The Jetty Man

I was building a driftwood fort near the South Jetty on the Columbia River when a man emerged from the dunes and walked toward me. He shouldered a fishing pole and wore a small backpack and other angling accouterments. I stopped building and struck up a conversation as he approached. This was the first time in my fort life that I’d interrupted a build and talked to a stranger, but the people who fish from the jetty have intrigued me since I found this place, and I wanted to learn more about them.

It was nine in the morning, cloudy.

The man appeared in his mid 30s, bearded, fit, big smile. He told me he was going to fish off the jetty, and perhaps catch a ling cod, something that hadn’t happened in ten years of fishing here. Today was the day! He also told me that he’d walked to the end of the jetty twice in his life. That flabbergasted me. It’s nearly a mile to the end of the jetty from where we stood, right out into the ocean, over slick jagged rocks, with waves smashing in, any of which could instantly sweep a person away. I bet there’s not a hundred people alive who’ve made it to the end. Perhaps much less.

My questions continued. He was garrulous. One time, he got caught up in a tide he didn’t understand and had to dodge breakers on the return trip. I asked if he felt afraid he might die. He did and said he probably wouldn’t do it again. He’d learned a lot in ten years on the river and this was his preferred way of fishing rather than from boats or from a river bank. He rarely caught anything, but that wasn’t the point, he said. The point was standing atop the jetty at the intersection of the world’s mightiest ocean and one of the continent’s mightiest rivers. I nodded in agreement.

I asked him about the Russians who frequently congregate in large numbers to fish at the jetty. I’ve observed them a couple of times and it’s always quite the party. He described them as crazy, swigging vodka from the bottle while fishing from the rocks, but it was also kind of fun to be around them and not understanding a word they were saying.

We said our goodbyes and he headed toward the river. He never once asked about my fort.

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