At one time the humble sardine provided Mainers with thousands of jobs along the coast, particularly Downeast, where paid work today is a vanishing commodity. Seiners went out with their nets and returned with holds loaded with little, silver fish, which were headed, gutted and packed away in often times colorful, flat cans to be shipped all over the world.
During the Vietnam War they could be purchased in the PX tent along with crackers and consumed as a snack along with a favorite beverage when off duty.
But like the shoe and textile industries, the forest product industry and farming, the sardine industry is about to become a thing of the past, with the last cannery in the entire US in Prospect Harbor, ME closing.
For those of you who don’t know it, Prospect Harbor is not one of the economic boom areas of the country. Maine has turned its back on its old industries. Despite all the promises of a legion of political candidates, Maine has turned its back on any industry to become a haven for wealthy retirees and yuppies with enough in the trust fund to open trendy shops for tourists. Bring forward a proposal for a business, even an environmentally friendly one like wind or tidal power generation, and a “Friends of” group will spring up, in their LL Beans finery, decrying how the proposal will destroy “their corner of heaven,” or even life as we know it. Forget the facts, just don’t mess with my view.
But, I digress. A possible buyer has been found to purchase the Prospect Harbor factory and process lobster, allowing more of our largest marine catch to be turned into a value added product right here instead of being shipped to Canada. The state government hasn’t, in the recent past been overly friendly towards the lobster industry in spite of its impact on the economy, but nonetheless, here is an opportunity to help it.
In one of the stupidest moves (I’m not going to euphemize it, it is bone headed stupid) I have ever seen any group do, PETA has written a letter to the governor protesting the sale. According to the Portland Press Herald: “PETA official Tracy Reiman says ‘lobsters and fish are smart, sensitive and unique individuals who should be respected, not killed and canned.”
Got news for you, Tracy. Lobsters are bugs, genetically related to grasshoppers. They are neither smart nor are they nice. They are cannibals. In fact, if left alone in a trap, they will attack and eat each other. I’ve also never really noticed anything particularly intelligent about fish either, although our 14 year old gold fish could recognize me through the glass and beg for food. Oh yeah, lobster is low fat, fish high in omega 3, so where are we going to get that? Birch bark? Nature made the food chain, and we, fortunately, sit fairly near the top. It’s all part of the circle of life.
I’m sure Ms. Reiman is adequately paid as an official of PETA, but the former sardine workers are now just receiving unemployment compensation. Isn’t it time we think of them?
By the way, I have no problem boiling a lobster.
Showing posts with label lobsters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lobsters. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Tourists and Other Stupid People
I don’t really care much for idiots. Now, I’m not talking about someone who is ignorant because they haven’t been exposed to something, or someone who maybe doesn’t get it, but is at least giving it a try; what I’m talking about are the people who are so numb they not only don’t know anything, they don’t even suspect anything.
And amazingly many of them end up here in Maine either as tourists or new residents, who have “discovered” us. How they discovered us, when we knew we were already here is a bit beyond me, but maybe I’m stupid too. Anyway, the question has often occurred to me as to how these people got jobs that provided them enough money to get here, and how they found there way here in the first place.
Case in point, the stupidest newcomer of the summer of 2009. It is noon at the Harpswell Anchor newspaper office. It is always that time of the day when they drive into our yard to either buy something, which is good, or to ask for free stuff, which isn’t. They have all day, for God sake, why the stroke of noon when we are a mouthful into our deserved sandwich? A Subaru, good giveaway that the driver is probably and elderly woman, pulls into the parking lot, and a gray haired lady gets out, comes into the office, opens her purse and puts two letters on the table. As we stare in wonderment, she asks, “Aren’t you the Post Office?” When we respond in the negative, she replies, “Well, I saw a flag and a sign, so I figured you were.” Now our sign says, “Anchor Publishing,” which I guess where she came from was close. We then gave her directions, and when she left, I added, the building has a sign in front of it that says “Post Office.” Damn, and you know she probably had a college degree.
