They Live in Guinea Transcript
- [Radio] It's 24 minutes before 7 o'clock, your Eagle Eye forecast, for Newport News, Suffolk, and all of Hampton Roads. Got a 90% chance of rain today, the rain's going to be around through the evening hours. Today's high around 88, overnight low, about 75 degrees. Well, right now it is 72 south side, and it's 72 on the peninsula. It's Monday morning, time to get rolling here, let's see how your ride to work's going to be.
- [Traffic] Looking pretty good, James, over the bridge, that tested out in pretty good shape.
- On Hampton Road South, got a nice roll up there east and westbound. Just a reminder 11 o'clock opening, they're going to pop the Coleman bridge open at 11, it's going to be an extended opening. Right now, we've got about about a mile, mile and a half backup still at the Coleman, so a little tight coming in from Gloucester at the Coleman Bridge...
- [Dave] Anything in the news?
- Nothing, I just check the obituaries mostly. My name is Buck Rowe, and I own and operate this general store on State Route 216, here in Vienna, Virginia.
- And I'm Dave Berry, Bucks top-shelf man.
- This road runs by my store and winds through the area, we call Guinea.
- [Dave] You won't find any town named Guinea on the map. Still, some people call Buck the mayor.
- The York, Fern, and Severn Rivers, come together to form Guinea Neck, near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. No one knows exactly why we call this marsh here, a Guinea. Some people say the original Guineamen were deserters from the British colonial army who preferred to trade with the English gold coin, guineas, rather than switch to the Yankee dollar. For over 300 years, Guineamans have derived a good living, by fishing the Chesapeake Bay and her tributary rivers.
- How many more you need?
- There's more here, Pot.
- How many net you weighs?
- Big hogfish now...
- No, don't you tell me that Mike.
- I'm going to get him today.
- Don't you tell me that, Mike!
- Pull up!
- Let's go get them up.
- Pull! Pull! Pull!
- [Dave] For a good, long while, we really thought there was no limit to the amount of seafood we could pull from these waters.
- [Announcer] The Chesapeake Bay is simply the richest estuary on the face of the planet. Over 3,000 species make their homes here. One half of the blue crabs eaten in America, come from Virginia waters, as do one fifth of the oysters. And everywhere you go, you'll see boats, docks, and buildings, that tell you just how mighty is Virginia's fishing industry.
- [Buck] In some ways, Guinea has not changed much since I was a boy. They are still fishing, and crabbing, and church on Sundays. And every year we hold a big celebration with a parade.
- [Dave] But most of the time, we work from sunup to sundown. The watermen still mend their nets by hand.
- I'm cutting here, chafed it, where it chafed against the poles. Barnacles and replace it with new, just like that, over there.
- Yeah.
- If I live to see the last day of this month, I'd be 71 years old. Yeah, been in the water business all my life. Come up through the ranks, yeah. My grandfather was a fisherman, far back as I can think of, his ancestors was, my father was. Tell me what's proned in a man, will follow him to the grave, I guess that's it.
- Yeah.
- [Buck] Most Guinea watermen, like Jennings Hogg, come up through the ranks, learning their trade from their fathers, grandfathers, or uncles. Expert clammer, Captain Ronnie Crewe, is no exception to this rule, but his wife, Linda is. She is one of only a handful of women who never worked the waters in and around the Chesapeake. Today, Linda and Ronnie are setting out to catch clams in the harbor. The Crewe family gets up at 3:30 in the morning to get a good jump on the day and to beat the heat.
- The worse thing to do when you work with him, is stand up.
- I did it all my life, I've worked on the water since I was nine years old with my daddy. The shafts hung in oysters and I used to cull oysters for my three brothers and my daddy, my two brothers and my daddy.
- I've always liked the water. When I was a little girl, I used to be my daddy's fishing buddy and we used to go fishing. And I've always loved it, I mean loved it.
