A Fish Tale from Purgatory Cove Fish Dock & Marina
Visitors welcome, especially those with cash.....
Published: Thursday, August 11, 2011 7:00 am
By: Sam, Lefty and Wade - Proprietors
Well, it’s been a slow week here in Purgatory Cove. We did have a spot of excitement earlier in the week, though. Seems this Hollywood type fella came to the cove. At least we think he was from Hollywood even though he had kind of an English accent, or at least a foreign one.
He was poking around the cove and the town. Kept muttering something about reality, as if we weren’t real or something. He had this group of fellas following him around, writin' things down and takin' pictures with their fancy cameras.
It was plain to see they weren’t really boat people; they kept tripping over every little thing. One even fell off the dock on the way out to the bait shack. We got him out of the water and dried off. He went back to lookin' around. Ended up takin' the cover off of Willy’s bait barrel and sticking his head inside. Next thing we know, he’s hanging off the fish dock chummin' the fish. Fella must have had a big lunch, too.
As I said, this guy was pokin' around everywhere. He was particularly taken with our burning barrels, you know, the ones where we burn the trash, old oil and stuff. Kept wantin' to move things around, for "better visual composition" or some such nonsense. Sam wasn’t particularly happy to have these folks pokin' around his place like they were, but the Mayor was there and kept tellin' Sam how good a thing this would be for both the town (Paradise Cove) and Purgatory Cove Fish Dock & Marina.
Sam was particularly bothered when the folks started pokin' around in the boat shed. One of them even managed to pull over the big anchor from that barge that grounded on the flats a while back. He managed to get back away before it hit him but it sure did make a big noise.
The Mayor was pullin' out all the stops to impress these fellas. He even talked the county into sending down a crew to rake the big chunks off the beach, just past the docks. Once that was done, another gang, volunteers from the VFW, came in and set up a bunch of tables and chairs. Looked like they cleaned out the VFW poker room to do it, too.
Next thing we know, Nancy and a bunch from Tooties are setting up this fancy lunch for the visitor. At least fancy by Paradise Cove standards. The Mayor rounds up all the folks wanderin' around the cove and gets them set down for lunch. Before these poor folks could dig in, though, they had to listen to the Mayor speechifying.
The Mayor finally finished his speech exactly at noon. We know it was exactly at noon as that’s when the fertilizer plant blows the noon whistle. The only problem is that the fertilizer plant doesn’t use steam or air pressure to blow the whistle. They use the pressure built up in their fertilizer vats to power the whistle.
Sam, Lefty and Wade were well aware of this and had already made tracks into the office and closed the door. The rest of those poor folks were out in the open as the green and purple cloud from the whistle blew across the cove. The whole crowd vamoosed just as fast as they had arrived, leaving the Mayor standing there, green to the gills and wondering what had happened.
The last thing that English guy said was something like, “This is TOO real. We wouldn’t have any survivors left here.” Whatever that meant.
Other than that, it’s been a slow week here in Purgatory Cove.
