Face Your Fears! You just might be surprised by the results.   :) We moved to Red Hook harbor for the first time, of three separate stints, when I was 11. We had lived on boats in Alameda harbor in San Francisco when I was 5 and 6 and I really really REALLY missed it. I was SO excited when we first moved to the Virgin Islands because I knew it meant we were getting back on the water. Dad bought this amazing 36 foot trimaran, which we dubbed Trillium, after the flower (one of the word’s meanings is birthroot). We stayed for about 2 months initially in St. Thomas’ main harbor Charlotte Amalie before taking a short jaunt down the south coast of the island to our more permanent birth at Red Hook.

The very first day we arrived in harbor we docked for supplies before taking anchor and I went ashore and ran up to the harbor house where I had heard they had the brand new Pac Man arcade game!!! :) I ran up the stairs, flung open the door, took about three steps and ran smack dab right into a brick wall and fell to my butt…or, at least I thought it was a wall made out of brick, or maybe obsidian.

I looked up from the floor, butt wicked sore (yes I said “wicked”), and gazed in wonder and pretty intense fear at the largest and hands down scariest man I had ever seen up to that point of my young life. He was HUGE…and SCARY! He had this rough face from which dark eyes gazed down at me, 6’4″ frame covered only in a ratty white open button up shirt and old stained island shorts, feet bare. He was built like Adonis, chiseled from head to toe and dark as coal, with one very noticeable deformity…his left arm was bent and shriveled…probably not very useful. It all just added to the growing terror, his level gaze and the fact he wasn’t saying a word was not helping at all. I’ve actually always been rather proud I didn’t pee my pants. ;) I stared for a few seconds, and then took off back down the stairs like a shot, tearing towards the dock and the safety of my family, yelling all the way…probably a pretty silly looking scene. Good thing this was the pre-digital era. ;) My Dad just laughed it off, we loaded up the boat and went out into the harbor proper to drop anchor.

For the next several weeks I stayed away as much as I could from what I thought was my worst nightmare, turning around whenever I saw the giant or ducking into a hidey hole. I did find out a lot about my nemesis while skulking around. The only name anyone ever knew him by was Gums, he had this crazy deep Darth Vader-like voice, but with more gravel in it. Gums never wore shoes and spent most of his time near the back of the harbor, past E dock, in his smokehouse. You see, Gums was apparently the very best smoker of fish around, and certainly, by everyone’s opinion that I could ask, the very best on the east end of the island. So, I skulked around, avoided Gums as much as possible, stayed terrified of him, never talked to him, until one fateful beautiful day that changed my harbor experience and how I looked at people.

I was sitting near the flag pole at the base of A dock, as I often did, just starving because I didn’t have any money when here comes Gums, from the end of the dock with about a 500 pound marlin on his right shoulder, supported only by his one good arm. As always I avoided his gaze and shrunk down but, just as he passed by me, my belly let out the loudest and longest hunger

growl ever! I told you I was starving! Gums stopped, turned to look at me, 500 pound marlin perched on his massive shoulder, and said simply, “follow me boy”. I WAS TERRIFIED!!! OMG, THE MONSTER IS GOING TO EAT ME!!! I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. This unlikely duo walked all the way the length of the harbor towards E dock and the smoke house, the quiet ebony one-armed giant and the quaking bone-skinny alabaster youth who looked like he was going to the gallows.

We got to the smoke house, Gums motioned for me to pull his one key out of his shorts pocket, open the door and go in. I did so immediately, actually shaking and thinking I was never again going to see the light. Gums walked in behind me, dropped the marlin on a table in the center of the dimly lit room, walked over to a huge cooler that was up against the wall, opened it up, took out an enormous wrapped hunk of freshly smoked marlin, handed it to me (it was like the size of my head!), and said, “if you are every hungry boy, you come find me”.

He heard my belly growl and he fed me. No money asked for a giant premium chunk of the very best smoked fish I had ever and have ever had. Even to today, having travelled back and forth all over the country, I’ve never had smoked fish that could even touch Gums’. That was the beginning of an amazing friendship. Gums fed me, protected me and my sister from bullies, laughed with me and helped me get through rough times. Gums was one of my greatest friends and when I leave this world I will be very excited to be reunited with my bad ass brother Gums. I was terrified of him. He became one of the very dearest and most amazing people I have ever had in my life. Imagine what I would have denied myself had I not followed Gums to the smoke house that day?

Face your fears…you just might be surprised by the results. :)