When I was a teenag­er, there were a lot more boat kids run­ning the docks than I see nowa­days. Fish­ing time, of course, always came first, and we nev­er knew when — or if — we’d see a dock­side friend again. The August coho clo­sure was the one moment of the sea­son that we count­ed on all our friends being in town, and as one of my old­est friends recent­ly remem­bered, we looked for­ward to that time as if it were Christmas.

The pro­cess­ing plant we sold to held an annu­al beach pic­nic dur­ing the clo­sure. Salmon on the grill, a chance to vis­it with every­one you’d missed so far that sea­son; this was a big deal, and the boat kids ran all over Hal­ibut Point, wild with delight.

I remem­ber rid­ing the shut­tle back to the har­bor at the end of one of those pic­nics, shar­ing the van with anoth­er fam­i­ly. The mom observed that her son had made a new friend that day. About 8 years old, he was mat­ter-of-fact as he replied, “I’ll prob­a­bly nev­er see him again.”

His response has stayed with me for the past 20-some years. I’ve cho­sen to inter­pret his words not as unbear­ably sad, but as a telling com­ment on one of the unfore­seen gifts of our pro­fes­sion, a les­son that mariners absorb from a very young age.  Long before the world embraced Thict Naht Hah­n’s teach­ings, fish­er­folks prac­ticed being present. With coast­lines burst­ing with so many pos­si­ble ports, one nev­er knows when you’ll tie up with the same friend. We learn to accept good mem­o­ries and per­haps an occa­sion­al radio con­ver­sa­tion — mind­ful that it’s open lis­ten­ing for any­one in range — in place of real-time sit-downs. We learn that though our rela­tion­ships may be fleet­ing, they’re no less valuable.

*****

Last night, Cap’n J and I stepped into a new-yet-so-famil­iar world, when we entered Clemente’s restau­rant for the Fish­er Poets wel­come din­ner. I have to admit, we felt a lit­tle out of our ele­ment, walk­ing into the buoy­ant crowd, but Fish­er Poets Pat Dixon and Rob Seitz wel­comed us on in. (I’d been awed by Pat’s read­ing at Fish Expo about 4 years ear­li­er, and would be a new fan of Rob’s, too, by the end of the evening.)

We bum­bled our way to the bar for a beer and a Pep­si, then found seats next to Buck Meloy and his delight­ful part­ner Ingrid. She filled us in on her favorite per­form­ers and the low-down on each venue; we could­n’t have picked a bet­ter table-mate to make us feel welcome.

One of the evening’s ear­ly high­lights: I final­ly got to meet Jen Pick­ett, author of Pick Fish Tales. Since pulling on this fish­er­man blog­ger hat almost a year ago, I’ve often felt like a tod­dler trail­ing around after Jen. From her dili­gent posts on her own blog, to her involve­ment with Alas­ka Way­points, this is a woman who knows how to get shit done. I’m pay­ing atten­tion to her work, and sug­gest you do, too.

As we talked, the one and only cow­boy poet, Ron McDaniel, stepped up with some awful­ly com­ple­men­tary thoughts on our efforts to increase aware­ness of our fish­eries. Then he peered over my shoul­der and boomed, “Is that Cap’n J? Ah wah­n­ta meet him!”

After Clemente’s excel­lent alba­core poke and Bris­tol Bay sock­eye fish and chips, I was start­ing to feel pret­ty com­fort­able. And then co-orga­niz­er Jay Speak­man kicked off the wel­come mic. He sur­veyed the room of about 60, and the most gen­uine smile spread across his face. “God, it’s good to see every­one. Some of my best friends, I only get to see once a year at this 3 day weekend.”

Fol­low­ing per­form­ers made sim­i­lar dec­la­ra­tions. Pat Dixon said he’d updat­ed his Face­book sta­tus 15 min­utes before hit­ting the road: “Head­ing to Asto­ria for Fish­er Poets, the best week­end of the win­ter.” Anoth­er, Fred Bai­ley, said, “The idea of com­ing here kept me going all winter.”

With that, I sat a lit­tle eas­i­er in my seat, and cheered a lit­tle loud­er. Oh — of course, I real­ized. These are our peo­ple.  Among this col­lec­tion of gift­ed writ­ers, musi­cians, and sto­ry­tellers, we’re all bound by that com­mon thread, the abil­i­ty to cre­ate imme­di­ate con­nec­tion out of our rela­tion­ship with the sea. We might nev­er see each oth­er again — but thanks to Fish­er Poets, we do.

*****

After last night’s ini­tial open mic, I can’t rave enough about the tal­ent here. Amaz­ing writ­ers, poets, and musi­cians here — and thanks to Coast Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, you have the chance to enjoy them from wher­ev­er you are tonight! KMUN FM will be livestream­ing the main stage per­for­mances tonight and tomor­row, start­ing at 6 pm PST.  I’ll be read­ing at the Baked Alas­ka at 7 tonight and the Fort George Show­room at 9 tomor­row, so I’ll miss some of the main stage per­for­mances. If you tune in, I’d love to know who you heard and what you thought.