Crabbers are like fishermen, only worse. They\u2019ll exaggerate, lie outright, then tell you the most wild-eyed outlandish whoppers only the chronically gullible would believe. Three Finger Fred loves to hold up his stubs and tell any newcomer who\u2019s unfortunate enough to gravitate into Fred\u2019s barstool orbit, how he was pulling traps in a full gale out of his 10 foot dinghy one terrible November.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t mean \u2026?\u201d the poor unsuspecting stool neighbor would invariably ask in horror.<\/p>\n
\u201cYup,\u201d Fred would nod, finishing his beer in a final gulp \u2026 and ordinarily the newbie would tell the bartender to give Fred another, on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerrible storm,\u201d Fred would continue once his glass arrived. \u201cWorst we\u2019d seen all year. But I had traps to pull and by god, no storm ever stopped Fred Jensen, not before, not since.\u201d Fred would glance at his victim, raise his glass and toast the courage of a man such as himself. \u201cI almost swamped on the first trap gettin her in. Full pot, top to bottom with the clacking monsters. I no sooner opened the side hatch than half the beasts were in the boat, grabbin on to my boots, crawlin up my rainpants. It was awful those 8 legged bastards all trying to get at me. And the wind was blowin awful too. And the rain was comin in sideways. I knew right then I\u2019d have to row out of there, crabs or no.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was kickin em off me, rowing into the wind and rain was an inch deep in the bottom so the crabs were sloshin back and forth and up my legs. About halfway to shore two of the biggest buggers made it up to my chest, clackin those nasty claws, tearin at my life preserver. It was a nightmare, me tryin to row and swat at the beasts same time. I was half crazy \u2026 and that\u2019s when the big one got hold of my swattin hand. Took those fingers right to the bone. I had to beat him with the oar before he\u2019d let go.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy god, man!\u201d his listener would cry, \u201cgive this man another drink!\u201d<\/p>\n
Fred, of course, would drag the story out until the drinks stopped coming. Sometimes the boat went over crabs, oars and all. Sometimes the crab that amputated his fingers was kept by the U.W. Science Department, it being the biggest Dungeness ever caught in Puget Sound. Sometimes he rowed back out for the second pot, undeterred by blood loss or hurricane winds, a saltier dog than any in song or story.<\/p>\n
Usually, though, one of us South Enders would yell down the bar, all of us yahoos laughing and hollering, \u201cHey, Fred, didn\u2019t you say you lost those in a saw accident?\u201d And another would shout, \u201cNaw, he took em off in a nose picking incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fred would growl. Fred would swear. Fred would give us the finger \u2026 even if it was nothing but the stub. And if it was late enough and he was sufficiently liquified, Fred would tell the saga of the saw. \u201cI was cuttin through this old growth maple, see? Harder than iron and my saw had a 52 inch blade I\u2019d just sharpened, ran it off a Plymouth slant six I\u2019d rebuilt the week before\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Crabbers are like fishermen, only worse. They\u2019ll exaggerate, lie outright, then tell you the most wild-eyed outlandish whoppers only the chronically gullible would believe. Three Finger Fred loves to hold up his stubs and tell any newcomer who\u2019s unfortunate enough to gravitate into Fred\u2019s barstool orbit, how he was pulling traps in a full gale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[1974,1975],"class_list":["post-11835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-crabbing-on-the-south-end","tag-if-trump-was-a-crabber"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11836,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11835\/revisions\/11836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}