General Non-Fiction posted December 10, 2021 |
Of all the characters I've met, this one took the cake
The Hobbit
by T B Botts
His name was Terry Shepard, but in the coastal fishing towns of Southeast Alaska, he was known affectionately as The Hobbit. From Ketchikan to Yakutat he plied the waters, fishing for salmon on his boat the F/V Judy Ann. His boat was never hard to spot out on the fishing grounds; it was the only one that had a hull painted John Deere green, with a brilliant chartruese top house. Lest there be any confusion, a plastic stork was strapped to the roof, apparently to guard against feathered intruders. When he was in port the stork was joined by a lawn chair, though what purpose it served I've no idea. To the best of my knowledge, he never sat up there.
He'd been born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Brittle Bone Disease. Small stature, deafness, a blue tint to the whites of the eyes and multiple fractures were all symptoms of this disease, and Terry experienced them all. However, fear of a fracture never kept Terry from searching out the adventure he seemed to thrive on. He claimed that before he was twelve, he had broken the bones below his knees thirty eight times.
Much like his boat, Terry was easy to spot. His five foot one inch frame was bent as he walked and his scraggly grey beard danced when he spoke or ate. Always a lover of brilliant colors, he dressed in a cerise sweatshirt, complete with embroidered hummingbirds, one that I'm fairly sure was meant for a woman, but somehow he could make it work without ridicule. On his small feet he wore a pair of yellow plastic slippers, complete with pink ladybugs. On days when he left the boat he would don a green felt hat that used to belong to a mule he once owned, having sewn the ear holes shut with leather shoe laces. He could have been used as a model for a lawn gnome.
It was a common sight to see him shuffling up the dock, a length of nylon line tethered to a plastic laundry basket that he used in place of a cart. He used it to carry his groceries or mail, and it followed behind him like a reluctant pet, jumping and jerking with each step he took. I asked him once about the basket.
"It's easier for me to control," he said." Don't have to worry about it getting away from me when the ramp is steep."
On days when the weather was nice, Terry would hop onto his adult tricycle and pedal downtown, stopping to talk to friends and sometimes posing for pictures for tourists.
"I guess they think I look unusual enough that they need a picture." He laughed.
Most trips to the store, about four blocks away, usually culminated in a trip to the Office Bar, right next door. Terry had a fondness for whiskey, and there were usually no shortage of people who were willing to indulge his fancy.
I dropped down to his boat for a visit one day, and when I knocked I heard his high pitched voice speak from the open doorway.
"Come in, come in," he called, as he stepped down off his chair and unlocked the door. "Come in by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" You never knew what greeting would be offered when you came to visit. He never failed to entertain.
When I first met him, I was under the impression that he only had one tooth.
"No. No, I had three." He said. "One of the uppers and a lower one lined up so I could eat anything I wanted. I'm a carnivore. I like meat. I would just chew it like a chipmunk. My teeth finally got so bad that I had to have them pulled. No teeth, no toothaches."
I came to interview him for the book, and like a bonehead, I managed to leave my tablet behind. I was searching for something to write on when he pushed a yellow legal pad to me.
"Here, use this. You can keep that." he said. It was typical of Terry to give away his possessions. " Money doesn't mean a damn thing to me!" he said emphatically. " I spend it as quick as I get it. I don't want to die having a whole bunch of money on me. That's what it's there for; to spend!"
The idea that he might need to set some aside for a future emergency was foreign to him. He's lived by the seat of his pants all his days, and it seems to suit him just fine.
Though he was a commercial fisherman, in his younger days, prior to coming to Alaska, he had been a long-haul truck driver, and was especially proud of the fact that he logged over a million miles accident free. Terry was driving truck during the Vietnam War, and sympathized with the draft dodgers who were heading to Canada, frequently stopping to give them a ride.
He entertained me with a story about stopping in a bar one night outside of Cleveland. Terry always loved the members of the opposite sex and had a particular fondness for black women. He knew that the prospects of running into a few ladies were pretty good at this particular bar, so he dropped in for a drink before heading back to the West Coast.
"I was sitting at the bar just finishing my drink when I noticed that the fellows who had been sitting on either side of me got up and left. I didn't think much of it. I paid for my drink and walked outside. I was almost to my truck when they jumped me. One of them got behind me and held a knife to my throat, and the other one started going through all my pockets."
