Blog Archives
Thankful and Thirsty Thursday
I’ve been thinking about what to write for Thankful Thursday. I’ve also been thinking a bit about my older sister, Cassandra, who turns 40 on Sunday. So, I decided to dedicate Thankful Thursday to her three days before the big day.
The number “40″ is rather frightening to think about, but Cass actually personifies the popular expression “Forty is the new thirty.”
Truly. She is a tiny little thing with a nice complexion and cute, bouncy, spiraling curly hair. She is fit, toned, and exercises regularly. If you saw her in person I don’t think you’d put her much past her early 30s.
It was not easy growing up in a family of three girls all three years apart. We all have such different personalities, talents, interests that it’s remarkable we come from the same parents. However, along with the insecurities, competition, and fighting growing up, there were also plenty of laughs, dancing, listening to music, playing sports and piano, and general play in the house and outside.
It must be difficult being the oldest of three girls. Cassandra set the bar and worked the hardest of us at school and activities. She was the first to march on up to college and receive her Bachelor’s degree. And way back in 1984, she received first place in the running long jump at the Arco Jesse Owens track meet and flew to Los Angeles to compete in the national meet. I think she even got to watch some of the Olympics. In ballet, Cass made it to pointe shoes and danced some of the advanced roles in the Nutcracker.
When all three of us fished on Dad’s boat during the Alaska salmon seasons, Cass was the deck boss and helped Steph and I not make mistakes on deck or get in too much trouble.
“Here!” she’d whisper, crouching next to us. “Coil this line! Dad’s watching!”
Cass is rather reserved and private (so she’ll probably love this birthday blog post) but she has a wicked wit, an observant eye, and a knack for calling things out in a humorous and unique way.
One of the things about Cass that always makes me laugh (even as I type this) is the look on her face whenever I show up somewhere she is. Parties, family gatherings, bars, wherever. Her expression becomes a priceless mix of weariness, annoyance, and hope rolled into one. Ha ha!
My sister has not had the easiest life. I was with her at our family seafood store fourteen years ago this month when the call came in that something horrific had occurred on our family fishing boat in Alaska. I drove her to the family home and watched as she learned that her husband of four months, Danny, had been lost at sea.
Cassandra has gone to work most every single day the past fourteen years at the store she and Danny opened with our dad. She helps retail and wholesale customers, deals with inspectors, smokes and cans seafood, vacuum-packs product and fillets fish.
She bought her own house, her own car, and pays for most of her own vacations. She puts her own money into her own retirement fund. She is one of the strongest people I know and hasn’t depended upon anything–a trust fund, men, family–outside of herself to make her way in the world.
Cassandra and I are very…uh…different from each other in many ways and that is challenging at times. But in the end, she’s always been one of my most loyal supporters and wanted to see me succeed in my life, family, and goals.
When I began training to become a Jazzercise instructor, both Cass and Steph were my two faithful pretend students in the living room of my house. We had a lot of fun as I learned how to cue the moves and routines and they tried to follow.
When I called the family store ten years ago from where I was living 500 miles away and excitedly blurted out my plans to become a writer and abandon the destructive path I’d been traveling, it was Cassandra who answered the phone and first shared my happiness.
And two years later, when I read from an essay in my first anthology publication, she was in the bookstore audience.
So, Happy Early 40th Birthday, Cass! Thanks for being the focus of Thankful Thursday. And a Happy Thirsty Thursday, too!
Cheers from your “favorite” (lol) sister.
Another Cool Commercial Fishing Blog
I am really excited today. I have no idea why, as nothing amazing has occurred, but I’m pumped.
One thing I love is that the large non-fiction writing project I’ve been working on for years has finally come together and feels perfect. Don’t get me wrong; it’s far from finished. I finally sat down last week and reviewed a ton of feedback on the work I’ve gathered so far from editors and agents all around the country, along with feedback from a few fellow writers.
Most of the feedback was legitimate and caused me to sit back and reflect upon the suggestions and insight. Other feedback was so off-base it was clear the reader did not have a handle on the material at all. That feedback I simply rolled my eyes at before depositing in both my mental and real shredders.
I decided that I will, in fact, enter the 2011 Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association Literary Contest (deadline February 28) along with hundreds of other writers. I may not win a ribbon, but at the very least, I’ll come away with even more feedback to mull over.
