Waiting
for the White Pelicans
And Other Tales of the Gulf Coast
by Paul Estronza La Violette
Illustrated by Patricia Rigney
175 pp
$19.95 Hardback with Dust Jacket
© 2000 by Paul Estronza La Violette
|
|
The First Day of Shrimping Season
... the dark clouds moving in add a
harsh background to the colors of the scene
and make a graphically splendid picture. Most of the boats
are still in sun and
well lit, but behind them there is blackness. ... There is
a continuous shifting of
the shrimp boats in front of this spreading mass of dark power,
the boats moving
about almost heedlessly as if they are automatons in a mindless
pursuit of shrimp, unaware of the approaching menace.
It's June and today is the first day of shrimping season. Stretched across the horizon from west to east the shrimp boats are out in front of our house in force. It's a large fleet; I hear estimates of 600 boats and that this is less than last year. Whatever the number, there are a lot of boats out there and they make an impressive show.
The string of towns along our coast are unusual in that, like coastal villages in the Mediterranean, each town has it's own small fleet of shrimp and oyster boats. Our fleet is docked in various places along the shores of Bayou Caddy, whereas Pass Christian, Long Beach, and Gulf Port have their fleets in their community marinas.
I'm taking a break from laying new dirt in the side garden and I've been sitting in the shade on the front porch to rest, drinking some sun tea and watching the show. It's a good show and, since it only comes once a year, I've decided to really stretch out and enjoy it.
I've seen the first day of shrimping season before and always my first question is how do they keep from running into one another? I feel like some kind of macabre voyeur waiting to see some boat run across another boat's lines, but it doesn't happen.
It's early morning; not quite ten o'clock. I started moving the dirt about seven to avoid the heat. The weather report says that it will reach up to the nineties today. Shoveling dirt is not very exciting and in this heat I prefer to sit and watch shrimp boats.
Stretched out in front of me like this, the broad scene is like a gigantic screensaver on my computer, but the noise of the engines of all these boats ruins any though that this might be an illusion. This is real. There are a lot of boats out there and on those boats there are a lot of people working hard, very hard to harvest the shrimp.
The boats do make a lot of noise. It's pervasive, blending into a broad hum that changes in pitch as the boats move about in front of me. It is far from a static scene; here there is a little clump of boats for a while, then they are gone and another clump forms over there. They move about as they work as if unsure where they should stay.
I see black clouds are starting to come in from the west. These are big clouds. Mean looking. The large fleet I see sprawled before me will have some rough going in about an hour. It shouldn't bother the large boats but it may give the smaller ones some trouble.
But from where I sit, the dark clouds moving in add a harsh background to the colors of the scene and make a graphically splendid picture. As I watch, the clouds become more invasive. Most of the boats are still in sun and well lit, but behind them there is blackness. Even this blackness is not still; becoming gray, then black again as the clouds move forward.
There is a continuous shifting of the shrimp boats in front of this spreading mass of dark power, the boats moving about almost heedlessly as if they are automatons in a mindless pursuit of shrimp, unaware of the approaching menace.
As I was working in the yard a short time ago, a neighbor came by towing a small shrimp boat and yelled did I want any shrimp. I said yes and he pulled his truck and boat up by the side lawn and stopped. His face was beaming as he opened a couple of large cooler sin the boat and showed me their contents. They were both filed with ice and shrimp!
They were nice shrimp and I gladly helped him cull out five pounds of shrimp for me to keep. As we did this, he told me about this morning's work. He had set two thirty-minute casts and had pulled in about one hundred- and-twenty pounds of shrimp.
This seemed impressive to me until he started to tell about the time he took to prepare, fuel, launch, get out, set up, turn around, get back, pull the boat out and return home. I figure that the whole thing equated to about a five-hour trip to get his thirty minute casts.
But he was happy and I guess that is what really matters.
And looking at my shrimp, mixed, but about a thirty count (i.e. thirty shrimp to the pound), I'm happy, too. I pack them in a bucket of ice and water and put them in the refrigerator in the garage.
Many of the boats out in the sound are like my neighbor, amateurs or semi-pros that go out only at the start of shrimp season or on weekends.
As you drive along the back roads of Waveland, Shoreline Park or Claremont Harbor, each yard appears to have a small shrimp boat on a trailer.
Many of these small shrimpers keep a certain amount for themselves and unload the rest at a dock wholesaler or local middleman. Others sell their catches from the boat or have a local outlet. At this time of year you see small refrigerator trucks selling shrimp on the highway or hand-painted signs saying "Shrimp" and an arrow pointing to the back of somebody's house.
This rush to harvest the shrimp on opening day is very efficient. Perhaps too efficient.
Within two or three days the majority of the shrimp will have been removed from the Sound and the vast fleet I've been watching today will be gone three days from now (the season lasts from June to December). The problem with this two- or three-day harvest is that the shrimp do not get a chance to get large and a good average counts range from 40 or so per pound.
It's too hot. I've quit to do any outside work and have gone back inside to the cool, quiet of my office. Jennie, my Weimaraner, likes this much better and has installed herself in her customary recess under my desk. I start typing as the naval clock I got years ago in Hamburg strikes six bells. eleven o'clock. I decide I'll work for another hour.
Looking out the office window I can still see the shrimp boats and if I listen carefully, I can hear the muted sound of their engines. But now there is another sound, intermittent, but when I hear it, it drowns out the noise of the boats.
It's Thunder.
The sound grows in volume with the gradual darkening of the sky. It seems to boom out every few minutes in low rumbles that sometimes roll on in long slowly diminishing echoes. Then silence, and then it starts again; each time it stops and starts it's a little louder. It's serious thunder and Jennie is starting to get nervous under the desk. Her nose touches my bare foot, a sign she is getting scared.
From my window, I can see some of the boats disappear behind a rapidly moving rainsquall; many are gone from sight altogether. Sheets of rain are starting to hit the house. Those boats that I can see however, have not stopped working. The men want their shrimp. The boats keep moving.
I wish them luck. Although I can see my shovel sticking out of the wet mound of topsoil in the yard, I'm not going back out today. I'm going to finish writing this and then go in the kitchen, make some coffee and see if there is any of Stella's pound cake left.
|
