being there

 Watched a video yesterday of the boys fishing. This video was made a year or more ago and I just stumbled upon it. Anyway, it is about the commercial fisherman on the eastern end of Long Island. Bonackers they have been called. Men often described as being of the finest kind. They were the men I grew up around, I was in their midst while being unaware of that. They were all just friends of my father, or other kids fathers, and grandfathers. Characters all, if I were asked to describe them. Yes, they were characters. But what I wasn't aware of was that those characters were seeing the end of the run. The show would be all but over, in my lifetime. The video I watched are a few left, still struggling, trying to maintain a way of life, a legacy handed down from generation to generation. The family names were familiar to me as I read the credits and I had to smile. Like watching old friends I have never met, I felt like I knew them. Some, I probably have, and wasn't aware. How many of us live with an awareness of history? I'm thinking that number would be very few indeed, for if you are aware, the outcome would be different. It is only in retrospect that I see that, see what was. At the time, it is what it is, although we like to go one about what was. I did sense an end coming, and that was because I was detached from that, an observer. 

 I grew up in what some called Bonac, and by extension I was sometimes called a Bonacker. I have never laid claim to that title, I deserve no such recognition. I never worked the water, as the saying goes. I took from the water what I wanted to take for myself, not because I had to provide for others. Therein lies the distinction. Those boys working the waters, the men on the crews, did that to earn a living, to support and provide for their families. Yes, we like to romanticize all of that, talk of tradition and it is in the blood. But I don't think fishing is in the blood, that isn't what they really are talking about. Independence is in the blood! Man against nature, just like in the beginning. That's what fuels their ambition, sustains them when the times are hard. That, that is the nature of their character! By their example I learned the value of independence. Those boys may not have had much in the way of material things, but they have pride. Pride often gets a bad rap, but that is false pride, the pride from doing the right thing is a good pride, a healthy pride, a sustaining pride. That is the pride that makes Americans, American! It makes America! I didn't work the water but I learned the value of hard work. It isn't always about dollars and cents, it's all about independence. The things that we have aren't nearly as important as knowing they are ours! We worked for it, earned it, and asked no man for quarter. That is independence, the independence inherited from our ancestors. 

 Now, I saw that video and it was a melancholy piece to watch. It contained a sadness and a longing. Those boys are still trying, doing the best they can against the odds. Today their fight isn't so much with nature, they have learned from generations past how to deal with nature, today the fight is against regulation, against government, against technology. 

 The title of that video was living history and that is how I saw it. A lifestyle that used to be. Those boys sustaining that, persisting, enduring, struggling to continue, I'm certain do not see it that way. They are making a living. It's no reenactment to them! To the casual observer it is a curiosity, much like watching an Amish farmer plow a field with his horses. To the Amish farmer it is everyday life. And I do remember when men made their living everyday in just that fashion, I was there. Yes, I was living in history. I walked among those men, went to school with their children, saw the dories and nets in the yards. Men in waders and plaid wool jackets, stained white ball caps with large bills. Men whose skin had been tanned by the sun, the sea and the salt. Deep furrows lined their brows and tobacco stained teeth flashed a smile. Fishermen they were called. 

  I didn't know I was witness to history, not really. Strange though, it isn't my history, I was just an observer. But now, having observed, I wish I had participated. And I am proud to say that, I was there, a part of history that may soon just be memories. I think of my third great grandfather Abraham. He fished for whales around the globe. I wonder did he see the end of that profession, was he aware? I do have a picture, taken from the local newspaper, of him and others standing by a beached whale. It was an exciting time because it was the first whale those folks had seen in a while. The old timers there, telling their stories, giving advice and direction to the new. It was surely a bittersweet moment for them. 

 One day the nets and buoys will just be decoration, the dories high and dry. Rusty dredges will rest against the opening houses. Oh, there will be a few that remember, some having been "there" and others that just remember. Well, I remember seeing all of that. I remember the smell, the sound, and the faces. I remember those men in waders, cigarettes hanging from the corner of their mouths. They would stop by, give my father a fish, or a mess of eels. A beer was usually shared. That was when you needed an opener , a church key it was called. All that is history now. I'm proud to say, I was there.