RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29742, 8 February 1962, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

SLOPPY JOES

A note of warning to those who may still have their holidays ahead, and who propose to visit a seaside resort. Do not, on any account, be persuaded into taking part in the amateur trawling activities which seem now to be firmly fixed in the New Zealand summer scene.

It can happen so easily. You go for a stroll on the beach, and some reasonable-looking character passes the time of day with you. Before you know what you have done, you have agreed to share the perils and responsibilities of a trawl as soon as the tide is right. Once committed in this fashion, you are really for it. You will find that the tide will not be in the proper place for trawling until some time after midnight, and at that unearthly hour your new friends, dressed in all manner of startling apparel, will come knocking at your door. And they’re not like opportunity, so it’s no use turning over and pretending you didn’t hear.

You shiver your way down to the beach with them, and find to your horror that you are expected to pull a pole the size of a lamp-post across the sea-bed, with

strict instructions not to let it leave the bottom for a moment. You may have three or more colleagues, and they will tell you that if it is a rather nippy night, it’s not so bad at the deep end, because once you’re in the water you keep wanner than those who trudge along at the shallow end of a net which seems to measure half a furlong in length. So out you go, you spoiled creature, to "the luxury of the deep end, with a mate to pull the rope while you keep the pole down. There is considerable debate about what depth to go out to. but it’s no use stopping hopefully as soon as your ankles are covered by the icy wavelets. ’ You wade away, finding it difficult to exchange pleasantries with your colleague, until you are up to your neck. Then the trawl begins—and that little five-letter word can never suggest the feats of skill and strength you are expected to perform. After a minute or two, you begin to wish you had taken on some simple task like pulling a traction-engine uphill with your teeth. And in the third minute, the waves begin to dash over you with horrible slapping sounds, and then the wind gets up.

Somehow the water seems to get deeper, and in your determined effort to keep the pole down you find yourself afloat, hands still full of wood, feet on the same level.

It is about this stage that you wish you had worn something tighter than the old pair of slacks you found hanging up in the shed, for they begin to fill with water. It is not uncommon for them to be washed off down to the knees, and the loss of dignity does nothing to make progress the easier. When at last you turn in for the beach, you cut your feet on shells and are given sharp little nips by crabs; you struggle out with your empty net.

With glad cries of doing better this time, they put you out again. But the process seldom lasts more than a couple of hours, and when it is all done the four of you share up the three herrings and the hair oil bottle. Your associates simply cannot understand why there was not a better return; they come to the conclusion that they were not out quite deep enough, and they say they will do much better the next night. And they insist that you should join them ...