Rickr's Story Of The Week

[reevesr1]

When I was a kid, anytime I got hurt, my dad would say something like "I've had worse cuts on my eye" or a "boy, that's gotta hurt, glad it's not me" or something such. What follows is a story of payback for all the years of hearing that sort of stuff. The payback actually came from my brother, but I feel like I was there in spirit:

 

My dad started shrimping in 1975. My brother (Ron) and I worked with him on the boat and after a couple of years and when I was 16 I began to run the boat myself in the afternoons. Did not take me long to figure out that this sort of life was not for me. Ron liked it however and worked with my dad either deckhanding or running the boat himself until he was into his 20s. One of the constants of shrimping in South Texas is crabs. They certainly are not as large as what you see on TV out of Alaska, but they have very sharp, very powerful claws. But if you are careful, you generally don't get bit. But when you do, it HURTS!! To get them off, we usually got a big pair of pliers (channel locks) and broke off the claw.

 

One day, Ron is deckhanding for my dad. He dumps a big pile of shrimp on the table to cull out the little fish. He reaches down and out of the pile comes a claw and it bites him on the thumb. He calls for dad, in distress, to get the channel locks and get the crab off. Dad moseys out of the cabin, looks at Ron and says "man, that's gotta hurt." Ron asks again for the channel locks, in a bit more distress and with a bit of anger directed at dad. Dad moseys back into the cabin, finds the channel locks, moseys back out and with slow deliberation, breaks off the claw. My brother vows revenge.

 

Not very long later, the tables turn. Exactly the same scenario as above, but Ron is in the cabin and dad is culling when out of the pile comes a giant claw that hits dad with one point on the thumbnail and another on the opposite side of the thumb. Ron hears the scream, sees dad reach down to grab the crab from behind. But he was a bit slow and the other claw grabs the other thumb on the knuckle. Yikes! Dad pulls up, and out of the pile comes a huge blue crab with a claw attached to both of dad's thumbs. Ron said he could already see the blood oozing out of the thumbnail. Dad asks in an agonized voice "go get the channel locks and get this thing off of me." Ron's reply "Man, that's gotta hurt. Sure glad it's not me!" to which dad threatens his life! So Ron moseys back into the cabin, finds the channel locks, moseys back out and with slow deliberation, breaks off one of the claws. And runs!! Revenge can be sweet, but no reason to be stupid about it and let your pissed off dad catch you!!

[ladystrange]

sweet, gotta love it. i have fond yet not so fond memories of catching crab in the juan de fuca. many hours of listening to my dad and brother swearing at traps, bait, each other, crabs, the weather and so on. i guess we weren't so nice as to use the pilers, at least from what i remember, there was usually either a hammer or just shear brute strength used to rip the claw off. and a lot of 'i'm not putting my hand in there this time, you do it...'

 

thanks for the memories. good times, good times. brought a smile to my face.