I was sitting here at lunchtime and I heard what I thought was somebody pushing, dragging or otherwise moving a huge plastic garbage container in the street. My wife informed me that it was, in fact, thunder.
As a rule thunder doesn’t scare me the way it does some folks. I mean some people come unglued at the first hint of a rumble.
Once you have been at sea in a thunderstorm, and have seen St. Elmo’s fire playing around the mast, then you don’t get so frightened of it. This happened to me twice in my Navy days, once in the Virgin Islands during anti-submarine operations and then in our crossing the Atlantic coming home. We had just left the Azores after refueling and later that day we steamed into a storm that lasted two days.
That is when you see the awesome power of Almighty God and you say a prayer of thanks that the shipbuilders knew what they were doing when they built your ship. Now I sit, listen and still thank Him for his awesome power and remember when.
Lobstah Fishin’ with Mickey
Part 2
So aftah I came out of the bank as a new skippah of a lobstah boat, and Mickey met me, I said, “Well, first mate Mickey, let’s get us some pots and some bait and go lobstah fishin’.”
So we rounded up about 50 pots and about a hundred pounds of bait (that stuff stinks), and we loaded it aboard. I checked that little Detroit Diesel from top to bottom and made sure we had fuel. Dang, did that little motah sing when she was runnin’.
I told Mickey, I says, “Mickey, make sure you don’t have your foot in tha bite of the line (a loop). If ya do and I don’t catch ya, you will be the bait.”
When we decided we were in a good place, I throttled back and tooted tha horn to signal when to drop a pot. We dropped all 50 and I said, “OK, let’s head in for the rest of the day and we can go out in the mahnin and check our pots.”
Fast forward.
Overnight, I had to wake Mickey up at 7, and boy, did I sass him. He said, “But Woody, them lobstahs will wait for us. It ain’t like they need to go to Walmaht to shop or somethin’.”
Well, I laughed a good belly laugh and I thought to maself, Mickey ain’t as dumb as he looks.
Be sure to tune in for part three next time.
Guy Woodworth, a Presque Isle native now living in Limestone, is a 1973 graduate of Presque Isle High School and a four-year Navy veteran. He and his wife Theresa have two grown sons and five grandchildren. He may be contacted at lightning117_1999@yahoo.com.