- [Ronnie] You got your usual hallow set time that you got to go anyway, you don't have nobody telling you you can go and you can't go. You go there and you do what you want to do. You make a set amount of money, you come in. That's what I like about it.
- [Linda] It's last free area in all the world probably, is working on the water. You're not contained in this little room with these other people contained in these little rooms. You're out here and you're in the open, and the air, and you're free. Just nothing like it, nothing like it.
- It's more satisfying than other jobs. You go out and you work hard, and you come home, and you're good tired, you sleep good at night.
- [Ronnie] That's right. As long as I can do this, I'm going to do it. As long as I can keep food in my family's mouth and a roof over their head, I'm just going to keep it on doing it.
- [Announcer] And before the sun is up, Chesapeake Bay products, are on their way to stores, schools, restaurants, and homes all over the country. This is big business. But even though the waterman's work is big business, it's communities on the Chesapeake remain small, quaint, and remote.
- [Buck] A lot has changed in Guinea since my father opened this store, in 19 and 20. In the '50s, they built the Coleman Bridge across the York River, joining Guinea to Yorktown, Newport News, and Norfolk. ♪ If Heaven ain't a lot like Dixie ♪ ♪ I don't wanna go ♪ ♪ If Heaven ain't a lot like Dixie ♪ ♪ I'd just as soon stay home ♪ ♪ If Heaven ain't a lot like Dixie ♪ ♪ I don't wanna go ♪ ♪ If Heaven ain't a lot like Dixie ♪ ♪ I'd just as soon stay home ♪
- [Dave] With the rapid development of dairy, the seafood industry has experienced a terrible downturn. The oyster business has been particularly hard hit. Virginia Waterman used to be able to harvest millions of bushels, every one of them, not anymore. Pollution, shellfish disease, and loss of habitat, has virtually wiped out the bay's oysters. We're all at a loss, to know what to do about it.
- Motion made and seconded, any further discussions?
- [Dave] Last year, the state regulatory body, the Virginia Marine Resource Commission, took drastic measures.
- All in favor of the motion, signify by saying, aye.
- Aye.
- Aye.
- Any opposed? Carried, thank you very much, both sides.
- [Dave] They closed the harvest completely, to allow the oysters to repopulate.
- These people are misrepresenting what's going on. They don't know themself and they're guessing at it. Closing this river was a sin for the watermen, because the oysters ought to be worked. There's so many out there right now, if they stay on them natural rocks this year, when July comes, you get a big strike on top of them. There won't be enough of them big bunches and there won't be nobody wanting them then.
- But they say they're coming back terrible. You know and I don't know, I don't know. You never know.
- [Buck] In spite of dire prospects for the local seafood industry, two Guinea watermen had decided to stick with the traditional ways.
- Sit in the square. I said set the square on.
- [Buck] Billy Kellum and his stepson, Derek, are building a large, wooden Chesapeake dead-rise work-boat, for clamming. They are working jointly, with a local craftsman, Kenny Carpenter.
- This boat is 47 foot long, 14.6 wide, 13.4 across the stern. And the dead rise is 40 inches.
- See, the way these boards are twisted and the way the deadrise is cut in, you see, all these is planked this way, and they're twisted, they fan out, as they come in. I think that's what makes a Chesapeake Bay boat a whole lot stronger than the frame boat. If it was a frame boat, all the boards would be going lengthwise. Holler come up here one day and he said, "Where are you plans at?" And I said, "I don't have any." I said, "All in your head, no plans at all."
- [Interviewer] You don't have a single thing down on a piece of paper?
- No, nuh-uh.
- [Interviewer] Well, how do you know how much wood to order and what to do first?
