Summer stars glisten in the Mississippi Sound again, magically ferried by an engine hum that only a shrimper can recognize.
I'm a former shrimper, but I suspect once a shrimper always a shrimper.
The therapeutic scent of the sea. Alone in the world sitting on top of the bow. Glistening shells of fresh catch. The palette of twilight and dawn. Silver eels to toss to hungry gulls following the Pied Piper trawler. Camaraderie of fellow deckhands. A fat payday.
Who can ever forget the sea at its best?
Or its worst?
Net caught in the wheel as a storm approaches. Sunburn. No sleep. Lightning raising the hairs on your arm. Heavy baskets. Stinging sea nettles from a shaken net. Seasickness caused by the stink of a cat food factory at the end of a long but otherwise healthy night of picking. A bad season with scarce shrimp.
But in my eight years of memories as a shrimper, I concentrate on the joys of working on the water, of claiming such a wide expanse as my "office." Shrimping is what paid for my college, and sadly, college is what took me away from the working water. The best I can do now is drive Beach Boulevard to the newsroom each day.
The brown shrimp season opened in the Mississippi Sound six days ago. If you've not taken a night drive on Beach Boulevard, do so. The boat stars are worth watching. Imagine standing on the deck anticipating the first haul, hoping it's a good one, shrimp-picking lights ready to turn on.
Each boat carries several nets, one of which is called the "try trawl." That's the small one the captains put over first, for a short run, to learn if that is a good spot to let out the big trawls.
Sometimes the captains have codes for their friends, to let them know about the good shrimping spots. Other times, "the wind" (aka, the radios) stays silent, no one wanting the message to spread about their shrimp bonanza.
If you notice a cluster of boat stars cruising the same area, the word got out. Many trawlers now have radar to locate shrimp schools, but that was a rarity when I was a deckhand in the '60s and '70s, when seasoned knowledge and instinct was the keys to success.
I didn't grow up in a fishing family, but after my dad died extra money was scarce. All of us Bergeron kids learned to shrimp on a 56-footer called The Little Jug, owned by a family friend. We were hardworking enough that he hired us as deckhands.
Because some captains have superstitions about women on their boats, I worked extra hard to prove myself. The one thing I could never master, though, was lassoing the piling at the end of the trip. I suspect other shrimpers didn't leave the dock until the Little Jug arrived so they could have a good laugh watching me.
Captain H.R. occasionally let me "have the wheel" when traffic wasn't too thick on the water, and that was the best of all. I had arrived. I understood the difference between red and green lights, and how to pass another boat when dragging a net.
My main job, of course, was picking shrimp. I wore gloves because shrimp juice is lethal to hands but that thin plastic doesn't stop shrimp thorns. By the end of the first week of the season, my hands were pricked to death.
If it was a decent season, the captain cooked shrimp dishes to maintain our stamina because a lazy crew cannot keep up with the work. But with high fuel costs cutting drastically into profits, I suspect the deckhands that get to work this year will not eat their own catch.
From Captain H.R. I learned how to make a mean shrimp and spaghetti using the secret ingredients - fresh lemon and even fresher local shrimp.
On that note, a bumper sticker graces the bulletin board by my desk: "Mississippi Gulf Shrimp: A Natural Winner." When I grow weary of pecking at this keyboard I stare at the sticker to let my mind wander to another era.
I smell the salt water, the catch, the diesel engine. I can hear the chatter on the wind, the winch pulling up the ropes and the splash of the wooden trawl "doors" coming out of the water. The net is tripped, the contents dumped on deck, and I begin the work of picking shrimp.
Back then I rode one of the boat stars. Today I watch from afar.
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