This recent trip to Canada for skiing,(Mont Tremblant), touring and visiting (Quebec), celebrating (Quebec City), eating (raclette), exploring (Maine), eating (lobster), driving, and of course eating (unknown from the French menu) was nearly perfect. Met new friends, found new exciting places and took a lot of pictures, including many with my point-and-shoot digital.
On Bailey Island, Maine, I stopped to ask permission to take pictures of a portion of the rocky, icy coastline dotted with lobster traps that was obviously someone's property. George and Peg Johnson invited us inside like we were long lost friends, and we spent a good part of the day talking and laughing with the lobsterman and his new wife.
We learned that George is hoping to get one more year of lobstering under his belt next season, and then he could retire at 65. But that's not 65-years old, that's 65 years of lobstering on the southern Maine waters. George is 82 years old-- that's right, 82 years old!-- and he's still lobstering, fighting the waves, the frigid spring and fall temperatures and the summer heat.
Wrestling his more than 200 traps would exhaust men 60 years younger.
He and Peg are truly a love story. They had dated more than 55 years ago, and an old black and white picture of the two of them together sits on the television. But life took them in different directions, and they each married someone else. George's marriage lasted 45 years, but cancer took his wife. Peg's husband also passed away after 51 years of marriage, and she returned to the island with daughter Mandy Bello for a visit.
As it happened, Peg and George met again, and today are newlyweds of six years. Peg's gentle blue eyes smile when George says "Hey, I've got something here to show you." As he leaves the room, Peg knows what he's gone to find, and says quietly, "He's quite a talker".
He comes back with this month's Esquire magazine. The feature article is actually a series of articles--50 in all--and one man from each state's story is told. Clint Eastwood, Woody Harrelson and a list of other celebrities are the highlighted stars of their own state. For Maine, it's 82-year old George Johnson, and he's standing like a triumphant general next to a stack of lobster traps.
Of all the houses in Maine, I happened to knock on the back door of one of its biggest celebrities, at least for this month. And certainly among the most friendly.
The two are headed at the end of January for the warmer climate of Florida and Grand Cayman Islands. There, they'll recharge their batteries for another lobster season.
This trip demanded a fist full of pictures, and another storage card or two.
But none of the pictures were any more satisfying than this simple photograph of George Johnson. Sometimes, a simple picture tells the whole story.
