Dr. Ed Iannuccilli: Crabbin’ on a Summer Evening
Monday, July 20, 2020
I stared at the blue sky and clouds dangling as if tethered on fishing lines. The beach glistened as the light of the setting sun gave way to an early moon. My sunburned skin was tight and tender, and the salted hair on my arms bristled under the rub of my sweatshirt. The heat of a beach day turned to a cooler evening. Carrying pails, off we trekked to the far end to catch crabs.
I looked over my shoulder at the variety store’s red shingled roof growing smaller as we walked further. Late day beachers were sitting on folding chairs, books in their laps, eyes fixed on the horizon, riveted by the rhythm of the waves.
I swung my red pail with the white handle and leaned forward into the gentle evening wind, a wind that at other times took my kite to those same rocks. The soft sand yielded to mud; the mud gave way to sudsy water.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBeyond the rocks was a mansion on a bluff. I loved that house; a sprawling single-story, yellow home with a black-shingled roof and white gutters. A path wound its way from that house to the rocks. I wondered if rich people crabbed.
Rocks of all sizes in shades of black, gray, green and brown were strewn with seaweed, moss, fishhooks, and a network of frayed fishing lines. Periwinkles were perched like rows of dunce caps.
For bait, I pulled a large, tenacious mussel from its bed, smashed it with a rock and tied a string around it. I threw seaweed into the pail, dipped my mussel into the water and waited. The first crab inched out from under the rock. Back he went. Patience. Dangle the bait. Out and back he went. Out again, he paused, grabbed the mussel with his claws and dipped his head into the flesh. I pulled slowly. He was on. I jiggled the crab over the pail, and he fell.
Bunches more came. I loaded the pail and watched them crawl, one over the other, along the smooth sides, undaunted, no matter how many times they slipped back. As the sun set, it was time to go. We slipped over the rocks to the shore, the store in the distance. I turned. The rocks diminished under a thin veil of dusk. The waves washed my footsteps away.
I showed the catch to Dad. “What are you going to do with them?"
"Keep ‘em.”
“And then what?”
“Don’t know. Just have them, I guess.”
“They’ll die, you know. They need to be in the water. It might not be a bad idea to let them go.” We walked to water’s edge. I inverted the pail and dumped the crabs. With claws held high, they scurried into the sea, waving, hopefully finding their way back to the rocks.
I coddled pieces of smooth beach glass in my pocket. A soft breeze carried the whiff of seaweed. It was time for a frozen Charleston Chew.
Summers were not long enough.
Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.” Learn more here.
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