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9
MAY 2017 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR
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.
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?
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