Stories

 

"Fish Processing Plant - Gloucester MA"
Nikon D800
Nikkor 50.0mm 1.4
Lightroom
Silver Efex Pro

I had originally wanted to go to Rocky Neck yesterday, but it was so jammed with tourists, I couldn't find any place to park.. so back to the fish pier Carl and I went... It was a beautiful day with not-too-warm sun and a light breeze off the harbor. There were some nice clouds on the horizon in back of the fish processing plant, so I captured that scene.. Right after taking that shot, my friend Mike (not his real name) rolled up in his white Toyota Tacoma. I greeted him with the usual wave and a "HiHowAhYah?" For the next two hours, he sitting in the cab of his truck and me standing out on the pier, talked about his life and fishing.. The time went by in an instant..   Some snippets of our conversation:   ~ Mike was in the longshoreman crew that unloaded the Andrea Gail just before she made her ill-fated turnaround voyage out to the Flemish Cap in search of swordfish. As you'll no doubt remember, the Andrea Gail went down with all hands during the Perfect Storm that lashed the MA coast in October of 1991. Mike and his fellow longshoremen were among that last few people to see Captain Billy Tyne and his crew alive. ~ That fish processing plant above makes the breaded fish fillets for MacDonald's Filet O' Fish sandwiches.. Every day, 18-wheelers with freezer trailers on them roll in from Alaska full of frozen pollack. The filets are shaped with bandsaws. ~ When the Andrea Gail went to sea for the last time, they took extra fuel with them so that they could make the return trip from the Flemish Cap (about 750 miles NE of the Gloucester Fish Pier). The fuel was stored in 55 gallon drums lashed in place in the walkway around the outside of the wheelhouse. Mike thought that so much weight so high up had to have contributed to the Andrea Gail's demise in rough seas..  ~ I asked Mike where he got his fish now when he went food shopping.. He guffawed. "I ain't never paid for fish a day in my life." When he worked on the docks, fishermen would offer fish to the longshoremen and lumpers who were unloading their boats.. Mike told me that the captains would let them select a fish (or two) to take with them at the end of the day. When Mike was a boy during the 30's and 40's, his Mom would send him down to the pier to see what he could get for the family supper.. Once, a boat barely afloat under the weight of her mackerel catch tied up to be unloaded.. Mike caught the skipper's attention and asked if there might be any 'extra' fish. The skipper reached down into a nearby basket and pulled out 10 mackerel.. Then he put one mackerel on each of Mike's fingers so that he could carry them home.. Hah.. Mike told me that he still knows some old-timers that go out fishing. They always offer him some fish when they come back to port.. ~ Mike was never a sports fan. He said his sports were duck hunting and deer hunting.. He hunted duck on the salt marshes in Essex. For deer he went up to New Hampshire or Maine. Mike's wife knew how to prepare delicious duck and venison meals which he really enjoyed. I asked if his kids liked duck and deer. He laughed and said "They did until they found out what they was eatin' - then they didn't want to eat it no more." ~ The engine pistons on his Father-in-Law's fishing schooner were over a foot in diameter. The nuts that secured the cylinder head to the engine block were about six inches across.. They were tightened with a huge socket wrench with a flat strike plate at the other end of the wrench. When a bolt couldn't be tightened any more by hand, the engineer would get a sledge hammer (!!) and tighten it the rest of the way by hitting the strike plate on the socket wrench. At the end of our two hour talk (which seemed like five minutes), I said "OK - I better be getting back. My wife is probably wondering where I am. Hey - it's your birthday soon right? Happy Birthday. Is your family gonna throw you a party?" He scoffed "Jesus - I hope not. I may just leave the state that day.." We both laughed. As I turned to go back to Carl, Mike said "You didn't get no pictures today...just stories.." I told him - "The stories are worth way more than the pictures to me." I thanked him again for talking to me and made my way across the parking lot to Carl.   There were lots more stories - too many for a blog post. I really should record them.

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