The Zen of Shoveling Bait

A flash of expanded consciousness. Ryan was right. Something Zen-like takes place while forking pogies from barrels... a rhythm... a flow. As Oprah said, "Who would have thought that shoveling dead fish could be a spiritual experience." A part of the show that was cut included a conversation where she asked me what I would do for work next. I answered, "I don't know, but it won't be shoveling dead fish." Never say never.

The sun rises have been spectacular and we all find a few moments between the flurry of activity to watch the colors develop in the morning sky down the bay. A couple harbor seals bob off the pier waiting for someone to toss a fish their way. The sea gulls don't wait, swooping down to steal breakfast right out of the barrels. Osprey, sea ducks, a few Lesser Bittern. And later in the morning the tourists begin to line up over on the State Pier for the ferries out to the islands. The Machigonne, the Aucocisco II, the Island Romance ferrying cars and mail, supplies and tourists out to the islands; Peaks and Long, Little Chebeague and Great Diamond. They call them the Calendar Islands because there are around 365 in total.

The green offload stanchon arms at Portland Pipeline Pier One where my father, Uncle Bob and Grandfather Goodwin worked break the horizon and the oil tankers rise out of the water as they offload their foreign cargo. Bug Light blinks at the end of the breakwater in South Portland near my mother's memorial bench at Spring Point. Pier Two is right across Casco Bay where I spent a summer painting pilings on a float under the pier. My Grandfather Davis used to shuck clams and row across the bay to sell them on Commercial Street in his day. And my Great Grandfather Willard was a hard hat diver setting the underwater footings for the bridges, laying electrical lines, setting pilings. One time he dove to salvage cannon balls from a sunk barge. So much history. It seeps into you quietly, just a whisper.

I think the crew has accepted me, more or less. They call me the "old guy" and I am the oldest man though I look younger than half of them. Life on the water doesn't age a person gently. 3 or 4 of the lobstermen are classmates of mine. Harry, Greg, Mick and Art; all at South Portland High School in the 60's. Good guys although Harry and several of his buddies punched me out in the corner of the bath room at Thornton Heights Elementary School when we moved back to Maine from Vermont in 1962. Not that I hold grudges, but I might drop a tote of herring on his head.

I listen a lot. Conversations range from which jail serves the best food to which bars serve the cheapest beer to which video games have the best graphics to which marijuana has the best buzz. And of course lots of sex conversation. One of the crew got arrested the other night at 3:30 while walking to work. The cop said, "You're going to work... Yeah right." They handcuffed him and took him to the station. It didn't help that he is Guatemalan, doesn't speak good english especially when handcuffed in the back of a cruiser and didn't have his papers on him. Another guy lives upstairs in the bait shop, does speak English, but isn't intelligible half the time. I bought him a couple beers at Bubba's, a local dive, the other day after work. We didn't talk much, but the beer was cold and the ice was broken.

Only 2 in 7 have a drivers license. Most have criminal records. One guy spent 4 years at the state penitentiary as a habitual offender... 4 years. He gave up driving, not drinking. You hear lots of stuff you never would have. Like this morning, somebody said, "Hey Barry, you've got seagull shit on your neck." And then there are long moments of silence when the crew sits on the dock smoking hand rolled cigarettes, smelling like fish, watching the sky in silence waiting for the next boat, the next truck, the next beer...