[00:00:00]

 

Charlie Alley: Okay, we’re at the home of Tuddy Urquhart, and the date is March the 13^th, 2004. Okay, Tuddy, if you could give us your name, when you were born, your mother’s name, and your father’s name.

 

Adelmar “Tuddy” Urquhart: Well, my name is Adelmar Urquhart.  I was born in South Portland [on] December 23^rd, almost Christmas, 1926, and my mother’s name is Nellie.  My father’s name is Millard.

 

CA: Yeah, Nellie was an Alley before she was married.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Okay.  Now, you were born in South Portland.  How did you happen to be born in South Portland?

 

ATU:  My dad was on the light up at Seguin [Island], off Boothbay [inaudible] –

 

CA: You were born while he was on Popham beach.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Where did you go to school?

 

ATU: Well, the first year, I went to Popham beach, and they had a kindergarten through the eighth grade.  I took kindergarten and first grade in one year.  It was a one-room schoolhouse, one teacher –

 

CA: The whole eight grades?

 

ATU:  She taught the whole eight grades, and she had discipline, and everyone minded, and we learned. The second year, we had the old potbelly stove, a crock of water. These young people don’t realize –

 

CA: [laughter] No, they wouldn’t.

 

ATU: The outdoor toilet.  The next year, I went to school, I came down here, West Jonesport, and I was in the second grade.  Pauline Gray was my teacher.

 

[00:01:59]

 

CA: You must have lived up West Jonesport to go to that school.

 

ATU:  Yeah, I lived at West Jonesport.

 

CA: Where did you live when you first moved there?

 

ATU: [inaudible] house; it’s been torn down now.

 

CA: Going up towards [inaudible]?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Just before you get to – [inaudible] is on the left?

 

ATU:  That little knoll right there at [inaudible] before you get [inaudible].  Uncle [inaudible] used to have a store there.

 

CA: Yes, okay, yep. Yeah, that was (Phil’s?) store, [inaudible] house right there on the northern side of it.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

Unknown:  So Phil Urquhart was your father’s brother?

 

ATU:  No, we called him “Uncle Phil,” but he was [inaudible].

 

CA:  I think he was his great uncle.  I think he was his father’s, father’s brother, I think. I think I got it in these [inaudible].

 

ATU: And the next year, I came down to the Cove School.

 

CA: Now, that’s when you moved on Old House Point.

 

ATU: Yes.

 

CA: You lived in the house that Jeanette Alley lives in now.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

[00:03:03]

 

CA: And your father also owned the one that Ian lives in now, Ian Alley.

 

ATU: Right.

 

CA: You went to the Cove School [for] the rest of your grammar school.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Then you went to high school in Jonesport.  You played basketball, didn’t you?

 

ATU: Right. Wasn’t very good at it, but I played.

 

CA: Well, you did okay, I remember.

 

ATU: We had a short team.

 

CA: [laughter] [inaudible]

 

ATU: We never had no six-footers.

 

CA: They were short, but they were fast.

 

ATU: Huh?

 

CA: Short but fast. Yeah.  In your growing up, you moved quite a lot, didn’t you, with your father?  He was on the lights.

 

ATU: Well, we went up and spent all of our summers on the light.

 

CA: Now, where’d you spend most of the time?  Was it on Seguin?

 

ATU: On Seguin.  That was three miles outside of Popham beach.

 

CA: Where is that, in the Kennebec River?

 

ATU: The mouth of the Kennebec River.

 

[00:04:01]

 

CA: Now, you only spent summers there.  You didn’t spend winters?

 

ATU: No, winters, we stayed inshore and went to school.  Of course, my father – they didn’t get much money in those days for – there were nine then.  There were nine of us children when they got through, and dad always did a lot of farming. He raised most of the stuff that we ate.

 

Unknown:  You had a great garden right out here; I remember that.

 

ATU: Yeah. I remember up to Seguin when we had to [inaudible]. He had two cows and a bull, and he made a scow to put them in.  He put them in the scow.  We started for Popham Beach with them. There were three of us boys – Allen, [Millard] Junior, and I. You know them cows get nervous.  You know what happens when they get nervous. And that was going everywhere.

 

CA: [laughter]

 

Unknown: Oh, boy.

 

ATU: When we got to Popham beach, we had swimming trunks on.  When we got in Popham beach, we went swimming. That’s one thing dad did; he made sure everyone swims.

 

CA: Well, putting on the lights, I imagine it’s a good idea.  Now, what did you do after you went out of school?  Did you immediately have to go into service?  I know you went in the service.

 

[00:05:39]

 

ATU: Yeah, one week.

 

CA: One week after you left school?

 

ATU:  Yeah.

 

CA: How long [inaudible] the service done?

 

ATU: I think two years.

 

CA: Two years. Where was you stationed?

 

ATU: I took basic training in Camp Croft, South Carolina, and I spent most of my time in Germany, in Berlin.

 

Bill Plaskon: Were you in the Army?

 

ATU: I was in the army. Japan was still – we were still at war with Japan, but Germany had surrendered.

 

CA:  Had surrendered when you were over there?

 

ATU: [inaudible] There was no fighting when I went over there.

 

CA: You weren’t in the bunker fighting.

 

ATU: No.

 

CA: Okay. Now, then you come back home.  What’d you do for work after you come back home?

 

ATU: Well, I made some mistakes.

 

CA: [laughter]

 

ATU: I started hauling pulpwood and logs.

 

CA:  I remember that.

 

ATU: I’d been at Aroostook County, hauling potatoes.  I hauled beans for (Arthur Hathaway?) [inaudible], and they talked me into plowing the snow [inaudible] down. I didn’t want that, but the last year we did that job, we got nine thousand dollars [inaudible] some of the money I lost [inaudible] help pay off the plow – wore up seven new trucks, and when I got through, I never had no more than I did when I started. So I say it was a [inaudible] mistake.

 

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CA: Now you said you hauled beans for (Hathaway?).  Who raised the beans for (Hathaway?)?

 

ATU: They had different farmers.

 

CA: Was it right around here, or did you have to go very far to get them?

 

ATU: Oh, I [inaudible] Houlton [inaudible]come down.  Down near Robinson, down in –

 

CA: Okay. There wasn’t so many raised right in this region.

 

ATU: No, they was all around Woodland, down in that area. All small farmers

 

CA: I don’t think too many people realize that (Hathaway?) had been a canning plant.  Where was it?  Right in Columbia Falls?

 

ATU: Right up there with the – right where Morris’s Discount is.

 

CA: Oh, right there?

 

ATU: Just a ways from there.

 

CA: From where his store is?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Okay.

 

ATU: There used to be a place where we hauled pulpwood over there and loaded pulpwood cars there.

 

CA: Now, why don’t you tell us about hauling some of that pulpwood?  That was hard work, wasn’t it?

 

[00:08:04]

 

ATU: We had [inaudible] machines and hydraulic machines to load it and unload it, and especially logs – it was dangerous, rolling in logs [inaudible]. You had to be awful careful that you didn’t get one row behind you or something.

 

CA: Tell us a typical day of hauling pulpwood.  You’d be surprised how hard those fellows work.  What time did you start in the morning?

 

ATU: Oh, we’d be up at daylight in the woods.

 

CA: They had to throw –

 

BP: Where were the woods?  Where did you have to throw –?

 

ATU: They were up back Columbia Falls, up in that area. Up in Saco, up in around there. I was up a couple of days ago, riding around. [laughter]

 

CA: You’d have to pick every bit of wood up off the ground, throw it on the truck by hand, and you usually had one person helping you, didn’t you?

 

ATU: Right.

 

CA: And then you go to a railroad car and unload it by hand. Well, that’s quite a lot. And how many cords usually did you do a day, considering [inaudible]?

 

ATU: About nine or ten.

 

CA: Nine or ten.

 

[00:09:03]

 

ATU: We made three trips.

 

CA: Three trips.

 

ATU: Three trips, three cars to a load [inaudible].

 

CA: What time would you get done?

 

ATU: Oh, we worked from – we figured it was [inaudible].  It’s all day.

 

CA: Yeah, probably [inaudible] most of that, probably four or five o’clock.

 

ATU: It was a dangerous job, too. I had a fellow with me one day, and he wanted to learn how to drive a truck. So I told him – I said, “Alright.” So, I let him drive out on the main road. We went in one day, and I said, “Well, you might just as well learn how to drive her right from the stump.”  We started out, and there were some Frenchmen there, and they stopped us, and they said, “You better put your chains on.” And I said, “What for?” And he said, “Well, that hill there.”  He said, “[inaudible] trucks having [inaudible] get over the hill.”  I said, “Well, I’ve been over it twice today.”  I said, “I can get over it alright.” [inaudible] wanted me to take it.  I said, “Oh, no. You’ll make it alright.” But I said, “When you turn the corner …” There was a corner right at the foot of the hill.  I said, “When you go round that corner, you better have her in second gear, a pretty good speed, so you wouldn’t have to shift going up the hill.” Well, he didn’t have quite enough speed.  I [inaudible] stop him.  But I said, “He might make it.” Just before she gets up the hill, she starts [inaudible].  He said, “What can I do now?” I said, “The only thing you can [inaudible] put it in reverse.”  Just like a railroad track, [inaudible].

 

CA: You add rocks.

