I didn't want to go into November without finishing this so I skipped trick-or-treating to write the final chapter.
TENDER MOMENTS: PART THREE
Monday, July 9th, 2007
Rarely does the “outside” open to fishing anymore in the Naknek-Kvichak district but on this day the drifters get a shot on the other side of the river mouth. This leaves us with setnetters. Damnit. In true Monday fashion we get hit up by the bed wetter setnetters that The Shawnee nicknamed The Grumps. They are perhaps the most humorless folks I have ever met. You couldn’t make the laugh at gunpoint, not that having a gun pointed at you would really make you laugh. They were a group or family of teachers, I can’t remember where from, perhaps a certain trash can on Sesame Street.
After taking some fish we end up at the dock so Shwanee and I stroll uptown for lunch and settle on THE RED DOG. Known more for its infamous bar that was rated as one of the most dangerous in America or some hogwash we sat in the diner side for hamburgers. The cook seemed happy to have someone to talk to, it wasn’t exactly busy. We watch CNN as Mannie Noriega was about to get sprung from the penile and was trying to get back to Panama for the Van Halen reunion concert before he gets shipped off to jail in France. Something like that. After lunch I peak in the dark barside to see what we can see. I have all three colors of Red Dog t-shirts (red, white, black) in my wardrobe so I didn’t spend any duckets. They need a yellow one.
From there Shwanee and I split up; he goes to phone his wife and I go to Hatfield’s Bar to use their internet. Every bar should have internet access for the public and not just Wi-Fi hot spots for the notebook crowd but a real PC set up as they do at this place IN NAKNEK, ALASKA. This computer has a really cool rubber keyboard that can roll up and be doused in PBR without care. If I had a bar I’d have on of those internet terminals like they have at the Anchorage airport that takes dollar bills. Washington will get you five minutes. Anywho, I check my e-mail and the KDM & KMXT sites to be sure everything is still lame back home.
Go take a nap. I love this job. Later Capt. Ron makes the best sockeye salmon tacos I’ve ever had. I might have to call him Capt. Rubio. We pop Conan The Barbarian in the XBOX 360 and watch Arnold slay f-wording everyone. It occurs to me that when yer mom gets decapitated in front of you it is likely you will grow up sort of pissed off. My Name Is James Earl Jones. After watching the entire movie I never recall seeing Triumph the Insult Comic Dog make even a cameo appearance. Nevermind.
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
We are doing the late night thing and I stay up to spot jackholes who want to unload. My cold-flu thing is gaining horsepower but it doesn’t stop me from successfully completing my first ever Sudoku puzzle. Its not quite as addictive as Tetris but in the same area code. My voice is also disappearing from the illness. I sound like I do after four quarters at Qwest. I have a Pepsi to stay awake since I’m the only person on the face of the Earth who has worked on a fishing boat and never drank coffee. Ever. Being a fisherman and not sipping Folgers is like going to Humboldt and not smoking weed (another claim I can make that nobody believes). Maybe I should have laid down. Even a night owl like me is struggling to keep my eyes open. What Would Conan Do? “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!” Yes, that would be better than No Doz. (Randy El loves that quote) I finally get to bunk at 7:15am. Z x 1,000,000.
Back at it four hours later. The F/V Lady Tillie delivers to us and I tell their crew we don’t want their Raider fish and they’d have to go find a tender in Compton. The cannery has problems again and we can’t deliver this tide. Wow. Word comes that the governor is pissed off about the lack of processors in the Bay in the smaller areas. We watch Anger Management, the perfect movie for Bristol Bay. Now I’m no doubt truly 100% sick. I read my Andy Rooney book and we feast on a king salmonid. I’m I boring you? There are other blogs, I’m not making you stay here.
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
1am we deliver. Same routine. The run should be over soon and so will I. I’m starting to debate if I should stay in Anchorage on the way back or just get back. With lots of free time to think I’m also contemplating whether or not I have a future in Kodiak. This experience recalls those good days of my early 20’s when I’d summer in the Great Land and then have a great time Labor Day to Memorial Day 48 side. No wife, no kids, no 1.4 pets, no rotting picket fence (unless you count the car barriers at Alderwood), just me. Maybe I could go back to Seattle. Or Tahoe. Or Sandin Ego. I could go anywhere but the more I think about it the more I feel there is no where to go. I also start weighing my odd-year tendency to run for mayor and once again I have no answer. Running is actually another reason to stay home. The cannery tells us we will “stay clean” this tide, meaning we won’t be taking any fish. By 3pm we have half a load.