- I tell ya. Well, you can sit down, you can figure it out, you can figure out about what you need. But we thought we'd ordered too many nails. We ordered 400 pounds of anchor fast nails. And I think what we got left over there is about two pounds. So it's going to run just about... We might have to get a couple of more pounds of them. It's a lot of upkeep on a wooden boat. And you've got to worry about the saltwater worms, getting in the bottom and eating them up and stuff like that. And fiberglass, you don't have to worry about that. I don't know, it's been around so much longer and I think a wooden boat's got so much more personality to it, you know? And then there's anything that's handmade, I appreciate it a whole lot more than I do something that comes out of my mold.
- Your problem lies in employment. And when you got unemployment, you got trouble. Jobs are scarce, everybody's down as Isaac looking for cheaper labor. Unemployment range is 6%, ha, ha.
- [Interviewer] Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like when this guy started working here?
- This?
- Yeah.
- Oh, he's been through plenty of it, right, David?
- Uh-huh many people lost their job.
- Many people, plenty of watermen. Fishing and oysters, right?
- [Dave] Uh-huh.
- Good, extra good.
- [Dave] And a lot of clammers came in and did good.
- And a lot of clammers came in.
- [Dave] And crabbers.
- And crabbers. Better remember, you're going. You've got a full day ahead of you. They said it'd be 98.7, mind.
- Cool enough.
- [Interviewer] Cooler.
- Yeah, it was booming back then. A lot of activity, everybody doing something. Pretty much dead now on that situation, no oysters, not many crabs, not many clams, even the fishing's gone down. Not much of nothing, but war.
- What's the future of the ban on oystering? I may have a hurdle, that story coming up. What's the future on the ban on oystering? I made have a hurdle, that story coming up. What's the future on the ban on oystering? I may have a hurdle, that story coming up.
- [Dave] The ban on oystering in the James River, has been in place for nearly four months. Without the James to work, many Guineamen and their families might go hungry.
- Yes, sir.
- [Dave] In a desperate effort, two waterman organized, to prove to the Commission and to the media, that the thick pockets of oysters in the James, need to be worked.
- What do you feel like y'all are misunderstood on this oyster issue?
- Yeah, I don't believe there's been enough input all the way around, for anybody to have knowledge.
- Well, you go to the source if you want the good information,
- Correct.
- Hearsay is cheap. What'd you see with your eyes, you can believe.
- That's right.
- Hey!
- Hey!
- Hey, Roy, how are you today?
- Good job!
- Yeah, break a leg, Paul, you're on TV today.
- Oh, now how was your...
- You're on TV today.
- All we want to do, is open the road back up.
- That's all we want.
- The hard parts will be selling them back over.
- yeah. That's a pity I have to get... It has to be totally raw meat, Paul.
- [Dave] The waterman's argument won out over the biologist's warning. The Marine Commission reversed itself and reopened the James River.
- [Interviewer] Can you hold that up for me a little closer.
- [Announcer] The stubborn old watermen, cling steadfastly to his time-tested traditions, hand-tonging oysters, is an ancient and gentle way to harvest Virginia's most valuable shellfish. Empty oyster shells, so important for the cultivation of new oysters, are sorted out and thrown back. That's the law, and the law makes good conservation sense. It's rigid enforcement, will ensure future generations with a steady supply of delicious oysters. Virginia Marine Officers, patrol the Bay waters to give the oyster men a helping hand.
- [Buck] The State of Virginia has regulated the seafood industry in one way or another, since the mid 1800s. The government requires license and impose limited fishing seasons. It also limits the kind of fishing gear that can be used. There are also size restrictions on catches, catch quotas, bans, and catch reporting requirements. Of course, the watermen have always objected to the government's meddling in the details of how they make their living. Now in the face of the sharply declining natural resources, the resentment of many watermen has become particularly bitter.
- Well, oughtn't to be no regulations.
- Yeah.
- Turn everything lose, like it's supposed to be. Like the Lord intended.
- Yeah. But the man to man you'd open.
