News and Events for Nantucket Island
Certain birthdays are bigger milestones than others. When a kid hits double digits, for example. That tenth birthday party should have just a little more juice on the fastball, right? Same for the 65th birthday (I’ll tell you all about that one in a few months if, as they say, the creek don’t rise and the good Lord’s willin’).
Egan Maritime Institute invites the public to attend the season’s first Foghorn Speaker Series event, Fishing for Food and Money, this Wednesday, June 25 from 5:30 to 7 pm in the Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum. The evening will feature a panel discussion that expands on the themes explored in […]
Not every type of fishing involves rods and reels. Nantucket has an abundance of quahogs, hard shell clams that live in the shallow sandy areas around the island. When I was in my early teens, it seems that once or twice each summer I’d end up on a trip with Oscar Bunting, a commercial fisherman, to go with him and scratch up those tasty morsels. Oscar looked like he was from central casting’s selection for “The Old Man and the Sea.” He was a very strong guy with forearms that rivaled Popeye’s, a real-life Cap’n Quint. Oscar had a steely look in his eyes that told you he was a serious man but he softened that look with a frequent and wonderful deep laugh. I loved those quahog digging trips with him!
We humans tend to be territorial. People hang out in areas that they like, staying in their comfort zones. Also, we generally stick to routines and, thus, can be fairly predictable. For example, my wife and I have our favorite spot where we sit for church every Sunday. We would be all out of sorts if we had to move to a different location. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? No, but that’s how humans are. And all of these strange traits are directly applicable to us fishing folks, to be sure.