Now that I saw them at the the processor formally known as Wards Cove, The Noah crew ties up to us and I chat with Dave and Laura for about half an hour. I just can’t see how they, and really everyone, can go out on the water without a posted price for their catch. Would you work a job for a few months without being told what yer hourly wage is? Of course not. When I first went up there with my dad in 1988 we got $2.25 a pound for our reds. The last year I went, 2001, it was 50 cents. I’ve heard about 70-80 cents this season. I recall when the strike ended and we got a buck. For a buck I’d want a permit and get back in the game but until then it’s a joke. The Exxon spill, price fixing, the Japanese market, scabs, leaking Siberian barrels of nuke waste in the sea, whatever, I don’t know why the price dropped so low but it should never be below one dollar.
I start the Pirate vs. Viking debate. It doesn’t go very far. Might have to bring it back up on a Round Table show. We end up tied to the Connie Lou again and we get word Ichiro hit an inside-the-park home run in the All Star Game. That is mystical sh….stuff, nobody does that. I step out the cabin with one eye peeled for Randy El and his icy projectiles when one hits me in the back of the shoulder. Something isn’t right because my back is to the house and PLUNK I get nailed again in the same spot. That rat bastard has climbed into the crow’s nest of the Fayette and is dropping July-born snowballs on me bloody ‘ead. He wins the battle but the war rages on with no end in sight. I decide I’d rather have Ichiro than Dirty Harry on my side in a snowball fight.
Thursday, July 12th, 2007
If you thought the 10th was boring I wrote about three notes about the 12th. The highlight is watching 300. To my surprise it isn’t a movie about the USC bowling team but in fact a megaviolent bloodbath based on real events. What strikes me about the film is you could pause it at any point and it would make an excellent picture to frame and put above the fireplace. I think the same director did Sin City.
Friday, July 13th, 2007
As in Friday the 13th. Great. Right at midnight on cue the fog rolls in and everything disappears. Those of you who know me have heard my fog story and I’m not going to repeat it. Ask Solly.
In the morning I get a call from my boss. Reality is setting in that reality is not making a set. That would be a better line if I was actually fishing and not tendering but I couldn’t waste it. We get the double pleasure of getting all three “drunk boats” almost at the same time. They become The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. The Good is the one I rode in on at the beginning of this story and the tie to our port side. They are still picking fish at twice the speed of zero so I ask if I can jump in and help. The sole crewmember smiles and says go for it so I put on my rarely used raingear and start tearing reds out the gear. I WRX the two Justy and they exclaim how fast I am while The Shwanee says “I thought you’d be faster.” F-worder.
Sole crewman then tells me it is his 47th birthday and offers me a Budweiser at 8am. Thanks. These poor mofos drink day and night, nobody knows how they are still alive floating around out there all messed up. When you look them in the eye you see a sadness, an unmistakable sadness in a man. It looks like a sadness that started as a child and never, ever left. It is a look a smile can never hide. The Bad boat ties up on the other side of the Fay and as we are unloading we get a bag that is 666 pounds. Shwanee and I look at each other not sure what to do. All the deliveries are small but we get enough to load up again. But all you want to know is what makes the third boat Ugly. Try particle board deck planks. Waterlogged, bending particle board deck planks and a kid who looks like he belongs in a GEICO ad.
We anchor near the F/V Salmon Berry, a Kodiak seiner doing a similar gig as us. There are a bunch of young ones on there and one of the girls starts working out on deck. I can’t repeat anything that was said, thought, seen, or observed about the next 45 minutes other than morale must be very high on that vessel.
We watch Master and Commander which has a better ending for the hero than 300. Capt. Ron makes fried chicken that gets four stars from the ship’s blogger. Tony on the F/V Oly gives us a Moosehead and I’ve scored two beers in one day. Maybe the 13th isn’t so bad.
Tomorrow I head for home. I’m so proud to be an Alaskan and so fortunate to have got another chance to experience Naknek. I missed the physical work. I missed the character rich-environment. I missed the D&D pizza. This is what it was like for Jordan playing with the Wizards I bet, but better. The game never leaves you completely. I might have to build a narrow boat bunk in my condo and play diesel generator sound effects in a boom box under my mattress.
Saturday, July 14th, 2007
We get lots of really small deliveries and I call in to Jock of the Rock for a few minutes before we take our last delivery and head in. I don’t want to go and wish I could milk another week out but up the ladder with my bag I go. I end up getting a cab with the same lady who drove me to town on the way there. I complete my restaurant tour by having a Tacoburger at Eddie’s Fireplace Inn. The BBBPD is searching for a dude who dined and dashed and the hippos behind the bar are feeding off the drama instead of the homemade pies. Classic small town moment. After PAYING for my meal I hit the King Ko for a cold one. I’m paranoid the airline won’t have my reservation and I’ll have to be there all afternoon trying to get a stand-by flight. My fears are unfounded and I fly to Anchorage where I just make the last flight labeled ADQ. Penn Air manages to lose my bag BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!!!!!
