Fish Story

Yesterday we came home from the gym to a phone call from Red and Barbara who live near Dallas. In the course of Richie's conversation with Red, I heard him say, "No, I haven't heard anything about it --" over his shoulder to me, "Barbara just saw it on the news -- all the fish in Redondo Beach are dead!" Back to Red, "We're just going out, we'll go take a look."

And away we went. We saw a helicopter, motionless above the northwest part of the marina so we made our way to it (parking lot of Joe's Crabs) and parked, walked over to the heavy concrete "leaning" wall and stared intently into the water. Nothing. Just a big fat harbor seal sitting on a float.

We removed to the Redondo Beach Pier overlook area. Helicopter was still there, but again, we saw nothing unusual. We then realized we could have seen more at home in our living room on TV, but ... we were out anyhow so ...and it was a beautiful day.

That afternoon, Richie was online and I was reading when the cell phone rang, startling us. I never leave it on once we're home. In fact, Richie said, "What's that noise?"

"Cell phone," I replied as I answered.

"Hi, Nina and Richie, this is Bob and this is a CERT call-in; not a joke, we're calling you in to work the harbor."

"The fish?" I asked.

"Yes."

(Me, increduously) "You want us to come and shovel up dead fish?"

"Yeah, they're on the verge of becoming a haz mat. So yeah that or administrative work..."

"Okay," I said and hung up. "Richie, we're gonna go shovel up dead fish."

Since CERT trained us to do post-earthquake rescue work including triage, first aid and the use of an Automatic External Defibrillator shoveling dead fish was something of a comedown.

The call had come in at 3:15 p.m. by 3:30 we were at the CERT set-up. A police car was guarding the entrance to the parking lot next to the Cheesecake Factory; we had to show our CERT photo i.d.s to get in. We signed in and were put into a team with two others and told to go to the marina public toilets (not exactly an auspicious start) and ask for a man named Angel. He'd put us to work.

Our destination, Marina #1, is next to the park where CERT holds its annual picnic and it's where Bob keeps his 36 ft. yacht, so we knew exactly where to go. But first we had to get past the cop guarding one side of the double driveway in.

"Stop," he said authoratarily, "No admittance, heavy machinery."

I held up my CERT photo i.d. and said, "We're supposed to help with the fish."

Just as he said, "Okay" the officer guarding the other side of the driveway approached and said, "No admittance" and the first cop interjected, "They're volunteers for the fish!" Second cop turned and as he walked away, he said, "What do I know? I'm just a cop..." in tones meant to carry.

We soon found Angel, who herded our foursome down to the water and the long sidewalk that passed between the boats, parked nose in. The waters around all of the boats were densely packed with dead fish.

"Take a net and dump the fish in this red barrel," Angel told us, pointing to a red plastic, half-barrel with two rope handles. I'm used to seeing these barrels, but they'd always been filled with ice and beer in the past. A new concept and I very much preferred the old.

Dutifully I took the long-handled net and began an undewater swoop, bring up as many fish as I thought the net could hold (15 to 20 lbs.) and dumping them with difficulty into the barrel. To get them all out, I had to reach down with my bare hand, grab the bottom of the net and up end it. Kind of ookie even if you did have on gloves because the fat, little fish would get stuck in the netting and you had to Deal With It.

Our barrels filled quickly and were emptied into the two-wheeled carts the boat owners use to transport stuff from their cars to their boats. These carts were trundled up to the parking lot where a bulldozer blade was used to transport them Somewhere. We'd been told the sardines would be ground up and made into fertilizer. I thought of Michelle's sadness and grief. She loves to grill them outdoors in summer.

After nearly an hour of bending, swooping, straightening, bending over the red barrel, my back began to snip meanly at me so I reluctantly handed my net to the next guy and went back to the car. The public toilets were some distance behind me so, since I was in the Blue Water Grill parking lot anyhow, I slithered in, hiding my fishy hands, and washed up.

I sat in our car for more than 30 minutes, walked back to the job site - no Richie. So I trudged back to the car and sat for a moment. Then, mind made up, I scribbled a quick note for Richie and asked the sign-out CERT team to give it when he finally showed up. I said, "I'm going to the Cheesecake Factory -- a CERT guy yelled, "Half-price sushi! All you can eat!" -- and I grinned and said, "No, a dirty gin martini, up!"and pranced off.

I took my time sipping it ($5 - happy hour) and met Richie in the parking lot. He said, "I'm too hungry to wait for dinner at home" and pulled up in front of Charlie's (formerly Cialucci's) and we had lovely dinners as usual.

I raised my glass of wine and toasted the dead sardines although I knew Michelle would have been mourning them.

As far as "danger" was concerned in this CERT call-in, the only peril we risked was not noticing a dead fish, stepping on it and slipping, falling on our asses or into the water.