Heard a sentence today I doubt Ill ever hear again. Twas in the upper 40s at the beach early this very windy morning. But the surf was clean and I went out, wearing my winter wetsuit. Later, in the parking lot, a lightly clad young man had a nice bucket of fresh quohog (hard) and cherrystone clams that he had raked out of the marsh on the leeward side of Wrightsville island. His freckled face is flushed from his cold morning of clamming. Nice clams, for sure. And he says: Do you want some? Ill trade you some clams for some fishhooks. Turns out, hes living out of his car and camping out, living off the land. Dont know if hes a runaway or some throwback drifter. Keep your clams, I say, respecting the effort it took to find and get them on this empty-beach day and thinking he really could live off the land. So I dig in my tackle backpack and contribute a nice flounder rig, several hooks, a new rubber worm and some still-fresh leftover bait shrimp. Even if I live another half-century, I doubt someone will ever again offer to trade me fresh clams for fishhooks. Best of luck to you, young man.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 03:25:19 +0000
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