" What did you do?" I asked incredulously.
"Well, I was standing on my tippy toes, and the one guy was reaching in my pockets, so I asked if he needed any help."
I started laughing. "Well did he?"
"No, no. He just reached into my front pocket where I kept all my cash and took it and they left. It could have been worse. They could have killed me or taken my truck."
It seems that he took this incident in stride, just like any of the hiccups that come our way as we wander down the rocky path of life.
I asked Terry about his fishing career and he told me stories of fishing down in Salisbury Sound, near Sitka, filling his small boat, day after day and several times winning the daily prize of a bottle of wine for bringing in the biggest king salmon of the day to the buying scow.
" The best day I ever had was on the Judy Ann. I was fishing kings about eleven miles off the coast of Whale Bay on July first. All four lines were going. In about a day and a half we filled the slush tank all the way to the top. Made $4800.00. I had a deck hand named Susan with me. She was unusual."
"What made her unusual?" I asked.
"Mainly because she was fishing with me" he laughed.
Terry never hired male crew hands, only female, for the obvious reason. Though he wasn't an attractive man, by his own admission, he never seemed to have any problem attracting women who were willing to share the cramped space of the boat. He did hire one gal who had refused his advances for the entire season. Finally, as she was packing her bag to leave to catch the ferry, he offered her his beloved mandolin if she would go to bed with him.
"Terry," she said, " I will never sleep with you!" and walked out the door.
He took the rejection in stride, and went down below to take a nap. When he had almost dropped off to sleep he felt a bare leg straddle him.
"So what did you do?" I inquired.
"Hell, I gave her my mandolin. I couldn't go back on my word!"
Just because he hired female crew hands it didn't mean they were naturally domestic.
" I had one gal who grew up in a wealthy family. Apparently she never learned how to cook. She would open a can of tuna fish, dump it on a piece of bread and cover it with another piece and call it a sandwich. No butter, no mayo, nothing. She did the same thing with mushroom soup- just dump it in a pan and heat it up, she didn't even add water."
One other gal that he'd hired never wanted to pull the fish or clean them, desiring only to steer the boat, a job usually left to the captain. Periodically he'd come inside and ask if he could steer his boat now, but was usually turned away. Obviously he wasn't very aggresive.
Rain country takes a toll on wooden boats. They need constant maintenance or they succumb to the elements. Eventually my friend the Hobbit had to move off the boat. He spent more and more time tethered to the dock watching TV, and less time fishing or maintaining the Judy Ann. He got a room at the elderly housing development and we saw him less and less around town. He spoke of buying a van and moving to the desert somewhere in Nevada, watching the sunsets and baking in the sun, but he never did leave. I received word one day that when he didn't come to the door, they checked on him and he had gone the way of all the world. I hope he died peacefully in his sleep. He was a gentle soul; generous, entertaining, satisfied with whatever came his way in life. I was blessed to be able to call him my friend.
Story of the Month contest entry
His name was Terry Shepard, but in the coastal fishing towns of Southeast Alaska, he was known affectionately as The Hobbit. From Ketchikan to Yakutat he plied the waters, fishing for salmon on his boat the F/V Judy Ann. His boat was never hard to spot out on the fishing grounds; it was the only one that had a hull painted John Deere green, with a brilliant chartruese top house. Lest there be any confusion, a plastic stork was strapped to the roof, apparently to guard against feathered intruders. When he was in port the stork was joined by a lawn chair, though what purpose it served I've no idea. To the best of my knowledge, he never sat up there.
He'd been born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Brittle Bone Disease. Small stature, deafness, a blue tint to the whites of the eyes and multiple fractures were all symptoms of this disease, and Terry experienced them all. However, fear of a fracture never kept Terry from searching out the adventure he seemed to thrive on. He claimed that before he was twelve, he had broken the bones below his knees thirty eight times.
Much like his boat, Terry was easy to spot. His five foot one inch frame was bent as he walked and his scraggly grey beard danced when he spoke or ate. Always a lover of brilliant colors, he dressed in a cerise sweatshirt, complete with embroidered hummingbirds, one that I'm fairly sure was meant for a woman, but somehow he could make it work without ridicule. On his small feet he wore a pair of yellow plastic slippers, complete with pink ladybugs. On days when he left the boat he would don a green felt hat that used to belong to a mule he once owned, having sewn the ear holes shut with leather shoe laces. He could have been used as a model for a lawn gnome.
