I’LL QUIT WHEN I’M EIGHTY. THAT’LL BE ENOUGH.

The fifth in my Series: The Watermen of the Chesapeake Bay. I'm willing to bet that when Jackie Thompson turns eighty and the crabbing season begins, he may just decide on one more year.

THIS STORYTELLER’S STORY HAD TO BE TOLD

Waterman Jackie Thompson is an observant, meticulous, good-hearted curmudgeon, really. He got back from serving in Vietnam before his four years were up and worked for Bell Helicopter. “It was good and they told me I could stay after my tour was up,” he paused, “I should have done it.” I absolutely don’t believe him, even though the decision would have, perhaps, made sense. Good pay, benefits, regular hours, low risk in a controlled environment or working on the water with unknown, uncertain, varied pay, no benefits, and high risk in weather that ranges from minus ten to a hundred and ten with humidity that makes it hard to breathe. This man, like David Miller,( READ HIS STORY) has generations of skilled Watermen flowing through his veins. And Jackie wouldn’t have been able to get it out of his system, either.

JULIA ROSE is an old wooden girl, meticulously maintained. “She’s hit two channel markers and a duck blind, so I guess she’s pretty well built,” he told me.

It’s all one word, around here, really. JacknJudy. Their compatibility is obvious and enviable; they are a well-oiled team. Now, after years of the same rhythms, with aging knees and hips, they remarkably have the same tilt to their steps. In spite of that Jackie still rides his childhood bicycle in the off-season (they kept hers, too, it’s in the garage). As conservative as the day is long, it was the talk of the town when Judy got a brand new SUV for Christmas. She’s well deserving, that’s for sure.

Jackie Thompson has ridden this bike around town since the 50’s.

“I never thought I would marry a Waterman,” Judy (short for Julia Rose) revealed, shaking her head, “Never wanted to.” Here they are, five decades into marriage, “He’s just such a hard worker. We went out, just for one drink, and he asked me to go get a second round, and then handed me a hundred dollar bill! That was a long time ago and here we are.” She laughs as she always does, raising her eyebrows expressively. It’s a fabulous, genuine, resonating, easy, laugh. I was lucky enough to be within earshot of them for three summers. I love that laugh.

They grew up across the street from one another and she left for Baltimore Beauty School before returning unexpectedly to the charms of Jackie Thompson. “We’d hitchhike fifteen miles to St. Michael’s to see a movie and always take the risk of getting a ride. More than once we got dropped off only halfway back and had to keep walking or would’ve froze to death. Our winters growing up we had a lot of snow, always. And it was lots colder for lots longer.”

Judy owned a Hair Salon and the personality fits. Retired from that, during crab season, six days a week, she packs lunch and meets Jackie at the dock to bait trotlines. Regardless of the weather, regardless of everything, she shows up with a smile and a cooler. Every day he greets her with the respect of long comfort and they get right down to business. In the fall it’s ‘only’ thirty-six hundred or so feet of line, with a raw, salt-cured chicken neck every ten feet. In the summer, he tells me, it’s lots longer. That’s a lot of chicken necks.

A typical summer afternoon baiting the lines.

His great-grandfather was the last person born on Sharp’s Island, before Mother Nature made it uninhabitable. When Jackie was in the single digits his grandfather would tow a two horsepower boat behind his larger one, so they could both catch crab. The youngster would doze off in the warm afternoons and quit steering, waking to radio calls from his mentor. By the time he was fourteen he had his own vessel and has been ensconced in these same rhythms, routines, and rituals, ever since. Sixty-four years. Even Sunday is not a day of rest; at sunrise he tinkers and changes the oil or whatever else needs to be done. “I’ll quit when I’m eighty,” he told me thoughtfully this spring. “That’ll be enough.” Most other Americans retire, celebrated, after less than half that time.

Every spring Jackie Thompson refreshes his meticulously cared-for Deadrise workboat. As he has for decades.

They finish each other’s sentences. “When Judy was fourteen, she worked in the packing house.” “It was fun,” she said, “I liked it.” (tiny Tilghman Island’s packing house in the 50s and 60s employed 600 people) He reminisces, “Everybody worked. All the time, all ages, all seasons. I don’t think we had big paychecks but we were fine. Everybody was, really. We never had cases of soda or anything like that. The radio was huge with three big tubes and this was way before anyone had television. My grandaddy used to sit in front of that thing and listen to the fights with his arms swinging.” He demonstrates. “That’s all we had for years. And we were fine.” His hands never stop baiting up the line for tomorrow.

Three years ago, Jackie was having a bit of trouble with his shoulder. STEADFAST was still on the fringes of Tilghman at that time; it was only our second year. Everyone thought we were a little crazy to live on a boat, and we were from somewhere else; both of those things were stacked against us, and the opportunity to know the Watermen was something I jumped at. Especially this particular character; sometimes he grumbles, sometimes he elaborates, sometimes, perhaps, even embellishes a little.

“Have you ever heard of Advil?” he called out to me. I stopped in my tracks at his question and he continued, “I asked the pharmacist at WalMart about this darn shoulder and she told me to take Advil and by God it worked! It worked! Have you ever heard of that? Advil?” I smiled at him, trying to discern whether he was serious or pulling my leg as he is known to do. He was completely serious, and thrilled with his new discovery. Advil, nearly fifty years after it came on the market, was making this Waterman feel better. I don’t think there’s any better discovery that that. “Yes,” I replied, “I’ve heard of Advil.” “By God it works!” he re-emphasized. To me, it was proof of three things. One, that these Watermen are tough as nails. Two, that living an active outdoor life keeps you healthy far longer than the alternatives, and three, when you come onto Tilghman Island you truly do step back in time. 

While most days when I passed by it was a simple “How are you?” …other days I heard stories. “You want to know the worst thing I ever saw, the worst thing that ever happened here?” he never waited for a reply, already lost in the story as his memory spews out another incident that most people have forgotten. “The whole family was just gone. It was a big boat, and one of the first fiberglass ones. I still think about it sometimes, all these years later. I don’t know how or why that boat sank, I really don’t.” Jackie is shaking his head with the memory of a snowy, stormy, cold February night in a year that was even tougher than most to make a living off the Chesapeake Bay. “They went out because they needed to, and o’ course they thought they could make it. No one will ever really know what happened.” 

The tragic stories will always be retold, lessons learned, and he continued, “Then there was those two guys that went to the Western Shore and loaded five hundred bushels of oysters! Five hundred! They never made it back across. They had life jackets on and we found them right up in East Bay. They got close, but they didn’t make it. Their friends and relatives are still working out here.” There are countless other recollections, but he has chosen not to share his entire story with me or with the local Waterman’s Museum.

The docks at Severn Marine Services suffered considerable damage in the tremendous storms and tides of January 2024 and the JULIA ROSE is no longer just down the dock from STEADFAST. We absorbed innumerable things, heard much laughter, saw incredible work ethic and thankfully got to know another Waterman in a long line of Watermen.

Every crab season for sixty-five years Jackie has driven through Knapp’s Narrows to sell his catch.

SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE is a joy to write and publish. I am glad that all of you have joined my website and are enjoying the stories that I am honored to tell. If you’d like to hear more written in my unique style, please sign up here. If you are already a subscriber and it says UPGRADE please know that there is no pressure to do so. I enjoy the amazing people who have connected with me on SUBSTACK (special shout-out to Brian John Mearns in New Zealand!).

Please do click the little heart at the end of the post (or the beginning!) because that sends my work to unexpected places and other interesting people.

SHARE THESE STORIES!! THANK YOU.