The other thing I’m excited about today is that I’ve finally entered the “burn phase” of the 24-day AdvoCare Challenge I’m doing with a few other people. I did just fine on the first ten days and am looking forward to the final fourteen. This challenge, combined with all the Jazzercise, should help get me back on track and well on my way to feeling like myself again (as well as ready for our first real vacation in four years this spring!).
Last but not least, I discovered yet another awesome commercial fishing blog. I enjoyed the content, subject matter, and writing style so well that I’ve included a direct RSS feed to it in the sidebar to the right.
Fish Tales is written by Jen Pickett, who posts once a week on (the creatively and aptly-named) Pickfish Fridays. Here’s a bit about Jen, taken directly from her blog:
“Jen Pickett is a freelance writer, a poet, and commercial fisherman. She has spent nearly two decades in Alaska’s commercial fishing industry. Starting as crewman, she’s worked tenders, seiners, trollers, gill netters and long liners fishing Alaska’s waters for herring, salmon, and halibut from Southeast Alaska to the Copper River Flats, Prince William Sound, Kodiak and Bristol Bay. At the ripe age of 28 she became one of the few women to own and skipper her boat on one of Alaska’s most dangerous waters, the Copper River Flats, where she fished alone for the famous Copper River Kings and Reds. Encountering storms, breakers, broken-down equipment, ripped up nets, exhaustion, whales, sharks, and close calls with giant cruise ships and many other near misses, all became the norm aboard her 28′ boat…”
Pretty cool, right?
And before I go….Happy Birthday to my one time fishing crew mate and forever little sis, Steph!!
It is a Shock!
All of my regular readers know that although Highliners and Homecomings is a blog about commercial fishing and commercial fishing families, it isn’t a blog about politics, debate, controversy, or insult. Highliners and Homecomings doesn’t exist to debate this or that, call names, or otherwise make anyone (especially me!) feel bad.
I’ve thought for quite a while on whether to even introduce the issue of Alaska’s Republican governor and current United States Vice Presidential nod Sarah Palin to my blog. Did I want to risk “starting something,” stir debate, or offend anyone with the mere mention?
An e-mail I received the other day from a woman I know who lives across the country (and has nothing to do with commercial fishing) helped confirm my decision to bring up Alaska’s governor. My friend wrote,
“Yes—I thought of you, too, Jen, when I listened to Sarah Palin. What a fascinating time for politics (no matter what your beliefs)!”
I’ve been all over the political chart in the last few days.
I had a friend over last Thursday, the night before McCain’s VP pick was announced. When I asked for whom my friend was voting, she looked straight at me with a look of concern and confusion before stating matter-of-factly, “Obama.”
I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. When I inquired as to the reason behind her look, my good friend laughed and assured me that my question wasn’t the cause–she’d simply been distracted by something else when she answered it! Hmm.
When I awoke the next morning and turned on the TV, I was shocked to see that Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin had been chosen as John McCain’s running mate.
I knew exactly who Palin was, although I didn’t know much about her.
My dad, a fourth-generation commercial fisherman, has been pointing out Sarah Palin’s picture from her color ad in National Fisherman magazine to my husband and me for at least the last couple of years.
I knew Sarah Palin as the attractive, middle-aged lady who beamed at me from the pages of National Fisherman . You know the one: It’s the ad in which she–smiling–holds a salmon up for the camera from the deck of an Alaska fishing boat. She appears to be dressed in authentic commercial fishing woman gear: torn gray sweatshirt, bibs, glasses, hair in ponytail.
Upon closer inspection, however, one sees that the stratigically torn sweatshirt is perfectly clean. The hands holding the salmon are not only without orange rubber gloves, they are perfectly manicured. The smiling face doesn’t have one bit of jellyfish or fish slime attached to it.
No matter. I know a photo-op when I see one, and the staged photo never bothered me.
When I saw on the news that she’d been picked for the VP nod, I was surprised and excited. Many of my friends and family couldn’t stop talking about the selection. We went about the day as if in a daze.
As to the debate over which team running for the office of President and Vice President will or should win, well, that isn’t a debate for this particular blog. Even my own family is divided down the line as for whom they will vote.
But—are we excited that a woman from Alaska, a commercial fisherwoman, the wife of a commercial fisherman, and the mother of five children, has been chosen as the running mate for a Presidential candidate for the United States of America?
Yes!
