Nomad News Volume 2 - No. 28

"There Is No Copyright On Common Sense"









NEWS HEADLINE: "Matinicus Island Lobster Wars": This headline caught my eye as my brother, sister, and I spent our early summer months in Owls Head, Maine. Our father's work took us there and it was a wonderful experience not many kids at that time had the opportunity to enjoy. This same headline above could easily have been written during the 1920s as this has been a feud as long-lasting but not as well known as the Hatfield and McCoys of Kentucky.




Matinicus Island lays about 20 miles off the coast and the inhabitants maintain a strict code of descipline when it comes to lobster fishing. For decades they have, in reality, maintained their own set of laws and regulations as pertains to lobstering. I assume it is still the same. They lobster only nine months 0f the year. The summer months are "off limits" as they allow the lobsters to establish maximum growth during the warmer waters of summer. This results in larger lobsters and the Matinicus Island lobsters bring higher prices than the rest of the grounds.



I believe this latest incident involved a person who claimed residence as the result of being a third generation member of an Island resident. He ended up in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the throat. The article also quoted an incident where recently two lobster boats in Owls Head harbor had been sunk and another damaged. This brought the latest news "closer to home".



When we reached high school age, we stopped going to Maine. It was "old hat". It wasn't until 30 years later I decided to go back. Things had changed and then, again, they hadn't changed that much. I purchased a little bay-front cottage on Spruce Head Island and kept it for 15 years or so. Located a couple of boyhood friends. One was Mary Foster. Her parents had worked at the Bancroft School where my father worked. She recalled a time when a bunch of us kids were at the home of Levi Ledbetter and Mrs. Ledbetter offered us an apple. This was not just any apple, it was a Red Astriken, the most delicious apple imagineable. Maine was the only place I ever ran across this variety. The Ledbetters were frugal people. Levi was a lobsterman(more on Mr. L.). When Mrs. Ledbetter came to me, I asked her to give me one "without the worms". The apples Mrs. L. always served were "windfalls". The good ones were kept for applesauce. Mary recalled that the local kids were all surprised that I would be so bold. It was something they were "afraid to do".



Levi, as I recall, didn't care much for "noisy kids" but he took a liking to me. Maybe because I had the nerve to solicit non-wormy apples from his wife. For whatever reason he invited me to go cod fishing one time. As I mentioned he was a lobsterman but on occasion would fish for his own consumption. Levi lobstered from a sloop, a single-masted sailboat without a bow sprit. She was about thirty feet long. He was the only lobsterman in Owls Head who worked from a sailboat.



Another time he had to sail to Vinylhaven Island, about 20 miles from Owls Head to pick up a new sail and he stopped by and asked if I would like to go along. I needed no urging. Off we sailed on a beautiful sunny day, tacking across Penobscot Bay to the off-shore island. There was a stiff breeze and we made good time. I lingered around the docks while Levi completed his task. I guess the sail wasn't quite ready because it was early evening when we set sail for the return trip. Dusk was setting in when we finally left the wharf. Off we sailed in a returning gentle breeze. When we were about halfway home, the breeze dropped like a rock. Levi went below to start the one-lunger auxiliary engine. He had to "swing" the flywheel to start it.



He swung and he swung and he swung and she wouldn't even sputter. The more he swung the more curse words flew from his lips. He finally gave up, came up still madder than a wet hen. Levi always had a 14-foot dory in tow, which he proceeded to pull alongside. Giving me instructions on how to steer toward Owls Head lighthouse off in the growing dark, he got in the dory, attached a towline to the bow and proceeded to pull his sloop home with oar power, still swearing all the while. I forget what time it was when we finally reached Owls Head but the moon had been full for a long time and as we rowed into the wharf, Levi continued to mutter under is breath.


(More about Maine and Chester Philbrooks next time)

Hawkeye