 

[00:10:47.05]

 

ATU: She went right down there and straight to the bottom of that hill.  We had a twenty-foot log on there, on the right-hand side, and that hit a maple tree, and that drove that – if we hadn’t had a brand new [inaudible] outfit, a brand-new body of all oak headboard, and we had double chains on them, [inaudible].  That’s the only thing that saved him.  When she hit that twenty-foot log, she drove that headboard right into that backup cab, pushed that cab ahead, and I only had about that much room between that and the cab.  But the door didn’t open; that’s the only thing that saved me.  It stayed latched.  They told me at the body shop that that latch I built – it squeezed me.

 

CA: Yeah.

 

ATU: So (Sim?) said, “I might as well shoot myself now.”   I said, “Why?”  He said, “I hope [inaudible]. I’ll be killed.” I said, “They’ll never know.”  I said, “They’ll never know.”  How [inaudible].  “I might as well own up that I’d done it because I’ll be responsible anyway.” Mom and dad never knew what [inaudible] that truck.

 

[00:12:04.21]

 

CA: Yeah.

 

ATU: I never told them. We come home that night, [inaudible].  She says, “Well, how’d you do today, boys?” I said, “Not too good.”  She said, “Why?”  “Well, I said, “We [inaudible] the truck.”  She looked out, and you couldn’t tell looking on this side.  She said, “Oh, why’d you tell me that?” I said, “You walk around.  Look on the other side.”  I don’t know. I never got hurt or anything, but we’ve been in dangerous situations.

 

CA: Well, the insurance rates were very high because of some dangers, too, weren’t they?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Now, what did you usually get for a cod when you handled it in those days?

 

ATU: Oh, we didn’t get hardly anything. We didn’t make no money then.

 

CA: Four dollars a cod, or something like that?

 

ATU: No more than that.

 

CA: Now, you only did that in the winter though.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: What else did you do?  You go clamming a lot?

 

ATU: We went clamming quite a lot.  Then, after a while, you and I started with an [inaudible] boat, fishing a few traps.

 

CA: When you went clamming there, you used to people around – used to take a bunch with you on the back of your truck and go out to Flake Point Bar, didn’t you?

 

ATU: We used to buy clams.

 

CA: Oh, you bought clams, too?

 

ATU: We bought clams.

 

CA: Who’d you buy them –?

 

ATU: [inaudible]

 

CA: Who’d you buy them from?  Or can’t you remember?

 

ATU: I can’t remember the man’s name now, but old (Dallas Alley?) and all those guys used to –

 

CA:  Sell to you?

 

ATU:  Sell to me.  We used to buy three bushels and a barrel.  I know what it was. It was three dollars a bushel of clams. Nine dollars for a barrel of clams.  Someone told me the other day they got two dollars a pound.

 

CA: They did.  Ninety cents a dollar now.  They did go for two dollars [inaudible] cold weather.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

[00:14:06.00]

 

CA: Now, where you went a lot was you’d just take your truck up to Flake Point Bar and just leave your skiff anchored off.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: And go around over on (Kidney’s Cove?) and the middle ground and places –

 

ATU: That’s one thing that was awful dangerous – (Larson Alley?) and I used to go together over in Jonesboro with [inaudible]. I had a small skiff.  I brought an [inaudible] boat up that says [inaudible] it had a spring in it.  It’s supposed to work it so it wouldn’t have so much vibration.  Every time we’d go try it, that spring would let go. Well, they never ever did get it corrected, but we’d go, and we’d load that skiff just [inaudible] the water and [inaudible] we took some awful chances. I was coming down on the middle ground up in there, and I had that – remember that [inaudible]?  That little one?  The (Dubliner?).

 

CA: No, I can’t remember the –

 

ATU: She drove nice.  I was coming down out of there, and I had that thing loaded.  A row of clams fell off the top and went overboard.  When I got down to the bar, (Larson Alley?) – you know [inaudible].  I told (Larson?) – I said, “Well, I lost a row of clams coming in.”  He said, “You know what I’d have done?” I said, “What?”  He said, “I’d stole up every one of them.” [laughter]

 

CA: [laughter] He probably would have.

 

ATU: He would have.

 

CA: Yes, he would.  [laughter] Yeah, he had a quick – [inaudible] he had a quick temper like that.

 

ATU: Then another time I’m hauling wood down, down in the woodland area, and Millard Junior had one dropped behind me. No, Millard Junior was ahead of me, and he was going up over the hill, and he couldn’t make it, and he started coming back. I had Howard Alley with me.  Remember Howard?

 

CA: Oh, yes.  Of course, I remember Howard.

 

[00:16:24.19]

 

ATU: He had rubber boots on, hauled just as far as they come up.  So, I had to ditch or he was going to hit me.  So when I swung off into the ditch, she tipped right up [inaudible] just hit me on the back and just tipped her right [inaudible].  Howard jumped right out, boots and all.  I don’t know how he stood up when he [inaudible]. But, oh, I’ve had some awful [inaudible].

 

CA: Yeah.  Do you remember the time that we went up to get some wood over in Machias, over that way somewhere?  We got the wood, and we didn’t know [inaudible].  We got it for firewood.  We got it on someone else’s land.  You remember that time?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: [laughter] And we didn’t know it when we got it –

 

ATU: Well, his boy was a lawyer.

 

CA: [laughter] [inaudible] They told him who cut it, and you went over and screamed at Howard.

 

ATU: Yes, but he was a nice fellow. [inaudible]

 

CA:  At that time, there was quite a few who did that, took the skiffs up there and anchored them off, and clammed out of Flake Point Bar.  Then you started lobstering up there, didn’t you, before you bought the [inaudible].

 

ATU: Yes.  We were lobstering [inaudible].

 

CA: Now, where did you go when you first started up there?

 

ATU: Lobstering?

 

CA:  Yes.

 

ATU:  I bought that [inaudible] boat there.  He lived on the point there.

 

CA: Oh, no.  You had a boat before that. You had an outboard.

 

ATU: I had an outboard.  Then I had –

 

CA: You bought a little –

 

ATU: I had a [inaudible].

 

CA: Where did you buy it?  You had a little [inaudible] you got down here.

 

ATU: I got it down in Machiasport.  One of them (Hubbard?) engines in there.

 

[00:18:23.24]

 

CA: I remember one Sunday I went with you.  We took Sunday afternoon – take her up to  [inaudible].  We hauled a few traps up there, and they were half full. [laughter] You fished in that outboard up around there until you got to Herbert’s Cove.

 

ATU: Herbert’s Cove, yes.

 

CA:  [inaudible] Now then you also – now, you used to go with Sim a little one or two  [inaudible]

 

ATU: Yes.  We [inaudible] there with him. Well, I’d fish a hundred twenty-five traps up here, and when it got bad weather, we’d take my traps down there and fish them down there.

 

CA: You went from here.  You didn’t stay down there?

 

ATU: No.

 

CA: Because his father used to camp down there.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: I bet there’s good fishing down there now, Tudd.

 

ATU: Oh, I imagine. There was good fishing where we was at because there were only two or three fishermen.

 

CA: I went down there once [inaudible].  The traps are half full when you brought them home. [laughter] You also bought that [inaudible] up the bay.  What year did you buy that, or don’t you know?

 

ATU: In the late ’50s, I guess.  Middle ’50s.

 

CA: Now, who did you buy that from? Emory?

 

ATU: Lawrence Smith.

 

CA: Lawrence Smith. Now, was he the first one who had the [inaudible] in that place or was it someone else?

 

Unknown: (Charles Albert?) had one somewhere.

 

ATU: He had his down at the (Great Bar?).

 

CA: [inaudible] (Great bar?)

 

ATU: I think his father built that [inaudible] there, Lawrence’s father, Emory.

 

[00:20:10.08]

 

CA: And didn’t (Newell?) have one on that shore somewhere at one time, between yours and –?

 

ATU: Well there was a king’s [inaudible] off of [inaudible] shore.  I don’t know whether (Newell?) ever had it.

 

CA: I don’t know who had it.

 

ATU: But there was a [inaudible] there too.

 

CA: Okay. Do you ever remember –?  When I went up with you that day, you said there was weir stakes over there by (Spar Island?).  Did you ever remember that weir? Is it all down or just stakes left? But you remember you said there’d been a weir there.

 

ATU: Spar Island?

 

CA: On the side of Spar.  East of the bar to Spar Island and [inaudible] Island.  You set some traps there. It was a real good place to fish [inaudible].

 

ATU: Well, round them weir stakes; the kelp would get on there.  Them lobsters hang right around them kelp but had you get wound up sometimes [inaudible]

 

CA: How did you do off the weir?

 

ATU: We did fair enough, but after a while, you couldn’t [inaudible] we had a hundred [inaudible]. Charlie Stevens took most of them, but [inaudible] so we decided to get rid of – no, after that, there was a fellow who lived down Kelley Point, buying five-gallon buckets.  We was getting a good price for them, and he was taking them to Canada.

 

Unknown: [inaudible] for bait? Was that for bait?

 

ATU: No.  They was using them to eat.  But there was a – there’s a cottage up there.  I don’t know if they still live [inaudible] there was some people from Japan, built a new cottage there, and she came down there one day. We was taking up them herring.  She said, “I couldn’t help you [inaudible] could I?”  I said, “Sure, have all you want.”  I said, “What do you want to do with them?”  She said – of course, she said what she was going to do with them; something about putting vinegar in them and all this and that.  I said, “Well, I wouldn’t want that.”  I guess she cooked them whole.  But she said, “You stop in.  You’ll like them.”  I never did stop in.

 

[00:22:34.23]

 

CA: You also got [inaudible] something besides herring that way, didn’t you?

 

ATU: Oh, yes.

 

CA: Tell us about the time you got the striped bass.