- Peter and John, I said, they fished all night and they hadn't found any fish, hadn't caught anything. Jesus was standing on the bank, told them to cast their nets on the right side of the vessel and they would be full. And there they were, there was multitudes of fishes. So that's the way it should be, friend. You go and fish these nets today, you got 5,000 pounds of rock fish in there, you fish them up, well, I'm not saying that they'll die, but there's a lot of them that'll die, but if they're dead, you've still got to throw it back, you can't even bring it in. You tell me that makes sense, no? I'm no professor, but I can, I got more common sense than that. These people have been doing this all of their life and now they're going to have to call it quits. Nothing else to go to.
- I mean, I ain't never done anything else, so I don't know, you know, I ain't never done nothing else, that's all I've ever done. I drove a truck for three days and after that, I went back to the water and that's all I've ever done.
- [Interviewer] Never worked on another job?
- No, that's the only job I've ever had. The only thing I see rolling out, they're trying to change so many laws, they ought to leave everything like it was. I mean, we...
- You can't leave everything like it was.
- Everything has been working all right, until they started changing everything. And we now, since they started changing it all, the stuff and everything else is going to pot.
- But it was going to pot at the beginning with, Ray. And that's where the stuff come from.
- I've seen it.
- There's more oysters now in Jay Roman, than there's been in many a year.
- Yeah, right...
- And now what they going to do, going to lay there and die?
- But it's going to happen, good, bad, indifferent, right, or wrong. There's going to be regulations. And the only way for the watermen to live with it, is to get involved and have their voice heard.
- To me, the man upstairs has got all to do with working on the water. If he wants it, it is going to be. If it's not, it's not.
- [Dave] The James River seems to have come alive.
- [Fisherman] Everyday, all day.
- [Dave] No one can remember seeing this many baby oysters, in 20 years.
- We caught all these oysters in about three hours. It's plain mean on out there.
- Four one.
- Four one. My brother and myself is over 70 years old. Him and I've been in James River all the time. From the time we were born, that's where we started, right here, in James River. Four two. I remember when it was 650 town boats in this river and a hundred market boats, way down to that shore. Now, this is your last market boat on the Bay.
- Four three.
- Four three.
- Four four.
- All right, we will call this meeting over there. Now, I don't have any announcements, Roy, do you have any?
- [Buck] Linda has recently been appointed to the chair of the Clam Subcommittee, of the Virginia Marine Resource Commission. It hasn't been easy to organize a genuine waterman, to protect endangered clam fishery.
- And replenishment area.
- Oh, see, I have that, just replenishment area.
- Sanctuary and replenishment area.
- That side is clam supposedly is at the top, the big top next, so small cherries spawn the most. Well, that's what was in these areas. And you go in there and everybody catches them up, they don't come back. It's the same thing on half the buoy, you go there and catch the big clams and the cherries and everything, and then you try get at, you want to go here and work from the boat hull, but clean down the Hampton. And then you want to set this little five acre place aside, and do all kinds of stuff right there at the point. Now that's a joke.
- That's contradictory.
- I mean, this has been going on for years, and years, and years, and years. All the way around there's very few clams, there used to be clams butt deep in there, Craig. And that's the only places we ever worked for years. And we didn't keep cherries or chowders, we threw them back.
- I'm going to tell y'all something. Y'all over here had any chickens and watched them?
- No. You can throw out a scoop of food, a five gallon bucket full and they'll all be down on that. And you can go and take a little teeny can and throw it over here and they'll all leave it and go to that little teeny spot. And they'll do it every time. And people are no different.
- Same way.
- Well, how about a time limit also? We ain't talking about going in and raping it, Craig.
- [Interviewer] What do you think of the government role in all of this?
- It hasn't done any good. It hasn't done any good at all. Wasted time. Supply and demand is usually the way things go, right?
- [Interviewer] Any chance it'll come back?
- No. They fished it out. No restrictions back there then. And everybody just got what they could, as fast as they could and now there's nothing left. Slim pickings.
