By Sheila Dassatt
It was about two years ago now that I wrote an article called Reflections. I looked it up because I knew that I had written about Shorty Gauge in this article. You see, Shorty Gauge was one of the characters in the National Fishermen’s Cap’n Perc Sane Says articles that were actually written by Mike Brown. It was a fun little article that was published every month, but Mike passed away in 2011, just about a week before my Dad passed. This was the last of the colorful generation or the ole timers as we called them!
These stories originated at Saturday Cove, Northport, Maine. It is still there to this day and is a beautiful spot along the Coast of Maine. A lot of folks that read the stories thought that this place was fictitious, but it is actually a real place.
This is the time of the year that I always think of Shorty Gauge or his real name was Dick Elwell. He passed away on November 30th, 2000. The anniversary of his passing was just a few days ago. Mike and I had the honor of being with him during his final hours. Why am I so struck on this one fisherman? Because we wouldn’t be where we are now if it wasn’t for a promise that was made that day to Dick. He was very old school and also quite a character, but he asked us to promise to continue on with the next generation of young fishermen and to please not let the fishery “die” so to speak.
Now that’s quite a big promise, and I knew that we couldn’t do it all, but we can help to make a difference and help the best way that we knew how. Since that time, we have taught a few young fishermen and been involved in safety courses for the young ones. Whenever we have a new fisherman on our boat, F/V Saving Grace, we try to point out the safest way to work on the boat. Having built the boat ourselves, we made sure to build in a rope locker, so the rope goes under the platform, not under your feet. This is one of our most important features of our boat. We also have Rope Razor knives under the rails for easy access in case you’re not wearing one. These little knives, made by Eric Dedoes of Plante’s Lobster Vents have proven themselves to save lives. Most wear them on the strap of their oilskins, but if you shouldn’t be, we have them easily accessible.
I have actually lost track of all of the ones that we have taught lobstering on our boat, but I don’t regret a single minute of it. Most of the ones that we have worked with have been generational and family. We’ve had our daughter, grandson, brothers, nephews and so on down the line. I hope that what they were taught will stick with them for the next generations to come.
Getting back to Shorty Gauge, this is a totally old school story. He kept his boat, which was a classic wooden boat, at Saturday Cove. He had one of those old wooden barrels that he kept herring in. Every so often, he would “turn over” the herring for his bait and it would be very well seasoned. Mike and I would go down and visit him when he was doing his bait bags the night before. He would have small bags and fill them tight, just like a baseball. We learned a lot from him.
It was pretty awesome, his wife Stella would set his place at the table the night before so when he got up, everything would be all ready for him to go. He was kinda the unofficial Harbor Master of the Cove, boat house and all. At one point, Mike kept his boat on a mooring at Saturday Cove and all of the characters took him under their wing. I would have to say that he learned from the best! They all have a warm place in our hearts and we know that the ole crowd will never be quite the same again.
Back at that time, Belfast had a sardine packing plant, Stinson Canning, which was right on the waterfront. This was where we got our bait and it only cost us the price of the salt that we needed to process it. The chum would fall off of the shoot and into a holding container. This is one reason why we were spoiled back in those days. Bait was not nearly as expensive as it is now!
Cap’n Dick was also a night watchman at the Canning Company. We always knew where to find him and would go down and keep him company when we would go down and check our boat on the mooring. Dad’s boat was on a mooring right off of the factory as well. Those were the days that the poultry plants were all working, the sardine factory was in full swing and the railroad was also going to bring grain to the grain mill that was over by the public landing. We actually had to wait for the train to go by before we could pull down onto the dock. Those were the days that you could find a decent place to live and people would work and were very proud of it!
Well, I thought I would share a memory that is very close to both Mike and myself and also would get us away from all of the angst of hate and discontent. There are still some good people in this world. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
