A salvage job in Lake Michigan where the old-timer told me 'the water never forgets'

We were pulling up a sunken crane part off Chicago last fall, visibility was maybe two feet. This guy, must have been sixty, was running the comms from topside. After I surfaced, he pointed at a fresh scratch on my helmet and said, 'That's from the wreck's teeth. The water never forgets what goes down, and it'll try to keep a piece of you too.' He meant every mark tells a story about what you brushed against down there. Has anyone else had a mentor hit you with a line that just stuck?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora104d ago

My uncle was a commercial fisherman out of Sheboygan. He used to say the lake keeps a list in its mud, and you can read it in the gear you pull up. He showed me a net once that was half rotted away except for one perfect square patch, woven tight by some mussels that had made a home there. Said the lake wasn't trying to fix it, just marking that it had been there a long time. That always stuck with me more than any warning about teeth.

craig.parker4d ago

Listen to your uncle, @nora10. The old gear tells the real story, not the scary tales.