Essence of Innocence

In the 40s, when we stayed at my grandmother’s house on Sullivan’s Island each summer, we went crabbing at least every other week. “We” consisted of my mother, her sister Gert, sometimes her son Jimmy, who was 10 years my senior, and various assorted friends of the family. I was totally involved in this family pastime from the age of 4 through approximate 12, or more specifically, until Tsunami-sized waves of hormones swept me in a less wholesome direction.

We would always go to the same spot, the back beach near Brach Inlet (Sullivan’s Island side), a place now dominated by monstrous mansions and rampaging jet skiers. We would take a large galvanized metal tub to carry the unfortunate creatures back home, crab lines, sinkers, nets, chicken necks and backs, a large cooler filled with adult beverages, plus a few RC Colas for me, and some sandwiches, potato chips, and chocolate-covered graham crackers, my favorite sweet, till an afternoon of gormandizing an entire bag by myself the edge of nausea, caused me to avoid them for about five years.

A crab line consisted of a 30- or 40-foot length of heavy twine with the sinker (a lead weight to keep the bait from floating) and the chicken part tied to one end, and the whole thing being wrapped around a sturdy stick. To get started, you simply unraveled some line, tossed it about 20 feet out into the water, then jammed the stick firmly into the ground to keep the crab from pulling everything away. Then, all you had to do was occasionally check the line for nibbles. If you pulled the line taut—or the crab did—you could feel the clueless crustacean tugging on it. At that point, you would begin pulling the line slowly toward you, the word being “slowly,” since an rapid movement would frighten the crab away.

I became an expert immediately—at least, according to my overindulgent mother and aunt. Actually, thought I was thankfully unaware of it at the time, this, I’m afraid, was to be my first and only area of expertise, unless you count my beer-guzzling feats of the early and mid-60s.

Eventually I was promoted to “scooper,” the person who, using a net attached to a 5- or 6-foot pole, scooped up the crab sinker, bait and all, out of the water. This task required you to stand very still next to the spot where the puller would draw in the crab, then place your net beneath him (the crab) while the puller lifted him closer to the surface. If the water was too shallow, then the job was a bit more difficult, beacuase you had to quicly—in one stroke—place your net directly behind the crab this time, and with a sweeping motion., flip the crab from the bottom of the ocean into the net.

I became the most enthusiastic crabber in the group, possibly because I was the youngest, not to mention most sober, running back and forth to check each line, to scooping while someone else pulled. Sometimes, at the pinnacle of my skills, I would do both, no doubt causing my mother to pray that one day there might be an Olympic crabbing event so I could represent the U.S.

While I focused on the chores of crabbing, the adults spent—what I thought then—was an inordinate amount of time availing themselves of liquid refreshments, which mainly consisted of Bourbon with Coke or ginger ale. In those days, my parents and their friends had a special method of consuming alcoholic beverages: It was called “drinking shooters,” which meant you first swigged down the contents of the shot glass—usually two ounces—then “chased” it down with your mix. It afforded very little gratification for your taste buds, but guaranteed a nearly instantaneous buzz, sometimes followed by a trip to the “DisOrient Express.”

Sometimes, my Aunt Adele, who was a lesbian, and a “friend” would come along. I, of course, was unaware of her situation, as were many adults for that matter (after all the was the 40s) however, I was keenly aware of her unusually short haircut (for a woman), severe mannish clothes, and orthopedic-looking shoes, which, at the time, made me a little embarrassed, especially in front of my friends. I would always try to explain her unorthodox appearance by telling them that she worked for the Secret Service in Washington, DC, (which she did) and that she was working undercover as a man. She was actually a secretary for that agency, so I was at least half truthful. Well, that’s more than a politician can say. At times, people on the beach would stare at her, but that didn’t seem to bother Adele one bit, who I noticed tossed back her “shooters” faster than anybody, despite her 4 feet 11 inch, 80 pound frame. Prior to hitting the beach, we would always stop at Mr. Magwood’s store, which was right there nestled in the undisturbed dunes bordering the inlet. It was sort of a very small general store that sold fishing and crabbing supplies, groceries, hats, beer, and cigarettes. We would pick up some extra lines, and inevitably at some point during the day, I would be sent back to buy someone a pack of (un)Lucky Strikes, an event which always prompted the same remark from Mr. Magwood: “Why, Bobby, I thought you smoked Chesterfields.”

We would all grease up with suntan lotion on the first trip of the summer, but never use it after then, once we all had acquired our pre-carcinogenic hues.

Once the tub got about half filled, or one or more of the grownups got so red—sun or alcohol induced, they began to get woozy—we packed up and went home.

Then the fun really started: :Live crab boiling. The rub would be placed on the kitchen’s linoleum floor, and one of the family members would begin lifting the crabs, with tongs, one by one out of the tub and dropping them into a huge pot of boiling water, which sat on the gas stove. The poor crab, one hitting the water, would struggle to swim briefly, then suddenly freeze—though that certainly seems like the wrong verb—and turn a bright orange in a matter of seconds. It was a gruesome yet morbidly fascinating sight, especially for a kid who exulted in shooting the neighbor’s annoying children with a sawed-off Red Rider BB gun, filled with sand, flame-torching roaches, and blowing up ants and roaches with cherry bombs. I was allowed to play the part of lord high executioner myself, a role which was not perfected without numerous mishaps, mainly the dramatic escapes of many of the barnacled brethren, as they managed to struggle free of the “Terrible Tongs of Doom” and scuttled to freedom, some of whom were found days later, with the involuntary assistance of olfactory systems.

Fortunately for myself, my family, and the rest of the family and contrary to recent psychological studies, these evil inclinations proved only to be temporary, and, in fact, I don’t even like to crab at all any more, much less boil the poor devils in the “Cauldron of Agony” because I no longer want to be part of such an inhumane process. However, this will not prevent me from enjoying the crab in all its delectable dining manifestations.

I think this makes me a Wimpocrit, an undesirable category somewhere between a wimp and a hypocrite. But after waking up in the middle of the night over the past few days with an ever increasing urge to retrieve my still sand-loaded BB gun from the attic for use as a road rage equalizer, I’m starting to feel that there are even more important reasons why I should not be returning to any of my borderline sadistic childhood activities, the betterment of mankind being the main one. By the way, did you know that Jeffrey Dahmer, in his youth, was an avid crabber too?