The Emerald Rose

As an old New Englander forever 50 years, I can both support,endorse and TRUST New England Fishermen,and all they catch! From Scallops, Clams, Lobsters, Haddock, Cod and anything else. It is what it REALLY is, can you say that about what you are eating in aany other local “Seafood Restaurant”?

As a New Englander for over 60 years before moving to Florida, to worship warmth year round, I have a tale to tell that links BOTH New England and Florida, and the travesty being fostered on both, and the “unseen” loss to both states and their tourism and visitor revenues, not to mention the outright “BULLSHIT” fostered by the United States Government on both the States, AS WELL as YOURSELF!!!

This is a personal testament based on exactly what you are reading, and what is easily documented and can and is the EFFECT both your pocketbook and more importantly your health!! And not just New England and Florida, but the entire United States!

Pay attention here as I am prepared to defend every word of this with personal experience and evidence which you too can document!

Background: As a kid growing up in Boston and it’s environs, I found the two biggest loves of my life, aside from my wife of course, but first the pure life and magnetism of a big city, to cover all of it’s almost three and a half centuries of cultural, artistic, and HISTORIC forces, and secondly the impact of “the Ocean”!!! I don’t have time for all the cultural, artistic, and historic forces in detail, but BOSTON IS BOSTON., but there are thousands of papers, books, and college courses out there on that. (It’s History and importance being the most interesting for younger folks). But I have to cover “the Ocean” so that you understand the rest of this article.

The “Ocean” is much harder to explain to anyone believe me. I don’t know if it’s the salt air, it’s 24/7 dependability of being there, regardless of you seeing it, or it’s sheer enormous “thrill and addictiveness”. For me it was always the addictiveness and the “relaxed calm” I always felt from it. Key word being “always”.

I am 73 years of age and last year I sat down in peace and quiet to “meditate” about that very question. I went back as far as I could remember, and could even recall a single minute of my 73 years on this earth that where I lived, that was more than a few miles from the Ocean, The Gulf of Mexico, …and that was why I joined the U.S. Navy at 18,….there were no shoreside “options” I could find more “enticing” than the Ocean!

Here’s a simple test for you to know apply how much you really love the Ocean!

Go to a beach, or bluff, or anywhere you can have a view of 180 degrees of the Ocean. Stand there and just look out over it for ten minutes and remember the words that flow through your mind. That is what GOD has created! Note the orderliness, the beauty, the fact that it’s always there for you like a big old dog or a cute “kitty cat” who loves you 24/7, regardless, and is always there for you, in good-times,…..or in your deepest, darkest times of doubt or trouble,…..now turn around and look behind you.

That’s what WE did! The chaos, the ‘hodgepodge”, the non-inspiring collage to our humanity, egos, and greed! Now you tell me, which way is best to look?

The problem is pretty equally a problem for a lot of people,….but NEVER for me! I look to the Sea every time, and I’ve never been disappointed!

With that in mind let’s go back to reality!

Our Ocean, and fisheries, are being artificially “manipulated” by the Government, but because they are not as “vote carrying” bunch of folks who DEPEND o that Ocean well,…..elsewhere, it just doesn’t matter!

WHY NOT? I never ate a “tilapia” until I moved to Florida, (but it ain’t from here!) it is a “farmed fish” from the Far East, not a “wild caught” fish! And it is never labeled as a “Foreign fish”, or has disclaimers about how, or what it is feed, let alone WHERE!!

Great idea to “Make America Great Again” Donald,….but follow through on it and help the damn fishermen who the government has “regulated” to death. Think about the Pilgrims who had to wade ashore amidst a lobster littered water to land on Plymouth Rock.

It’s more than like “farming”, it is a family longevity and life occupation!

I was asked to “help out” by a friend on his new venture as a New England Lobsterman to earn a living for himself, his wife and children. My friend George was making a major life Change from the Oil Industry as a “Petroleum Inspector” to opt for the life of a “Lobsterman”. I said “sure” that’s what we “New Englanders” did for a friend!

