
I've stayed awkwardly late at the party. I'm waiting for a bus or ferry that already left. It's the weekend after the semester started and I'm still watching the stars through the top of the cabriolet while she drives the twisting peninsula roads leading from the harbor town of my summer job. It's Boxing Day and the traps aren't up.
The road that was muddy is now frozen to concrete and I'm really enjoying the super heavy socks inside my rubber boots on my walk to the harbor. The same walk where I'd be swishing mosquitoes away and marveling at the dawn chorus of songbirds. I am Held Over. Held over past the time that things are supposed to change to the next phase.
"You'll be cold." Rick tells me from the porch as I walk past. We have a proper blizzard in the forecast. Almost everything is some shade of gray. The wharf concrete. The water. The sea smoke. The clouds to the east, however, are not gray. The band of clouds where we are heading are black. Not like a thunderstorm which is isolated, but a solid band. God is coming kind of black. Old Testament God. Windy and Cold Testament God.
Zig: The clouds and chop and temperature are frightening to a timid person like myself. I am afraid. I want to be back in my jams for Boxing Day. My family was very comfy when I left. But I am a fishermen, even if an inexperienced wussy one. I love it, so I am here.
Zag: The clouds go over us and it is not so bad. The wind dies down some. I am coiling 55 fathom trap lines or "warps," the first of 19,500 feet to be coiled today. I learned how to coil rope much faster this year. What good for a man with 3 kids being a superior rope coiler is, I do not know. But I am good. I do not get behind. I am not afraid. The temperature inside counteracts the temperature outside. I am grooving. We go in with the first load of 50. Captain Clayton says something about thinking we might not get the third load into the harbor.
Zig again: "I don't like the way this wind is coming up. I think if we come back out here it will be some nasty." I hadn't noticed. I certainly notice when we take a wave and a 400 pound barrel of water and lobsters and a tier of traps go sliding to port. Now I have rubbery legs and a tight gut. It gets uglier in a hurry. I see the slate green frowns with white spray crinkled foreheads and knitted brows, all glowering right at me.
On the way in, the trap load keeps fidgeting, but always ever so slightly more to port. I get visions of the load, which is locked together and lashed to the boat upsetting the center of gravity. A surly wave will push us over and its bullying friend will roll us. There will be no time for immersion suits or radio calls. We are far out from land. I am cold. My fingers are soaked and numb. I am not afraid. I am terrified. Probably because I don't understand how stable lobster boats really are. Fear doesn't have to be rational.
Then the traps get trucked. Even though we only got 100 of the 150 we planned on, it's getting dark by the time we're done. 100 traps, 120 or so buoys, 19,500 feet of wet rope.
Zag again. Home is never so sweet and inviting as when I'm cold and nervous on the water. Even with stir crazy kids still in their jams.
***
Tonight as I write, we're in night number two of the blizzard. Sticky snow, rain, more snow, always copious amounts of wind. Snow is glued to the northeast sides of the tree trunks. After feeding the birds and bringing in wood this morning, the kids and I built the traditional snow fort, but topped it with a matrix of sticks and bows that held the sticky wet snow perfectly. We now have a stick and snow-stucco hut big enough for 1 and a half people or 2 kids to crawl into. Tonight it will certainly freeze solid. Life is good.
The road that was muddy is now frozen to concrete and I'm really enjoying the super heavy socks inside my rubber boots on my walk to the harbor. The same walk where I'd be swishing mosquitoes away and marveling at the dawn chorus of songbirds. I am Held Over. Held over past the time that things are supposed to change to the next phase.
"You'll be cold." Rick tells me from the porch as I walk past. We have a proper blizzard in the forecast. Almost everything is some shade of gray. The wharf concrete. The water. The sea smoke. The clouds to the east, however, are not gray. The band of clouds where we are heading are black. Not like a thunderstorm which is isolated, but a solid band. God is coming kind of black. Old Testament God. Windy and Cold Testament God.
Zig: The clouds and chop and temperature are frightening to a timid person like myself. I am afraid. I want to be back in my jams for Boxing Day. My family was very comfy when I left. But I am a fishermen, even if an inexperienced wussy one. I love it, so I am here.
Zag: The clouds go over us and it is not so bad. The wind dies down some. I am coiling 55 fathom trap lines or "warps," the first of 19,500 feet to be coiled today. I learned how to coil rope much faster this year. What good for a man with 3 kids being a superior rope coiler is, I do not know. But I am good. I do not get behind. I am not afraid. The temperature inside counteracts the temperature outside. I am grooving. We go in with the first load of 50. Captain Clayton says something about thinking we might not get the third load into the harbor.
