Nothing Older than the News

I’m pretty sure I read that phrase in Thoreau’s journals years ago. Maybe it was Edward Abbey? I do recall Thoreau calling the news “the froth and scum of the eternal sea.” Whatever. I write today with news after the storm and there’s plenty of froth. Maybe the the headline is that there is nothing newer than the olds. The rain has stopped, the water’s up, trees are down, and it’s October (again).

So let’s get on with all the news not at all fit to print.

Steadfast Stan

When I was 22 or so, and still had the echoes of the perpetual East Coast “What are you going to DO with your life?” questions in my head, I had a vision of being able to answer in three words, “Teach and fish.” I spent long days on commercial trollers trying to learn the ropes, and eventually went longlining with Stan, my same-age peer, with whom I had played a bit of hockey. Stan grew up in Hoonah, the son of a famously tough Norwegian fisherman (and equally tough magistrate mother, I’m sure). When I fished with Stan, he had his own troller, a humble little steel boat, but already had big plans to capitalize in the fishery. I admired his confidence: he could fix anything, it seemed, and he knew his limits, trusted his own intellect deeply. 

We fished together very briefly. He was all competence, including when we had to head for shore from Cross Sound (open ocean) with gnarly seas following. 

Years later, Stan became a seiner, and a very successful one at that. He bought the boat Steadfast, a name that seemed to perfectly match his disposition. By email and by my memory (romanticized, I’m sure), he was Steadfast Stan. I knew one of his deckhands on the seiner—a big dude, 6’2 at least, who told me a story about how he and another crew were reefing on a line and couldn’t budge it. Stan came over, called them a name with a smile on his face, and freed the line with a stout one-armed pull.

Last week, Stan picked me up at the Hoonah airport. He smiled wryly as I fumbled for my seatbelt clip and said only “Hoonah, Tom” before I gave up on that. “Still have the Steadfast?” I asked. 

“I sold it 14 years ago.” (Not much older than that news.)

Stan sent me photos of his son’s boat, likely well on his way to being a highliner, and this one from summer with his “new” boat plugged, on the way to a season of 120,000 lbs. of salmon. 

Reconnecting with Stan reminds me of values I aspired to in those early days: remaining steadfast to those people and principles I cared about, despite what life might throw in the way. My own navigation has been uncertain… I’m dead reckoning right now, for sure. Nice to have a fix on Steadfast Stan, even if the Steadfast is long gone, and he was headed blueberry picking. “The berries were nice,” the Viking incarnate reported at day’s end.

No Lifeguard on Duty

I swear it was Cedar’s idea to pose next to that sign after about 50 retrieves in rough water, mid-storm, last night. It made me laugh.

One of the most generous people on earth, Dave, my friend and principal mentor at Harborview Elementary, learned he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer in July. Three months later, he’s gone. He wrote to a mutual friend, “The very good news is that I am secure in my faith and have so much love and support through my kids and grandkids. I’m truly at peace with God and will accept that His will be done in all of this.” In Dave’s world, I guess there is a lifeguard on duty. In mine, not so much. Nice to have Cedar around to remind me that some risks just have to be taken. 

It Held

“We joined our places on the planet’s thin crust; it held.”  

Annie Dillard, “Total Eclipse”

We’re in full “atmospheric river” mode again. Until a few years ago, I had never heard that term, but it seems like we’re getting these crazy bands of wind and rain with increasing frequency these days. 

It’s always interesting to hit the woods after one of these events, and see what changed, and what has stayed. The news this morning included a downed tree and a whole lot of water still coming down the mountain. 

Some change.

Some steadfastness.

Old news, I guess.