The oyster knife

Charles Whitmore was an oysterman since he was ten. His mother wouldn't let his dad take him on the boat until they could get the calf high boots to actually fit him. Somehow she was convinced he'd be safer-- at least he wouldn't trip on the deck, the low rail of the dead rise sending him into the bay.

That first summer had been full of lessons, learned the hard way. Twenty-five stitches from the 100 year old oyster blade his Dad had given him when he officially joined the crew of two. The blade shimmering as it sank off the bow into the Cheasapeake. Charles felt his heart sinking with the blade and he was convinced his Dad would "wear him out" for losing it, but his dad just shook his head and mumbled something. Somehow the whipping would have been more welcome than a whole day of the silent treatment but he was learning to be a man now and actions had consequences.

The oyster knife had been made by his great grandfather and he was sad to have lost it.

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The hurricanes had ripped these shores apart for centuries but it'd only been in the last few decades they’d started building houses so close to the water. Thought they'd outsmart the ocean by putting houses on stilts. It never worked.

Charles grew up here and also fished flotsam out of the sand after a storm. He walked and worked only because he couldn't sit still. Heaven was sun on his face and salt water in his gray beard.

George Jones crackled through the dashboard speaker as Charles drove his old Ford pick up into the Beach Access lot. As a local, he skirted the sheriff's road block and met up with a group gathering near the back hoes and blue dumpsters. This time his niece was one of those who watched helplessly from an inland motel as the storm ravaged the coast, pulling houses, piers and businesses into the sea. She was his only family and he'd stopped short of saying I told you so, so he just showed up to clean up.

Stepping past refrigerators and soggy slabs of drywall, they picked their way down the beach. Like lots of locals, the must-have things had been moved, but they hadn't taken everything. Kitchen utensils, plates, and pans sat submerged in sand. No one knew what belonged to whom so they just gathered what was still decent and laid it in the parking lot by "room". If they could afford to, some folks didn't worry about reclaiming what the water didn't quite make off with, but generally, in this small community, they all showed up to sift through it together. Then if the inlanders had a particularly bad hurricane season, or worse, the catch was down, one neighbor's loss was another's gain.

The sun was straight overhead and shiny things glinted and were fished out. Bits of wood, depending on their size, were left and became part of the beach or they were heaved into trash bins. Glass was particularly lethal to beach walkers and kids so Charles sought it out for the trash. But this storm was fierce and it had dredged up lots of things from the bottom. Whole conch shells, smooth beach glass, the occasional old medicine bottle.

Charles reached for a old piece of wood, up ended in the sand, it's rounded handle a little pitted. Barnacles had attached themselves to one side, the other side was clean. As soon as it turned it over he knew it as one of the tools of his trade, it was an old oyster knife. Rubbing the surface on his work pants he shined up some of the metal. He nearly dropped the knife as he held it up to his aging eyes to read what was scratched into the top of the blade. "C. Whitmore 1850". It was the knife he'd lost over the side of the dead rise decades ago. The bay gave and the bay took away. This was one of the best gifts it'd ever given.

Needs editing.