- [Buck] A lot of people around here blamed the watermen, for overfishing. And the watermen feel like scapegoats, for the Bay's complex problems.
- Yeah, we had a lot of people think that waterman is low people on the list, for some reason or another. We're just like everybody else, we're trying to make a living. And they act like we ain't got no values or nothing. People at Caber Cove there complained to us too, about our scraping. People that owns the waterfront homes and stuff. They don't like for us to scrape in front of their house. They say we turned the grass up, but we don't turn the grass up, the drudge slide right across the grass. But we have people complaining about it. Some people are... I don't know, they think that we ain't got to live. All they want is something to eat and we ain't got to live. You see, if the people stuck together and helped each other like the Guineamen, they ain't Guineamen, they are human beings, is what they are, they're not Guineamen. They live in Guinea. When the people are like Guineamen are, if the people stuck together and helped each other like they do, the world be a lot better place.
- [Gail] Too hard man! Hey, get back on your post.
- Huh?
- [Buck] Only six months after they'd laid the keel, the Kellum's are ready to move the boat out of the barn and down to the marina. This is not going to be easy. First they have to jack her up to fit a trailer underneath. The rusted trailer wheels aren't cooperating. According to Billy's calculation, when the boat is raised the 18 inches necessary, to put her on the trailer, the boat's cabin will have four inches of clearance at the top. That's once the front of the shed is removed. Billy's wife, Gail supervises.
- Right up at 16 now.
- Yeah, but you've got to have the plate on top of the...
- Right, y'all ready?
- Hang on, Billy, let us catch up.
- That should be it!
- All right, that's 18 inch. Well, we're still hung up on the name there. We all decided it to be Virginia Gale, but we went around a whole lot of boats and the way you see it painted on there, it don't look right. You know, it don't look... I don't know, it's just some Virginia don't look good, painted on a boat.
- And then Nancy?
- No, I don't like the lady all name.
- Well how about the Arlene Gail?
- Is that what you say?
- That's what I'd say.
- I don't think she could be named after anything any better.
- It goes all the way to the southern branch of the mountain and then all the way again to the eastern branch of the mountain.
- I'm losing power.
- We've run out of fuel.
- Has it settled out yet?
- She's undone something.
- Yeah, she's getting ready to do something.
- There's something wrong.
- Need a hiding, I think.
- I think you going to lose the motor, buddy. Are all the plugs in there all right? Check that when you rev her up. It's slowing down, Tom. You better rev away.
- Pull the fuel out, Tom!
- She looked pretty clean inside, through the air box, she clean in the air box. I don't believe there's nothing wrong with that engine, because that engine, they run, David should have started that engine.
- Tommy got his boat fixed, by the way. He didn't lose his engine. He was lucky, because he would've lost a week of work, probably.
- [Interviewer] It takes a week to put an engine in?
- Sometimes longer, because sometimes a mechanic might be doing three or four other people's boats and you have to kind of wait in line. We've been out of work as much as three weeks. The summer before last we blew up an engine and we were out of work for three weeks. So it cost $30,000 in that three weeks, it hurt. That's when we make all our money, is in the summer.
- Accident's looking for a place to happen, I've always been that way. Had 85% of my left knee joint ground out, when I was a kid, when I was 13. I'll probably chop me in half with a grappling hoe. I even had two here back operations, I ruptured the same disc twice, within two years' time.
- I mean, that's a healthy piece of flounder there.
- [Interviewer] How are you guys doing now, I mean, this was last summer that you were talking about, right?
- The summer before last. It takes a while to recover, I mean, stuff like other people have, they take for granted, like health insurance, we don't have much health insurance. Ronny's had two back surgeries and then I had a surgery. It's like the waterman can never get ahead.
- I look forward to it and then sometimes I don't look forward to it. But once I'm out there, I like it. And you got to do it, sir, no way out of it, but I like it.
- I'm at the top.
- Jesus, turn to cover that way.