 

ATU:  Yes.  We had quite a few mackerel one night. We’d go up in the evening.  We’d walk to [inaudible] in the evening and see if there’s any fish coming in. Then we’d go up in the early morning daylight, even before daylight.  Ernest and I never had to have no flashlights or anything.  We knew where every line was and how to [inaudible] and everything.  We’d go up in the morning and wouldn’t be none of them. Ernest said, “That’s a funny thing.” We did that two, three days. He said, “Let’s go up in the night and seine them.” I said, “Alright. We went up in the night and seined them.  We had the dory [inaudible] the mackerel.  Ernest said, “Well, we got to pick the mackerel out the herring.” I said, “No you got to pick the herring out the mackerel.” I said, “There’s more mackerel than there’s herring.” We took them up [inaudible] over there. He brought them over, and I packed them.

 

Unknown:  Do you think that’s because the gulls – they were afraid of the gulls and they came in in the night? Do you think that might have something to do with [inaudible]?

 

ATU: No, the mackerel will drive the herring out.

 

Unknown:  Oh, really?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

Unknown: But what about gulls? Were they afraid of the gulls?

 

[00:24:00.21]

 

ATU: No I don’t think gulls had any effect on them. But the last year we were seining, we were down (Harley Cove?), down the backside [of] Beals Island, we had a [inaudible].  They’d come in there every night just like they was coming over that [inaudible].  But you couldn’t [inaudible].  Every once in a while, Stinson would say, “Can you top a boat off [inaudible] Canada? Can you top her off when she comes [inaudible]?” And that’s what we did.  We topped it off [inaudible] boat.

 

CA: You had them so long, you had to change your pounds, didn’t you?

 

ATU: Oh yes.

 

CA:  They [inaudible] up so.

 

ATU:  We smothered a lot of them. Roy [inaudible] boy, the pilot, flew over that [inaudible] over that area and said we had 2,500 [inaudible] Made a fortune [inaudible].  That’s the way it was.  When you had them, everyone had them.

 

CA: Won’t you give us just a little story how you’d go seining, how you went, what you did?  You’d probably go before dark.

 

ATU: [inaudible] before dark.  Wherever you went, it was the only place where you could run twine, and wouldn’t get caught down [inaudible] (Brownie’s?) Island that one night; we could hear them fish are coming.  There was so much tide that we couldn’t hold them; we had to let them go.  But up through the bay, when we was seining, we’d go up there in the evening.  We’d run the leader out, and they’d come right up against that leader.  You just circled that around them.

 

CA: Circled that.

 

ATU: The next morning, [inaudible] actually put a [inaudible] on, drop that leader down.  They’d go [inaudible] leader, into that pocket.

 

[00:26:04.09]

 

CA: You explain a bit more on how you did it?

 

ATU:  What?

 

CA:  If you want to explain it for them, how they did it.  Because people don’t – you used to tie the floats together, the ones on the leader and the [inaudible].

 

ATU:  Yes.

 

CA:  Then, somehow, you pushed the [inaudible] under, and the herring would go from where they shut them off into this round circle outside there.  After you got what you wanted, then you brought the corks back up, and you had them trapped up in that circle out there, and you could take your running [inaudible] right back up and use it again.

 

ATU: Yeah. Lot of times, you’d have more in the [inaudible] than –

 

CA: What you could fit in a pound?

 

ATU: – that you could put in a pound because they’d smother.

 

CA: What did you do in that case? Just leave them in the running twine?

 

ATU: Yes.

 

CA: And you couldn’t [inaudible] off the next night.

 

ATU: No.

 

CA: Okay.  Because there’s no way to put more than one – was there ways to put more than one pound in a place?

 

ATU: You can, yeah. We could have done that.

 

CA: When you shut them off, how –?

 

ATU: Up to Popplestone one night – that was when Ernest’s father was with us.  They shut the Popplestone [inaudible]. When they come down there, Ernest says, “Well, what are we shutting [inaudible] for? [inaudible] He said, “We got more fish up at that Popplestone than we want.  You ain’t going to shut them.  You’re not going to shut them fish up there.”  And he said, “We are.” [inaudible] brother [inaudible].  They said, “[inaudible] shut them off.”  So we shut them off.  But we got [inaudible].

 

CA: Now, when you shut fish off, you went onshore and fastened your twine?

 

ATU: Yeah.  You’d have to drag that twine up to high water mark.

 

CA: Right to high water mark.

 

ATU: You’d run it off, but you would run it off – like, this is the beach; you start on the shore right here, and you’d run it right out round like that. These fish would come right up [inaudible], and you’d bring it down round [inaudible] on the shore again.  There they were inside of that.  Then, the next morning, like this, was what you shut off.  Then the next morning, you’d put another piece of twine over there.  We’d call it [inaudible], and we’d fasten these two ends together right here.  We had some weights that we would tie on the floats that would sink them down.  Then the fish would [inaudible] right in over them in the [inaudible].  We have seined them off of leaders, but that’s a job.

 

[00:28:54.26]

 

CA: Must be hard.

 

ATU: Oh, yeah.  Hard to catch them because they’re moving.  They got a big area and they can go anywhere they want to.  But in that pocket, they’re closer together; they can’t go anywhere.  But I enjoyed that.

 

Unknown: Must have been like opening a Christmas package [inaudible]. [laughter]

 

CA: Is it about the same seining [inaudible] pocket than it is in a weir? Is it harder?

 

ATU: Yes, about the same. I think it’s a little easier to seine than weir.

 

CA: I would think so.

 

ATU: [inaudible] seine than weir.

 

CA: I don’t know if people know how.  Do you know how they seine a weir [inaudible]?

 

Unknown: No.

 

CA: Want to explain to them how to seine a weir then?

 

ATU: Well. you had –

 

CA: You have to see how a weir’s built first [inaudible].

 

ATU: A weir is round, and the leader – [inaudible]

 

Unknown: [inaudible]

 

ATU:  The weir has a fence; it comes off like that.  This is the shore here, this red line. That fence goes off –

 

[End of Track One]

 

[00:00:00.00]

 

ATU: – and right in here you start with – you’d start with wooden posts and binder, and you would –

 

CA: You used to make a hook in there so they shoot back into the weir, wouldn’t you?

 

ATU: Yeah.  Well, what they would do – they’d hit the shore here, and they’d come around and hit the fence. Then they’d break straight off and break through this little gap hole. Well, this binder was in the [inaudible]

 

CA: Yeah. They called it [inaudible].

 

ATU: Yeah. There was an opening on both sides here. Then they’d go in there – what we would do – we’d go up –

 

BP: What would drive the fish into there?

 

ATU: Pardon?

 

BP: What would drive the fish in?

 

ATU: They’d go by themselves.

 

CA: They go by themselves.  See, they go along the –

 

BP:  So, you don’t need bait or anything?

 

CA: No, no.

 

ATU:  No.

 

CA:  They go along the shore.  They come in on the shores at night, and they hit this.  See, you fenced them off, so they think they’re still going onto shore, and they just keep right on going right into the weir. Then you have hooks on the weir that goes in and circles round, so when the herring goes around here, it shoots them right back into the weir again.

 

Unknown:  Can’t get out.

 

BP:  Wow.

 

CA: Shoots them in the weir.

 

ATU: What we’d do, we’d go out and hook on one side here because you couldn’t leave this open.

 

CA: No.

 

BP:  When would you go to collect them?  The next day?

 

ATU: In the morning.

 

BP:  In the morning?

 

CA: Most generally, on low water [inaudible].

 

ATU: And what you’d do is haul – you’d hang right off this – you didn’t use an outboard or anything.  We didn’t anyways.  You’d hang right off these stakes and binders, and on the top of these, they had about ten foot of twine.

 

CA: Yes, about ten foot of twine on top.

 

BP:  How big would that circular area be approximately? How many feet in diameter?

 

CA: Well, different weirs are different sizes. Anywhere from, what, sixty to a hundred probably, according to what size weir you had. Sometimes it’s not perfectly round. I think most generally they were a little bit more oval.

 

ATU: Yes.

 

[00:02:04.29]

 

CA: The first thing they do – they drop a rock. The purse seine is just like leaded on the bottom, and they tie that rock and the purse seine right to that corner, whichever way they go around, and then you keep [inaudible] out your twine until your twine is all gone.  When it’s all gone, you drop another rock, and you tie this on your seine boat, and then you keep fleeting yourself right straight around until you come up here, and you pick up this rock, and then you cross them over.  It has two people, and they keep pulling.  There’s rings on the bottom.  There’s rings on the bottom of that twine, and you keep pulling, and pulling and pulling, and that pulls the bottom up so then you have a complete new circle with the bottom under them. They can’t get out. But all the while you’re pulling across here, you’re making just as much noise as you can.

 

Unknown: Why?

 

CA: To keep them from getting out in front of you. So you’re up here and pulling twine out. While you’re making noise and thumping, they’ll stay away from the boat because you don’t want them to get by you when you’re doing it.

 

Unknown:  But you didn’t use a motor [inaudible].

 

CA: No, I never knew anyone who used a motor on here.  No, they always do that –

 

Unknown: [inaudible]

 

CA:  You’ve sunk on the bottom – it’s something you put on the bottom of the seine skiff. Ain’t that what you used to do, Tudd? [inaudible]

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

Unknown: [inaudible]

 

ATU:  We had twine running off of here one day, off the shore, and that was when [inaudible] and –

 

CA: [inaudible]

 

ATU: The guy at West Jonesport.  Chandler, George Chandler.

 

CA: Oh, George.  Okay.

