by Steve “Tuna” Tornovish
If you’re not smart, you need smart friends. Yes you do. And that has long been my motto, the key to whatever limited success that I’ve had over these many years. Thank you, smart friends. You know who you are, I’m sure!
One of my smart friends helped me out with a conundrum I had while in Florida this winter. I had devised a winch system to assist me in pulling my silly little plastic fishing boat out of the canal and onto my dock. The winch, mounted on a large piece of pressure-treated wood, worked well until two things changed. One was that the water level in the freshwater canal dropped by about seven inches. The other was that I had attached a small outboard engine onto my little boat. These changes caused my once-perfect winch system to pull out of the ground. Yikes!
Time to call a smart friend. I hit up my buddy Michael Stackpole. Mike has been building bridges all around the northeast for some forty years now. An hour or so later, Mike had sent me four pages of detailed plans for what I needed to do in order to get things back in order. Stress points, dead man posts, steel fasteners —yeah, this was a new world for me. I simply followed Mike’s directions to the letter and voila! A perfect new winch system now pops my little boat out of the canal without any sweat.
I thanked Michael profusely for his wisdom. He told me that it was all good, as I had helped him to get into surf fishing once again. Well, I guess that maybe, to some extent, I had been HIS smart friend. And I am very glad of that, because Michael Stackpole had become a wonderful addition to our cool little beach fishing community.
Mike has traveled an interesting path to get to where he is right now. He’s a local kid who graduated from Nantucket High School in May of 1981. He sensed that he needed a big change in his life before things spiraled out of control. So on July 15, young Michael and his Nantucket High classmate David Sylvia found themselves on Parris Island with their feet placed on the bright yellow painted footprints, the first step to the very different world of the United States Marine Corp.
“Certain things you never forget. Sgt. Wong is one of those things. He was only five feet, four inches tall. And he was a tornado! Sylvia and I were wondering, oh wow, what did we get ourselves into?”
Michael spent the next three years traveling the world: Okinawa, Pusan (South Korea), 29 Palms, all through Europe, Diago Garcia and, …”some other interesting places I can’t get into.” When his three year hitch was up in 1984, Mike figured he was ready to return to the island.
In August of that year, as he was driving on Hummock Pond Road, Mike happened to see three lovely ladies hitchhiking. Being the chivalrous gentleman that he is, Michael picked them up. Two were local girls: Cynthia Bartlett and Linda Sauter (Humphries). The third was Jacquie Roche. Jacquie was working on the island for the summer at Foods for Here and There with Dorothy Marks (Hertz). Michael soon found himself spending a lot of time at the sandwich shop. “I was persistent. Jacquie didn’t seem to like me at first.” But Dorothy told Jacquie that Jacquie would marry Mike one day. She was right.
When September came, Jacquie went back to school at Northeastern University. And Michael was realizing once again that Nantucket was not good for him at that point. “Work, beach, and barstool—between the Muse, the Box and Christopher’s, things were going south for me. I didn’t know when to go home.” Later on, Michael would stop drinking and things started to come together for him.
Mike and Jacquie moved into a little apartment in Hyde Park. He got a job as a truck driver for a paving company. After a couple of his paychecks bounced, Michael moved on to the Kodiak Company, where he began to learn about bridge work. He was a quick study. After ten years there, Mike took a job with SPS New England. “I’ve been with SPS from ‘95 to present. I’m the general super of the bridge maintenance division. Had to leave the heavy construction part due to some health issues like back, eye, and neck surgery.”
Michael inherited his Nantucket family home in 2019. He oversaw a considerable renovation project and now he and Jacquie have their dream house. “Construction was hampered by COVID and the related materials shortages. We completely remodeled the house. Now it’s our happy place! Jacquie retired April of 2022. She loves Nantucket, as do our kids (son Christopher and daughter Brooke). I’m doing a reverse commute for my job now!”
Once the renovation was done, Jacquie saw that her husband needed new marching orders. “She told me that I needed a hobby.” Michael reached out to me and soon after, he and I were out on a beach fishing charter, along with his Marine buddy Danny Cross (Cpl. Cross!). And an obsession soon took hold of my friend Michael Stackpole.
“Jacquie is right: I’ve got to stay busy. Next thing you know, I ran into Stevie Tuna and poof, I’m at Nantucket Tackle spending $2,500!” Like a good Marine, Michael wanted to be ready for anything and everything.
Michael Stackpole is now an ingrained member of our Nantucket beach fishing community. His bright red Chevy pickup, sporting the distinctive “USMC” license plates, is consistently spotted in the fishy places. Jacquie is often with him. Michael had Jacquie take some fishing lessons with Tammy King. He also had a custom fishing rod built for her. Although nowhere as passionate about fishing as her goofy husband is, Jacquie loves their together time on the beach.
“Every day I hit the beach it’s a bonus day! I have the best of all worlds. I’m very fortunate! Things could have gone the other way. Jacquie got me out of Nantucket when I needed to go. Jacquie is the rock that kept everything together. I worked all the time. She raised our kids. She is amazing!”
The Nantucket fishing community is glad that Michael has joined us. I know that some of my fishing buddies were freaked out this winter when they saw that the storm surge had caused the outermost part of Great Point to be cut off from the island at the skinny portion known as the Galls. But I wasn’t worried at all. You see, I have a smart friend. He loves Great Point. And he knows how to build bridges. It will all work out just fine. Semper Fi, Michael Stackpole!
Steve “Tuna” Tornovish is a Nantucket native who has spent his life fishing from the beaches of his beloved island. He loves to introduce clients to the joy of fishing with his Nantucket Island Fishing Adventures: stevetuna.com