Tuesday, July 17th, 2007
I get it my bag.
TENDER MOMENTS: PART THREE
Monday, July 9th, 2007
Rarely does the “outside” open to fishing anymore in the Naknek-Kvichak district but on this day the drifters get a shot on the other side of the river mouth. This leaves us with setnetters. Damnit. In true Monday fashion we get hit up by the bed wetter setnetters that The Shawnee nicknamed The Grumps. They are perhaps the most humorless folks I have ever met. You couldn’t make the laugh at gunpoint, not that having a gun pointed at you would really make you laugh. They were a group or family of teachers, I can’t remember where from, perhaps a certain trash can on Sesame Street.
After taking some fish we end up at the dock so Shwanee and I stroll uptown for lunch and settle on THE RED DOG. Known more for its infamous bar that was rated as one of the most dangerous in America or some hogwash we sat in the diner side for hamburgers. The cook seemed happy to have someone to talk to, it wasn’t exactly busy. We watch CNN as Mannie Noriega was about to get sprung from the penile and was trying to get back to Panama for the Van Halen reunion concert before he gets shipped off to jail in France. Something like that. After lunch I peak in the dark barside to see what we can see. I have all three colors of Red Dog t-shirts (red, white, black) in my wardrobe so I didn’t spend any duckets. They need a yellow one.
From there Shwanee and I split up; he goes to phone his wife and I go to Hatfield’s Bar to use their internet. Every bar should have internet access for the public and not just Wi-Fi hot spots for the notebook crowd but a real PC set up as they do at this place IN NAKNEK, ALASKA. This computer has a really cool rubber keyboard that can roll up and be doused in PBR without care. If I had a bar I’d have on of those internet terminals like they have at the Anchorage airport that takes dollar bills. Washington will get you five minutes. Anywho, I check my e-mail and the KDM & KMXT sites to be sure everything is still lame back home.
Go take a nap. I love this job. Later Capt. Ron makes the best sockeye salmon tacos I’ve ever had. I might have to call him Capt. Rubio. We pop Conan The Barbarian in the XBOX 360 and watch Arnold slay f-wording everyone. It occurs to me that when yer mom gets decapitated in front of you it is likely you will grow up sort of pissed off. My Name Is James Earl Jones. After watching the entire movie I never recall seeing Triumph the Insult Comic Dog make even a cameo appearance. Nevermind.
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
We are doing the late night thing and I stay up to spot jackholes who want to unload. My cold-flu thing is gaining horsepower but it doesn’t stop me from successfully completing my first ever Sudoku puzzle. Its not quite as addictive as Tetris but in the same area code. My voice is also disappearing from the illness. I sound like I do after four quarters at Qwest. I have a Pepsi to stay awake since I’m the only person on the face of the Earth who has worked on a fishing boat and never drank coffee. Ever. Being a fisherman and not sipping Folgers is like going to Humboldt and not smoking weed (another claim I can make that nobody believes). Maybe I should have laid down. Even a night owl like me is struggling to keep my eyes open. What Would Conan Do? “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!” Yes, that would be better than No Doz. (Randy El loves that quote) I finally get to bunk at 7:15am. Z x 1,000,000.
Back at it four hours later. The F/V Lady Tillie delivers to us and I tell their crew we don’t want their Raider fish and they’d have to go find a tender in Compton. The cannery has problems again and we can’t deliver this tide. Wow. Word comes that the governor is pissed off about the lack of processors in the Bay in the smaller areas. We watch Anger Management, the perfect movie for Bristol Bay. Now I’m no doubt truly 100% sick. I read my Andy Rooney book and we feast on a king salmonid. I’m I boring you? There are other blogs, I’m not making you stay here.
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
1am we deliver. Same routine. The run should be over soon and so will I. I’m starting to debate if I should stay in Anchorage on the way back or just get back. With lots of free time to think I’m also contemplating whether or not I have a future in Kodiak. This experience recalls those good days of my early 20’s when I’d summer in the Great Land and then have a great time Labor Day to Memorial Day 48 side. No wife, no kids, no 1.4 pets, no rotting picket fence (unless you count the car barriers at Alderwood), just me. Maybe I could go back to Seattle. Or Tahoe. Or Sandin Ego. I could go anywhere but the more I think about it the more I feel there is no where to go. I also start weighing my odd-year tendency to run for mayor and once again I have no answer. Running is actually another reason to stay home. The cannery tells us we will “stay clean” this tide, meaning we won’t be taking any fish. By 3pm we have half a load.
Now that I saw them at the the processor formally known as Wards Cove, The Noah crew ties up to us and I chat with Dave and Laura for about half an hour. I just can’t see how they, and really everyone, can go out on the water without a posted price for their catch. Would you work a job for a few months without being told what yer hourly wage is? Of course not. When I first went up there with my dad in 1988 we got $2.25 a pound for our reds. The last year I went, 2001, it was 50 cents. I’ve heard about 70-80 cents this season. I recall when the strike ended and we got a buck. For a buck I’d want a permit and get back in the game but until then it’s a joke. The Exxon spill, price fixing, the Japanese market, scabs, leaking Siberian barrels of nuke waste in the sea, whatever, I don’t know why the price dropped so low but it should never be below one dollar.
I start the Pirate vs. Viking debate. It doesn’t go very far. Might have to bring it back up on a Round Table show. We end up tied to the Connie Lou again and we get word Ichiro hit an inside-the-park home run in the All Star Game. That is mystical sh….stuff, nobody does that. I step out the cabin with one eye peeled for Randy El and his icy projectiles when one hits me in the back of the shoulder. Something isn’t right because my back is to the house and PLUNK I get nailed again in the same spot. That rat bastard has climbed into the crow’s nest of the Fayette and is dropping July-born snowballs on me bloody ‘ead. He wins the battle but the war rages on with no end in sight. I decide I’d rather have Ichiro than Dirty Harry on my side in a snowball fight.
Thursday, July 12th, 2007
If you thought the 10th was boring I wrote about three notes about the 12th. The highlight is watching 300. To my surprise it isn’t a movie about the USC bowling team but in fact a megaviolent bloodbath based on real events. What strikes me about the film is you could pause it at any point and it would make an excellent picture to frame and put above the fireplace. I think the same director did Sin City.
Friday, July 13th, 2007
As in Friday the 13th. Great. Right at midnight on cue the fog rolls in and everything disappears. Those of you who know me have heard my fog story and I’m not going to repeat it. Ask Solly.
In the morning I get a call from my boss. Reality is setting in that reality is not making a set. That would be a better line if I was actually fishing and not tendering but I couldn’t waste it. We get the double pleasure of getting all three “drunk boats” almost at the same time. They become The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. The Good is the one I rode in on at the beginning of this story and the tie to our port side. They are still picking fish at twice the speed of zero so I ask if I can jump in and help. The sole crewmember smiles and says go for it so I put on my rarely used raingear and start tearing reds out the gear. I WRX the two Justy and they exclaim how fast I am while The Shwanee says “I thought you’d be faster.” F-worder.
Sole crewman then tells me it is his 47th birthday and offers me a Budweiser at 8am. Thanks. These poor mofos drink day and night, nobody knows how they are still alive floating around out there all messed up. When you look them in the eye you see a sadness, an unmistakable sadness in a man. It looks like a sadness that started as a child and never, ever left. It is a look a smile can never hide. The Bad boat ties up on the other side of the Fay and as we are unloading we get a bag that is 666 pounds. Shwanee and I look at each other not sure what to do. All the deliveries are small but we get enough to load up again. But all you want to know is what makes the third boat Ugly. Try particle board deck planks. Waterlogged, bending particle board deck planks and a kid who looks like he belongs in a GEICO ad. We anchor near the F/V Salmon Berry, a Kodiak seiner doing a similar gig as us. There are a bunch of young ones on there and one of the girls starts working out on deck. I can’t repeat anything that was said, thought, seen, or observed about the next 45 minutes other than morale must be very high on that vessel.
We watch Master and Commander which has a better ending for the hero than 300. Capt. Ron makes fried chicken that gets four stars from the ship’s blogger. Tony on the F/V Oly gives us a Moosehead and I’ve scored two beers in one day. Maybe the 13th isn’t so bad.
Tomorrow I head for home. I’m so proud to be an Alaskan and so fortunate to have got another chance to experience Naknek. I missed the physical work. I missed the character rich-environment. I missed the D&D pizza. This is what it was like for Jordan playing with the Wizards I bet, but better. The game never leaves you completely. I might have to build a narrow boat bunk in my condo and play diesel generator sound effects in a boom box under my mattress.
Saturday, July 14th, 2007
We get lots of really small deliveries and I call in to Jock of the Rock for a few minutes before we take our last delivery and head in. I don’t want to go and wish I could milk another week out but up the ladder with my bag I go. I end up getting a cab with the same lady who drove me to town on the way there. I complete my restaurant tour by having a Tacoburger at Eddie’s Fireplace Inn. The BBBPD is searching for a dude who dined and dashed and the hippos behind the bar are feeding off the drama instead of the homemade pies. Classic small town moment. After PAYING for my meal I hit the King Ko for a cold one. I’m paranoid the airline won’t have my reservation and I’ll have to be there all afternoon trying to get a stand-by flight. My fears are unfounded and I fly to Anchorage where I just make the last flight labeled ADQ. Penn Air manages to lose my bag BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!!!!!
Tuesday, July 17th, 2007
I get it my bag.
