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Marty’s Memories: A Fishing Family by Marty Trower

I’ve heard that Lawson Doughty may have sold his family home on the west end. An ordinary house from outward appearances, but when I stepped through the door one winter forty-five years ago, I was forever changed. Lawson’s mother, Venora, was a mother to many, not just her large family but to all their friends too. She had lost her husband and her oldest sons at sea when her only daughter, Marlene, was a baby. It was during World War II, and the boat may have been destroyed by the enemy. It was never found. On my day of memory we happened upon the remaining sons, all fishermen, gathered in a semicircle on chairs in the kitchen. Furniture had been pushed back, and there were buckets in the middle of the ring of husky, joking men. We grouped around them, leaning on the walls or furniture, just listening to the banter, all to do with fishing. Island Electric

The sons shucked mountains of clams into these buckets for a great while, the windows of the house steaming up with so many of us watching, breathing, laughing. Many wonderful comments drifted around, the best from a new arrival being, “Been clammin’?” At night the home was transformed, the floors were mopped, mikes on stands were set up, and Marlene sang her heart out to us all, crammed into the living room. Med, not yet Marlene’s husband, was learning how to play the guitar and sing. His signature song was “Abilene, Abilene,” and we heard that one a lot. Years later, when Marlene and Med became part of the Wagoneers and played and sang at the Bounty Lounge at the hotel, that song would draw me back to Venora’s fun, welcoming home. Would I ever be able to describe how I felt there and how I was changed somehow from the experience?

Charles W. Hal l

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MAY 2017 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR