Waterman

The rain had just stopped as we left the dock at East Boothbay and motored up the Damariscotta. The sky above us was gray making the water a dark black green as the skiff cut into the outgoing tide. Around us the cormorants worked small bait while the seals corralled pogies. Life on the river paid us no attention as we passed by. 

A short boat ride put us at the foot of a small island in the middle of the river. Pulling up to a string of oyster floats, Max Ritchie throttled his Eastern skiff down and edged up next to the gear. Max holds the lease for Carlisle Island Seafood and farms oysters just off its namesake island.

Max started his company in 2020 after working his way up from deckhand to manager in one oyster company and then moving to another to put his academic degrees to work. With an undergrad degree in Marine Science and a graduate degree in Marine Biology he had hoped to bring his knowledge of bio statistics and data modeling to the oyster industry. Eventually he decided to go out on his own, taking with him the knowledge and experience he had obtained working for other farms. On his own he figured he could add more of the “science” he had studied at the University of Maine to the farming process to streamline it and make it more efficient.

 “Obviously I thought was smarter than everyone. I thought I knew what needed to happen. It didn’t take long to get humbled. I met people in farming who know more than I do. They tend to be the people you don’t hear about. The deeper I got into farming the more of them I met. I have a great appreciation for those who have been quietly farming and learning as they go. The most important thing I’ve learned over the last three years is to keep going back to the basics. Strong gear maintenance and flipping gear on time is the most crucial part of farming.”

His first “haul” to market in 2021 consisted of just under 2000 pieces (oysters). Not prolific by any means but for a guy just starting out with limited capital for gear, it was a beginning. He expects his upcoming 2023 “haul” to be somewhere around 5000 pieces. Still not a money maker, he won’t break even, but he sees the banking of knowledge and experience just as important as year-end tallies at this point. And he also knows he needs to triple his gear to get to the money-making side. But that takes more gear which requires increasing the size of the farm from 400 square feet on a Limited Purpose Aquaculture lease per line of gear to a Standard Lease of up to 100 acres. This obviously takes time, money and paperwork.

In the meantime, Max is not “all-in” on oysters. He’s branched out and now has a few select customers that take mackerel, cod and squid that he hand-jigs as the season allows from the boat after his daily work at the oyster farm. They are “bled, gutted and iced within ten minutes of coming over the gunwale and then delivered to the restaurant within two to four hours of being caught.” This addition of wild fishing has re-sparked Max’s love of working the water. His process and limited take advances his ethos that “the ecosystem should be able to survive what we harvest.”

But it’s not all sunny days and rainbows.  “There are somedays it drags on me: After a college degree and a Master’s, I failed on being part of the “usual” career path. I don’t have a Monday through Friday nine-to-five and the guaranteed paycheck that goes with it. I think of that every morning as I drive to the boat ramp. I have failed to conform to the needs of society and the status quo. And then I get on the water, work the farm and jig up whatever I can…I forget about the idea of failure for a little while. And when I deliver to my customers, and they tell me they’ll take whatever I can bring in…I get so excited when I find the one person in ten who get what I do and are excited about it.”

After spending a few hours at the Carlisle Island Seafood oyster farm and jigging up a few mackerel and cod with Max, I get it. I get all of it. The thrill of the independence in doing what you want to do and the idea that you can make it a viable living. And I get the uncertainty of looking into that abyss in the water that you pour blood, sweat, tears, every second of your day and every free dollar into. Every damn day.

Hard work. They don’t teach you that in college. You learn it. From the ground up. In this case, from the river bottom. In the heat of summer to the frigid cold of winter on the mid-coast of Maine, the work never ends. If you’re truly devoted to it, it’s not so much work as it’s just what you do. That mindset, and I can think of dozens of examples, overtime leads to making a living. In the words of many self-employed people I know, “making a living” makes a life.

My last question to Max over a beer on his back porch tonight was, “Would you trade life on the river over one in a cubicle with a salary?”

 “Absolutely not.”

 Roger that.

I’ve known Max for a lot of years now. He’s married to my niece, Jen. She is his partner in all things. She comes from tough stock and a long list of family members who chose hard work as a career. A better partner does not exist. I wish them the best and hereby call “shotgun” on any mackerel jigging excursions when Jill and I are on the mid-coast.  

 

For more about Carlisle Island Seafood, visit Carlisle Island Seafood

 10 September 2023

East Boothbay, Maine

Frost

In the morning we’ll finish loading the truck and head north. It’s not so much a vacation as it is a working road trip. Year number three, something we look forward to. We’re a week later than usual. I just could not mentally manage the idea of driving during the Labor Day weekend traffic, so we put it off.

I’ve put a few things off this year. Brush cutting and clearing out the remnants of the previous owners along the edge of the ranch got put off. A lot of shit got put off. The older you get, the more compromising you become with projects that twenty years ago would take two days. Knocking on sixty, well, those things can drag on for a bit. Compromise. You wrestle with it when you’re younger, embrace it when you’re older. I have no doubt when I get to the next chapter, I’ll call it wisdom.

