celtic_writer

Rough Pastel

Big storm tonight in northern VA. Need the rain. Have been purging this dry house of paper and nonsense lately, and re-reading Hemingway before falling asleep.

From The Sun Also Rises:

"Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you have to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on."

I think women should read Hemingway. He tells us about men who fight bulls and other males, the ones who want women who are happy, not pure; women who are content in their puzzle, if that is who they are. He describes the men we know, detest, treasure, seek, lose, meet again at a different time, another place. And he lets us know about himself, how he feels about things behind the shield of masculinity, remorse, rememberance.

Fiction writers from way back were the first psychologists, using the rough pastels of words to scrape some lesson across the page, to tell the story of another human, to give us a glimpse of who we are. It delivers more meaning than being spoon-fed while laying upon some couch.

An acquaintance of mine told me something the other day: she went through thirty (30) years of therapy -- countless hours and dollars -- to only realize that if she had just been honest with herself from the get-go, she would have been all right.

PHOTO: Ernest Hemingway, from FingerLakesPhoto, filtered in Photoshop with -- you guessed it -- the Rough Pastel filter.

A Skate, A Fish, and Mr. G.

The state of North Carolina issued me a fishing license.

Seems you can spend 10 bucks and take your chances for ten days to try your luck at creating a great fish story.

Doug got a license to fish too, and we went halfsies on a long fishing pole, two hooks and a weight, purchased from a swarmy fellah at the local Ocracoke Island tackle shop. When asked what one should use for bait when fishing from the shore in ocean environs, the fish store chap said, "Squid." He reached into a nearby cooler and pulled out a frozen box that contained creatures that looked like the appetizer we had at dinner the night before: calamari.

So off we went, over the dunes and down to the shore, carrying our fold-up chairs, chilled bait and fishing pole, ready for action. As we positioned ourselves at the water's edge, I noticed a man in a yellow baseball cap fishing at a place not far away. You could tell he knew what he was doing. He stood stoicly in the water, casting his line way out into the waves, and patiently waiting.

The ocean is rough around Ocracoke Island. Doug strode down into the water and cast the line out. A few minutes later a wave came along and knocked him so hard that he almost lost his bathing costume. He recovered enough to maintain position while keeping his composure, but eventually the line came in empty.

Fish: 1. Us: 0.

My turn. With new squid on the line, I walked into the water, and with my softball-throwing arm, cast the line out as far as I could. Then a rogue wave hit me and I sat down hard on my butt, like babies do when they are learning how to walk. The fellow fishing nearby must've thought the Village Idiots Convention was meeting in town, and had given its members the afternoon off to fish.

Doug got the first bite. It was a skate, those beautiful flat black fish, round as an apple pie pan, with a thin whip tail. It had beautiful eyes. It blinked. It was nabbed, and looked scared. Doug unhooked it, and with the help of a piece of wood found of the beach, coaxed it back in the water. It skimmed happily back into the deep. I swear that fish smiled.

After a few more casts, I felt two sharp tugs on the line, and knew I had hooked something big. Hoping it wasn't an old boot, or a toilet seat that had been hanging around Davey Jones' Locker since WWII, the catch was the smallest, feistiest fish I had ever seen, clinging greedily to the calimari, which was bigger than it. This fish was white, and had a yellow head, and did not want to let go of the bait. Finally it was coaxed to release its treasure, and was soon back in the water, swimming with the skate, both probably slapping their fish knees in glee, laughing at us.

Have always thought fishing to be great fun, but have to say I am used to fishing in fresh, quiet waters. When I was a child, my father would take my brothers and I to numerous "fishing derby" events, usually hosted by the Boy Scouts, an organization that accepted my brothers as members. 'Cept I was the one who caught all the fish. I think that is because the fish knew I always throw them back.

When I was 16, I went with a high school friend, Zena, and her family, to a place called Six-Mile Lake, north of Toronto. You could only get there by boat. It was so remote you had to make noises when you walked to the outhouse in the middle of the night to scare the rattlers away. Zena's father (known as "Mr. G", 'cause "Grot-Zakzrewski" was a bit long on the tongue for most people) and I were great pals, and we would go fishing. He was originally from Poland, had been from a wealthy family in the old country, lost it all in the war, made it through the concentration camps, came here with nothing, dug potatoes in Maine to exist, even though he was a skilled metallurgist. He and his wife made their way in the U.S., did well, adopted my friend Zena and built a good life.

He and I were like Mutt and Jeff...my 5'10" to his 5' 2". "A-Mare-ica," he'd call. "Come. We go fish." Off we'd wander at 6 a.m., to sit on a smooth, rocked shoreline, catching bass after bass (throwing them all back) as we talked about life and Poland and America and school and his '57 Roadmaster Buick and music and Johnny Cash. He loved Johnny Cash. Eventually we'd sit side-by-side, our feet in the cold, cold water and just be quiet.

Campground

It takes almost eight hours via highway and ferry to reach the campground at Ocracoke Island, part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Run by the National Park Service, it costs a pittance a day to rent a camping spot. This sum also gives one access to wooden rest rooms, potable aqua, stunning beach, the ever-present sound of water, and a parade of human characters served up fresh every day.

The campground is its own society. If you want electricity, bring it with you, but don't run that generator after 10 p.m. There is no shade here. Bring your own shadows. The beach has been voted one of the best in the U.S. and I am happy to tell you that you will not find miniature golf here. There is not even a washateria on the island. You have to get on the ferry with your dirty laundry and head north to Kitty Hawk to commercially clean your clothes. Ocracoke wants to keep the crowds away by not changing itself very much. A local artist, David Freed, writes about the island, "...one still senses that the area has been loaned to its residents and that anytime, nature can foreclose."

Doug pulled his trailer here, to camping spot B3, right along the dunes, so near the water. After living on the beach in Mexico for so many years, he knows the right of ways, the memories such a life can bring. I drive to the place in a rented van, and Walt yelps and fusses to be let out when he sees Doug's truck. Walt thinks Doug is the kind of person one should hang around. Marg presses her big soft head against Doug's leg when she greets him.

Just before sunrise, I walk Marg and Walt along the beach, and then the campground road. Walt is on Greenhead Patrol, trying to snap the flies that bite at him. There is a family camping at the other end of the compound that has seven Jack Russell Terriers in tow. They are all walked together morning and evening, and are a leashed, yappy mess of sound.

In the spot next to ours, there is a retired gent from New Jersey named Ed who is proud to tell you -- first thing -- that he has fathered 14 children, and raised them all on his electrician's salary. ("And my wife never had to work," he said.) Ed has brought along a Labradoodle named Doogie who swims with great strides in the ocean, and an African Grey Parrot that can imitate over 300 sounds, including the sound R2-D2 makes in the movie Star Wars. One of Ed's sons is an opera singer. Through cedar trees that separate one camp site from the next, one can hear a beautiful male voice singing scales, and a certain parrot whistling a perfect imitation of a phone ringing.

There's a woman in the spot across the way who is camping alone, and limping around on a broken foot. She chain smokes. There is a priesthood of young guys from New Jersey who hang around outside the restrooms, hoping to strike up conversations with young tattooed Dead Head women who camp in different spots along this circle of ground. One youthful lady dresses in black in the 95 degree heat, long hair and skirts flowing. She proclaims herself a witch. The Jersey Boys stay clear.

And around the corner, one sees a woman in the soft morning light, drinking a bottle of Bud at a picnic table just before 6:45 a.m., her husband visible through the screen door of their camper, brushing his shoulder-length hair, using long languid strokes.

PHOTO: Ocracoke Island Campground, Ocracoke NC. Filtered with Photoshop.