Heron Medicine (Be Safe Out There)

The fisherman had been home. For a few days. It was blowing off-shore and he’d driven a rental truck full of blast-frozen albacore up the coast. With his deckhand and the aging chocolate lab that the kids missed fiercely.

He’d been up since 3 AM that morning. Waiting to get in across the Columbia River Bar. They didn’t call it the Graveyard of the Pacific for nothing.

The drive went well and he got home in time to see all of his family. Mostly. The boy was in bed. It had been his first day of school.

The fisherman’s wife wanted to talk. A lot. He had come to understand that this was because he was gone. A lot. Commercial fishing is isolating. Not only for the fishermen but also for the wives at home. Sometimes for the kids.

The fisherman finally told his wife how many hours he had been awake that day. She chastised him lightly, telling him he should have mentioned it earlier. Truth be told, he was enjoying the company too.

Neither the fisherman nor his wife needed an alarm to get up the next morning to see the kids off to school. They drove their son to his grade school, stopping by a coffee stand on the way back home. They both took to drinking instant coffee during the fishing season. It was cheap, fast, and easy to make. At home, there were a few granules at the bottom of the jar. Slightly stuck to the bottom. An emergency stash.

They savored the steaming joe. His paper cup had a lot more sweet stuff in it. She still liked to drink hers hard core black with extra shots. To celebrate the occassion, of her husband being home, she had asked for a bit of cream.

It took awhile for his wife to fully wake up. He already wanted to be off returning the rental truck. She kept talking about guitar lessons, and all sorts of meandering subjects. He had learned to sit tight. Mostly. At home, she was the skipper. That was their agreement. He had learned that when he tried to take over the controls, that all hell broke loose, eventually.

It still baffled him.

How he could be so proficient at catching fish and keeping a boat running for days on end, but mess up getting groceries in the house and feeding two kids, while trying to keep track of family appointments. Turned out, after years of trying, that he did not have to do all that. He just had to pay attention to his wife’s schedule.

It kept the ship running smoothly.

Sure enough, that afternoon he assessed the day, and was amazed at how smoothly it went and how much had been done. He had enjoyed a cold can of soda while his wife had another coffee during their son’s guitar lesson. He got a kick out of the music store owner sharing aviation art. After the lesson, they drove back to the house and it lit his son up to no end to go with him when he returned the rental truck. His wife had followed them driving the ’72 Grabber Blue Ford F-250 pick-up they owned. They planned a run to the local garbage dump.

The fisherman had the unenviable task of cleaning out the bucket of dog crap that had accumulated for the past few months. He had to take the two yellow kayaks out of the back of the Ford pick-up truck to lower the tailgate just to get that bucket into the bed of the truck. He could understand why his wife had asked for his help. That sucker was heavy, maybe 60 lbs he told her.

He understood, less, why she kept mentioning all the way to the dump that she was anxious that they would be late. He hardly ever looked at a clock or watch. Didn’t need to, much, on a fishing boat.

As it turned out, the gate to the dump was still open. His wife looked frazzled. It was exactly 5 PM, according to the attendant, when the fisherman upended the steel bucket of plastic bagged dog crap into the dumpster. Closing time.

That evening was one they would remember the rest of their lives. They had done a lot of chores throughout the day, everything on his wife’s list was crossed off by the time the work was done.

The Seahawks were playing their first  league game than night. The fisherman had been looking forward to it. So he, his wife, and son walked up to the neighborhood bar and grill. They waved to another family that his wife  knew as they walked to their booth then ordered a plate of appetizers. He and his wife split a burger.

The Seahawks won the game!

The walk back home was about a mile or so in length, gently downhill. They peeked into the auto shop window at the top of the hill and spied several classic vehicles. The street lamps, the professionally landscaped newer neighborhood with the manicured lawn next to the sidewalk and the big box store were all such a contrast to the coldness of the diamond-plated aluminum deck of their fishing boat.

They especially appreciated the bit of the walk on the Olympic Discovery trail which led nearly up to their home. That stretch of the trail went by the opposite side of the road from the old red barn and the Raptor Center.