When I retired from state servitude, I was asked by a local commercial fisherman, a long time friend, if I would manage his wharf. That entailed weighing up crates of lobsters, filling and salting barrels of bait, and dealing with the occasional tourist who wanted the experience of buying “fresh” lobster. Inevitably, as I pulled a crate of live, flapping lobsters from the water, I would be asked, “Are those fresh?” Duh. “No,” I would reply, “They’re very well behaved.” This was usually greeted with the same expression, you’d get off a board fence.
The business was called “Dick’s Crabs & Lobsters.” One day an out of state car pulled up, a man got out and said, “Are you Dick?” “No,” I replied. “Well,” he said, “I’m a good friend of Dick and his boy, what’s his name,” and he always gives me lobsters at half price.” Yeah, really. “Well,” I replied, “When What’s His Name comes in, ask him.”
Most of the dumb questions involved crabs, and gave me the opportunity for great answers. Two identically attired gentlemen, one afternoon, asked “Where can we get crabs?” Huh, read the sign? “The toilet seat at the bus station is supposed to be a good place,” was my answer. The other common question was, “Do you have crabs?” “My response being, “Not since I used that soap the doctor gave me.”
One morning as I came up from the float, I found an elderly man and his wife in the bait shack going through the pockets of the pants and jackets the guys left to change into when they came back from a day’s fishing. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I just want to see what they carry with them?” was his innocent reply. “Could I go to your house and go through your stuff?” I asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then get the hell off this wharf, do not buy lobsters here, do not pass Go.”
We Mainers aren’t unfriendly, we just don’t like being seen as a giant, open air, petting zoo.
And amazingly many of them end up here in Maine either as tourists or new residents, who have “discovered” us. How they discovered us, when we knew we were already here is a bit beyond me, but maybe I’m stupid too. Anyway, the question has often occurred to me as to how these people got jobs that provided them enough money to get here, and how they found there way here in the first place.
Case in point, the stupidest newcomer of the summer of 2009. It is noon at the Harpswell Anchor newspaper office. It is always that time of the day when they drive into our yard to either buy something, which is good, or to ask for free stuff, which isn’t. They have all day, for God sake, why the stroke of noon when we are a mouthful into our deserved sandwich? A Subaru, good giveaway that the driver is probably and elderly woman, pulls into the parking lot, and a gray haired lady gets out, comes into the office, opens her purse and puts two letters on the table. As we stare in wonderment, she asks, “Aren’t you the Post Office?” When we respond in the negative, she replies, “Well, I saw a flag and a sign, so I figured you were.” Now our sign says, “Anchor Publishing,” which I guess where she came from was close. We then gave her directions, and when she left, I added, the building has a sign in front of it that says “Post Office.” Damn, and you know she probably had a college degree.
When I retired from state servitude, I was asked by a local commercial fisherman, a long time friend, if I would manage his wharf. That entailed weighing up crates of lobsters, filling and salting barrels of bait, and dealing with the occasional tourist who wanted the experience of buying “fresh” lobster. Inevitably, as I pulled a crate of live, flapping lobsters from the water, I would be asked, “Are those fresh?” Duh. “No,” I would reply, “They’re very well behaved.” This was usually greeted with the same expression, you’d get off a board fence.
The business was called “Dick’s Crabs & Lobsters.” One day an out of state car pulled up, a man got out and said, “Are you Dick?” “No,” I replied. “Well,” he said, “I’m a good friend of Dick and his boy, what’s his name,” and he always gives me lobsters at half price.” Yeah, really. “Well,” I replied, “When What’s His Name comes in, ask him.”
Most of the dumb questions involved crabs, and gave me the opportunity for great answers. Two identically attired gentlemen, one afternoon, asked “Where can we get crabs?” Huh, read the sign? “The toilet seat at the bus station is supposed to be a good place,” was my answer. The other common question was, “Do you have crabs?” “My response being, “Not since I used that soap the doctor gave me.”
One morning as I came up from the float, I found an elderly man and his wife in the bait shack going through the pockets of the pants and jackets the guys left to change into when they came back from a day’s fishing. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I just want to see what they carry with them?” was his innocent reply. “Could I go to your house and go through your stuff?” I asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then get the hell off this wharf, do not buy lobsters here, do not pass Go.”
We Mainers aren’t unfriendly, we just don’t like being seen as a giant, open air, petting zoo.
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