I Felt Like Crying
Ruth Kriehn - Fisherfolk of Jones Island
Ruth Kriehn - Fisherfolk of Jones Island
“By jingers," recalled Frank Braeger, "after I went on the lake I didn't like nothing else no more. I went back to the planing mill once, and every hour, it passed like a year. I would pass down here, and I would hear that old whistle blowing from the boats, and I felt like crying.
Braeger was recalling his life as a fisherman. "It’s fifty-eight years I be on the lake. I was seventeen when I started fishing with my brother out of Jones Island. But a man’s older. Them bones aren’t so limber anymore, by gollies. It isn’t hard fishing like it used to be, but you still get a blow, and you get bounced, by jingers, you get bounced around like a rubber ball. “No, by God, if it was like it used to be, you wouldn’t have any fishermen. They couldn't stand it. They're not tough enough. Them open sailing boats, before we had the steam tugs; and the cold - your clothes froze right to you! And my wife, she wouldn't go away from the shore. One time there was a real ‘blow,’ and she was standing on shore with old man Schultz down on the island. Schultz was an old timer. He looked out at that lake, and jinger, she was blowing. He said, ‘Missus, you might as well go in. No open boat can live out the storm.’ “’Oh, Schultz’ she said, ‘I think I’ll wait for a while,’ and by God, when she says it, there I come around North Point. I had the Paul Jones then, and by gollies, I had to make small sails to get her in at all. “It was nice on Jones Island years ago, when all the fishermen lived there, and you could look right out of your window at the weather.” |