Dan's Papers -February 20, 2009 - Sheltered Islander: Ships Rings & Car Things

I have often admired our ferrymen and respected the job they do. I wonder which is worse: working the ferry in the blistering heat of the summer or working in the stabbing cold of the winter. In the summer they battle heat, sunburn, tourists and their children standing in front of the red line marked, "Do Not Stand Ahead Of This Line."

I always admire their patience with irritating people and their restraint in not throwing them overboard.

But in winter I feel so sorry for the ferry workers. Out in the elements for hours, they bundle against the cold in Carhart suits and layers upon layers of flannel and wool. They have to take off their gloves to take your money or ferry ticket and in that time their hands practically freeze to the money. I always try to open my window enough to give them a blast of warm air. My mother commonly brought them hot chocolate on her way to work the night shift at ELIH.

My great grandfather from Ireland worked for a shore rescue service off of Fire Island. They'd set bon fires on the beach near their dories (a special, very large row boat with two bows so there's no need to turn the boat around) to signal incoming tall ships that that's where the rescue service was located. If a ship was in trouble, they could head towards the fires. When the shore service saw a ship foundering, they'd row the dories out to rescue the men. The winter was the worst time. My great grandfather related that more than once he and the rescuers had no choice but to chop off fingers of sailors whose hands had frozen solid to the rigging in an effort to free them as quickly as possible, get them into the dory and back to the warm fires. On my grandfather's back porch, and still there today, is a huge wooden ring - about two feet in diameter - that held sailcloth from a ships mast. It makes me wonder what kind of stories the ferry workers of Shelter Island will relate to their descendants.

"That? Well, son, that's a bumper from a Cadillac."

"Wow! Grandpa, how did you get it?"

"It was a freezing cold day on the ferry - this of course was back in the day before there was a bridge to Shelter Island - I was sliding on chunks of ice and hanging onto cars as I made my way up and down the rows of vehicles collecting fares. Icicles hung from the bottoms of the cars, breaking off in attempts to stab our feet. The waves broke against the sides of the boat sending shards of ice through the air that sliced our faces."

"Gosh, Grandpa. What happened next?"

"As the ferry collided with a huge block of floating ice, the boat heaved up and all the cars shifted back. This Cadillac had stopped too far in back of a truck, giving the truck more that enough room to pick up a little speed and force when it jerked back and hooked the front bumper of the Cadillac. We did all we could in the cold with the boat bobbing and weaving. We struggled to pry the two apart, and in the end, nature did it for us when she threw the boat forward and the truck freed itself - with a new Cadillac bumper attached to its tail end."

"I bet the Caddy owner was really upset!"

"Yes, but we used a car battery and some jumper cable to restart his heart and he was able to drive the car off the boat, but strangely, he didn't want the bumper. He yelled something about "getting away from this insane island as fast as I can! He added a few more words that I can't repeat to you."

"Oh, you mean your golfing words, like fu...?"

"Ah, yes. You don't need to say them. Yes, he used Grandpa's golfing words. Anyway, I took this bumper home that very day. It's a memento of a time when work was hard work and commanded respect."