 

ATU: We had that twine – we had that [inaudible] right there.  (Larson?) Alley made three trips that day.  The third trip he was coming in, it was [inaudible], and I heard he had [inaudible] up on the bow.  There was no way you could stop him – not me.  He almost run that thing right in the [inaudible].  When he got right there, he saw that twine, and he come back on that old [inaudible].  She jumped up and down.  I thought he was going [inaudible]

 

[00:04:22.15]

 

Unknown: Now, was that Charlie Stevens’ boat? The [inaudible]?

 

ATU: No, that’s [inaudible].

 

CA: [inaudible]

 

ATU: [inaudible]

 

BP: Now how did you collect the fish?

 

CA: Okay.  We never finished it.

 

BP: No.

 

CA: Okay.  You keep pulling them up.  You have to keep – after you get it, you pick up your rocks again – you’ve got them in there – you keep bringing your twine in and drawing them up in a smaller and smaller area, and then when you get them up – if you had a big boat there, they’d pump them in, but if you had a small boat –

 

ATU: First, before they start with the pumpers, they had a big net on a long pole.

 

CA: A big round – close to probably three and a half feet across, completely round net with a long handle.

 

ATU: And they’d dive right down into [inaudible].

 

CA: You’d have a dory, and a dory is something you bend over to put the washboard down into the water easy.  You’d put that in, fill it up, and then you’d get to the bottom of that netting over the dory, put your feet on there, up on the top of it, and pull [inaudible], and then you [inaudible] them up enough until they start rolling in over. And that’s the way you filled it.

 

BP: What would a normal catch be? How many fish for a pound?

 

Unknown: [inaudible]

 

CA: [inaudible] awful variation. You probably seined [inaudible] for two, three buckets [inaudible] just go fishing. And then probably you’ll finally get, what, thirty, forty [inaudible]?  Now, if you get a lot, you don’t try to catch them all at once because you’d smother them if you get too many in the purse seine.  If you smother them, they just die and go to the bottom.

 

ATU: And when they die, they’re so heavy –

 

CA: Oh, you can’t hold them up.

 

ATU: You can’t hold them.

 

CA: They’re awfully heavy. They claim if they go to bottom, it’s a long time before any more herring will come in where that is. They’ll live off the reefs [inaudible].

 

[00:06:11.20]

 

ATU: That’s the last time down in [inaudible] Cove.  We quit seining. But this was [inaudible].

 

CA: Look, when I was in [inaudible], I would have loved it, but we never got any herring. We never broke even. [laughter]

 

BP: How often would you be able to gather the fish?  Not every day, right?

 

CA:  Yes.

 

BP:  In that one area? Every day?

 

CA: Every day [inaudible].

 

ATU: Then we had – on this weir, we had another pound. If you had small [inaudible], you couldn’t sell them. You’d keep running them at this lot. I think we had a hundred [inaudible] that day. Charlie Stevens took them. That was the last lot we had.

 

CA: You can keep them in that for quite a while.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

BP: What was the season that you were able to go? Just during the summer months [inaudible]?

 

ATU: Just the summer months. There was one year during the war that they caught a lot down Machias Bay right in the middle of winter.

 

CA: There was purse seining then.

 

ATU: Purse seining, yes.

 

CA: That’s going right out in the ocean. They don’t go in on the shore. What they call these people [who go] on the shore, round here, from shore to shore – they call them stop seiners.

 

ATU: Yes.  I understand they won’t allow them to do that no more.

 

CA: They won’t?

 

ATU: (Avery?) told me they stopped it.

 

CA: Why did they stop?

 

ATU: I don’t know. Unless they thought the herring was getting depleted.

 

CA: But they let them get all they want outside, and they’re the ones that come in.  I don’t know. Well also, you went handlining a few years there for Three Rivers there right in the middle of the summer.

 

ATU: Yes.

 

Unknown: Where did you go to go handlining [inaudible]?

 

ATU: We dragged shrimp.

 

Unknown:  Did you?  In the wintertime?

 

ATU:  Well, just one year. [inaudible] here.

 

CA: Yes, that was all.

 

[00:08:07.25]

 

ATU: I bought a new net after [inaudible] twine.  I told Alfred and Jimmy [inaudible]. I told Alfred – I said, “There’s a lot of people around here. There’s been more than a few shrimp to eat.” I said, “Let’s go out and try that net and fill them [inaudible], and we won’t have to bother with them. We can take them all to market, and that’ll be it.” I went out. We set them. We set that net inside the Black Rock, and when we took it out [inaudible] on bottom. When we took it up, it had a transmission in it. So I told Alfred – I said, “Let’s go [inaudible].” We was doing it in that little boat of mine, the wooden one that the kid [inaudible].

 

CA: The one that [inaudible].

 

ATU: Yeah.  I said, “Well, let’s go on the outside of the Black Rock and try it.” We went out there; we hadn’t gone five minutes [inaudible] straight out. Alfred said, “I told you you’d destroy that net?” And he had his boy with him and another boy. So, we start taking her up. That boat laid right over, and we kept coming up on them. We knew we had them off bottom, so we kept coming, but she was laid over. When we got it up the side of the boat, (Willis?) looked to his father and said, “Dad, if we got a rock, it’s a red one.” [laughter] All it was, was just them shrimp. I figured how many pounds it was.  It was on a Saturday, Saturday afternoon.  I said, “What in the world are we going to do with them?” We took them on board. We had a big bin right in the center of the boat, and we put the net right in. Well, one thing they did wrong when they built the net – they didn’t put no (cut-off?) places in. So you couldn’t cut them off; you had to take all of them at once. Of course, I thought we were going to roll the thing over. [inaudible].  So we got them [inaudible]. When we opened that shoot on the bottom there, that [inaudible] strap – what do you call that thing? – they went into that bin and filled that bin [inaudible] both sides and down [inaudible]. Well, we come in, and I went [inaudible]. I said, “[inaudible], we’ve got a boatload of shrimp. What can we do with them?” “Well,” he said, “you cover them up with plywood. In the morning, I’ll take them.” We did get rid of them.

 

[00:10:55.20]

 

Unknown: That must have been in the ’50s?

 

ATU: Yeah, that was [inaudible].

 

CA: No, that was late ’60s..

 

Unknown: Was it that late?

 

CA: Late ’60s.

 

BP: Where do they catch shrimp now? I see a man down right by the bridge every so often selling shrimp off the back of a truck.

 

CA: Oh, anywhere.  Tenants Harbor West, up in that section.

 

Unknown: Up in the western part –

 

CA: Up in the western part of the state. We had shrimp here for, what, three years probably.

 

ATU: Yeah, three or four years.

 

CA: One year, it was solid, yeah. I wasn’t shrimping then, but they –

 

ATU: [inaudible] junior – he went down [inaudible].

 

CA: Well, I’ll tell you where he went because they told me. You know [inaudible] Black Rock; there’s a rock outside of there. Between (Eastern Rock?) and there, there’s a hole that goes up in there.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: He dragged up in that hole – he dragged fifteen minutes, and he had five thousand pounds.

 

ATU: [inaudible] one of his crew members had [inaudible]

 

CA: Yeah, one [inaudible].

 

ATU: The sea was rough, and they didn’t know that she was going to fill, so (Shirley?) laid on the washboard –

 

CA: Laid on the side of the washboard.

 

ATU: – so the water wouldn’t come in over.

 

Unknown: Well, he didn’t go off over [inaudible].

 

CA: Of course, the boats aren’t as big as it was today, but when they were solid here, they could [inaudible] two loads a day. Probably they’d get about five, six thousand pounds in one load in [inaudible]. Finally, they limited it to one trip a day. You remember what they were paying?

 

ATU: Nine cents a pound.

 

CA: Ten cents a pound, minus –

 

ATU: The shrinkage.

 

CA: Ten cents shrinkage.  So that’s what it ended up being – nine cents a pound.

 

ATU: Well, I don’t blame them because some of them, just before they’d get to the wharf, they’d bail up saltwater and dump [inaudible]. So when they took them out, see, they was getting [inaudible] extra weight.

 

CA: I’ve seen it worse than that. They’d lower the basket down, and they’d been putting water to them while they was starting to hoist the basket out.

 

ATU: Is that right?

 

CA: Yes, sir.

 

BP: What would cause the shrinkage?  Just from the shrimp dying? [inaudible] about ten percent of them or something?

 

CA: Well, I think some of them didn’t pick them over good. As Tudd says, they’re putting water to them.

 

[00:13:00.24]

 

Unknown: Excuse me, I wonder, the Black Rocks – is that between (Bonney?) Point and Mark Island? Is that right in that area?

 

ATU: It’s to the east of Mark Island.

 

CA: It’s east of Mark Island,

 

Unknown: East [inaudible].

 

CA:  Can you see a spindle on a rock out – right close, out by Spruce Island or [inaudible] Island?

 

Unknown: Now, my eyes aren’t that good, Charlie.  But I know there’s Breaking Ledge.

 

CA: Breaking Ledge is down towards [inaudible] Harbor more. This is probably what? Those rocks are probably a third of the way from Mark Island to Camp Island.

 

Unknown:  I don’t know what you mean by the spindle.  Is it a buoy with a bell on it?

 

ATU: [inaudible] it’s an iron.

 

CA: It’s an iron thing with a thing on top, a radar reflector on top.

 

BP: Oh, I wonder if I could see that from my house.

 

CA: You should.

 

BP:  It looks like it’s just straight beyond Mark Island from my house.

 

ATU: Yeah, that rock never covers.  That’s always out.

