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August 17, 1995 - Jetaway, the Scallop: A Children's Story1OA • The Suffolk Times • August 17, 1995 Jetaway, the Scallop: A Children's Story By Paul Stoutenburgh____ Let me introduce myself to some of you who might not know me. I am Jet- away, a scallop, one of the many shell- fish found in our bays and creeks. My life is a short one, only about two years. Some shellfish, like clams, live 20 to 25 yeafs, but then if you sit around in the sand all day and Focus on do nothing, what good is it? Mature Scallops like me, on the other hand, move about always seeing and doing dif- ferent things. That's why I'm called Jetaway by my friends. After I was born with thousands of other little wiggly young scallops, I drift- ed around the bay for days just enjoying myself. Because there are so many differ- ent kinds of plants and animals in the water, people bunch us all together and just call us plankton. I was so small that one time a kid swimming down by the dock took a mouthful of water that I was in with a whole bunch of other plankton fellows I didn't even know. It was awful scary and dark! Pretty soon the kid squirted us all out in a long stream at his sister. Did she ever scream! But then, I guess that's what you can expect from brothers who always like to tease sisters. None of us were harmed, but a friend of mine got caught in between one of the boy's teeth and was saved only when he took another mouthful of water to squirt again at his sister. Back in the water again I drifted around wherever the tide would take me. Once I was almost swallowed by a big fish called a bunker. At least, he seemed big to me. These fish swim in big schools with their mouths wide open and scoop up all the plankton that's in front of them. I was lucky that I got through the school of fish without being scooped in. I guess that's why when we're born nature produces so many of us. All I remember was those big open mouths all about me so I automatically swam as fast as I could down among the eel grass. My parents can remember tales handed down from years ago that there used to be lots of eel grass, bul because of a dis- ease or something most of it died and left little for all the tiny fish and shellfish to hide in. Luckily it's starting to come back in some places. Finally Got My Shell Seeing that experience with all the big fish frightened me so much I decided to stay down amongst the eel grass. By now I had my own tiny shell and found I could attach myself to a blade of grass i • with a special thread called a byssus. It was pretty nice as I swayed back and forth with the tide and ate all the micro- scopic plankton that came floating by. Once I was almost ripped off my eel - grass stem because of the swirling tur- bulence of water from an outboard mo- torboat. It was like a tornado and the mud and sand swirled up and around me. Those people in power boats should keep in the channels and not scare us lit- tle guys so much. I was growing fast now in my shell that acts like a house for me. When I open and close my two shells it feels almost like swimming. Each day I grow bigger and bigger and my one big muscle inside grows stronger and stronger. One day when I was exercising — I guess a bit too much — my thread or holdfast that attached me to the grass broke and I swam away on my own. I was free but that meant I had to keep opening and closing my shell, otherwise I'd sink to the bottom where I was afraid to go because I'd never been there before. I kept opening and closing, opening and closing, and with my jets of water I zigzagged along. Now I was getting tired and frightened because I'd seen all sorts of bad things on the bottom like blue claw, spider and lady crabs, starfish, periwinkles and great, big whelks. They all looked up at me when I was high above them and seemed to be just wait- ing for me to fall, so I kept opening and closing, opening and closing, but I couldn't keep it up. Slowly my energy gave out and I settled on the soft, muddy, sand bottom. I was alone and partly hidden in the soft ooze. I didn't dare to move. Slowly, ever so slowly, I opened my Summer Time Special TUNE -UP 8. VACUUM $5195 plus tax Service Contracts Available! 1 shell and with all my blue -green eyes — you know I have over 40 of them — I looked around. I saw no one and so I again started feeding on the plankton that was drifting by. Boy, it was good tasting but then my sense of smell told me something unusual was nearby. I looked and looked but saw nothing. Yet I knew there had to be something, for I could smell something very strange that told me it wasn't good. Then I saw it. It was low and spread out like a giant hand. Its top had a rough surface with kind of warts on it and it traveled along on hundreds of little suc- tion cups. I didn't like the looks of it, especially since it was heading right for me. I didn't know what to do and it was getting closer and closer. Just as its thick, pointed arm reached up to grab on to me I shut my shell as living quickly as I could and jetted up and away from it. It was a starfish and those guys would love to eat me up. I kept going for the longest time until I had to quit and settle down to the bottom again. From then on I was always on the lookout, with not only my many eyes but also my good sense of smell. Once a blue claw crab snuck up behind me when the current was the wrong way so I couldn't smell him and he grabbed me, but my now -tough shell slammed closed and he couldn't get at my soft inner parts. I just kept closed all the time until he got tired and gave up and went away. I was hungry, for I hadn't been able to feed on my favorite plankton, so I quick- ly opened up and filtered out my dinner. Time passed quickly and we scallops grew bigger and bigger each day, espe- cially during the summer months when the plankton seems to be thicker and bet- ter tasting. The first summer I grew to be about the size of -a quarter and the bay - men called all of us small scallops "bugs." Now, I don't know where they got that name from 'cause we're nothing like a bug. When winter came things slowed down in the bay for us scallops. Most of us lay on the bay bottom feeding on any- thing that came along. The crabs, eels and dogfish all went to sleep in the mud so I didn't have to worry about them during that time of the year. I was grow- ing into a real big scallop. When I think I like a change of scenery I just open and close, open and close, and jet myself to another location and see another part of the bay. My trips Drawing by Diane Alec Smith aren't far but they give me a chance to get around, and with my rims of blue - green eyes I'm always on the lookout for something interesting. When springtime came along I was almost fully grown and still enjoying the plankton of the bays. Only once did I get a bad taste when someone threw over some pollution from their boat. It was awful! I almost choked on it and if the tide hadn't changed I think I surely would have died. Some say lots of us shellfish are killed by pollution. I hope no one else throws any of those bad things like oil, gasoline, pesticides, garbage or any of that ugly stuff overboard. We all know this is a pretty nice place to live, here in our own bay, so let's hope it stays that way without pol- lution. By fall of the second year I knew my life was in the just about over. I had grown to a full -size scal- lop with a big, strong muscle. I had just created a whole new generation of tiny little wiggly scal- lops and was about to settle down and go into a deep sleep when I heard this awful grinding sound nearby. I looked up to see a big powerboat passing overhead and trailing from each side was a line with a big scoop or dredge dragging along the bottom. It was picking up ev- erything on the bottom. Later I found out it was moving back and forth to get scal- lops. Because I could swim I moved away to shallower water in the bay and lay there to feed. Two days later a boat came by, but this time it was quiet. Only a man and his two kids were in it. They all had long - handled nets and were looking over the side of the boat for scallops. Sure enough, one saw me and before I could jet away he scooped me up. That boy was fast! I was flipped into a bucket with a whole lot of other scallops. I tried to swim but all I could do was open and close, open and close. The tale of a young scallop named Jetaway, waters of the East End. What happens to all our friends like the scallops is that they die one way or another. Remember, scallops only live for two years, but if they are caught early enough they can be opened and eaten by people. If they are not taken and eaten they die naturally anyway and so, you see, scallops fulfill an important need for us: seafood. The man and his two kids had a wonderful scallop dinner thanks to the wonderful waters of the East End and the many scallops like Jetaway.