7/14/12
The human brain can be a very elusive organ. It tends to be very biased with what gets remembered and how. Perhaps you’ve experienced this with old missives that didn’t live up to your memory’s expectations. Maybe there’s a burger place that you remember as exquisite but is now simply mediocre. In cases like these your mind has developed a selective memory that has promoted highly irrational delusions of grandeur. In my case the most recent delusion of personal record was the colorful olfactory experience that is fishing. People always inquired as to the smells of fishing, “Do you just stink of fish the whole time?” was the usual. I responded with “I don’t know” because after a while your stink becomes a part of you that you cannot identify after a week or two on the boat. My mind had artfully forgotten the first week or two. Upon arriving in the galley I dressed my bunk with last year’s blanket and my sheets. Naturally I decided a sniff check was in order, this produced a gag but it was little compared to the most putrid of galley stenches
To explain such a culprit of stink I need to introduce this year’s crew: Kurt Hansen (Captain), Chris Hansen (Skiff), Leif Hansen (Leads), Kurt Neihoff (Corks), Myself Hansen (Web), and visiting Andreas Hansen (Galley Boy Extraordinaire). With so many Hansen’s on one vessel there’s bound to be mischief. Poor Turkish (Neihoff) is a foreigner to our fast-paced Hansen dialect, which is basically English through the guise of endless family references. Chris our designated storyteller which makes him a walking dictionary to Turkish’s Hansen inquiries. It’s great having two whole uncles on the Middleton but a major drawback their damn charm. Whenever a female comes within two fathoms of the boat I can’t get a word in, resulting in a truly Alaskan season. The final mark of a Hansen crew is their ability to take delicious food into their body and turn it into something toxic. My new bunk this year has the unfortunate location of the exiting draft that urges my sense of smell towards suicide.
Leif wins the award for most deadly Hansen intestines. Luckily I picked up a runny nose so I was spared for the greater part of two weeks. Other than smell, the familiar sting of a jellyfish seemed to slip my mental archives. Land people used to say “Oh that must hurt!” in my foolish humility I responded “It’s not so bad.” Turns out it really is so bad, and then some. Stupid selective memory. To the chagrin of el capitan, knots were another omission from these faulty memory banks. He’s reading this now, nodding his head gruffly.
On that note, laundry is done so I must away!
Hope land is suiting you all.
Mac
