Boots seldom fit.

We are not moving the boat back to Florida. The deal is off. So, not being tourist people, The Captain and The Kid hung out by the sea.

The New England coast along the shore from Rockport, MA. to Plymouth, MA is an extraordinary coastline of both beauty and a rugged reminder about life and living by the sea. The Condo dwellers of South Florida, although stacked on the beach, are not dwellers by the sea in the true sense. They are mostly thiefs. They steal beachfront, scenery, vistas, and sunsets. Not all of them, of course, but many of them for sure.

We watched a fisherman working a cove with traps.

"It's like watching an artist." The Kid observed.

"Living, moving artwork." I agreed.

Later, we found Boots. We grabbed a bite at the Fish Shack on Dock Square. Boots does not fit many profiles labeling fishermen, New Englanders, nor people who live by the sea. We explained to Boots how we had been watching him fish the cove north of Rockport.

"Why Boots?" The Kid asked.

"See these?" Boots responded as he pointed to his boots. "Got these last week. Replaced the ones from two weeks ago."

"Don't they last?" The Kid kept digging.

"Probably. But, I can't keep them that long. Keep losing one or both every few weeks."

"Overboard?"

"Yeah. And, on-board."

Boots was not typical of the Gloucester/Rockport fisher. Boots earns good money fishing, but it became clear Boots was from somewhere else.

"Lived here all your life?"

"From Gloucester."

It didn't matter what we did to lure Boots, he wouldn't bite. We had watched him maneuver his fishing vessel around rocks, in and out of a cove where a steady roll heaved cold-water waves onto the rock-lined shore. The Rockport/Gloucester wave action is not the wave motion of warmer southern waters. The colder waves break hard against the rocks. They have a sharper edge where they slice along outcroppings and stone. Boats are rocked more in the cold water as they near shore. Boots mastered his craft, but he did not seem to be born of the sea. His eyes were land eyes. They were the kind that gazed upon the ocean in great pleasure for it, but not the kind that are part of it. They are not the eyes of the sea, but eyes about the sea. Boots didn't fit.

"Do you know Homer?" The Kid inquired.

"Homer?"

"Not the Iliad Homer. Winslow." The Kid continued.

Winslow Homer was a Boston born painter who rendered the New England coast as no other painter has done depicting the beauty, force and drama of the sea. Our new friend displayed, at least to The Kid, similar characteristics of one who bore the sea in his soul, but was not born of the sea.

"I do."

"Do you paint?"

"I did."

"Do!" The Kid sharply replied.

"Did." Boots countered.

We could not see his paintings. He did admit that his house was his studio and it was filled with paintings about the sea and people who live by it. He spoke with a guarded passion about his works. His voice was like the trembling tone of one who has had a lover's quarrel and mixes anger with love as he struggles within to resolve in his heart the path to take.

As quickly as The Kid had touched Boots deeply, The Kid re-directed Boots with, "Do we get lobster? You got lobster right? I didn't come here to go away without lobster."

The tightened lips gave way to an appreciative grin. "You get lobster."

Next time the best lobster The Captain has had.

The Captain and The Kid