Floundering

Morning on the estuary…

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Mud flat windfall

Fred: Eighteen fish, a dozen strands of seaweed and ten plastic bottles.

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Phillip: Most are a bit undersized.

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Fred: I’ve never caught any around here any more than 25 centimeters.

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Phillip: Overfishing?

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Fred: Understandable.

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Voice-over

Flounders are flatfish with two eyes on the upward-facing side of the head.Skin and bones but free and tasty during unemployment and lockdown.

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Easter Island Moai

Two stone statues discuss what happened to the humans who created them.

Big Moai: There were trees here at one time. Then people came. They cut down trees to grow vegetables. They cut down trees to make fishing boats. They cut down trees to make rollers to carry us stone statues here.
Little Moai: No more trees?
Big Moai: No more trees. Wind blows the soil into the sea. No more vegetables. No more trees to make fishing boats.

Little Moai: No more people?

Big Moai: No more people. Just us. Gods don’t need vegetables, don’t need fish.

Little Moai: They created us, they believed in us, we destroyed them. Funny old world.

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Voiceover
A resource parable. Easter Islanders used their resources for food and for erecting their religious statues. Had they restricted their tree cutting to clearing just enough land for food and fishing boats, left trees for shelter, and not cut trees for rolling the statues, they might have survived. Perhaps the religion they created helped destroy their society.*

This may be germane to modern progress. The world’s population just hit 7 billion. Resources did not run out according to Malthusian predictions at 2 or 4 or 6 billion. It’s not to say that the ingenuity of our species will continue to find new resources or new ways of solving conflicts. Any of our activities could tip us into the extinct bucket: shopping, traveling, religion.

*Of course there are many other possible reasons why the Easter Island population declined. However, there’s the bones of good parable here.
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Reinterpreting Luke (5.1-11)

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Two fishermen come in from wading the waters.

Simon: Catch anything?

Andrew: Nothing. A big fat nothing. There isn’t anything out there.

Voice from the shore: Go back out, cast your nets deeper.

Simon: You know him?

Andrew: Saw him here the other day. He’s the one who fed everyone with two fish and five loaves.

Voice from the shore: In the deep water, beyond the rock.

Simon: Funny look in his eye.

Andrew: Go back out? Give it a try?

Simon: Give it a try.

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Voice-over

And the rest is history.

Telling a fisherman to go out again is like preaching to the converted.

Good persuasion is a set of confident directions.

It will convert the despairing, empty-handed into true believers.

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Blue cod

Maureen asks the fishmonger for blue cod.
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Maureen: I need four pieces.

Fishmonger: Sorry lady. Only got one piece left.

Maureen: But I’m having three guests. I need four pieces.

Fishmonger: Only got one piece left. How about one piece of blue cod, and three pieces of snapper? You eat the blue cod, and give the guests snapper. You know what I mean? (winks)

Maureen: I couldn’t do that. It’s not fair.

Fishmonger: Wait a moment. (Goes out the back and returns with a whole cod). I was saving this for my brother. But good luck for you.

Maureen: I … I don’t know what to say.
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Voiceover

Maureen, finding pleading actually works with this gruff Croatian fishmonger, is at a loss for words. Primed for disappointment can make us stumble digging up gratitude phrases.
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Debate over bait

Garth, a live bait man, teases Bruce about his use of soft plastic lures. Guy, the third man in the boat, is ambivalent.

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Garth: How many did you catch last week?

Bruce: Ten.

Garth: Legal size?

Bruce: Big enough to barbecue.

Garth: So you think today –

Bruce: I got one, I got one.

Guy: Maybe there is something in those new plastic baits. But it doesn’t seem quite cricket.

Bruce: Course it isn't. It's all about getting big edible worms.

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Authorial intrusion: The Three Men in a Boat are stranded in a paddock somewhere south of Cambridge, N.Z. Broad Kiwi accent would be appropriate.

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