It was a common sight to see him shuffling up the dock, a length of nylon line tethered to a plastic laundry basket that he used in place of a cart. He used it to carry his groceries or mail, and it followed behind him like a reluctant pet, jumping and jerking with each step he took. I asked him once about the basket.
"It's easier for me to control," he said." Don't have to worry about it getting away from me when the ramp is steep."
On days when the weather was nice, Terry would hop onto his adult tricycle and pedal downtown, stopping to talk to friends and sometimes posing for pictures for tourists.
"I guess they think I look unusual enough that they need a picture." He laughed.
Most trips to the store, about four blocks away, usually culminated in a trip to the Office Bar, right next door. Terry had a fondness for whiskey, and there were usually no shortage of people who were willing to indulge his fancy.
I dropped down to his boat for a visit one day, and when I knocked I heard his high pitched voice speak from the open doorway.
"Come in, come in," he called, as he stepped down off his chair and unlocked the door. "Come in by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" You never knew what greeting would be offered when you came to visit. He never failed to entertain.
When I first met him, I was under the impression that he only had one tooth.
"No. No, I had three." He said. "One of the uppers and a lower one lined up so I could eat anything I wanted. I'm a carnivore. I like meat. I would just chew it like a chipmunk. My teeth finally got so bad that I had to have them pulled. No teeth, no toothaches."
I came to interview him for the book, and like a bonehead, I managed to leave my tablet behind. I was searching for something to write on when he pushed a yellow legal pad to me.
"Here, use this. You can keep that." he said. It was typical of Terry to give away his possessions. " Money doesn't mean a damn thing to me!" he said emphatically. " I spend it as quick as I get it. I don't want to die having a whole bunch of money on me. That's what it's there for; to spend!"
The idea that he might need to set some aside for a future emergency was foreign to him. He's lived by the seat of his pants all his days, and it seems to suit him just fine.
Though he was a commercial fisherman, in his younger days, prior to coming to Alaska, he had been a long-haul truck driver, and was especially proud of the fact that he logged over a million miles accident free. Terry was driving truck during the Vietnam War, and sympathized with the draft dodgers who were heading to Canada, frequently stopping to give them a ride.
He entertained me with a story about stopping in a bar one night outside of Cleveland. Terry always loved the members of the opposite sex and had a particular fondness for black women. He knew that the prospects of running into a few ladies were pretty good at this particular bar, so he dropped in for a drink before heading back to the West Coast.
"I was sitting at the bar just finishing my drink when I noticed that the fellows who had been sitting on either side of me got up and left. I didn't think much of it. I paid for my drink and walked outside. I was almost to my truck when they jumped me. One of them got behind me and held a knife to my throat, and the other one started going through all my pockets."
" What did you do?" I asked incredulously.
"Well, I was standing on my tippy toes, and the one guy was reaching in my pockets, so I asked if he needed any help."
I started laughing. "Well did he?"
"No, no. He just reached into my front pocket where I kept all my cash and took it and they left. It could have been worse. They could have killed me or taken my truck."
It seems that he took this incident in stride, just like any of the hiccups that come our way as we wander down the rocky path of life.
I asked Terry about his fishing career and he told me stories of fishing down in Salisbury Sound, near Sitka, filling his small boat, day after day and several times winning the daily prize of a bottle of wine for bringing in the biggest king salmon of the day to the buying scow.
" The best day I ever had was on the Judy Ann. I was fishing kings about eleven miles off the coast of Whale Bay on July first. All four lines were going. In about a day and a half we filled the slush tank all the way to the top. Made $4800.00. I had a deck hand named Susan with me. She was unusual."
"What made her unusual?" I asked.
"Mainly because she was fishing with me" he laughed.
Terry never hired male crew hands, only female, for the obvious reason. Though he wasn't an attractive man, by his own admission, he never seemed to have any problem attracting women who were willing to share the cramped space of the boat. He did hire one gal who had refused his advances for the entire season. Finally, as she was packing her bag to leave to catch the ferry, he offered her his beloved mandolin if she would go to bed with him.
