Surf perch fishermen work the tide line on the peninsula: Live birth, rare in fish, accounts for about two percent of known species, including guppies, sharks, and surf perch. For six-year-old Sydney Little and her friends, seeing live perch (or pogie) babies drop from the larger mom fish back in 1942 was a never-to-be-forgotten experience — “one to be reflected upon,” she says, “as I approach my dotage.”

Some years ago — maybe 15 or 16 — when my good friend Gordon entered his 80s, he would occasionally say that he felt “older than God.” He didn’t mean it in any sacrilegious way. It was more a commentary on his increasingly hazy memory of his early life and his curiosity about what might be coming along next. And, of course, the aches and pains that come along with the years.

Now that I’ve “caught up with him,” I know the feeling. But my approaching dotage manifests itself more in terms of exploring the big questions of life. Like, when was it that I began to care more about what happened to other people — well, certain other people — than to myself? I think I was about five, but I only know that from a family story told about me at that age — it’s not a first-hand memory.

My Grandmother Espy from Oysterville was visiting us in Alameda, California in September 1941. I had just begun first grade and I had the great good fortune of being allowed to have her come to school with me for the day. By that point in her life, she was legally blind and I believe my mother had cautioned me to “take care of Granny, especially on the walk home.”

‘Watch out there…!’

Apparently (and this is where my memory fails). Granny caught her heel in a crack on the sidewalk and I hung onto her extra firmly. What I said to her became a story that was chuckled over time and again by the adults of the family: “Watch out there, Granny old girl, old girl! You’ll stimble and break your neck!” And, as in many such childhood ‘almosts,’ stimble was forever after substituted for stumble.

It was right around that time, too — perhaps the next summer — that I remember my first lifesaving attempts and the horror I felt not knowing if I was successful. I was with a group of little girls here on the Peninsula — maybe down at Beard’s Hollow — and we were watching several men in hip boots who were fishing out in the surf. “For pogies,” we were told.

Pull Quote

As we watched them cast and re-cast their lines, one of the men suddenly began reeling in a large fish and promptly headed our way to show off his catch.

As we watched them cast and re-cast their lines, one of the men suddenly began reeling in a large fish and promptly headed our way to show off his catch. As he neared us, a friend and I realized that baby fish were dropping out of the mama fish’s behind. We were horrified! We cupped our little hands and, catching as many as we could, we dashed down to the water to throw them in. I still remember the fisherman laughing at our lifesaving efforts and how mean I thought he was.

Live babies!

“Would they be all right without their mom?” “Would a bigger fish eat them?” “Were they strong enough to swim out beyond the breakers?” I can still remember the fisherman’s chuckle at our concern and how incensed I was that he didn’t seem to care. Much later I learned that “pogie” was another name for “Perch” and that those fish are unusual in that they bear their young alive rather than laying eggs. But at five or six years old, I had no idea.

So, were those the first awakenings I had to the fact that I might be able to help someone or something that was having trouble? And just how did that glimmer manifest itself as I grew older? Did it have anything to do with my choice of teaching as a career? Or even my interest in documenting bits and pieces of our history?

Or… am I just getting to the “dotty” stage in this journey we are traveling together? Hard to tell. It does seem to me that I’ve reached a time in life when I have a bit of leisure from the hustle-bustle — time to try to make some connections and some sense of all the bits and pieces. And then I’m likely to hear myself say — and right out loud, too! — “Self, what possible difference does it make? Philosophers have reviewed and contemplated and theorized for thousands of years and the status of our world doesn’t seem much improved.”

Perhaps the best we can do is save those baby pogies without stimbling along the way!