My Old Man and the Puget Sound

A Personal Introduction to The Old Man and the Sea

I haven’t fished for years for many reasons, not the least of which is that I tend to get violently sea sick.

Still, reading Richard Hugo’s poems reminded me just how important fishing has been to my life. My earliest, and most vivid, memories of my father are directly linked to fishing, probably the greatest joy of his life.

I was three or less when I started fishing with my father. I can still remember being dragged out of bed half asleep to make sure we were on the water at dawn when the fish were most likely to hit. I hated getting up that early, but it was worth the sacrifice to be out on the water with Dad, sometimes my mother, and my brother Bill. There are still some things worth getting up that early in the morning for, but not many.

I’m sure it would have been easier for Dad to leave us home and go fishing with friends, but salmon fishing was a family ritual. Thinking back, I feel sorry for dad who had to spend the first thirty or forty minutes of fishing baiting Bill’s and my hooks. I suspect, though, that I learned how to correctly bait a hook before I learned how to tie my shoelaces. But I wasn’t allowed to bait my own hook, or at least drop it into the water, until I could do it correctly. I remembered this ritual years later when I read Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.

If you’re going to be a successful fisherman, Dad taught, you do everything right. First, you found the best place to start fishing, no matter how far from the boathouse that might be. Lazy fishermen were willing to just drift for salmon, not Dad. Dad would slowly row the boat while our lines were out, at least until we were able to afford a small motor to attach to the rented boat. Even at three you had to keep your line taut, not let the bait drift down too far. Few things are as embarrassing as bringing in a bottom fish when you’re fishing for Kings.

There seemed to be as many rules to fishing as there are rules to life. When someone in the boat had a fish on the line, you always reeled your line in as fast as possible. Whenever someone else brought a fish in you complimented them on the catch, no matter how much you wanted to catch the biggest fish of the day. It was really, really hard to sound excited when you had the biggest fish going, especially when you’re the littlest guy on the boat. And have no doubts that everyone, Dad included, wanted bragging rights to the biggest fish of the day. Bragging rights lasted until the next fishing trip.

Of course, sometimes you could be saved from the biggest fish put-down, because Dad would point out that certain kinds of salmon, though I was too little to tell the difference between anything but big and little, tasted better than others. And we weren’t just fishing for fun. It was important to be recognized at dinner by someone saying, “This is the salmon Loren caught.” We lived a good part of the year on those salmon and on the vegetables we had harvested from our garden. Whenever food became scarce, we always had salmon waiting in the freezer.

But most of all, I remember Dad’s sheer enthusiasm for fishing. There are still vivid images of Dad standing up on the edge of the boat trying to net a huge salmon while Bill and I would desperately try to balance the boat by hanging out the opposite side of the boat, our combined ninety five pounds no match for his two hundred pounds. “Don’t rock the boat” has a very special meaning in the middle of Puget Sound for a four-year-old who can’t swim.

Even when things had turned rough, yours truly had lost his breakfast over the side of the boat, the water would be breaking over the bow, the boat would be filling with water no matter how fast Bill and I bailed, and we would appear to be going backward, Dad would yell across the roar of the wind and water, “We’re having a great time, aren’t we?”

Strangely enough, we were.

My hiking partner has noted that when we get stuck in a precarious position — say six hours out on the trail, little or no food left, it’s getting dark, and we’re not quite sure where the hell we are or which trail to take to get us back before dark– that I always break into a laugh, a special laugh reserved just for such moments, a laugh that says I’m alive and having a great time.

That’s when I know I’m Dad’s son, even if I don’t fish anymore because Dad isn’t around to go with any more and because I can’t stand paying good money to throw up.

Anderson’s Fairy Tales

Illustrated by Arthur Szyk

This beautiful book and the accompanying volume, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, were my very first books, books I could keep in my room and read whenever I wanted. Small wonder, then, that I grew up loving books and art works.

Because we had no television until I was nearly twelve, because money was short in my family and because trips to the library were few and far between, I read and re-read the stories in these volumes for many years. Obviously, I still turn back to them at times.

These stories became a part of who I am and what I believe. Not all these stories have the same appeal that they once did, but some, like “The Little Match Girl,” still move me every time I read them.


