Illogical Fish Fan (or the story of the tattoo)

 I used to hate fish. I grew up in Colorado and our choices of seafood were Long John Silver's and salmon steaks. And I am not sure that either seafood item actually came from anywhere with water. I remember digging into gamey, smelly, reddish, horseshoe shaped salmon steaks and spending the whole meal picking the small bones out of my teeth.  Long John Silver's was fine(it is fried seafood like items all put on a plate with fries), but my memories of it were destroyed with the break of the Clarence Thomas scandal.

That all changed in 1992 when I took a trip to Seattle with my family. I was young, adolescent and it was the 90's grunge era. I had six different flannel shirts and would often wear more than one at a time. We went to Pike Place market and I fell in love. These large hunky guys (to my 13 year-old brain) threw around fish and crab and it looked so cool. We went to seafood restaurants and the salmon and crab were amazing. The salmon was flaky and pink and didn't smell like old socks. The dungeoness crab was actually crab and not "artificial crab meat".  We went to the coast and I remember the smell of ocean, the seaweed, the tides and the fifteen year-old boy at the campsite across from us. 

From that point on, I was determined to move to Seattle. I fell in love with the beauty of the water, the sound of the ocean and of course, "teen spirit"

I had my first crush on a fisherman in 1994. His name was Eamon, and he was the fictional sustanence fisherman from the movie "The Secret of Roan Inish".  He was 15 and Irish and he spent most of his time helping his small cousin recreate their family fishing village. I have to admit that I did daydream about going to Ireland, moving to a small fishing village and marrying an Irish man. Too bad the movie was set in the fourties; And, as a 90's grunge girl, I was not cut out for small village life.

Speaking of things I am not cut out for, I next decided to work as a fisherman in Alaska the summer after my senior year in high school. My plan was to be one of the people who gutted the fish on an assembly line. Nevermind that there have been times in my life when my lack of coordination has caused my friends to suggest I have supervision when I use cutlery. Nevermind that I got seasick on a cruise ship only months earlier. I was determined. I was going to gut fish, live in Alaska and live the life of a seaman. Luckily, I did not make enough money to pay for the ticket to Seattle on my own, and my parents were not interested in seeing how many fingers a girl like me would come back with.

Next plan: move to Seattle and marry a fisherman. I transfered from Colorado State University to the University of Puget Sound my junior year of college. I planned to move somewhere close to a port and become like Brandy(immortalized in the one hit wonder by Looking Glass) There were only two problems with this plan(okay, there are several problems with this plan, but these are the most important).  One, the University of Puget Sound was in Tacoma (which, coincidently smelled similar to the landlocked Salmon I ate as a kid). Two, there were no fishermen hanging out at the student center of my liberal arts college.

The closest I got to my ocean dream was an interdisciplinary humanities class on Salmon Recovery in the Puget Sound. I built on that with a summer research grant on the Philosophy of Salmon Science(yes, I am that nerdy). It was pretty cool, I went all over the northwest, studied scientific papers on salmon recovery and ATE lots of nummy salmon. By the end of my senior year, I knew when I could get the tastiest salmon(copper river) and which salmon stocks were about to croak.  I got to spend days at the offices of the EPA, the intertribal fish commision and the National Marine Fisheries Service(NMFS, try to pronounce the acronym, it sounds dirty ). 

As I met tribal members and learned about the commercial fishing tradition in the Northwest, my adolescent obsession became a true love. Salmon tastes amazing, but there are cultural connections to fish in Washington that go back to the earliest Native American Tribes in the state. There are commercial fishing families in Ballard, Edmonds and Bothell that go back generations.  I started to read books about salmon and the history of the Columbia River (okay, I read the books I was supposed to read in my interdisciplinary class, but who reads books for class?).

I have developed crushes on other fish over time, but Salmon remains my true love. Hence, the larger that I ever thought it would be tattoo.  I got it in law school, I was hoping that the salmon stocks would find it sexy.


Fishy Stuff :

• Seafood Watch - I did a large research project on Blue Fin Tuna in law school which cemented my concern about global fish stocks. This site looks at sustainability issues and helps consumers make good choices.
• Intertribal Fish Commission - Northwest Native American views on how to deal with the demise of Salmon in the northwest
• The Secret of Roan Inish - Still one of favorite movies. It is a fairy tale about fishing and a seal woman.
• WWF community Fishing Program 
• The Deadliest Catch - umm sweet....but I get to scared to watch.