Winter fun

Sledding, fishing, and truck surfing

By Jerry Fraser

I try to resist apocalyptic pronouncements, starting with “storm of the century,” especially since this one is less than three months old. Still, the 20th century having drizzled away among indifferent winters and the bleats of global warming mongers, last week’s snowstorm was at least remarkable for southern Mainers.

It’s nice to have the good old-fashioned winter of our youth, or so they tell me. I never was a logger or ski patrol person, and I’m not old enough to have worked as an ice cutter. I never cut wood for the wood stove, and if I had I wouldn’t have thought there was anything good about it. I’m not fond of venison, so having deer hanging in the barn all winter would have meant very little to me — assuming I’d grown up on a farm instead of at boarding school.

Anytime I came home with wet feet I got reamed. I thought mittens were for sissies so my fingers were always frozen. They would have frozen in any event because I never clipped my mittens to my snowsuit, and when I invariably lost them I’d get reamed some more. I enjoyed sledding, but when I let the big kids try my American Flyer they never gave it back, and my mother replaced it with a flying saucer.

I wish she’d just reamed me and bought another sled.

I sang “Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh,” but never got a ride in one. I also sang “Over the field and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go,” but one grandmother lived in Boston, the other in Springfield, Mass.

At school there were no refrigerators allowed in the dorms, but in winter we’d keep soda and bologna on the window sill and eat in our rooms. Who needed the crap they jammed down out throats in the dining hall?

The older I got, the better I adjusted to winter. During my years fishing, cold weather usually brought high prices and weather-shortened trips, which means we made good money for what little we worked, which is about as good as it gets.

Things didn’t always work out this way when we were gillnetting. Sometimes we’d set the nets and the weather would come down before we could haul them. Gilled fish survive only so long, and then slime eels, which fit snugly in their intestines, make themselves at home.

For the most part, winter’s harsh weather is a mere inconvenience to the fisherman. The work is more demanding when the ocean is rough, and the cold can be hard on the fingers, but there’s enough to do to keep warm.

I quit fishing in 1987, and probably spend one-tenth as much time outdoors as I used to, but it seems like I’ve been shivering ever since.

Maybe it’s because I went fishing, but I’ve never had any desire to live by the ocean, which is probably just as well. You have to wonder about people who own property at the water’s edge. Would they do it without flood plain insurance?

Years ago it was fashionable in some alcohol-dependent circles to cruise Ocean Avenue in Moody during a northeaster and let the waves slam into the side of your car. Town officials nowadays prohibit such foolishness, but they once assumed the citizens had sense enough to stay away on their own. Time and people like me have proved otherwise.

Why surf Ocean Avenue in my truck, I asked myself back in ’73, when there’s a three-mile beach just yards away?

We got on at Ogunquit and headed for Moody Point, somewhere in front of us in blowing snow. I accelerated smoothly and eased the brand-new Chevy into the surf. We paralleled the waves and headed up the beach, and the moment the first wave broke against the passenger’s door we knew we’d found our calling. We exchanged the 1973 equivalent of high-fives and were reaching for a couple of brews when the truck suddenly settled, slowed, and stopped. Another wave broke against the truck and I looked at Doug, whose last name I will omit to spare him any embarrassment. “Uh-oh,” I said. I tried to rock it back and forth a couple of times, but there was nothing doing. The truck was sinking like it was in quicksand, and I had yet to make the first payment.

The tail pipe was under water so I had Doug keep pressure on the accelerator so the engine wouldn’t drown out. I lit out to find a pay phone at the beach parking lot, a mile or so to the southwest in the snow, and coughed up a Kool with every desperate stride.

My first call was to my insurance agent. No, my coverage did not include voluntary submersion. Then I called Hutchins Garage. They were very sorry, but they were not currently offering beach service.

I used my last dime to call Herb Coggeshall in Tatnic. Herb had a big tow truck he used when tractor trailers wrecked on the turnpike. He also had a son my age, and he took pity on me.

He was there in 10 minutes and offered me the honor of wrapping the hook around the frame of my truck. I had to hold my breath when I did so, as I was under water at the time. When I stood up Herb took a strain, then a little more, and then there was one of those sucking sounds like Ross Perot tells about and the truck popped up several inches.

The next sucking sound was me starting to breathe again.

Jerry Fraser can be reached at cfraser@maine.rr.com.