By G. E.
Shuman
Once again, a few weeks ago, I had
the wonderful good fortune of spending a day, (or two) depending on how much I
think you need to know, at my favorite spot in the entire world. I seem to write about this place at least
once each summer, so I guess this column will be that ‘once’, unless I have a
chance to get back there before fall.
The place is the beautiful granite
breakwater extending out across the harbor in Rockland, Maine. My extended family and I have been going there,
to fish, and to just enjoy the rocky Maine coast since I was a young child. In
fact, some of them have been going there since my father was a child. Somehow, the granite never seems to age, or
change. That could be part of its attraction, for me.
I was at the breakwater due to the
kind generosity of my dear wife, who actually suggested that I go there while
she attended to some important family business ‘inland’, in that great state in
which we both grew up. I do appreciate
Lorna very much, and am truly thankful that she had the idea for my short solo trek
to the coast. Now, enough of the
introductions.
The first day of my little excursion
I arrived in Rockland, took my rod, my bait, a lunch, and my camp chair, and
walked out to about the halfway point on the nearly mile long, ancient
breakwater. It was so foggy that I could
not see the lighthouse at the end, and could barely see the water. A smooth layer of sea smoke hovered over the
small, rippling waves on that very calm June morning, and I proceeded to set up
my fishing spot in this overwhelmingly peaceful place. I was quite alone, and somehow surrounded by
the sea, the scents, the soft breeze, and the calls of the gulls and lonely
blasts from the lighthouse fog horn. It
was, simply, magnificent.
I sat in my chair, baited my hook,
and cast out onto the harbor side of the rocks.
I was not anxious about hooking the mackerel I was accustomed to
catching here, other years. It would be nice if I did, but I love this spot,
with or without the fish. That was a
good thing, as I caught none that day.
Suddenly, and somewhat sickeningly, I heard a faint, metallic,
slipping-scraping sound, as if something had just fallen into a crack between
the huge granite pieces. That is because something had just fallen into a crack
between the huge granite pieces. I
immediately felt in my pocket for my brand new iPhone, and was relieved beyond
belief that it was still there. (Lorna
would not have been quite so amicable when I returned to her side, if I had
returned without that phone.) You see,
over the years, we have come to realize that what the breakwater takes, the
breakwater keeps. The two or three inch
wide crevices between the stones are wide enough to accept many sacrifices to
the ocean, and are happy to do so. Those granite blocks, weighing many tons
each, are there to stay, no matter how many phones may slip down between
them.
What I had heard, tinkling, lightly
scraping, making its way down, a yard or two, to a nearly eternal spot between
the stones, was my favorite, like-new, sporting knife. It was, or is, depending on how you feel
about something that is lost forever but still exists, a beautiful, steel blade
with a very smooth, polished wooden handle, and it was a thing that just felt
‘right’ when held in your hand. I had,
only moments before, decided to ‘fish or cut bait’ and pulled the small knife
from its sheath on my belt, to cut the bait and then get to the fishing
part. My line was in the water, I had
settled back in my canvas chair, and then I heard that sickening sound. Tank-tink-scrape-tink, as my knife left me,
as surely, and as ‘for forever’ as if it had left the planet. The loss did not affect the fishing at all. I
had another knife.
As I, eventually, gave up on the idea of actually catching
anything that day, I packed up my gear and headed back off the rocks. One of
the very few other people out on the breakwater stopped and asked if I used
bait, jigs or lures to fish. I told him
that I had used them all, one year or another. The problem was, in fishing, and
in life, it really doesn’t matter what you use for bait, when there’s nothing there
to catch.
Stepping over all of the cracks between those very old
stones, I began to wonder just what really might be between them all. Surely, the knives, and line, and hand reels,
hooks, bobbers, and more hooks, and lures, and more lines upon lines and hooks
upon rusty hooks, and sinkers of other amateur fishers, were there. Indeed, the hand lines I had used as a child,
some fifty years ago, and had let slip out of my hands were, surely, still
there, and so were whatever small things my dad might have lost while fishing
with his aunt, some thirty years before that.
I continued
to wonder, as I walked back to shore, about time, and the record of change,
captured in the things we own, and use.
Surely the breakwater was now in possession of lost things from many
generations, from cell phones, paperback books, small radios, sunglasses of
styles long forgotten, faded Coppertone containers, cassette tapes, zippo
lighters, maybe even a few 45 rpm records from some 50’s teen parties, and more
than a few fishing knives.
Someday mankind may dismantle this
great monument to his past efforts to keep the sea from destroying this harbor
town. I wish I could be there if they do, but I actually hope that they never
do. If it happens, they will find a cache of wonders, in a many-layered record
of sunny or foggy family fishing days since the very start of its construction
in 1881. And they may even find my
knife. For now, that knife belongs to the
breakwater; the best fisher of all, for it catches all.
(Note: You
may have your own spot where memories are kept by the sea. If not, I will
gladly share mine with you.)
