Word: bays
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...They were members of the most sophisticated and technically advanced army in the world. Their enemy wore uniforms that looked like pajamas, and shoes made from discarded tires. The Vietnamese carried their firepower on their backs. Their arms, a conglomeration of captured and handmade weapons, held the U.S. at bay for ten years...
Connoisseurs of seafood may take issue with Jonathan Swift; it takes no boldness at all to eat oysters fresh from the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. But going after these oysters requires a bold spirit and a sturdy body. Most of the Chesapeake's watermen, heirs to three centuries of tradition, harvest the bay's oysters by time-honored methods. Some scrape them off the bottom with dredges towed behind graceful, sail-driven skipjacks. Some haul them up with mechanical dredges. Many pluck them off the bottom with unwieldy 18-ft.-long tongs...
...controversial way of bringing up the shellfish. Tucker Brown, 45, and Roy Sprague, 33, along with a growing number of other watermen, harvest oysters in person-by diving for them. While Brown mans the helm of his 46-ft. work boat Frisky, Sprague plunges beneath the surface of the bay and sends the oysters topside in a wire basket. "It ain't easy," says the soft-spoken Sprague. "But it sure beats long-tonging...
...also makes some long-tongers angry. Though the divers usually work deeper than the tongmen and thus are not vying for the same oysters, the oldtimers feel threatened by the more efficient newcomers. "They're gonna clean the bay out," claims one long-tonger...
Brown and Sprague acknowledge that their harvests are bigger than the average tongman's. But the fact is that none of the watermen are getting huge hauls these days. Nitrogen, carried into the bay by runoff from neighboring farm lands, has lowered the Chesapeake's oxygen level. The primary victims are the oysters, whose numbers have been declining in recent years. The secondary victims are watermen like Brown, whose family has been working the water for three generations, and Sprague, a Californian who was sent to Maryland as a serviceman and liked it so well that he stayed...