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I moved up to Alaska from California in 1990 and, after briefly working for a Republican Senator, went to sea for a three-month hitch on the P/V Northern Victor. I was on one of the small boats at first, thought I was going to die, and managed after a few weeks to lie my way into the galley of the big boat. We were fishing for pollack. The only time I ever got sea sick was on my very last day, on a small boat, headed into Dutch Harbor. After my stint, I drove to Memphis from Anchorage for the 1990 Ole Miss-Tennessee game and was planning on going back for crab season, but got a gig on Saint Croix as a sportswriter for the Virgin Islands Daily News.

A GOOD MAN.
OXFORD TOWN #121 DECEMBER 13, 1995

IT HAS BEEN FIVE YEARS since I've heard from Norm, and it just occurred to me that he might be dead. Norm Minoit was one of the best acquaintances I've ever made, and considering the life I knew him to live, he very well might be dead.

Five years ago this week I received a letter from Norm that had been postmarked at a tiny post office on a far-flung island in the Alaskan Aleutians. We had been making plans to meet either in Germany or Honduras, and he told me to have a good Christmas and that he would let me know by the end of January which country to go to. I haven't heard from him since.

Norm and I shared, with two other men, cabin #3 on the P/V Northern Victor, a fishing vessel that journeyed the Bering Sea, daily pulling in thousands of pounds of pollack and anything else unfortunate enough to get caught in the nets.

We met on the airplane that took twenty other workers and us over a 1000 miles from Anchorage to the port of Dutch Harbor, on the mountaintop island of Unalaska. I first saw him in the Anchorage Seaman's Hall, where company officials told horror stories to dissuade any would-be seamen who couldn't handle the danger, the numbing cold or the six-hours-on, six-hours-off, seven-days-a-week-for-three-months work schedule. "Out in the Bering," said the official, "we'll find out if you're seamen or semen."

I noticed Norm when he was the only man in the room who stared straight ahead while the rest of us laughed.

I had bought some second-hand paperbacks in Anchorage and had begun reading Larry Wells' ROMMEL AND THE REBEL on the airplane. Norm noticed the title. "It has something to do with Germany?'

"In a round-about way," I told him.

"I would like to read it when you're finished," he said.

"I've got another if you'd like to try it out," I said, and pulled out Kerouac's ON THE ROAD.

"Ah. I read it years ago," he said. "It is very good." Something then told me this soft-spoken and neat fellow was different from the others we made our journey with: they wore long scraggly beards, weather-beaten clothes and cursed loudly while debating if sex was better with Eskimo or Indian Women. One of the loudest of these men, a Norwegian called Bluey, captained one of the smaller boats. I hoped to end up on one of these.

We worked on deck of the Northern Victor for two weeks while proving our seaworthiness to go out on the smaller boats that crashed through the waves and dared fate in the deep of the world's angriest sea. Bunking with Norm, I had quickly learned about him: he was from Honduras and his family lived near the Guatemala border. At 12 he had stowed away on a ship to Germany, where he learned not only the local language but also English and French, along with smatterings of others. He had worked and paid his way through school and married a woman from Germany, who now lived there with their son. He could discuss the pros and cons of the European Union as easily as he could how to make safe rope knots. He worked this dangerous job, as he had for years, in order to send money to both families. The day came that crew volunteers for a small boat, The Alaskan Venture, were called for. I was among the first who stepped forward and was elated when Bluey, the boat's captain, pointed at me and nodded. But Norm also stepped forward. He pointed at me and said, "You don't want the American, Bluey. He won't be able to handle it. I bunk with him."

Norm had been at sea for years and his word was good with Bluey. I was furious. Later, in our cabin, Norm told me, "You do not want to go to sea with Bluey."

A week later, during a storm, the Northern Victor's captain sent me down the ship's side on a rope ladder to untangle a chain. That night, Norm cursed me and told me to never again accept such a dangerous assignment.

"But Captain can send me to land," I said. "It is not better than being dead?" Norm replied. A month went by and we got the news one morning in the galley: The Alaskan Venture had gone down. Bluey and his crew of four were lost The attitude was that it was part of the life on the Bering Sea.

I grew to respect and love Norm. When we got to land I begged him to drive with me to Memphis to see Ole Miss and Tennessee play football. He just laughed. He had one more three-month contract to fulfill and twenty years at sea would be over. He insisted I visit he and his family. I sure would like to hear from him.

The King has Returned wrote:

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I don't always drink beer, but when I do............

Nah, that would be Lee "COACH" Morgan. He doesn't always drink beer, but when he does...