I remember , VERY distinctively , Memorial Day weekend of 1970, he asked if I could go out with him and help “set” the traps. George, and his wife Maryann, had spent the winter making lobster traps at home after the kids (2) had gone to bed! She knitted “heads” which George installed in the traps he fabricated himself in the basement of their house. By spring they had about 75 of them made. We loaded up enough on his little 13′ long Boston Whaler that the gunwale was a scant 3″ above the water of the Atlantic Ocean!! George asked myself and my other buddy Steve to help him as well. our wives , and then his wife, my buddy Steve, and my wife to take the kids and meet us at the local park, on the Harbor in Beverly, Massachusetts, for a picnic, while we “set” the traps for George. (You want a little “thrill” try 25 lobster traps (4 feet long, 15 inches high and over 2feet wide with a few bricks inn them to “weigh’em down”, aboard a 13′ Boston Whaler , with buckets of “bait bags”, and a half a boat of rope,……(and only 3″ between you and the Atlantic Ocean), oh yeah and going out about 2 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, to “Set” the traps!)

We made about four trips, survived, had a fun afternoon, the wife and kids enjoyed a day at the beach,….and a friend launched a new career for his family to “grow into”.

A year later he asked me to give him a hand one Saturday as his “stern man” who could not make it that day Of course I said “Absolutely” (even though it was a 7am to 5pm deal and all I would get was “some free lobster” at the end of the day.)

Trust “me” I learned a BUNCH about lobstering, lobsters, how it was done and “bait bags” and “chum”! Oh yeah and how to take lobsters out of the “trap”, yank the “bait bag” out and replace it with a new one full of bait and close it, all of this while sliding it along for 14′ down the starboard (right side of the boat), around the stern and across the 14′ stern, and back up the other 14″Port(left) side of the boat. Oh yeah and dragging about 60′ of coiled line between lobster traps, with your foot, so the trawl could be re-set!! (LIFE LESSON : ALWAYS have a 5 or 6″ knife with a sharp blade strapped to your calf and ready to go. If the first trap goes over into the water it is a 90# dead weight, with 40′ -50′ of dead weight line, then the second one goes over the side as do the rest of the trawl squally 6 traps as well! IF you let your foot, (remember the one you were moving the rope with as you pulled the “Pots” down the rail, got the “Bugs”or lobster out, pulled the old bit bag and installed a new one, if that goes over the side, “YOU’RE GOING WITH IT! Add up the amount of weight at the 90# per lobster trap (usually) and you have about two minutes to “cut” the line twisted around your leg, or you are going under with everything else. (Even if they stop the boat and try and recover you with that much weight you’re going down to about a 50″ depth,….well you make the guess, ….how long can you hold your breath underwater under pressure?”

A little scary, but a hell of a workout,….oops forgot going back to the “catch well” an open box of the lobster we just caught, and you have to pick each of them out of there and with a little “tool” that looks like pliers, put a rubber band on it by spreading it and getting around the lobsters claws then releasing it. Did I mention lobsters are “garbage eaters”, and cannibals? Well they are, so it’s a real quick job as well (Can’t have the catch eating it’s other “buddies” in the catch box.!)

I found I loved helping him, in addition to my full time job as Accounting Manager for Marshalls Department Stores, I was really an entrepreneur at heart. From that point on that’s what I was,….an entrepreneur, ….for better or for worse!!

Just like my friend George,….I struck out on my own. A few weeks later my boss called me in to tell me that essentially I resolved all the “crisis” with the little un-managed departments which were “dumped” on me and there was no further need for me, as they could be parceled out to other “managers” to manage. I preempted him and asked for a 90 day separation period to decide what I did next he mulled it for about a minute and approved it. I also asked for good references, and positive responses for recommendations, he approved that as well.

Anyway I continued to help George to bring some money in to cover my “Nut”, and put out some “feelers”. Long story short, I was looking around for businesses to buy, (for virtually nothing, since I had “virtually nothing”. But in the mean time George’s “Sternman”, the job I was doing on weekends”, (so he could give him a couple of days off each week, and understand Lobsters, or “bugs” haven’t a clue between a Monday or a Saturday!

So I signed on to cover the position for him, but a little more than “lobster” as the fiduciary exchange medium, since I had bills to pay! He agreed, and I embarked on a journey of learning, …and the economics of being a “Lobsterman”, in Northeastern Massachusetts.

I went on with life, got my bills paid, and kept learning. Ultimately I got a call from a friend telling me there was a distributorship open in Maine and New Hampshire in a medical supply firm,……so I sold our house and bought it. I don’t want to go further in that, but we sold our home and moved and ultimately it all sort of “worked out”.

Now the ” meat” of this,…..the entire fishing industry of New England (as well of the rest of the country) was literally “Comandeered” by the Magnusen-Cook act passed by our willing congress in 1971 (?0)!

Check my next blog to see how and what the government does to “help” you defend into poverty and obstruct your efforts to be a “pioneer” under our Constitution!!

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September 4, 2018

ENJOY!!