By “Tackle Box” Billy Kelley

Five Bucks a Pop

Hey folks. You remember that last column I wrote about Bruce and taking him fishing for what turned out to be his first and last time mackereling? Well, today he left for Florida, and what was funny was I’m like, “Hey, what you wanna do your last day in this great town?” Well, what do you know, it’s “visit the waterfront.”

And I’m realizing it’s not me he’s grasping to see or even about getting writ about in the mag. No, it’s the damn wharves and such he’s going to miss. The harbor. And I really can reckon why, myself. As we drifted down the dirty old docks I still very much get that sense of memory. It’s like this was my playground when I was a kid. Christ, kids go in those nice Kiwanis pools, while I was jumping in the ocean at the Maine State Pier.

I still can’t get over what happened when I was a small lad. There’s a TV show on now — channel 43, WPXT I think — that shows nothing but oldies. I might have mentioned this before. But one of the TV shows they show is Route 66, a show from the early ’60s that was popular. Well, if you happen to catch it some night, you just might catch a scene of me and a bunch of my pals jumping off the Custom House Wharf. Yeah, they paid us five bucks a pop for doing a swan dive off the top of the building that sits there.

Two things weird about the whole thing. One was just getting paid for something we were doing for the heck of it anyways. The other was, here I’m getting paid to be on TV and I was too young to stay up at night to watch it! Mother wouldn’t let me stay up so late on a school night. Go figure.

We never met the stars of the show or anything like that, we just met a couple of assistant producers that threw us a five spot. Except for one pal of mine: Joey Boufard. I don’t remember now, but he jumped off something so darn big they gave him 15 dollars. I think it must have been the roof of the warehouse on the Maine State Pier. Go take a look and tell me if you got the balls. I doubt it.

•••

You know, the other morning I done something I hadn’t done in ages. I got up at 3 in the morning and went fishing. Yessiree, there’s nothing like it at 4 a.m., all alone on the wharf. So unbelievably tranquil. At least till the gulls wake up.

Real serenity. Just you and your memories. Makes me think, Gee, the stuff I’d do as a child but will not even dream of doing today. I’d daresay we have more brains as adults, but darn we had fun, now didn’t we?

Alas, I lost my very last jigger this morning to a piece of debris floating in the ocean. Christ, I lost my line to junk in the water and back in the day it coulda been my head!

•••

Since the time I got the bounce from Reny’s I did pay them a visit. Went smooth. I never really blamed Reny’s though for 86ing me. It was that one-shot security company.

Speaking of one-shot, I just seen an ad on TV for Cactus Jack’s 1-Shot Catch-a-Lot system. This is going to revolutionize fishing as we know it. It’s got a doohickey thingamajig called a “bait bomb.” You put it right into the lure and it emits an odor fishies love. Ingredients: dry minnows, dry worms, dry fish and, for some ungodly reason, garlic. I been fishing for 57 years and have yet to hear why garlic would work. Guess them boys know something I sure as hell don’t.

•••

Now, what I decided to do was take one of my notes I got accumulated and chuck it in every column. That way I’ll slowly but surely dispense with all my leftovers. This month’s note…

You know when you’re a young’un everyone’s got competition — the Jets and whatever, the Socs and the Greasers, Easties against Westies. Well, a Portland lad was up against boats! Heck, your goddamn girlfriend knew what time these Greek tankers would be in before the fucking harbormaster! I swear to Christ, I’d take the call and it’d be from the Mediterranean Sea or something.

•••

No one’s seen a bluefish yet, have they? I’m still waiting. And I hate to say, but I’ll be putting out a reward for a striper pretty soon. I damn well knew that change of law in Jersey was gonna affect us in a poor way. When they catch a striper by accident, they get to keep it.

Accidentally. Yeah right. As my friend Nancy Devine would say, p-lease.