Zig again: "I don't like the way this wind is coming up. I think if we come back out here it will be some nasty." I hadn't noticed. I certainly notice when we take a wave and a 400 pound barrel of water and lobsters and a tier of traps go sliding to port. Now I have rubbery legs and a tight gut. It gets uglier in a hurry. I see the slate green frowns with white spray crinkled foreheads and knitted brows, all glowering right at me.
On the way in, the trap load keeps fidgeting, but always ever so slightly more to port. I get visions of the load, which is locked together and lashed to the boat upsetting the center of gravity. A surly wave will push us over and its bullying friend will roll us. There will be no time for immersion suits or radio calls. We are far out from land. I am cold. My fingers are soaked and numb. I am not afraid. I am terrified. Probably because I don't understand how stable lobster boats really are. Fear doesn't have to be rational.
Then the traps get trucked. Even though we only got 100 of the 150 we planned on, it's getting dark by the time we're done. 100 traps, 120 or so buoys, 19,500 feet of wet rope.
Zag again. Home is never so sweet and inviting as when I'm cold and nervous on the water. Even with stir crazy kids still in their jams.
***
Tonight as I write, we're in night number two of the blizzard. Sticky snow, rain, more snow, always copious amounts of wind. Snow is glued to the northeast sides of the tree trunks. After feeding the birds and bringing in wood this morning, the kids and I built the traditional snow fort, but topped it with a matrix of sticks and bows that held the sticky wet snow perfectly. We now have a stick and snow-stucco hut big enough for 1 and a half people or 2 kids to crawl into. Tonight it will certainly freeze solid. Life is good.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Trying to Make a Living in Paradise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-6XgfpZQjE
Pretty much showing it like it is. This is the saltwater rock music video follow-up to "Haul Em' Up!" Thanks to the fabulous Steamboat Wharf dancers, the old fire truck and the never ending inspiration that is Matinicus Island.
Right now making a living consists of taking up traps, which, tomorrow is likely to be a frosty enterprise, odd painting and carpentry jobs and law geek stuff over the winter. It is all part of the adventure. I need to remind myself of the adventure element when I start getting mopey.
Here we come a wassailing among the leaves of green. Love and joy come to you.
Pretty much showing it like it is. This is the saltwater rock music video follow-up to "Haul Em' Up!" Thanks to the fabulous Steamboat Wharf dancers, the old fire truck and the never ending inspiration that is Matinicus Island.
Right now making a living consists of taking up traps, which, tomorrow is likely to be a frosty enterprise, odd painting and carpentry jobs and law geek stuff over the winter. It is all part of the adventure. I need to remind myself of the adventure element when I start getting mopey.
Here we come a wassailing among the leaves of green. Love and joy come to you.
Monday, December 13, 2010
One More Name on the Memorial
The wind seemed heartless and indifferent this morning at around 2. I woke knowing that beyond the walls of my house, past the spruce trees and fields, the rocks and outer barrier ledges, across 30 miles of pitch black December-style Atlantic ocean, the Coast Guard was searching for a man who went overboard 14 hours earlier. The boat was a 77 footer out of Rhode Island, working 50 or so miles offshore.
The marine forecast called for 20 to 30 foot seas as I turned in last night. I'd not seen such a prediction in the 5 years we've been here. The tv news weather graphic showed a boiling swath of precipitation stretching from off the west coast of Florida all the way up to New England.
It doesn't make sense to impute cruelty to the wind or the sea, but that was how I felt when I woke up thinking of that man, his mates and captain, family and the coast guard men and women out there trying to find him. It's cruel misfortune to work a lifetime on the water, get into one tangle with the wrong trap line, and get pulled overboard. After that, according to the Bangor Daily News, David fought back. He cut himself loose successfully in the midst of the mayhem and got a hold of a life ring. Then he let go and sank.
I'm still a newcomer to deck work, and not a newbie in any way other than that. I came to this work figuring that if a hand goes overboard, he can just tread water for a couple of minutes, even if it's cold, until the boat turns around and comes back to scoop him up. All the reports I read and things I hear say otherwise. Much of the time, falling overboard is quick and final.
I don't really know what to make of it when these tragedies occur. David was obviously out there out of necessity, but probably also because that is what he loved doing. I'm old and lazy enough to think that a lot of boats and crews are under too much pressure to go out and stay out in poor conditions. I'll probably always be a lubber. I can't see myself compulsively going out or staying out when the conditions are rotten. I'd rather make a little less money. This attitude would get me flogged in a real fishing operation. Then again, I understand that once you're out, you want to make a trip of it. There is also the primal truth that a rotten day on a boat is still better than a nice day in other work situations.
