Salmon and Salt: Remembering Fishing with Grandfather

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
And you can listen to the show on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcast. Up next, a
story from Carlin Merlantes. Carl is a Marine who received
the Navy Cross for his service in Vietnam and the

(00:33):
author of Matterhorn and What it is Like to Go
to War Today. He shares with us the story of
his time growing up in the Pacific Northwest and working
with his grandfather and one of America's most dangerous professions.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Take it away, Carl, I was born in Astoria, Oregon,
and my dad was actually in the Battle of the
Bulge at the time I was born, and I grew
up in a town about fifteen miles away. My mother

(01:11):
went up there to have you at the hospital there. Seaside, Oregon,
which was a logging town, a little town of about
twenty five hundred people. The two major professions where I
grew up were fishing and logging, and I actually looked

(01:33):
it up. They are the two most dangerous occupations that
we have. About every year, somebody's father would die in
the woods, or somebody would drown. And I remember five
of my friends lost their fathers during the time I
was going to school with them, So dying death was
it wasn't morbid, No, we just didn't think much about it.

(01:55):
It was like, oh, yeah, Alan's dad just got rolled
over while log and he died. And you know, and
you're eight or nine, you know, you just plugged along.
And most of the kids in the summer tried to
get jobs in the woods because they paid really well.
That was back in the day when you know, labor
was making good money. I mean, you know, Detroit was booming,

(02:16):
and he could work on the assembly lines and you know,
be able to take vacations in Florida. And my grandfather
was a commercial fisherman, Scannonavian. He was a Swedish Finn
and he was a salmon fisherman, Gilnetter, And I love

(02:37):
to tell this story about him because give you an
idea of his character. He was working a log boom
by himself and the two booms came together and crushed
both of his legs, and he crawled about a mile
to get to his car and drove himself to the

(02:57):
hospital and one of the legs had to be amputated
and he couldn't do log booms anymore, and of course
fishing he needed help. So my older brother and I
were then brought into the family business. So I fished
with my grandfather when I was from about age thirteen,
i'd guess into seventh grade. It was a wonderful experience

(03:27):
because how many kids actually get to work with their
grandfather and you know, spend time with him, lots of
time because fishing, it's like it's massive activity when the
salmon are hitting and the nets out and you have
to try and pull those nets in as fast as
you can, and then you set up another what they

(03:49):
called drifts, and you put the net back out and
then you're there. You just sit and wait for the
fish to hit again. And that's a lot of downtime.
And one of the things I laugh about at my
younger self being with my grandfather. I did nothing but
gin moan the entire time I worked for him, because
it was like, how come I have to come up

(04:09):
at two o'clock in the morning because he has all
about tides. You have to go out on the tide,
you have to have to hit the fish when the
tide is slack or running your way. So you know,
if it's two in the morning, it's that's you get
up and go to work. And I learned how to
do that. And I actually slept with my grandmother and

(04:33):
my grandfather. It was really old country, I mean, you know,
and I can remember the smell. I mean, it was
just like they didn't use deodorant, you know. But so
I slept, itpt in the same bed with my grandpa
and grandma, and it rasped me out of bed at
midnight or whatever, and off we'd go to work. And
I can remember complaining. All my friends work in restaurants

(04:54):
and all the girls come and talk to them, and
they get to eat all the ice cream may want.
And I have to be up at two in the
morning and go out this rain and this cold, and
I could just I could just think about my poor grandfather,
you know, I emigrated from Finland to raise this, you know,
I mean, it was It's one of those tragedies when
you're young, you have no idea how privileged you are

(05:16):
to be able to have the experience as you do.
And I learned a lot from my grandfather. I mean,
one of the things was coolness under fire. I mean,
we'd get in trouble every so often. I mean, tides
go wrong, the winded push us in the wrong direction,
we'd come up against rocks, waves coming in over the gunwales,
and Grandpa was just cool. I mean, if I was

(05:42):
doing something wrong, or if we were slow getting the
net out, he'd be jumping up and down on his
wooden leg and screaming at me. But when real trouble hit,
it was just incredible to watch him just go into
sort of cool mode and solve the problem. And he
never panicked. And I was frightened lots of times because
it's dangerous work. I mean, that's all I can say.

(06:04):
And I kind of grew up, you know, learning a
lot of lessons that way. The other one was, you know,
like the first beer that I ever had was on
the fourth of July and I was thirteen and my
granda was on the docks with all the other fishermen.
They were celebrating the fourth of July, and Grandpa handed
me a beer, you know, and it was like, by God,
I'm a grown up, you know, but a wonderful feeling.

(06:25):
I always remember this day, just my grandfather handing me
a beer and just saying you know. I didn't say
a word. You didn't say a word, but I was
there with all the all the other fishermen, you know.
So he was an important part of my life. He
really was.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and a special thanks to Calm Melantis for sharing the
story of his grandfather. They hear the story of those
two booms and how they came together and crushed his
grandfather's legs, and he crawls back to the car, gets
himself to the hospital and gets a amputated, only to
go to another dangerous profession, salmon fishing. And the stories

(07:05):
and the lessons that Karl learned from his grandfather, including
that first beer. On July fourth, Carl melentis the story
of his grandfather here on Our American Story. Liehbibi here

(07:32):
the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
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