"Terry," she said, " I will never sleep with you!" and walked out the door.
He took the rejection in stride, and went down below to take a nap. When he had almost dropped off to sleep he felt a bare leg straddle him.
"So what did you do?" I inquired.
"Hell, I gave her my mandolin. I couldn't go back on my word!"
Just because he hired female crew hands it didn't mean they were naturally domestic.
" I had one gal who grew up in a wealthy family. Apparently she never learned how to cook. She would open a can of tuna fish, dump it on a piece of bread and cover it with another piece and call it a sandwich. No butter, no mayo, nothing. She did the same thing with mushroom soup- just dump it in a pan and heat it up, she didn't even add water."
One other gal that he'd hired never wanted to pull the fish or clean them, desiring only to steer the boat, a job usually left to the captain. Periodically he'd come inside and ask if he could steer his boat now, but was usually turned away. Obviously he wasn't very aggresive.
Rain country takes a toll on wooden boats. They need constant maintenance or they succumb to the elements. Eventually my friend the Hobbit had to move off the boat. He spent more and more time tethered to the dock watching TV, and less time fishing or maintaining the Judy Ann. He got a room at the elderly housing development and we saw him less and less around town. He spoke of buying a van and moving to the desert somewhere in Nevada, watching the sunsets and baking in the sun, but he never did leave. I received word one day that when he didn't come to the door, they checked on him and he had gone the way of all the world. I hope he died peacefully in his sleep. He was a gentle soul; generous, entertaining, satisfied with whatever came his way in life. I was blessed to be able to call him my friend.
He'd been born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Brittle Bone Disease. Small stature, deafness, a blue tint to the whites of the eyes and multiple fractures were all symptoms of this disease, and Terry experienced them all. However, fear of a fracture never kept Terry from searching out the adventure he seemed to thrive on. He claimed that before he was twelve, he had broken the bones below his knees thirty eight times.
Much like his boat, Terry was easy to spot. His five foot one inch frame was bent as he walked and his scraggly grey beard danced when he spoke or ate. Always a lover of brilliant colors, he dressed in a cerise sweatshirt, complete with embroidered hummingbirds, one that I'm fairly sure was meant for a woman, but somehow he could make it work without ridicule. On his small feet he wore a pair of yellow plastic slippers, complete with pink ladybugs. On days when he left the boat he would don a green felt hat that used to belong to a mule he once owned, having sewn the ear holes shut with leather shoe laces. He could have been used as a model for a lawn gnome.
It was a common sight to see him shuffling up the dock, a length of nylon line tethered to a plastic laundry basket that he used in place of a cart. He used it to carry his groceries or mail, and it followed behind him like a reluctant pet, jumping and jerking with each step he took. I asked him once about the basket.
"It's easier for me to control," he said." Don't have to worry about it getting away from me when the ramp is steep."
On days when the weather was nice, Terry would hop onto his adult tricycle and pedal downtown, stopping to talk to friends and sometimes posing for pictures for tourists.
"I guess they think I look unusual enough that they need a picture." He laughed.
Most trips to the store, about four blocks away, usually culminated in a trip to the Office Bar, right next door. Terry had a fondness for whiskey, and there were usually no shortage of people who were willing to indulge his fancy.
I dropped down to his boat for a visit one day, and when I knocked I heard his high pitched voice speak from the open doorway.
"Come in, come in," he called, as he stepped down off his chair and unlocked the door. "Come in by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" You never knew what greeting would be offered when you came to visit. He never failed to entertain.
When I first met him, I was under the impression that he only had one tooth.
"No. No, I had three." He said. "One of the uppers and a lower one lined up so I could eat anything I wanted. I'm a carnivore. I like meat. I would just chew it like a chipmunk. My teeth finally got so bad that I had to have them pulled. No teeth, no toothaches."
I came to interview him for the book, and like a bonehead, I managed to leave my tablet behind. I was searching for something to write on when he pushed a yellow legal pad to me.
"Here, use this. You can keep that." he said. It was typical of Terry to give away his possessions. " Money doesn't mean a damn thing to me!" he said emphatically. " I spend it as quick as I get it. I don't want to die having a whole bunch of money on me. That's what it's there for; to spend!"