I'm also timid enough that I don't worry about flotation compromising my manhood. New vests that inflate when the sensor is more than 4" under water and closed cell foam work gear could save lives or at least provide some relief to families.
When I was a kid, I'd never seen a color tv or a bike helmet. Now they're everywhere. Fishing will always be the wildest, most fun, most real occupation, even with a vest on. And it will still be plenty dangerous. And make great color tv entertainment.
Let us pray.
The marine forecast called for 20 to 30 foot seas as I turned in last night. I'd not seen such a prediction in the 5 years we've been here. The tv news weather graphic showed a boiling swath of precipitation stretching from off the west coast of Florida all the way up to New England.
It doesn't make sense to impute cruelty to the wind or the sea, but that was how I felt when I woke up thinking of that man, his mates and captain, family and the coast guard men and women out there trying to find him. It's cruel misfortune to work a lifetime on the water, get into one tangle with the wrong trap line, and get pulled overboard. After that, according to the Bangor Daily News, David fought back. He cut himself loose successfully in the midst of the mayhem and got a hold of a life ring. Then he let go and sank.
I'm still a newcomer to deck work, and not a newbie in any way other than that. I came to this work figuring that if a hand goes overboard, he can just tread water for a couple of minutes, even if it's cold, until the boat turns around and comes back to scoop him up. All the reports I read and things I hear say otherwise. Much of the time, falling overboard is quick and final.
I don't really know what to make of it when these tragedies occur. David was obviously out there out of necessity, but probably also because that is what he loved doing. I'm old and lazy enough to think that a lot of boats and crews are under too much pressure to go out and stay out in poor conditions. I'll probably always be a lubber. I can't see myself compulsively going out or staying out when the conditions are rotten. I'd rather make a little less money. This attitude would get me flogged in a real fishing operation. Then again, I understand that once you're out, you want to make a trip of it. There is also the primal truth that a rotten day on a boat is still better than a nice day in other work situations.
I'm also timid enough that I don't worry about flotation compromising my manhood. New vests that inflate when the sensor is more than 4" under water and closed cell foam work gear could save lives or at least provide some relief to families.
When I was a kid, I'd never seen a color tv or a bike helmet. Now they're everywhere. Fishing will always be the wildest, most fun, most real occupation, even with a vest on. And it will still be plenty dangerous. And make great color tv entertainment.
Let us pray.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Fisherman as Villain
When the zero carbon lobster project got some media attention last summer, I should not have read the comments. Some were very positive. Some were just nasty. One stuck with me.
" There is no greater destructive
" There is no greater destructive
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Really? I suppose so as long as we don't consider mining, manufacturing, oil drilling, mountain top coal extraction, box stores, forestry, highway transportation, commercial agriculture or beef, pork, chicken, and soy bean production.
There is no shortage of professionally crafted persuasive and fundraising messages insisting that fishing activity has brought oceans to the brink of mass extinction. Fishermen are portrayed as ruthless pillagers of the oceans. Grisly photographs are shown; the kind we don't usually see in connection with other food production where chicken seems to have come into existence skinless and boneless in a styrofoam tray. Vilification of fishermen also diverts attention from ocean acidification, agricultural, home pesticide, road and industrial runoff, military, cargo vessels, and cruise ships (where does all the, ya know -stuff- go?), and of course grounded oil tankers and exploding drilling platforms.
Perhaps industrial scale fishing, like industrial scale food production of any kind, rapidly depletes resources and causes other degradation of the home we all share. I offer a few points of comparison between fishing and other food production, particularly concerning smaller boats where the catch rarely goes into an intercontinental shipping container.
Fishing works with the natural environment instead of against it. Fish live wild until they are caught. With the exception of methods such as bottom dragging or dynamiting a coral reef, the surrounding environment is left intact. The creatures know when the moon is full. The move about, eat and reproduce as they please. The ecosystem maintains her rhythm.
Contrast this with, say, soybean production, the foundation of so many vegetarian and purportedly green-friendly foods. How much acreage is plowed up? How many trees are removed? How many smaller plants, animals and microorganisms are displaced? How much water is diverted from its natural destination? What quantity of chemicals are introduced into the earth and the oceans?
Food production is a big source of trouble and potential. More local production and marketing means less transportation, refrigeration, processing, preserving. More small scale local production means a broader distribution of economic opportunity and benefit.
Small, local food production means making the most effective use of what your environment is good for. For those of us blessed enough to live and work on the ocean, our contribution to a web of environmentally healthy and economically vibrant food production originates here.
The imagery of the rapacious fisherman is ripe for a little public makeover. We can keep the eye patches for when we really need them, say, Halloween and regulatory hearings.