Their son grabbed both of their hands and tried to swing his feet as he had once when he was a little boy. They all three laughed because he was too tall to do it well anymore.

The boy was late getting to be that evening. It didn’t matter. His #3 Russell Wilson Seahawks jersey had kept him warm on the walk home. The fisherman had given his wife a larger version of the same jersey for Christmas earlier that year. Before the team had won the Superbowl. She was wearing her jersey, too, much to the fisherman’s delight.

Their daughter was home when they all got back to the house. She had been away in the neighboring town working toward landing her first job. The fisherman was tired but he stayed up later than his body was absolutely willing to listen to her stories. It was very late by the time he and his wife got to bed.

The fisherman was planning on leaving for the boat the next day, anticipating driving the ’72 Ford pick-up. He wanted to hang out with his son and daughter more. His wife kept talking about yard work and garage cleaning and…. It became a hum in his head.

He liked taking albacore with his wife to the Raptor Center earlier that afternoon. Turns out the person that had bought the albacore and ran the place understood commercial fishing. Perfectly. She been out on fishing boats  herself. Her father had welded on the boat lift out at the old Peters Neah Bay Resort back when folks came from all over the country to catch King Salmon there.

She knew the three  fishermen that had gone down on a crab boat off of Cape Flattery years ago. She knew one of them very well. Knew the family. In the same way, closer actually, than the fisherman and his wife did. She told her story to the fisherman and his wife. About the day that boat went down. All three knew, they would be bonded for life over the events she conveyed. That is how it is in the commercial fishing fleet.

The Great Blue Heron recovering at the Raptor Center wanted to get out. He was ready to go. Agitated. He could hardly wait to get back fishing. The fisherman and his wife admired his long neck, his piercing yellow eyes and his long sharp beak. Most of all, they admired his spirit. The fisherman  remembered when a Great Blue Heron nearly brushed his wife’s  shoulder when he flew over  her the day they took both their kids to visit the old Peters Neah Bay Resort.

Shy-pokes, as locals sometimes call Great Blue Herons are not known for approaching humans in any way.

Peters was the maiden name of the fisherman’s wife. Peters Neah Bay Resort is where she first learned about how to catch fish.

The fisherman and his wife  had attended the memorial service for those three men that went down on the crab boat off of Cape Flattery near Neah Bay. It was held at Fishermen’s Terminal in Seattle. Three fishermen lost. The three women partners they had left behind gave the fisherman and his wife hugs at that service. All of them said the same thing:

“Be safe out there.”

That advice had saved their lives and their boat more than once. Sometimes, when they had felt like pushing in really bad weather, they had turned around for port.

Remembering the voices of those women, remembering their tears.

The fisherman left the next evening. He had hoped to have steak with his family on the warm cedar deck on the South side of their house. The kids had a different idea though. They were hoping for a take-out treat. He and his wife relented, heading for one of the local drive-thru hamburger joints. They had their meal at a local park, where the fisherman used to take the children a lot when they were younger. To swing, to see the ducks, to hook up with other kids.

By the time he left home, it was 8 PM. He did not know that , though, as he hardly ever looked at a clock. His family watched a TV show and went to bed. He drove until he got to the marina where the boat was moored. When he arrived, close to 1:30 AM, he texted his wife:

“I love you”.

She did not see it until much later that morning.

When she did see it, his words, she texted him an apology. For talking so much. They talked on the phone a bit. He needed to get groceries and fuel. She needed to shake off her sadness, get the house back in order.

The fisherman called his wife again after the boat had crossed the bar on the way back out to sea. He said the ocean was coming down nicely. He’d been fishing since early April of that season and it was now September. About two more months of the fishing season left if all went well. It was a gift, to have long seasons once again.

The fisherman’s wife had tears in her eyes when she hung up the phone. “Be safe out there”,  were her last words to him. As was the case with every phone call they ever had when he was on the ocean.

She and her husband were looking forward to her volunteering at the Raptor Center. They had made friends there.

The fisherman and his wife knew to embrace Heron medicine.