Don't Let Them Pull Your String!

Dear Boo and Bubble,

You will learn as you grow older that even very significant influences in life have their cycles.  For whatever reason, age or events or circumstance urge their course to run and they find a place in that hallowed ground we call “memories.”  Thus became the fate of Albejose.  Two years after the heroic rescues by Jay and Bryant, we came to the beach house for the last time.

Bryant was now in college.  My life revolved around ballet and boyfriends at home.  Of the three children, Gene was still young enough to be pliable about vacations, but that wouldn’t last much longer.  The webs of our lives spun more complicated patterns, meaning that mainstays of the past gave way to new considerations.  As is normal, time altered our family unit, flinging us bit by bit away from the center like a mixer sprays flecks of cake batter to the side of a bowl.  Life is forever altered ever into another phase.

The fact that this trip was the finale didn’t alter our fun in any way.  We engaged in all of the normal pursuits – hotly contested games of Scrabble and Hearts; handball on the beach; body surfing and wave jumping; and, of course, crabbing.

One afternoon towards the end of the week, great granddaddy Schaefer suggested that we take a trip up to Little River where we could do a little crabbing and then end the day with our traditional “single meal out” at one of the several seafood restaurants located there.  In those days, a fried seafood platter with shrimp, oysters, flounder accompanied by slaw, French fries and mouthwatering hush puppies could be had for maybe $2.50.  Over the years in going to Ocean Drive, our meal out became one of the more popular things we did.

Little River was the last community in South Carolina going north up Highway 17 before you crossed the state line into North Carolina.  Located on the eastern side of the highway, it duplicated many small fishing villages that dot the banks of  the Intracoastal Waterway with a main road of only four or five blocks long coming to a dead end at a series of docks that served as home to shrimp boats and sport fishers.  The river actually cut through to the Atlantic Ocean at The Little River Neck making this a strategic spot for any kind of commercial fisherman because of its quick access to the Gulf Stream.

To my recollection, the main attraction at that time in Little River was Capt. Jules’ sport fisher called “Hurricane.”  All up the highway, we’d see big signs advertising half-day or full-day charters on “Hurricane” with emphatic italic letters spelling the boat’s name as if being blown to a tilt by the powerful wind of a storm.  At water’s edge, there was little doubt which boat might be “Hurricane.”  She demanded the preeminent spot along the dock.  Her size and gleaming hull overshadowed all the more modest competitors and shrimpers tied alongside.

As for Capt. Jules, although I never saw him, the signs led you believe that he was someone just shy of Capt. Ahab in Moby Dick. 

This particular day, we arrived at Little River on a rising tide.  Dad figured that would give us a couple of hours to crab before dinner.  The docks were peaceful, Hurricane still out on a charter somewhere in the Gulf Stream.  Dad had pre-looped the lines with weights and he baited them with fish heads.  Everybody scattered down the docks at about 10-foot intervals and dropped the lines into the incoming, murky brackish flow of the waterway. 

Crabbing proffers a rhythm in its method.  Let out the line. Wait.  Carefully and slowly pull the line towards you with your fingers deftly determining whether or not you feel a tug.  If not, drop the line again to the bottom.  If so, continue to pull ever so delicately to ensure the crab hasn’t a clue that he’s moving through the water.  Patience, patience, patience as you reel in the line inch by inch until the fish head appears just below the surface of the water where you freeze until the netman arrives to swoop down and capture your prey.  Throw the line back in the water and repeat.

For the first thirty minutes we went through this drill.  Nothing.  No tugs, no crabs.

About that time, two boys came out on the dock to chat.  Not more than twelve years old, they wore unbuttoned, short-sleeved cotton shirts and cut-off shorts.  Two signs broadcast that they were local – their bodies bronzed to a caramel color by the sun and their bare feet grayed to almost black by the loamy loose dirt of the area.  One was chunky, almost as broad as he was tall.  The other so skinny it looked like his pants might slide unfettered down his legs at any moment.

“How’re y’all doin?” 

“Havin’ any luck?”

“Nope,” dad replied.  “They don’t seem to be hungry today.”

“Well, that ther tide might be in a bit of a rush, ya know.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” dad answered. “Seems crabs will bite if they’re hungry no matter the tide.”

“Well, hopin’ your luck’ll change then.  See ya.”

“Me, too.  Bye.”

And they walked back down the docks towards town. 

We went back to our posts which by now, because of the lack of activity, began to bring backaches and yawns to the forefront of excuses to stop the crabbing in exchange for a plate of fried seafood.

“I’ve got one.”  The first yelp came from Gene.  “Wow! And it’s a granddaddy!” 

He began pulling in his line.  Dad ran down the dock to Gene, net poised over his shoulder.  Slowly, but surely, Gene brought the line towards the dock.  The fish head came into view like an oracle, shimmering just under the surface of the water.  Its locked jaw and unmoving eye stared back.  No crab pulled at it, nothing at all.

“It must have gotten off, Gene,” Dad remarked with encouragement.  “Try to throw it back where it was and we’ll catch him the next time.” 

“Hey, I’ve got one,” I yelled farther on down the dock.  Dad came running.

“Take it easy, Bethie.  I think the tide must be just about right now.”

Slowly, carefully, I brought the line towards the dock.  About half way, I stopped to see if the tugging persisted.  Nothing.

“Shoot.  He’s off,” I sighed. 

“Okay….okay.  Just put it back out there.  We’ll get him.” 

Maybe one more time this scenario repeated when Dad happened to notice out of the corner of his eye our two local buddies.  They sat at a distance, on the bank, giggling……soaking wet.

Those little boogers…they dove into that yucky, muddy, swirling water and swam WITH THEIR EYES OPEN to find our crab lines and yank them as a prank to make us think we had crabs! 

Dad started laughing, partly from the realization, but mostly from the outright disbelief that anybody….I mean ANYBODY….would jump  into that filthy, shadowy, pluff-mud silted churn of the waterway just for the sake of a joke.   

It was a fitting swansong to our years at Albejose.  The family together, doing something that we loved ending in a raucous laughter that rings in my ears to this day.  I must admit, though, that I’ve wondered all these years about those boys – did they survive their many romps in the waterway; did one of them become the new Capt. Jule or maybe an expert at frying seafood in one of the restaurants; or maybe could they have ended up on some comedy show somewhere?

Yes, you will learn that life moves on. You’ll grow up, go your own way, make a life for yourself – flung bit by bit away from the center like a mixer sprays flecks of cake batter to the side of a bowl.  But the ties to your past will always be there - embodied in a place like Albejose.