When island kids are released on the last day of the school, the euphoria can be felt all the way to the mainland! Summer vacation equals freedom! A time to be free like the ever-present, ravenous gulls on outstretched wings keeping a watchful eye out for unguarded tidbits.
As a kid, the lazy, hazy days of summer seemed to stretch into infinity. A gift of seventy-five precious days to do as I pleased.
My first mission was to head to the general store, a stone’s throw from our house. With one thin dime the fisherman or girl got a real bargain...a length of green twine on a spool, two shiny black hooks - that wouldn’t be shiny for long, one lead sinker, and a summer of shear pleasure.
Between tides, I’d fit in baseball, Tarzan swings, frog hunting, marbles, and playing school. High tides found me a few yards from our house on the end of my deceased grandfather’s wharf. I’d be on the dry end of a fishing line, with a baited hook dangling in the cold Atlantic waters, awaiting the tug of a harbor pollack.
To me the wharf, at that time run by my uncle and dad, was the most exciting place on our small island community. Fishermen selling their lobster catch, wharf hands scrambling up or down the ladders, boat engines roaring, gulls squawking overhead, and free bait for them and me. On rainy days, men would gather in the small shop. The wood stove kept every body toasty warm while they told their “fish stories.” Best of all, a glass case full candy bars offered its sweet contents in exchange for a nickel.
Daddy showed me how to clean the fish and pickle them over night in salt brine. By deft use of a blade, I could cut the head off and gut out the fish in one precise movement. The next morning, I’d match the fish up by size and tie two together by their tails, or three if I had an “odd fish out,” to hang over the clothes line behind our house. My fish were organized on the cloths line - smallest to largest. Then I’d be ready to catch another batch.
My hands perpetually smelled of fish perfume - enough to make any tomboy proud.
Like a miser, I’d count my horde every day. If flies were trying to “blow my fish,” I’d pepper the gullet openings hoping to keep them from using my fish as an incubator. These dried fish would taste mighty good in the cold of winter with mashed potatoes and cream style corn. Some would be summer treats.
Occasionally, I’d discover I had several fish less than the day before - some of the smallest would be missing. When I mentioned my loss of fish, my brother said, “Probably some hungry gull after a free meal.”
Determined to keep the gulls at bay, I tied several brown paper bags to the clothes line in strategic locations, but still the smallest, driest fish continued to disappear.
One afternoon, my tomboy intuition told me to check on my fish for thieving gulls. There stood the “gull,” jackknife in hand, peeling the skin off the driest of the fish. “I am inspecting these to see if you salted them correctly,” he informed me as if he were an FDA agent.
In my eyes, no matter whatever my brother did was fine by me. No matter what he told me, I swallowed his every word - hook, line and sinker.
You could say I was the gull-ible one.
And still am, where my brother is concerned. He is loved as much today as he was in years gone by, maybe even more, for adding such colorful memories to my life.