 

CA: [inaudible] But there is other rocks.  There’s three sections of Black Rock. There’s the inner rock that never comes out, and then there’s the middle rock that comes out about half tide, and west of that, there’s some other rocks that are under. One of them the kelp will come out on low water, real low tide.  The eastern rock is the furthest one down.

 

Unknown: And that never goes under.

 

CA: And that never goes under. I mean it always [inaudible].  If it was a flat, calm day, it might possibly go under, but there’s always enough sea [inaudible].

 

BP: So that thing you call a spindle, it looks like a long pole [inaudible].

 

CA: That’s right.  That’s what it is.

 

BP:  What’s the purpose of that?

 

Unknown: To warn the people.

 

CA: To warn people where the rock is.

 

Unknown: The navigators.

 

BP:  Okay. I thought you said it had radar on it.

 

CA: It does have a radar reflector.

 

BP: Oh it does?

 

CA: Just a reflector on. So if you have radar, it bounces off [inaudible].

 

BP: I see. It’s a radar reflector.

 

CA: Yes.

 

ATU: And it’s not so much for that place as it is for the other rocks that’s under.

 

CA: Yeah.

 

ATU: When you see that, you know where the other rocks are.

 

CA: It’s trying to get you in place. Because the way we have things now with these chart [inaudible], you do get around so much easier. But if you’re just going by compass, you want all you can get.

 

Unknown: I would say so.

 

[00:14:58.12]

 

CA: You also went handlining for Three Rivers for a few years then. You used to get your bait up to your weir.

 

ATU: Yeah. Three cents a pound [inaudible] fish.

 

CA: You didn’t have to dress them, though.

 

ATU: No, that was just [inaudible].

 

CA: You remember the day we went offshore there, and we had trawls set there between Camp Island and [inaudible] Island.

 

ATU: That was the day (Chester Gray?) says, “Tudd, you couldn’t get me some [inaudible] camp, could you?” Campground reunion. It was only two or three days before it, and I said, “No, I doubt it, Chester.” So I asked Charlie. I said, “Charlie, let’s go up and see if we can get a haul of them.” We went Downeast to Camp [inaudible] a little trawl up and down there, went offshore, done some handlining. What’d I catch? One or two?

 

CA: You caught two while we were fishing.

 

ATU: I caught two [inaudible].

 

CA: He caught both of them.

 

ATU: Out there.

 

CA: It was nice fish.

 

ATU: We come in and hauled the –

 

CA: Trawl.

 

ATU: Trawl. Got one more.

 

CA: Got one more. We had seventy-five haddock, and I don’t think one of them’s any longer than that. Little bitsy fellows.

 

ATU: So they had all the [inaudible].

 

CA: Well, I had to go to the eye doctor. I remember when we came into the bar, and we threw the haddock, the [inaudible] in my truck and saved them.  We had two-hundred-pound of [inaudible] and got thirty cents a pound.

 

Unknown: And you had to clean them all out [inaudible].

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

Unknown: Wow. And thirty cents a pound.

 

CA: Thirty cents a pound [inaudible].

 

BP: How long ago was that?

 

CA: Probably the ’70s, wasn’t it?

 

Unknown: The ‘70s.

 

ATU: Were we in that boat [inaudible]?

 

CA: Yeah.  We [inaudible]. Yeah, he was in that boat. And I went with him for about a week or so. I couldn’t get any bait. I’d get just enough bait for him and Ernest there. So I went with him. [laughter] And we get out there one day, Tudd. You remember the day we was out there at [inaudible], and we was fishing, and the [inaudible] and looked [inaudible] great big boat just going outside of us. [inaudible]

 

[00:17:06.04]

 

ATU: Oh, yes. That was dangerous, too. I went out there once, Ernest and I. We’d leave our boat at Flake Point Bar, and we’d get a little bait off that weir. We’d head out, pick a fork – it made no difference [inaudible] because we’d run out there, and Ernest would find a rock or something on the bottom there, something to fish with. One day we went out there – he got round that rock, and he was hauling them in by the pair. I had (Carl?) with me, and we couldn’t get a fish. He had them [inaudible] right under his boat. We couldn’t get a fish. I said, “Well, Ernest.” Ernest would say, “Go up on this side.” We couldn’t get one. I told (Carl) – I said, “Let’s try it outside further and see what we can get.” So we went. We went just a little way from there, and I found another rock. I said [inaudible]. I said, “Let’s try it here.” We tried it.  We no more than throw his line overboard and he had a haul [inaudible]. He said, “You better haul it up or I might lose it.”  So I hauled it up and put that thing in the bottom of that boat.  You know how they pound [inaudible].

 

CA: [inaudible]

 

BP: Terrible.

 

ATU:  Well, I was close enough to Ernest. I said, “Ernest, you know what we got?” He said, “Yes, I hear it.” So I’ve been up and down [inaudible].

 

CA: Okay. Do you remember, Tudd, the time we went to (Ellis Rock?) with my grandfather?

 

ATU: Oh, don’t say [inaudible]. They [inaudible].

 

CA: [laughter] We left [inaudible] one or two in the afternoon.  We left to go down to Hickey Island.

 

ATU: Hickey Island.

 

CA: To get to (Ellis Rock?).  And we got down there –

 

ATU: That’s the flat rocks, so you can put them in your traps.

 

CA: You put in your wooden traps to sink them down.  So we went down. We had good luck. We had a lot at (Ellis Rock?), and it starts snowing, of course, and it’s starting to get dark a little bit.  Tudd says, “Well, we’ll make the bar [inaudible].” So he opened that [inaudible], and I look into the cab, and he had one plug that got red hot. [laughter] As we got up towards the bar up there, it kind of slacked off, and we come home. Now, don’t you think we didn’t catch anything [inaudible]. [laughter]

 

[00:19:20.16]

 

ATU: We had that boatload.

 

CA: We had [inaudible] (Ellis Rock?). [laughter] Grandfather used to make traps and sell them, and we used to try to keep them [inaudible].

 

ATU: Yeah, he made them. He’d buy them odds and ends [inaudible].

 

CA: Do you know what he sold them for?

 

ATU: Three dollars apiece.

 

CA: Four dollars apiece already for the road.

 

ATU: That’s hard to believe.

 

Unknown: [inaudible]

 

ATU: Well, he never made no money anyway.

 

Unknown: Would he have to make the pockets and the whole works?

 

CA: No.

 

ATU: No.

 

CA: He didn’t put the pockets, but he had the trap. He already put the rope on the trap [inaudible] pocket.

 

ATU: He had to put the head in [inaudible].

 

CA: [inaudible] it.  Supplied the head, the trap, and everything.

 

Unknown: I thought that fishermen used to make cement, or put cement in it [inaudible].

 

ATU: Yeah, some do.

 

CA: Some people did. We always used [inaudible].

 

BP: How much does a new trap cost today, the wire traps?

 

ATU: Depends on what size you buy.

 

CA: It depends on the size. The size I’m getting is forty-five inches long; it’s about forty dollars.

 

Unknown: That’s not including all the [inaudible] you have to [inaudible] –

 

CA: No, no.

 

ATU: No, no. Just the bare trap.

 

CA: That’s just the trap ready. You have to put a (becket?) on it to tie it or tie the rope on [inaudible]. Yeah. But that’s a lot different. I was up with my grandfather once, up to Unionville, up to (Brian’s?). You remember (Brian?)? Of course, my grandfather tried [inaudible] just as cheap as he could. So Fred had some seconds there, and my grandfather went up to him, and he says, “Fred, is there’s any good ones in these seconds?” Fred says, “There’s not supposed to be.” [laughter] Of course, Fred was kind of – he was thrifty, real thrifty.

 

ATU: But he was letting them do it.

 

CA: Oh, yes. He was a hundred percent honest.

 

ATU: Oh, yeah.

 

CA: He was honest. [inaudible]

 

[00:21:10.25]

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: It was quite a while before I learned why he come and delivered their traps up at night.  Always in the evening, he’d deliver the traps up. He wanted to be around there so – see his workers are working during the daytime.

 

ATU: Oh, yeah.

 

CA: Of course, that’s probably a good idea.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Well, Tuddy then, finally you went lobstering, and you had (Hazel Jean?), and then you went and got Burt Frost to build you a new boat.

 

ATU: Yeah. I got the third one he built.

 

CA: Third one that Burt built.

 

ATU: He built me one of his first, I think it was. I can’t remember who’s the second one. I had the third one.  The fellow working over here now, [inaudible] –

 

CA: [inaudible], yeah.

 

ATU: – worked on my boat.

 

CA: Oh, he did?-

 

ATU: And he worked for Burt Frost.

 

CA: Yeah, he did.

 

ATU: He went to Alaska. I guess he was from Alaska.

 

CA: He went to Alaska.

 

ATU: But he went to Alaska and started [inaudible]. I guess he got hit in the head, didn’t he? They say that’s why he wears that helmet all the time. Because if he gets hit again there, it’d be bad. So he came back here and bought the [inaudible] and running – no, I guess [inaudible] bought it.

 

CA: That’s the fellow’s name.

 

ATU: David [inaudible].

 

CA: David [inaudible]. I couldn’t think of his name. That’s really only [inaudible] didn’t own it. He bought it from David [inaudible]. Couldn’t, David [inaudible] owned Three Rivers, too. The  Tuckahoe – that wasn’t the second boat they built? It may not have been.

 

ATU: I don’t know if it was. Might have been. What happened [inaudible] thing?

 

CA: I have no idea. That was a boat the Three Rivers had, and they used to put people on it, try and catch fish.

 

Unknown: Tuddy, did I misunderstand you? Something about a boat burning up.