- You need to turn that way!
- [Gail] This way, here!
- [Buck] There is a serious problem. The boat's rudder is trailing dangerously close to the ground.
- Put the rig on down?
- But that won't give you that much more room. Because you going to knock that off before you get over here.
- [Buck] Billy is concerned that any sharp bump in the road could force the rudder, crashing up into the hull of the boat.
- Give me something to put these in.
- [Buck] The rudder assembly is still wet with paint and since the stern is so close to the ground now, there isn't enough clearance to remove it.
- I couldn't find it.
- Get out, Eric. You'll get hurt in here, man.
- Please go on out there, Eric, please. Thank you.
- [Gail] Come here, come back a little bit now. Yay! You set it on the field, but we've got it off.
- Stand right on the toe and watch that rear wire now. That'll pull your skirt off.
- [Billy] Come on, come on!
- [Gail] Watch that!
- [Billy] Whoa, whoa!
- Dang, don't like much in the stuff, Bob.
- [Billy] Whoa, whoa!
- I got it! One more. Good job, men! There you go! All right, Dave, you doing it. Let her go.
- [Buck] Just two miles from the marina, on Route 17...
- The brake pads are smoking.
- Grease on them like?
- Yes, I poured a grease on them, trying to break them loose enough.
- Yip.
- Do you think that's what it is?
- [Buck] Billy feels his life savings will go up in flames.
- She got 50 gallons of lube of her own. It won't take much.
- I've got to have a small fix up.
- He's taking your pictures.
- He's taking your picture, turn round and grin at it. Smile! Say cheese. You know, I want something to remember you by, it could be the last one, remember that.
- I know.
- Who gets two?
- I get one.
- Where did you come from?
- I got one.
- I got one.
- You got two coming here?
- Do you want to pass it to him. Linda, pass the napkins round, if you don't mind.
- All right.
- There's some dining that's good.
- We've been going the way of the dinosaurs. Maybe not this year, next year. Everybody's getting off the water that can.
- The writing's on the wall.
- Been on the wall.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it has.
- [Buck] Ronnie and Linda have bad news, Ronnie's back condition has worsened. His doctor has forbidden him from clamming anymore, warning him, that working the water is his surefire way to put Ronnie in a wheelchair for good.
- I've had a bad back all my life. I've always had problems with my back, it's just to continued to get worse. It's just got to I can take it no more.
- [Linda] And the money you make doesn't warrant it, the wear and tear on your body.
- Yeah, that's right, the wear and tear on my body and just, the doctor told me I had to give it up, is the main thing. I thought I would still be doing it if he hadn't have told me to stop. Of course, I wouldn't either, but I had to quit.
- Ain't nothing for a waterman, just put him out in the pasture to graze, I guess.
- [Ray] What do you see different?
- What do I see different? I see it changing all around me, Ray? I see...and I see the world's changing.
- [Ray] Well, everything is changing. You change, you're getting older, you change.
- That's right, my body ain't in such good shape no more neither.
- Take my back.
- Yeah.
- There's a sad part about it to me, is, I mean, I'm a city girl and I came over here and found my niche in life. And I love the water, just like all these guys and I love all these guys because they're unique, they're something. And I see them going the way of the dinosaur, they're becoming extinct and it's not their fault.
- There's more oysters now than I've ever seen. I've been working the river for 32 years.
- I have too.
- Have you ever seen that many oysters as that?
- No, I have not.
- Okay. And going to close the river down for over-harvest? That don't make sense.
- But there's nothing you can do. You cannot fight the laws right now.
- [Dave] Although the watermen have had their best oyster season in many a year, state officials decided to close the James River once again. The watermen caught the state's quota of 80,000 bushels, six weeks before the oyster season was supposed to end.
- [Interviewer] So what will you do now?
- Oh, I'm not going to get ready to go over crabbing. And then the first thing you'll see is crabs is over-harvest, why is it over-harvest? Because he's putting into his load of work that could make a living here, wouldn't put so much burden on crabbing.
