Fish Tales

Captain Scott Rorro was on his boat, the Ernest and Michael, getting ready for back-to-back scallop trips when a couple from Lowell peered down from MacMillan Wharf in Provincetown. Rorro invited them aboard.
Standing in bright sunshine, Rorro answered a string of questions and said although he is a day-boat fisherman now, he had been on trips lasting two weeks or longer. The visitors, impressed, said fishermen must be the epitome of rugged.

The sun was blazing hot, but everyone at the Bass River Farmers Market was smiling as they approached Denice Lapierre at the F/V Isabel and Lilee tent to pick up scallops or put in an order for fish.

They stop to talk about most anything:

The weather.

Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, kids, a nephew’s golf game.

New friends, old friends, mutual friends.

New homes and hometowns.

Youth and old age.

Pre-school, colleges, senior living.

And a lot about recipes.

One of Will Ligenza’s first jobs was crewing on a boat out of Chatham 20 years ago with a skinny high school kid named Farrell Davis, and the captain said, “If you make that kid cry I will give you $50.”

Sandy Peterson, who lives at Liberty Commons in Chatham, loves to watch cooking shows, particularly on PBS.

In the 1990s, a lot of clams landed in Chatham and Domenic Santoro remembers a young guy coming to Barn Hill Landing with a pick-up truck, ice box on the back.

Just after 9 a.m. on a warm March day, Dan Howes was in his barn sorting oysters taken off the grant that morning.

Kelsie Linnell was spending 10 days in a row on a 75-foot boat, working during the day and pulling the 1 to 6 a.m. watch; when she did get on land it was for 24 hours at a time trying to pack in all she missed: seeing friends and family, going to the gym, going out to dinner, and grabbing a good cup of coffee.