 

[00:23:01.01]

 

ATU: Well, my brother down in Buck’s Harbor –

 

Unknown: Millard, Jr.

 

ATU:  Millard, Jr. He wanted me to take his boat and go drag [inaudible]. I told him, “I got traps in a boat.” I said, “I don’t want to tie my stuff up to work for you.” Well, him and his partner was bound that I would take that boat. “Well,” I said, “alright. I’ll go for a while for you.” The guy that was on [inaudible], he quit. Of course, he didn’t like the – they wanted someone they could trust on the – so I took her. I don’t know how many years I dragged her, but while I was dragging, the traps of mine was on the [inaudible], and the sun had eaten all the rope up, especially that float rope. I had my boat hauled up, right there – Charlie Stevens [inaudible] that bank.  Well, Charlie come to me, and he said, “Tudd, I think someone’s tried to burn your boat up,” I said, “What?” “Well,” he said, “I found a [inaudible].” I guess it was that – not toilet tissue, but the long –

 

Unknown: Paper towel.

 

CA: Paper towel.

 

ATU: He said, “It was damp. I’ve seen where it’s burnt.” Well, I didn’t think anyone would do anything like that. So, two boys went – no, one boy [inaudible]. They went down and started a fire. What they did – they opened the gas tank up, let gas run into the bottom of it. Of course, she exploded and the gas got – he jumped, struck on the ground, and when he did, his cap came off; it was a camouflage cap. A day or two after that, he was all banged up. We asked him how he got banged up, he said he fell down from the wharf down into his uncle’s boat. But I didn’t bother pursuing it because I knew who did it. I never bothered it.

 

[00:25:16.09]

 

Then another time, probably Gloria heard about – when we were piling snow [inaudible] Albert Alley over here sold gas.  We had our own gas.

 

CA: Tuddy, I don’t like to use names on there.

 

[Recording paused]

 

ATU: But then dragging – back to dragging [inaudible] – they [inaudible] here. So I was going [inaudible] Bar Harbor. Then that boat of mine [inaudible] brothers – three hours out and three hours back, six hours running time. [inaudible] on the other side of the [inaudible].

 

CA: That’s a long ways from here. Did you ever drag mussels [inaudible]?

 

ATU: Oh, yeah. We dragged a lot of mussels.

 

CA: Now, where’d you drag those? Up off (Squire?) Point, mostly?

 

ATU: Great Bar – we dragged most of ours.

 

CA: Yeah, between there and (Squire?) Point?

 

ATU: Yeah, my brother kept saying – no I didn’t have my brother’s boat then. We had the Gold Nugget, Ernest [inaudible].

 

CA: Oh, the yellow boat. Yes, you fellows had a seiner, the Gold Nugget.

 

Unknown: The Gold Nugget. [laughter]

 

ATU: Yeah, and Junior keeps saying, “Tudd, why don’t you go [inaudible] up in here.” I was right at that bar, and boy, [inaudible] pretty mussel, much larger. We was doing good there. But then there was a guy Downeast. We’d see him coming. He was dragging mussels. When we’d see him coming, we’d move off the [inaudible], and he’d tow outside. We did nothing, and he’d go somewhere else. We tricked him. We dragged that for a month.

 

[00:27:03.10]

 

CA: That probably was the best bed throughout the whole state, wasn’t it?

 

ATU: Oh, yeah.

 

CA: So many mussels taking off there.

 

ATU: But what happened here in the reach, why are there so many in the reach – Alfred and Jimmy [inaudible] dragged mussels. They had a car, a [inaudible] that they put them in. You got a storm and that broke up, and all those mussels went on the bottom there. Then they spread.

 

Unknown: [inaudible] I know a lot of times when the mussel folks can’t come out in the bay, they go out here. That’s because it’s much calmer. Wasn’t that a lucky thing to have those there to haul back?

 

CA: Could be. They dragged [inaudible].

 

ATU: [inaudible] how many bushels they dragged out of that reach.

 

CA: So you’ve done quite about everything in your life that there is to do. [laughter]

 

ATU: I’ve been in everything.

 

CA: Yes. You remember we used to go clamming down Head Harbor and [inaudible]?

 

ATU: Yeah, a dollar a quart.

 

CA: A dollar a quart.

 

ATU: Eddie used to get twenty-five cents a quart [inaudible].

 

CA: He’d get twenty-five cents a quart. Well, you know what he said. He only did it to see the women.

 

ATU: Yeah. [laughter] [inaudible]

 

Unknown: He [inaudible] reputation.

 

ATU: [inaudible] for a year.

 

CA: That was wrong, what they did to that man. They should never had him [inaudible]. They never should have.

 

ATU: He told me – they told him he had cut wood. Well, he went out, and he was a worker.

 

CA: Oh, he was.

 

ATU: He didn’t play around.

 

CA: No, he was a hard worker.

 

ATU: He was out there, and he was stacking up them cords of wood, and then one of the inmates in there said, “We’ll kill you.” Because they’d have to [inaudible].

 

CA: You remember the day we got so many [inaudible]?

 

ATU: Oh, a hundred quarts one day.

 

CA: I don’t know.

 

ATU: [inaudible]

 

CA:  We dug either three bushels and half, four bushel and a half [inaudible] down in [inaudible]. We kept them out and took them to Eddie. [laughter] [inaudible]

 

[00:29:07.06]

 

Then you bought the – then after the (Double Dee?), the one you had from Burt, you had another lobster boat.

 

ATU: Yeah, I got this [inaudible].

 

CA: Now, where’d you buy that from, Tuddy?

 

ATU: [inaudible] right there on the island. There was a couple guys that worked for Young Brothers. They took her on the side and did Dee on the side. I can never think of that street over by [inaudible] where she was. But I went over at Young Brothers to buy a twenty-eight-foot fiberglass boat. I got over there, and they said – young fellow there says, “Want to know [inaudible] this twenty-eight-foot lobster boat all ready for the water [inaudible].” I said, “Where is it?” He told me. I went out, looked her over. [inaudible] says, “Why don’t you buy it?” I think I gave forty thousand for it.

 

CA: A good deal.

 

[00:30:18.22]

 

[End of Track Two]

 

[00:00:00.00]

 

ATU: But that’s been a good boat. I haven’t taken the best care of them. We went to haul it out, but I can’t get the engines [inaudible]. Put a brand-new [inaudible] the summer before last, and that thing, when it’s cold weather – I better call the company and see why.

 

CA: I’ll ask [inaudible]. He [inaudible] boats. I’ve seen it out on the – now, you say they asked you this before when you was interviewing for the high school. You’ve seen quite a few changes since you started lobstering.

 

ATU: Oh, yeah.

 

CA: Do you think it’s for the better?

 

ATU: I don’t know, Charlie. Well, if there wasn’t a big supply of lobsters, it wouldn’t be for the better. I’ve never seen so many lobsters in there. I don’t know where they’re coming from. But I think it’s a lot. I think it’s a lot.

 

Unknown: Do you know what I read – and this is just a theory, probably no base to it, but the reason why all the lobsters have come here is because there were so many traps out there in the bay that the lobsters on the outside smell this bay, and they come in. Does that make sense?

 

ATU: Well, one thing, the codfish – there’s not many codfish now. What they did, codfish, when we was fishing in the wooden traps with no vent, and we’d throw them little lobsters out. A lot of them lobsters go in the bottom, and codfish would eat them.

 

CA: Eat them. That’s right.

 

ATU: So, when we started – did we have [inaudible]?

 

CA: Yes.

 

ATU: Last end of it.

 

CA:  Well, last end of it. You didn’t have to put [inaudible]; you could put your [inaudible] up so far.

 

ATU: Yeah. Well then, see that was letting them little ones out. Of course, the inside didn’t have as much because there wasn’t much of any codfish around where I’m fishing. And then, we’d put the escape hatches in the top of them, so if you lost a trap, well, then the lobster can’t get out. [inaudible] rot up a couple years [inaudible].

 

CA: [inaudible]

 

[00:02:22.06]

 

Unknown: So, what happened to the codfish, if they –?

 

CA: They dragged them out. What you said – I heard something in what you said. It isn’t so much that hauling them in, I don’t think. But what you’re doing – there’s not much food on the bottom, and we’re feeding these lobsters, and we’re making a healthy problem because they’re getting a good amount of food. Because if there’s a case, we bring them in – actually, offshore, they’re doing even better than we are. They [inaudible] half a boatload sometimes. [inaudible]

 

ATU: Yeah, they [inaudible] a thousand, twelve hundred pounds this year.

 

Unknown: Are you worried about the disease that’s down to the south of us? Are you worried about that?

 

CA: I’m not awfully worried, but it’s a good thing to keep watch of.

 

ATU: Well, they’re [inaudible], aren’t they?  The salmon pens?

 

CA: Oh, that’s not what she’s talking – that’s the shell disease she’s talking about.  Don’t you know, down round Rhode Island, New York?

 

ATU: Oh, yeah. Well, this other bait thing, this imitation bait.

 

CA: The cowhide.

 

ATU: I don’t think that should be used. I think [inaudible]. Outlaw it.

 

CA: [inaudible] this year, they had a vote at some kind of a council; it was ten to one, the vote.

 

BP: Do lobsters eat sea urchins?

 

CA: Yes, they’ll eat some of them, I think.

 

BP: So with all the urchins being caught now, could that possibly [inaudible] –?

 

CA: I don’t think that was the main source of food, but if one got broke open, I think they’d eat some of it.

 

Unknown: What do they eat besides fish and lobster bait and stuff?

 

CA: Well, they’ll eat one another.

 

Unknown: Really?