- Think we'll have to go on welfare food stamps. It's the only way they could survive. A lot of these boys can't go crabbing, they ain't got the rig, can't do nothing now.
- My understanding of them are old. You don't see no teenagers, I don't think... I haven't seen none. It's just getting bad. Oh, I wish they'd close the river down and concrete it. That way you ain't gotta worry about it. Because you got to be stupid to be out here now. And that's all I got to say.
- [Buck] Linda now goes clamming with Calvin, a hired hand. However, she would have to sell off the family boat. Ronnie had found a new line of work. He is now an independent trucker.
- Now you're talking.
- After I got here, I think it was all over, I was nervous, scared. When you see your life, you know, following behind you, on a 17. And you're looking to see, oh, is she going to fall? And then the wheels start smoking and then you say, oh my God. But we made it.
- [Buck] There's one final task remaining, before she can be launched.
- You like that, G? I like that, hey?
- To handle that, Gail and Billie, called on local legend, Vernon Carter.
- I'd like to give the boats their "go on their way" look, so they look like they're moving, you know?
- [Interviewer] So you've been painting boats for a long time?
- Oh yeah, I've quite a bucket. Yeah, quite a bucket.
- [Interviewer] Do you ever worry that your hands are going to shake if you grow old?
- Well, I should've been worried a long time. About growing old. I don't, because I'm a left, you see. By being left-handed, it gives me the opportunity to be a little more creative with letters, to work in the leftist style, you see.
- That looks good! Man I wish I could do that.
- Why don't you have somebody do it for you? You're better off, I like to do it for you.
- I heard that.
- Yeah.
- There's nothing wrong with that. ♪ It's that same old lost love story ♪ ♪ It's sad, but it's true ♪ ♪ There was a time when she was mine ♪ ♪ In 1982 ♪
- No, she's going, I'm going, I'll take her down a little bit. You go and finish collecting. Yes, sir?
- [Interviewer] Have you seen the sign?
- Yeah.
- Is that what you want?
- Yeah, she's named after me.
- Well, that's always, I'll tell you.
- So, you think she's a pretty boat?
- I know so. That's right. I know that. No, sir, it's a beautiful boat.
- How's this cabin going to hold up?
- Lovely.
- What do you think, Derek? Do you think she's a pretty boat?
- I guess. Going to be lovely sat on the water. ♪ They say hindsight's 20/20 ♪ ♪ But I'm nearly going blind ♪ ♪ From staring at her photograph ♪ ♪ And wishing she was mine ♪ ♪ It's that same old ♪ ♪ lost love story ♪ ♪ It's sad but it's true ♪ ♪ There was a time when she was mine ♪ ♪ In 1982 ♪ ♪ Losing my mind going back in time ♪ ♪ To 1982 ♪
- The world around Guinea has changed a lot in my lifetime. It was really another place just 25 or 30 years ago. In the 1960s, there were 10 or perhaps 12,000 watermen, working the Virginia part of the Chesapeake. Back then, young people could look forward to working the water. Today, the number of watermen in the state has dropped below 4,000.
- [Dave] For thousands of years, the Chesapeake Bay has been the home of millions and billions of creatures. And now, around it's shores, are more than 11 million people competing for it's use. I expect that number will continue to grow and grow.
- [Buck] The Guinea watermen work awfully hard and love what they do. But their future is uncertain. I know that it's foolish to try and hold onto the past, but it's a terrible shame to see their tradition and their way of life disappearing.
- [Interviewer] Tell me something, Mr. Hogge, do you ever think that working on this, that you'll never get this done?
- No, oh, no, I'll get her done. Everything is time consuming, but you get it done. You just keep pushing along.
- [Interviewer] It seems like there's no end to it though.
- No, no end to it, it's always left to men, if you're a pound fish, any kind of fish.
