5/4/5 - Astoria to St Helens

Y’all know by now that I love talkin’ with just about anybody I meet on the road, and I really love conversations with those folks who leave me wondering what the hell I’d just heard. That being said, I’ll try to recapture just what the hell I heard from the sharp old timer I ran across at the St Helens Marina on Wednesday.
I was down there lookin’ for this Fish and Chips place that in fact, was no longer in business. While at the dock snoopin’ around, I ran into this old guy who was a dead ringer for any prototypical old sea character on that 60's TV-show SeaHunt: with his funny navy-blue sea-captain’s cap complete with a small gold anchor, his bushy white beard and leathery skin. He was quick to informally introduce himself to me with the fact that Fletcher’s Fish and Chips has been out of business for a year or so.
“Too bad too, they served up some good grub,” he said sadly while fiddlin’ around with some kind of nautical apparatus that I couldn’t recognize.
“What the hell is that?” I wondered.
“It’s an old sextant: A navigational instrument,” he patiently explained. “Ya see this graduated 60-degree arc? That’s used for measuring the altitudes of the stars and sky to determine latitude and longitude. Helps ya figure out where you're goin'.”
“Huh, and I just use the maps I buy at any Shell Station,” I joked.
Within two minutes we were like a pair of long lost army buddies, chattin’ away for a good hour. He was one sharp cookie, lemme tell ya, and not boastful at all.
After swappin' stories about gettin around at sea and gettin' by on land, I asked him: “So, what’s the biggest problem here in town?”
He scratched his beard lookin’ skyward and thought about my question awhile.
“It’s gotta be the Port of St Helens mess,” he concluded. “Ya got these local blowhards jockeyin’ for their new open seats, and they don’t give a damn about nothin’ but their own self-importance.”
I was all ears. “Hmmmm, I sure don’t know much about ‘em, or exactly what they do; so what’s the deal?”
“Well son,” he began, in a fatherly sort of way. “We’d be here all day, so I’ll just keep it simple and tell ya that they’re supposed to manage our ports and port-properties in the best ways that serve us citizens who use ‘em...NOW,” he suddenly emphasized, “I’m not sure that happens all of the time, especially when you get the type of people I just was tellin’ you about tryin’ to get in the position to run things.”
A sarcastic grin began to creep upon his old salty face as he continued.
“Now lessee...What is that fellas name…the chair of the Commission?” The old-timer was thinkin’ hard while scratchin’ his beard and looking skyward again. “Oh yeah, Avent! Mike Avent - Top-knotch, smart fella, but you see; he owns a lot of the land that he has to make his Port decisions around, ya follow me?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Well, one of his pals is tryin’ to grab one of the open seats, I think his name is Pulliam…and along with the DeShazer gal, I’m a little worried we got a quorum of folks not necessarily interested in making decisions that are best for the rest of us…ya follow me?”
"It's not like there's a spare sextant layin' around to help navigate through this stuff either," I said dryly.
The old guy liked that joke of mine and let out a hearty belly-laugh.
Like my pal at the dock, keep an eye on things in this nice little town y’all got, ya hear?
-Tom