 

CA: They’ll eat crab. They’ll eat just about anything.  They’re really a scavenger. They’ll eat most everything. I baited up on crabs [inaudible] for another bait – baited up on crab [inaudible].  Tuddy, didn’t we go out one day, and you threw some [inaudible] didn’t have any bait to put on [inaudible], and you got lobsters [inaudible] time. [laughter]

 

[00:04:18.11]

 

Unknown: Days when I’m working outdoors in the garden, and all these boats out there, all those traps, I can smell lobster bait so strong. [inaudible]

 

CA: [laughter[ Don’t say nothing about it; they’ll drive us away.

 

ATU: [inaudible] imitation bait – I don’t think you’d smell the herring, and we’re using the fresh herring.

 

Unknown: Well, this has only been the last couple years.  It’s really, really strong, even when it’s high tide.

 

ATU: That bait, they tell me – I never used it. Well, I used –

 

CA: I used some.

 

ATU: I used some of that pig.

 

CA: Pig. I never used pig. I’ve used the cow.

 

ATU: I used the pig once.

 

Unknown: No.  That’s what’s in it?

 

ATU: Yeah, that’s what they use.

 

CA: We use cowhide. [inaudible] menhaden or – some of it is. Some use it just [inaudible].

 

Unknown: Doesn’t that make the lobster taste –?

 

CA: Well, that’s why the thing –

 

ATU: [inaudible]

 

CA: – most don’t know yet, whether it does or not. I’ve never heard anything [inaudible].

 

ATU: I heard that they found a lobster with a hair –

 

CA: A hair in the stomach – I’ve heard. I don’t know if they did or not. Well, the cowhide – I had used it [inaudible] it does make a difference. Setting [inaudible] wrong time. It does make a difference. It will stay on where herring won’t. But sometimes, it don’t seem to make – this last year, it didn’t seem to do [inaudible].  The year before last, [inaudible] last in the season, I caught a lot more lobsters on it than I would have if I just used herring.  But if everyone wants to ban it and everyone is fair, so no one uses it, [inaudible].

 

ATU: Well, I [inaudible] two or three years ago. They figured that’s [inaudible] lobsters was bad or something.

 

[00:06:02.14]

 

CA: Well, one of the reasons they say they can stop us from using it – they say we’re not supposed to throw anything overboard into the ocean that’s not natural. Bait’s natural – herring. The cowhide’s not. That’s one of the reasons. We don’t have a lot more time probably, so probably [inaudible] is what your father did for work. Where was your father –? He was born on Head Harbor?

 

ATU: Yeah. Well, he went in the lighthouse service, and he was up on Seguin Island fifteen years. Then they sent him down to Libby Island [inaudible] Machias.  He was down there for a few years, and they said, “Well, we’re going to put you on the light where [inaudible] work.” He was already on them lights. There was only three men on them lights. They had to paint all them buildings, paint the towers, and –

 

CA: Shine the brass.

 

ATU: Yes, shine the brass. I mean, they worked. They said, “I guess you’ve done enough. We’ll send you [inaudible].”

 

CA: How long did you say he was on Seguin?

 

ATU: Fifteen years.

 

CA: That’s quite a while for him to stay on the light; they usually shifted before that.

 

ATU: But when we was up there, he did a lot of favors for the fishermen around there. He’d say, “You wouldn’t save me a few lobster, would you?” They’d say, “Sure.” They had a [inaudible]  in the slip.

 

CA: Now, your father was born at Head Harbor, and his parents – well, his mother died real young. He wasn’t really brought up by his father, was he?

 

ATU: No.

 

CA: Now, was it (Ed?) and (Elsie Alley?) that brought him up?

 

ATU: Yeah, brought him up.

 

CA: Okay, that’s who I thought. That’s who my grandmother lived with for a while. She was down at (Ed Alley’s) [inaudible].

 

ATU: Those guys had a hard life.

 

CA: They did.

 

ATU: There was no food stamps then, no Medicare, Medicaid.

 

CA: I think sometimes –

 

ATU: They had to make it –

 

[00:08:00.15]

 

CA: I think sometimes they went to bed hungry. Now, your mother, her mother died young. Her father died first, Lowell.

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Then, after he died, her mother married [inaudible]. Then your mother died when your mother was not very old.

 

ATU: You mean my grandmother?

 

CA: Yeah, Abigail Alley.

 

ATU: I guess her middle name was Augusta. I don’t know [inaudible] middle name was Augusta.

 

CA: Could be. She died when she was young, so who brought Franklin and Nellie up?  Did she live with [inaudible] for a while?

 

ATU: Yeah, and they more or less –

 

CA: Were they [inaudible] –?

 

ATU: My uncle Franklin looked out for mama. I’ve heard mother tell about going and eating frozen apples.

 

Unknown: Abigail [inaudible] was twenty-seven?  Does that sound right?

 

CA: Yeah. She was young when she died.

 

ATU: Mama lived to be ninety-one or two.

 

Unknown: [inaudible] 1903. Died in 1995. I was going to ask you something, too. How many children did your father and mother have?

 

ATU: They had six boys and three girls-

 

Unknown: Six boys and three girls. Nine children.

 

ATU: The oldest boy passed away. Murray. Abigail’s passed away. Out of six boys –

 

Unknown: [inaudible]

 

ATU: Six boys. Everyone in the service got home without a scratch on them.

 

Unknown: Someone did a lot of praying.

 

ATU: Yeah. Millard, Junior, in the middle, between me and [inaudible] – he was right through the thickest of the [inaudible].

 

Unknown: Now, Wendall, you called him “Wimpy.”

 

CA: His nickname was Wimpy.

 

Unknown: And now, is he still alive?

 

[00:10:07.29]

 

ATU: Yeah. He had a stroke. One Sunday night, I come home from church, and he said, “What are you going to do [inaudible].” I said, “I’m going down to Foster’s [inaudible]. I said Millard Junior says there’s sea urchins down there, and I’m going down to see if I can drag some in. Well, he had my boat and had a couple divers. He said, “I’ll [inaudible] with you.” I said, “Okay.” [inaudible] skiff on. He said, “Oh, no. I can load that skiff alright.” [inaudible] half an hour, Gracie called. She said, “Come quick. Something’s happened to [inaudible].” So I come over.  She had been sitting up to the table in the kitchen with him [inaudible], and then she got up, went in the living room, talked with mama. She heard this thump. He evidently went to stand up, fell over, hit the cupboard there – one of those things that open and close the drawer [inaudible] – cut his head. He was [inaudible] Machias. They transferred him to Bangor. He was in Bangor two weeks.  He never knew he was in Bangor. Then they sent him up [inaudible]. Now he can only use one arm.

 

Unknown: He’s married?

 

CA: He retired.

 

ATU: No, he’s not married. He was married-

 

Unknown: Was married.

 

CA: He retired from service.

 

ATU: He retired from Coast Guard, yeah.

 

CA: Coast Guard.  Then he went up and was town manager for Mexico or Mechanic Falls?

 

ATU: Mechanic Falls.

 

CA: He was the town manager for Mechanic Falls for a while.

 

ATU: He worked for that David [inaudible] for a while first.

 

CA: Was he a congressman?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: That’s right. I remember him [inaudible].

 

[00:12:05.22]

 

ATU: I didn’t think he’d amount to nothing, going to school. He didn’t care [inaudible] he went to school one day or not. I didn’t think he’d amount to much, but he did.

 

Unknown: I know how your mother named Gracie, named Gracie Fields. Wasn’t that after somebody that was on the radio?

 

ATU: I think so.

 

Unknown: [inaudible] or something. Gracie Fields.

 

CA: What was Jack Benny’s wife? She was Gracie, but what was her name before she was married? [Editor’s Note: Jack Benny’s wife was comedian and radio actress Mary Livingstone. Mr. Alley may be referring to Gracie Allen of the comedy duo Burns and Allen.]

 

Unknown: I think it might be. It was somebody to do with TV or the radio; I don’t know which.

 

CA: Your other brother Orrin retired from the phone service.

 

ATU: Yeah, he retired from New England [Telephone Company]. And that’s a funny thing. He worked for that company for I don’t know how many years. [inaudible] He talked about them all the time. He never had no use for it. I don’t know what kept him going, but he stayed [inaudible]. He never got out of the house; he just sits right there. You can’t get him –

 

CA: He started to go lobstering with you. He started to go lobstering with you.

 

ATU: Then he had gout in his feet. It bothered him, and he quit.  One time I said, “Orrin, how would you like some lobster [inaudible].” I said, “I just like to see you catch lobsters.” I could [inaudible]. We went up the Jonesboro River. I don’t know how thick they was in that river, but –

 

CA: That was that spring?

 

ATU: Yeah. When I hauled the last trap – only had twenty traps up there. When I hauled the last one, we had the number two washtub. [inaudible] pulled it. He never got the chance to – but they hadn’t been like [inaudible]

 

[00:14:17.14]

 

CA: No, I remember that spring. I was fishing down around the head, and I was getting a few – wasn’t doing that great. Usually, you didn’t come back that early. He was doing pretty good. I said, “I’d like to know where he’s getting those lobsters.” You had some traps down there where I did [inaudible]. It wasn’t where I was. It was way up in the bay, you was catching them.

 

ATU: Then he said one day – we come down there to the rocky bar – I never saw anyone setting traps way out by the – not down to the tide, but over towards the shore, down below there. [inaudible] trash there and everything. He said, “Let’s run a string down through there.” I said, “I never saw a trap [inaudible] in my life.” I said, “If you want, we’ll run a few down through there.” So we run them down through there. And I never saw nothing like it. We would go and haul, and come back in the afternoon, and haul them twenty-five traps over and get forty pounds [inaudible]. They caught them during the day. We fished it quite a while before they caught on, but now, you can’t get up [inaudible].