Yard work isn’t all that’s been put off this year. I decided over the winter to change things up. I can’t tie flies all night, every night like I used to. I’ve been asked several times why I don’t fish anymore. Well, here’s the press release, I make a few casts nearly every day of the year, the world just doesn’t see it. To be honest, that scene has changed, and I no longer fit in. The game is too fast, too Hollywood these days. I can see my train coming, I’ve got too many other earthly things I want to do before it stops at the station. Channels need changing, pages need turning.

On a trip to New Hampshire last winter to visit my daughter I made a stop on the way home at The Frost Place. Robert Frost and his family lived there full time from 1925-1920 and spent nineteen summers on the property. His work has always held a special place in my heart, his words and prose have always felt like home. Some of his poetry still feels like it was written for me. So on a clear and cold late afternoon I sat on the porch and watched the sun fall on the White Mountains. Cold mountain air clears the soul, invigorates the mind, and focuses the eye. I think my mother said that once. Regardless, ninety minutes of silence on Robert Frost’s porch looking at the world changes your perspective.

So rather than sit on that change, tomorrow morning when we get to the end of the driveway and can turn left or right to go chase the light, I have no idea which way we’ll go. I only know we’ll go.

When we return, things here will begin to change. New outposts on the interwebs, a different look and more layers of the proverbial onion. I recently had a conversation with an old friend at our class reunion about the words and water here at Backwater Flats. She’s one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever known, so I listened. Deep into conversation and halfway through a beer she said, “it’s good, do it for you.”

So, I am.

See you on the road.

And KBK, thank you.

 

Littles Pond, MA

8 September 2023

'83 after forty

 

9 June 1983.

NASA was in final preparations to launch Sally Ride and the crew of the Challenger into space as Oxford Hills High School launched the Class of ’83 on our way into the unknown. A gallon of gas was about a buck and a quarter. We could all drive stick and three-on-the-tree and knew every backroad in Oxford County. M*A*S*H* had just ended, Cheers had just begun, and Saturday Night Live was funny. We knew Jack and Diane, Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue and the Wuppa Gubba and Raputa the Buta. Our lives were orchestrated and choreographed from the back corner booths of Goodwin’s Dairy and the pay phone out front.

We came from eight towns, transported to different elementary schools by a fleet of buses that travelled over three thousand miles daily. Eventually we were brought together at the junior high where, unbeknownst to us at the time, we began to form as one. Two years later we landed in the halls of the high school. In the classrooms our teachers taught what we needed to fulfill graduation requirements while taking us on conversational side trips to explain how it all fit into daily life. In the gym and on the playing fields our coaches instilled in us teamwork, perseverance and leadership. In the hallways and after school our class and club advisors gave us guidance and encouragement to work with each other, take on projects, solve problems and make a difference in our school and in our community.

As is the case anytime a large group of teenagers are held in a pressurized concrete building all day for nine months, there was tension at times. Social groups, friendships and relationships fractured. New ones were formed. Somehow, we kept going. In the shadows of all the drama what I remember the most is our class coming together whenever we needed to despite our differences. Homecoming skits and competitions, Winter Carnival, Dance Marathon, Walk-a-thons, parades, football games, field hockey games, cross country meets, basketball games, wrestling meets, ski meets, baseball games, track meets, plays and concerts…we all supported each other. And we all supported the Class of ’83. We were The Vikings.

All of this flooded my mind while we congregated for our class photo at our 40^th Reunion a few weeks ago. As I looked out at the faces of people I’ve known essentially all my life and talked with some I haven’t seen since graduation, I realized one thing: the basis of everything I know, everything I’ve done along the way, all of it originated in those elementary schools, the junior high and the halls of the high school. What I learned about life and how to navigate it I learned from the Class of ’83. The good, the bad, the pain, the bliss, success and failure. We learned it together.

I regret that I did not get a chance to talk to everyone in attendance. I was amazed at the stories of those I talked with. Every single one. Our AFS sister and brother, those I’ve known since the first grade, those I only knew in high school and everyone in between. We’ve done well. Healthcare, construction and the trades, art, education, business, finance, the military, law enforcement, technology, communications…we are everywhere. We’ve built our own businesses, built homes, raised families, gone out into the world and come back home. Did we make our mark on the world, did we make it better? I think we have and will continue to do so.

I've omitted names in this. Teachers, coaches, advisors, classmates – there are just too many, too many stories. Each one is no less important than the others. To quote Aristotle, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

The Class of 1983. We are one.

To close, I have three thoughts.

First, Viking Pride is not just a catch phrase.

Second, “Non Carborundum” should be excavated and read at the next reunion.

And lastly, long live The Hammer!

 Slainte!

 

3 September 2023

Littles Pond, MA