"Happy Memories of CRABBING"

I drew this picture of a BLUE CLAW CRAB recently, for the local paper I contribute to each month. It made me think of happy memories of CRABBING WITH MY DAD when I was a kid...the happiest memories I have of him, in fact!! He and I were two very different people who had the same first and last names but were never able to get CLOSE.  Yet, Crabbing together was an ATTEMPT to get close, at least, when I was young it was.

We all lived in North Jersey then, and, around this time of year (when crabs were plentiful) he'd pick a weekend and I'd come and stay overnight at his place on Friday night (my parents were divorced). We'd try to go to sleep early because we'd get up at maybe 3:30 am on Saturday morning to "crab."  Dad's wife, my stepmother Barbara, would cook breakfast when we got up in the wee hours...Dad would only have coffee in a Thermos but would be loading up a few six packs of beer into a cooler "for later on."  We'd pack up his van outside in the dark while the CRICKETS were still singing but even the BIRDS hadn't awakened yet to sing. After picking up one or two of his drinking buddies, Dad would drive his van onto the deserted Garden State Parkway and we'd speed south for about an hour, towards Toms River.

As the sun was rising over the water, we'd rent a motorboat from a dock at Barnegat Bay.  My dad and his friends would always speak derisively about the "old hag" who rented to us, and I hated that. And once out on the water, the best part of the day was casting chicken necks, tied to a string, into the water and waiting for a crab to nibble.  It was fun slowly pulling the crabs in, by hand, seeing them in the water for the first time, and then slowly scooping them into the net when you got them close enough to you. They weren't "hooked" like fish were....they were free to let go of the chicken if they saw the net, and there was no damage to them, then, in that scenario. To me, Crabbing was MUCH more Sportsmanlike than FISHING. I preferred CRABBING to fishing because at least crabs could "fight back" if one of them got loose in the boat!! If a crab you caught was large enough, someone in the boat would say "That's CRAB OF THE DAY" and another would respond, "No, YOU are."  Then, came the JOKES....

      When the string would tighten: "You have a crab on the line." The response: "Try hanging up and dialing again."

      When crabbing was SLOW: "Stop me...BEFORE I CRAB AGAIN."

      When crabbing was BUSY: "It's Attack of the Crab Monsters" (after the old movie).

That was the FUN part of the day, but the SAD part was when the other guys started drinking that beer (I didn't drink), cursing, telling off-color jokes and abusing the crabs that were piling up into the huge metal pail in our boat. At times my Dad, drunk as could be, would stand up in the boat to pee over the side and I'd always be amazed that he never tipped over. Then again, he was an Ironworker who drank while walking on girders several stories up and he never lost his balance THEN, so...

In the early '80s I started going crabbing with MY friends (same location) and they were NON-drinkers and good people so we had all of the FUN minus the NEGATIVES. I even introduced them to our "Crabbing Jokes." Last time I went crabbing with my father was 1986 but by then we'd established watching BOXING as the thing that tried to bring us together (we encountered many of the same obstacles, however). Today I'm 65 and my wife and I live only about 10 miles or so from Barnegat Bay, but I haven't been crabbing since that last time with my dad, who died in 2009. However.....as you know I just drew a crab for the paper and I just wrote to you about "Happy Memories of CRABBING."

That shows I haven't forgotten, even in my senior years.

P.S. to show that I don't just draw UGLY things like CRABS, this is the cover for my upcoming DEANA CARTER BOOK that I finished last night!!  See my July 22nd blog for more info....