Dan Larsen - The Lucky Larsens

 

Supposed to take my time to make sure I get it right. I got it. [audience laughter] I didn't care. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Another thing I didn't think through. [audience laughter] But a couple years ago, we were up on Abel's Hill. And it was a funeral of my father. We were burying the man that meant the most to me, my hero. I'll get better at this. I'm looking around, I don't really want to make eye contact with anybody, because I'm feeling fragile. My whole family's there. Every time I look at anybody, they're looking at me. And so, I decide I'll look around. So, I look around and there's all the gravestones of my family, my uncles, my aunts and then there's my grandfather. 

 

When I was a kid, my grandfather was the most important person in the world to me. He was my everything. I loved that man. He was always there for me, and kind man who had signed on as an able-bodied seaman when he was 14 years old, and left Norway, and he sailed all around the world and he ended up in Martha's Vineyard to repair the boat. He was part of the crew that went up island to look for beetle bung trees, because they were tall and straight and they would work to fix the spars and stuff. 

 

He told me the story about when he first saw Menemsha. The way he described it with his heavy accent, and I don't know, it just still sticks in my mind today. But he fell in love with the place. He left, he went to sea for a while, but he loved this place so much that he uprooted his family from Norway and brought him here. It's not too easy to move to Chilmark. [audience laughter] Unless you've been there for at least 400 years, they really don't think you should vote. [audience laughter] So, it was really difficult if you didn't speak English, but they made it and they thrived. And they were fishermen, and they were good fishermen. 

 

We never wanted for anything, and everything they did came from catching fish. They built their homes and they had families and they were fishing all the time now. So, my grandfather picked up the slack with me. He would always tell me, “Well, they're doing for you, because, they want the best for you.” I thought a lot of things were musings of an old man, but he was pretty wise. He worked on the nets. He was part of the deal. He made the bellies and the wings for the nets and mended the sails. He had these beautiful hands. They were big. They must have been bigger, when he was younger, but they were crippled with arthritis and they were smooth. You just knew he was a fisherman looking at his hands.

 

I can remember him rubbing me on the head how smooth they were. He was never mad at me. I know I was a real pain in the ass kid, [audience laughter] because a lot of people have told me. [audience laughter] But I never ever once heard that man say anything, but you're a good boy. He picked me up after school one day when I was having a bad day, him and David Vanderhoop, his friend. He was supposed to drive me home, which was about 200 yards away from school. [audience laughter] That was about all my mother was going to let him drive me, because he couldn't see too well because of diabetes and stuff. But he decided since I was having a bad day, he was going to drive up to Gay Head Aquinnah to Mrs. Greeters and get me an ice cream. 

 

And so, we took a ride up. Didn't hit anything, didn't pass anything, but didn't hit anything, [audience laughter] got the ice cream. He cheered me up. He brought me home. That caused a fight with my mother. But I remember he'd do anything for me. We'd spend the nights there. I never saw the TV go on in that house, because he would tell us stories. My cousin John and I, he would tell us stories. And one day, when we were down on the dock-- 

 

My favorite thing to do was to go down, and when the boats would all be blown in, I'd go down and they'd all be telling stories and lies and stuff. [audience laughter] Running around on the deck of the boat. Somebody offered me a candy bar, and I ran over and he grabbed me and he goes, “I got one of those little Lucky Larsens, and I'm going to stow them up in the forepeak.” And I'm like, [unintelligible [00:20:56] 

 

I got away, and I ran back to my dad, and everybody's laughing, and I asked my grandfather, “What's this about Lucky?” And he goes, “They're not lucky. Lucky doesn't have anything to do with fishing. You got to be ready. You got to be there and everybody's got their chance at luck.” He goes, “But you are lucky. You're lucky we're here. You're lucky you have the family you have and someday you'll know how lucky you are.” So, most of the things I heard when I was a kid, that didn't make any sense. 

 

When we got to be about seven years old, six or seven, they took us fishing. One trip, they took us out there. It was a long trip, but it was more like a babysitting thing, I think. But they took us. My father brought me up in the mast and he tied us up. You'd probably go to jail now if people heard what they did. [audience laughter] They took us up in the mast on the first cross tree and tied us off. [audience laughter] And we loved it. We had pockets full of candy bars, and we were looking at sharks and whales [audience laughter] and watching swordfish get harpooned and feeling part of it. It was unbelievable for a kid. 

 

When I got in, I raced to my grandfather's house, and he made me feel like the only reason the whole thing worked was because of me. To this day, it affects me. But anyway, I grew up finally. [audience laughter] He died when I was 14. I didn't think I'd be able to go on, but he had always told me it's important to go on. Whenever he'd tell me a story that would, I'd go, “Wow, I don't know how you made it.” He goes, “You just got to go on.” He says, “No matter what happens to you, you just got to go on.” I grew up, and did all the things that people do when I grow up. Got married, [audience laughter] had some beautiful kids, unbelievable kids and went about ruining my life and all that stuff and growing up still.

 

One day, I'm sitting at my father's house. I'm there with my kids, and we'd stopped in and we're having coffee and we're sitting around the table. I'm at the end, and my father's telling my son a story and one that I'd heard a thousand times. So, I'm spaced out and looking down at some article in a magazine. I looked up and I saw my father's hands around the coffee cup and I went, “Oh, my God.” It choked me for a minute, because I thought, jeez, that reminds me of grandpa. And then, I looked up, and my father had the same neon blue eyes that my grandfather had, really kind eyes. They had this way of looking my grandfather. Every time he looked at me, I knew he loved me. It was weird. 

 

My father's looking at my son like that, and my son's looking back at my father like I must have looked at my grandfather. I turned around and I looked, and he told me to breathe when I got like that. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

They told me, “You'd be kind.” [audience laughter] Anyway, so I turn back around and I look at my brother, and my sisters, and my kids and my nephews. At the funeral, I look up and there's 300 people there. There's all these friends and family. I think we're planting our blood and our flesh in this ground and I belong here. It took me 65 years to figure out what he meant about being lucky. But thank God, I figured it out. Thanks.