To The Man with The Spade Tiller
This last week, the morning after a late night stop at the harbor to organize for Saturdays derby, I overheard KBBI’s Bushline spot broadcasting the following message: "Found at the Homer Harbor, Silver Kershaw Knife. Call 299-#### to claim." Rubbing my eyes and sipping coffee on my drive to work, I hadn’t the wherewithal or incentive to jot down the number. I hadn’t yet realized that my favorite knife was missing. After all, it could have been anyone’s lost Kershaw. Later that evening, still piqued by the ad, I scoured the usual hiding grounds of the knife (pant pockets, bedside table, boat, floor of the car), and I came up empty. The next day I called KBBI and requested the finders number. What have I got to lose? A KBBI staffer called me back leaving a message with the number of the gentleman who had called it in. I dialed the number and the hoarse, unassuming voice on the other end suggested we meet at the harbor the next morning, 7am, bottom of ramp 6 to be exact. Uh, okay.
I followed his instructions and cautiously toed down the icy ramp. At the dock, not a soul. Only sleeping boats and a whipping wind. After thinking to myself I’d wasted a drive to the harbor at the crack of dawn, out slips a slender gentleman with a long grey beard and weathered look. Years of salty winds and water-reflected UV's may have deceived me, but he appeared to be in his mid-70’s. He ducked out from under a makeshift canopy covering a prehistoric 14’ skiff. I had already taken notice of this small boat and gave it no further attention, concluding it was either abandoned or, at best, unused since early fall. It surprised the hell out of me to witness someone emerge from the unheated, frozen aluminum vessel. He had clearly spent the night there and greeted me in nothing but a sweatshirt, baseball cap and tattered Carhartts, as if he were taunting the 8 degree temps and 15 knot winds.
"You must Tim", he asked. "I am, good morning." He then gently presented the knife. Upon careful examination and noting the small nick on the blade between the point and the the serrate, I confirmed it was indeed my Kershaw. He offered a description of where he had located it, exactly where I had parked two nights earlier. We got to talking for as long as I could endure the biting cold, and he shared having come across from Bear Cove to Homer for supplies in early December. With the brutal winter he has been unable to make the crossing back home so he’s been camping in transient moorage patiently waiting for the weather to ease up enough to provide a window of opportunity for a safe return. I noticed that the tiller on his 40-year-old two-stroke outboard was a rusty gardening spade duct-taped to where there once was the original cylindrical handle.
To him, his plight was no big deal, part of the Alaskan experience, which he still clearly loved despite his tenuous predicament. As we got to know each other a bit better, he disclosed a multitude of recent medical problems and reminisced about his extensive 55-year career as a commercial fisherman. He spoke proudly of his sons. The things he considered to be of value were clear, having nothing to do with the materialism to which our culture has regrettably maligned. I offered him $20 for his honestly and for having made the effort to find the rightful owner of the knife. I was further motivated to compensate him after hearing his coy comment about how fond he had become of the knife over the last 2 days. His response to my offer was “no, no, it’s not necessary.”
I pressed him to accept my modest offer, citing the rarity of such integrity these days, let alone under his circumstances. Finally, he accepted the money, softly saying “I guess I could use it.” I offered other compensations, not just for equitability but because I liked the guy. Transportation, a warm place to sleep, food, etc. With a grateful tone, he graciously declined them all. It was clear that the last thing he would consider would be to accept assistance that was not the product of his own creation or outside the margins of complete self-sufficiency. He finally accepted the 20-dollar bill, mostly because I had essentially pressed it upon him, and as if to avoid the risk of hurting my feelings for not reciprocating my gesture.
He had every intention of returning to his modest cabin across the bay, making the crossing in his skiff, navigating the way with his own “tiller” and at the time and conditions of his choice.
To the old-timer: thank you for returning my knife, which now has more value than it ever had. I hope you make it back home soon, and safely. And I also hope you know that I learned an invaluable lesson: kindness and honestly can coexist with personal hardship. At the end of the day it is in the sharing of our humanity that we prosper, especially when the tides turn against us and the weather forces us to take refuge.