The Little Match Girl

IT was late on a bitterly cold New Year’s Eve. The snow was falling. A poor little girl was wandering in the dark cold streets; she was bareheaded and barefoot. She had of course had slippers on when she left home, but they were not much good, for they were so huge. They had last been worn by her mother, and they fell off the poor little girl’s feet when she was running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling rapidly by. One of the shoes could not be found at all, and the other was picked up by a boy who ran off with it, saying that it would do for a cradle when he had children of his own.

So the poor little girl had to walk on with her little bare feet, which were red and blue with the cold. She carried a quantity of matches in her old apron, and held a packet of them in her hand. Nobody bad bought any of her during all the long day, and nobody had even given her a copper. The poor little creature was hungry and perishing with cold, and she looked the picture of misery.

The snowflakes fell on her long yellow hair, which curled so prettily round her face, but she paid no attention to that. Lights were shining from every window, and there was a most delicious odor of roast goose in the streets, for it was New Year’s Eve. She could not forget that! She found a corner where one house projected a little beyond the next
was colder than ever. She did not dare to go home, for she had not sold any matches and had not earned a single penny. Her father would beat her, and besides it was almost as cold at home as it was here. They had only the roof over them, and the wind whistled through it although they stuffed up the biggest cracks with rags and straw.

Her little hands were almost stiff with cold. oh, one little match would do some good! If she only dared, she would pull one out of the packet and strike it on the wall to warm her fingers. She pulled out one. R-r-sh-shl How it sputtered and blazed! It burnt with a bright clear flame, just like a little candle, when she held her hand round it. Now the light seemed very strange to her! The little girl fancied that she was sitting in front of a big stove with polished brass feet and handles. There was a splendid fire blazing in it and warming her so beautifully, but-what happened? Just as she was stretching out her feet to warm them, the flame went out, the stove vanished and she was left sitting with the end of the burnt match in her hand.

She struck a new one. It burnt, it blazed up, and where the light fell upon the wall, it became transparent like gauze, and she could see right through it into the room. The table was spread with a snowy cloth and pretty china. A roast goose stuffed with apples and prunes was steaming on it. And what was even better, the goose hopped from the dish with the carving knife sticking in his back and waddled across the floor. It came right up to the poor child, and then-the match went out, and there was nothing to be seen but the thick black wall.

She lit another match. This time she was sitting under a lovely Christmas tree. It was much bigger and more beautifully decorated than the one she had seen when she peeped through the glass doors at the rich merchants house this very Christmas. Thousands of lighted candles gleamed under its branches. And many-colored pictures, such as she bad seen in the shop windows, looked down at her. The little girl stretched out both her hands towards them-then out went the match. All the Christmas candles rose higher and higher, till she saw that they were only the twinkling stars. One of them fell and made a bright streak of light across the sky.

"Someone is dying," thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only person who had ever been kind to her, used to say, "When a star falls, a soul is going up to God.

Now she struck another match against the wall, and this time it was her grandmother who appeared in the circle of flame. She saw her quite clearly and distinctly, looking so gentle and happy.

"Grandmother!" cried the little creature. "Oh, do take me with you. I know you will vanish when the match goes out. You will vanish like the warm stove, the delicious goose, and the beautiful Christmas tree!"

She hastily struck a whole bundle of matches, because she did so long to keep her grandmother with her. The light of the matches made it as bright as day. Grandmother had never before looked so big or so beautiful. She lifted the little girl up in her arms, and they soared in a halo of light and joy, far, far above the earth, where there was no more cold, no hunger, and no pain-for they were with, God.

In the cold morning light the poor little girl sat there in the corner between the houses, with rosy cheeks and a smile on her face-dead. frozen to death on the last night of the old year. New Year’s Day broke on the little body still sitting with the ends of the burnt-out matches in her hand.

"She must have tried to warm herself," they said. Nobody knew what beautiful visions she had seen, nor in what a halo she had entered with her grandmother upon the glories of the New Year.

These stories have a realism, a brutal honesty, that modern children stories often lack. In fact, whenever Walt Disney remade one of these fairy tales he seemed to “dumb” them down, or at the very least, to water down the harsh aspects so that children wouldn’t be “bothered” by them. And we certainly wouldn’t want the little dears bothered when they went to the movies or to Disneyland. Apparently people don’t spend money in order to be bothered.

It may just be that I have a thing for little “match girls,” but for me at least this story manages to both show the brutal conditions some people live under and the power of any love that does appear in their lives. Even if this love cannot save them from their conditions, it offers the hope that there can be something better