 

CA: [inaudible] we never told them about you catching cockles. We used to catch cockles for Three Rivers.

 

BP: Catch what?

 

CA: Cockles. No, those big cockles.

 

Unknown: [inaudible] cockles.

 

CA: Big cockles [inaudible].

 

ATU: I was selling to Burt, and he – his fellow was running the shop for Burt. Burt had a restaurant up in Kittery, and this fellow was running it for him. He said, “Why don’t you bring me in some of them cockles.” I said, “Well, how many do you want?” He said, “I’ll take all you can get.” [laughter] I come in with a hundred buckets.

 

Unknown: Oh my goodness.

 

[00:16:07.05]

 

ATU: Put him right out of business quick.

 

CA: Up in that tide, off the Great Bar, the traps are half full, aren’t they?

 

ATU: Oh, we’d take them, Ernest and Alfred and I. There were so many of them; we’d take them and try to put them way up at high tide, so they would die out with a tide wind. They’d probably die off – the sun would kill them – to get rid of the things. There were so many of them.

 

CA: Now there ain’t hardly any.

 

ATU: No, [inaudible].

 

CA: What happened is for a few years, there was [inaudible] up there.

 

Unknown: Mason’s Bay’s been good to you, hasn’t it?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: Couldn’t do much [inaudible] doing that, though. Sometimes, you’d save your cockles all day, and you start coming in, then Three Rivers calls to say, “We can’t handle it today.” Used to happen [inaudible].

 

ATU: Yeah. But Dave [inaudible] tried to make business [inaudible].

 

Unknown: Yes, he did.

 

ATU: He did everything he could do.

 

CA: They thought we were selling them poor cockles. What they were doing was putting them in those cars, and they didn’t have no circulation; some of them were dying. [inaudible] cockles in there.  There’s no circulation in those [inaudible].

 

Unknown: How do you fix those? Are those the things that you store in vinegar?

 

ATU: Yeah.

 

CA: You usually eat them in vinegar.

 

ATU: I like them.

 

CA: I like cockles.

 

ATU: I’ve been thinking the Japanese got some of them.

 

CA: [inaudible]

 

ATU: But they say you can’t transport them that far.

 

CA: They don’t live like a periwinkle. Periwinkles, you ship it a long ways before it dies, but a cockle don’t last [inaudible].

 

ATU: That was another [inaudible]. You put them on the train and shipped them to Boston.  When you get your check, they’d say so many died, and all this and that.

 

CA: I was at the mercy of them. I’ve even [inaudible], and I’ve had to replace it [inaudible] from them. [laughter]

 

BP: We’ve got ten minutes left.

 

CA: Ten minutes. Okay. Have you got any more stories you want to tell or anything, Tudd?

 

[00:18:08.24]

 

ATU: Oh, I guess we’re pretty well –

 

CA: Oh, there’s still plenty of stories if you remember them. Anything with (Sim?)? You used to go around with (Sim Darby?) quite a bit.

 

ATU: Yeah. We’d leave here [inaudible]. He had a [inaudible] one of them big square ones. He had that right down there – [inaudible.  He’d leave. [inaudible] if you couldn’t see that building right there. He’d take off.  Every once in a while, he’d look at that compass. He always [inaudible]. One day, we was going down – you couldn’t see nothing. He said, “Tudd, you should see [inaudible].” We almost went ashore. He told me get [inaudible]. That’s how foggy it was.

 

CA:  I’ve seen it foggy like that.

 

ATU: But he was a good man. He was a good lobster fisherman. His father never used [inaudible], and his mother died younger – (Lorraine?).

 

CA: He was a tough man.

 

ATU: [inaudible]

 

Unknown: Who was he married to?

 

CA: I know the name [inaudible].

 

ATU: He lived with us.

 

CA: He lived with him for a long time, and then finally, he lived with (Millie?) Junior down in Buck’s Harbor and lived with them.

 

Unknown: I’m mixing him up with somebody [inaudible] used to be Jimmy [inaudible] daughter. She was married to someone called – was that (Cindy Allen?)?

 

CA: No, [inaudible]. I don’t remember [inaudible]

 

Unknown: Someone named Cindy [inaudible].

 

CA: Her father was named [inaudible].

 

ATU: Wasn’t one of them [inaudible] girls married to [inaudible]?

 

CA: Yes, that’s right.

 

Unknown: Yes, that’s the one [inaudible].

 

CA: Yes, she was.

 

Unknown: But I was thinking she was married to [inaudible]. She must have gone with him.

 

CA: No, she married to [inaudible]. She was married to him.

 

[00:20:14.20]

 

ATU: [inaudible] used to work over at the boatyard.

 

CA: And he’s married to (Isabel Reed?).

 

Unknown: [inaudible]

 

ATU: I got up one morning, drove up across the field, I see a little bit [inaudible] on one corner of that boat [inaudible]. I said, [inaudible] called the fire department.  They come down and [inaudible]. They had a new fire truck or something there. He didn’t want to put saltwater through it. Well, there wasn’t other water over there. If he put the saltwater through, [inaudible].  But did that spread fast. Burned up, I think, two boats in there. Practically [inaudible]. That was a costly fire. That was a bigger boat shop than this one they got now.

 

CA: [inaudible]

 

ATU: When they built the other one back at [inaudible].

 

CA: They built a bigger boat.  Whatever happened to that?

 

ATU: I don’t know.

 

CA: Was it a big sailboat?

 

ATU: Big sailboat, yeah.

 

CA: I think that’s one of them. [inaudible] worked quite a lot on that one.

 

ATU: Yeah.  I tell you; that [inaudible] can do some work. He can put wood together. You remember this fellow down here?  He used to restore fire engines.

 

Unknown: Yes, Andy Swift.

 

CA: Andy Swift.

 

ATU: Andy Swift. Yes, I used to go with him on the ambulance.  I was on that boat [inaudible]. I enjoyed every minute. I wish I’d joined before I went on it. (Darlene Sawyer?) would keep after me. She’d say, “Tudd, why don’t you go on the ambulance [inaudible]? I said, “I don’t have no time.” But serving the [inaudible] is well worth it. And I made a lot of friends on that ambulance.

 

[00:22:19.08]

 

CA: Yes, you did.

 

ATU: But what was I going to anyway?

 

Unknown: You were talking about Andy Swift.

 

ATU: Andy come to me one day, and he said, “Tudd, I’m in trouble.”  I said, “Why?”  He said, “Well, a fellow Downeast [who] always does my woodwork on the fire engine isn’t going to do any more work for me. He’s going to go lobstering.” I said, “Well, [inaudible] see what [inaudible} do for you.”  He said, “Well, this has got to be very good work.”  So he went over to see (Sim?).  He told (Sim?) – (Sim?) said, “Well, I’ll do it for you.”  He said, “Yes, but it’s got to be good work.”  (Sim?) says, “We can do good work.”  He said, “Yeah, but this has got to be [inaudible] work.  (Sim?) says, “We can do [inaudible] work.”  And he could.  He was good.  You seen them [inaudible] he’s built?

 

CA:  No.

 

ATU: He’s built two, all solid fiberglass. But he’s getting over two thousand dollars apiece for them. I think twenty-two hundred. And they get them so he can put a sail in it. You know how they put a hole in the [inaudible].

 

CA: Probably do alright if he can get rich people to catch on.

 

ATU: Yeah. But we had the [inaudible] in there. Junior come along, stuck his knife in the place there. He said, “That’s quite soft.” He said, “You’ve got to have that fixed.” I went and saw (Sim?), and (Sim?) says, “Well, I’ll tear that out.” He took that [inaudible], and I didn’t figure he’d ever get her put back together the way she was. Boy, she was [inaudible]

 

CA: Yeah.

 

[00:24:03.04]

 

Unknown: What’s the name of your boat? Your lobster boat that you go out by my house in? What’s the name of that boat?

 

ATU: Jellybean.

 

Unknown: Jellybean?

 

CA: That’s right.

 

ATU: I used to call Lucille “Jellybean.”

 

BP:  And you’ll still be going out lobstering this year, too?

 

ATU:  Pardon?

 

BP:  Are you going to be going out lobstering this summer?

 

ATU: I’d like to go another – until I’m eighty. I might go two or three more years.

 

CA: I think you’ll last longer [inaudible].

 

ATU: This Medicare, I don’t trust it.

 

CA: You never know, Tudd.

 

Unknown: Things are scary.

 

ATU: But I mean, you take – I can’t blame Bush because every time he turns around, he’s got a disaster ahead of him. I mean, one right behind another. I think he’s done alright.

 

CA: I think he’s doing the best he can do under the circumstances.

 

Unknown: Yeah, that’s right. He just happened to take over at the wrong time.

 

CA: We’ve [inaudible] for the deficit. How can you help it with so much fighting going on? It costs money. Well, that’s about it then, Bill.

 

BP: We have maybe two minutes left.

 

CA: Okay.  We’ll wind it up here-

 

Unknown: We got to get Tuddy to sing a song.

 

CA: [laughter] You sing, Tuddy?

 

ATU: I used to sing in the choir but can’t sing now.

 

CA: OK. I’m going to see if I can get –

 

Unknown: [inaudible] and if she was going to be interviewing.

 

CA:  Evidently, she didn’t want to.

 

Unknown: She didn’t want to?

 

CA:  No.  We interview her –

 

[00:25:39.03]