The idea that he might need to set some aside for a future emergency was foreign to him. He's lived by the seat of his pants all his days, and it seems to suit him just fine.
Though he was a commercial fisherman, in his younger days, prior to coming to Alaska, he had been a long-haul truck driver, and was especially proud of the fact that he logged over a million miles accident free. Terry was driving truck during the Vietnam War, and sympathized with the draft dodgers who were heading to Canada, frequently stopping to give them a ride.
He entertained me with a story about stopping in a bar one night outside of Cleveland. Terry always loved the members of the opposite sex and had a particular fondness for black women. He knew that the prospects of running into a few ladies were pretty good at this particular bar, so he dropped in for a drink before heading back to the West Coast.
"I was sitting at the bar just finishing my drink when I noticed that the fellows who had been sitting on either side of me got up and left. I didn't think much of it. I paid for my drink and walked outside. I was almost to my truck when they jumped me. One of them got behind me and held a knife to my throat, and the other one started going through all my pockets."
" What did you do?" I asked incredulously.
"Well, I was standing on my tippy toes, and the one guy was reaching in my pockets, so I asked if he needed any help."
I started laughing. "Well did he?"
"No, no. He just reached into my front pocket where I kept all my cash and took it and they left. It could have been worse. They could have killed me or taken my truck."
It seems that he took this incident in stride, just like any of the hiccups that come our way as we wander down the rocky path of life.
I asked Terry about his fishing career and he told me stories of fishing down in Salisbury Sound, near Sitka, filling his small boat, day after day and several times winning the daily prize of a bottle of wine for bringing in the biggest king salmon of the day to the buying scow.
" The best day I ever had was on the Judy Ann. I was fishing kings about eleven miles off the coast of Whale Bay on July first. All four lines were going. In about a day and a half we filled the slush tank all the way to the top. Made $4800.00. I had a deck hand named Susan with me. She was unusual."
"What made her unusual?" I asked.
"Mainly because she was fishing with me" he laughed.
Terry never hired male crew hands, only female, for the obvious reason. Though he wasn't an attractive man, by his own admission, he never seemed to have any problem attracting women who were willing to share the cramped space of the boat. He did hire one gal who had refused his advances for the entire season. Finally, as she was packing her bag to leave to catch the ferry, he offered her his beloved mandolin if she would go to bed with him.
"Terry," she said, " I will never sleep with you!" and walked out the door.
He took the rejection in stride, and went down below to take a nap. When he had almost dropped off to sleep he felt a bare leg straddle him.
"So what did you do?" I inquired.
"Hell, I gave her my mandolin. I couldn't go back on my word!"
Just because he hired female crew hands it didn't mean they were naturally domestic.
" I had one gal who grew up in a wealthy family. Apparently she never learned how to cook. She would open a can of tuna fish, dump it on a piece of bread and cover it with another piece and call it a sandwich. No butter, no mayo, nothing. She did the same thing with mushroom soup- just dump it in a pan and heat it up, she didn't even add water."
One other gal that he'd hired never wanted to pull the fish or clean them, desiring only to steer the boat, a job usually left to the captain. Periodically he'd come inside and ask if he could steer his boat now, but was usually turned away. Obviously he wasn't very aggresive.
Rain country takes a toll on wooden boats. They need constant maintenance or they succumb to the elements. Eventually my friend the Hobbit had to move off the boat. He spent more and more time tethered to the dock watching TV, and less time fishing or maintaining the Judy Ann. He got a room at the elderly housing development and we saw him less and less around town. He spoke of buying a van and moving to the desert somewhere in Nevada, watching the sunsets and baking in the sun, but he never did leave. I received word one day that when he didn't come to the door, they checked on him and he had gone the way of all the world. I hope he died peacefully in his sleep. He was a gentle soul; generous, entertaining, satisfied with whatever came his way in life. I was blessed to be able to call him my friend.
Recognized |
I once had a friend who lived a life that many people might have envied. He lived the way he wanted, without regrets, taking the bull by the horns and never looking back. I wrote of him in my book The Greybeards, a story of nine commercial fishermen who called Hoonah their home. This story is a condensed version of the chapter on The Hobbit.
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