Clammed Yankees

 


When Ann’s parents were visiting, we made a trip to the beach. It wasn’t clamming season that week, but we thought we would look and see if there was any show. What we found amazed us. There was more show than we had ever seen – dramatically more. Hundreds of times more. It was everywhere. But it wasn’t season, so we dug not.


Last weekend it was season again, so we headed back out to that very spot. We got there a bit early, around three hours before low tide instead of the recommended two. Again, the show was everywhere. We quickly dug the first donut – nothing. We dug another. Again, nothing. The third time Ann dug, I shoved my arm in the hole, and I felt something, and something felt me, so I grabbed it and pulled it up.

It was a tiny shrimp.

“Oh, it’s a sand shrimp,” Ann said. “I read about these.”

What we thought was going to be a motherlode of clams was nothing more than a sand shrimp party. Reportedly, they make good bait, but we weren’t fishing. So we headed further out toward the sea, to where the waves were actually lapping up on the sand, and looked for real clams.

And we found some. Once we found three together pretty quickly. But most were hard won. We were out there for a couple of hours or so, and got within one clam of our 30-clam limit and said good enough.

It was a great day. Bright, sunny, not too windy nor too cold. The beach was filled with diggers, more than we had ever seen. It wasn’t the most productive clamming day for anyone, but everyone was having a good time.

We saw one couple decked out in the best outdoor wear, with proper clam guns, and pvc poles that they had tethered to themselves. They worked right at the water's edge, tamping with their poles to scare the clams into digging, then spotting the signs and digging after them as the water came up around them. As they were kneeling in the water I saw why the tether was important. It kept their poles from floating away.

I figured they probably worked in tech in Seattle. And they’ve probably been downsized due to AI, tariffs or outsourcing. And now they are foraging for mollusks for their sustenance. They probably have marital strife, along the lines of “If you had let me listen to Rush and Glenn and invest in gold, we’d be fine right now.” At least they were getting enough clams to survive for a few more days.

While at the beach, Mary met several new friends, including one who looked just like a bigger version of her, before she got her recent haircut. The new friend was two years old, and Mary is 13, but you couldn’t tell it as they chased each other around. 



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