The sun rose and the gray day brightened. Gray sky, gray bay on the waterfront, gray weather. The boats cruised into the wharf to pick up their bait and the conversations ranged from the price of lobster to the impending lobsterman's strike to the fishermans shooting on Matinicus Island. Things are tense on the waterfront.
The boat price of lobsters (paid at the dock by the retailers) is $2.75 per pound. Demand is down with the economy and all. But the lobstermen claim they can't operate profitably at below $3 a pound. So they are talking about tying up for a week, reducing supply, driving up demand. Might work. Might not. About half of them plan to keep on fishing so probably not.
Out on Matinicus things are getting heated. Yesterday a 75 year old fisherman shot a young guy in the neck at the town dock in front of a marine resources warden. The talk at the wharf went something like this.
"That's valuable bottom out there. The old salt has probably be fishing that ground for 50 years. And some young buck has moved in on his fishing ground. The old guy probably said, "You set over my traps one more time and I'll shoot you in the face." The young guy probably said, "Go piss up a rope old man." So the old guy shot him in the neck."
The young guy is in the hospital. The old guy is out on bail. Crime of passion. Justifiable attempted homicide? Only on the waterfront...
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