Shark Butchery
Did you know that the movie Jaws was the first movie to reel in 100 million smackers? I didn’t. I do know my best friend and my brother went down Old Orchard and yelled “Shark, Jaws!” and not one person laughed. They split real quick or probably woulda cooled their sense of humor in the town lock-up.
Yeah, such is the big impact sharks make with people. I guess it’s like folks enjoy horror movies and like getting scared. Boy, Jaws sure did it. Number one. Two and three sucked, and are a good reason not to make sequels. Nothing can beat Jaws.
So why am I still writin’ about it? ’Cause I don’t know if it’s better photography or better drones, but it seems like every time I turn on the TV news (which is a lot in this joint) they’re showing schools of sharks in beach areas. At Long Island, NY, a real lot.
I haven’t heard of any Maine residents getting bit so far, but summer’s not over yet either. And when you look at the map, Long Island ain’t all that far as the crow flies. Or maybe we should change to “as the seagull flies” when we’re discussing ocean stuff.
I’m watching shark fishermen making home movies and doing a darn good job. Got a movie of the shark taking the bait and when he can’t get away he was some fucking pissed!
They tagged it — 14-plus footer. The gizmo they tag him with is a real long pole and don’t blame ’em a bit. They’ve tagged three of them so they can follow their trails. They all go north after they’re released, stay close to the shore, go up to Nova Scotia and back down by New England and then down the coast.
Now one thing surprises the heck out of me. A whole bunch of whites are driving on shore — they’re committing themselves to suicide. I’m not making this up. They got actual footage.
Why? These guys are doing Long Island and are traversing a place that is so populated it’s named Predator Path. They’ve also got a camera 3,000 feet deep, in a canyon under Predator Path. It’s a cemetery of dead ones.
As I write this I’m feeling a bit guilty for helping decimate the shark population. We used to process upwards to a hundred thousand pounds a day in the dogfish factory. And Portland was one of a few places that’d even move ’em, so we’d be taking them from the whole East Coast.
Till they got smaller and smaller and so did the catch. Till some fishermen would only cut off the fins and toss the rest — for shark fin soup, quite a delicacy I guess. I told ’em we wouldn’t take no more fins, but others would.
See, I didn’t realize at the time how much fish was in trouble. I don’t know if there are any left. A whole species gone, perhaps. They was called dogfish, but you couldn’t tell the difference ’tween that and a sand shark.
What we done was clean ’em, freeze ’em and ship ’em to England for fish and chips. My brother was in on it when the industry started, and they went to England (not my bro, the owners) and hired English to come over and show ’em how it’s done. And yes, we’d also process their belly flaps and sell those to Germany for a delicacy called Schillerlochen.
Course, I tried all the above foods. Nothing too great, I thought, except for one thing — I soon was able to notice whenever the product was strong, real strong, ’specially lochen. I remember I was living on Danforth Street and when the wind was right I could smell if we had fish all the way from Deake’s Wharf. And boy, by the time I got to work…
By the door was a big chunk of wood you could use to bang on it and let the rats know it’s time to go home, wherever that was — ceiling, walls, all over. I never seen so many rats since they tore down the grain elevator. The rats sure did enjoy the dogs (fish). They all looked plump and slow-moving.
