Least of the Hip

You went and found you a guru/ In and effort to find you a new you /And maybe even raise your conscience level/While you're striving to find the right road/ There's one thing you should know / What's hip today might becomes passe.\ These words, delivered to us over the years but none other than the Masters of Eat Bay Grease themselves, The Tower of Power. These words crossed my mind the other day when Son Bobo and I ventured forth to secure sustenance for the village, we did well on dorado from 20 to over 50 pounds, but along the way we encountered a couple of ancient life forms, one of which I'm not sure is alive, the other maybe shouldn't be. There were turtles in profusion, everywhere you gazed there were brown domes sprouting from the sea, several of which had tired boobies perched upon them, and if you've ever had tired boobies..... These weren't the sometimes monstrously large open ocean turtles but the 24" ones with a pronounced roundness to their shells. Apparently when they've been on the surface for a long time, and the shell dries out, they have a hard time diving. We stopped to interview a couple of them and they had frankly little to offer. They swam towards the boat, looking for help perhaps, because after all they are turtles. Chris scratched one on the head, and he didn't seem to notice. They don't seem very cognizant. While I'm not recommending the wholesale slaughter of turtles, or even the death of one, it's hard for me to imagine the purpose that the turtle fulfills within the great scheme, and those of you who read here often know that I am generally not imaginationally challenged. I guess that they are good to eat, never had 'em, but many of my Mexican friends get all warm and runny at the very mention of turtle steaks. They're not particularly cute, the only time that you see two turtles together is when they are humping, they don't even care for each others' company. Sorta like T.S. maybe? Maybe I'm missing something, but............. The other ancient animal that we encountered is not nearly so benign. There are humboldt squid among us now, not huge ones, but respectable 15 pound examples, which Bobo quickly cranked up a few for us to use as bait. As we encountered an awful lot of good bait at the buoys, we hadn't used most of the squid by days' end. Bobo decided to take some home and clean them up for dining. BAD IDEA! His car, my house, and even Bobo himself have acquired the sickly sweet smell of decomposing squid. It is awful, pervasive, disgusting, and impossible to eliminate. Granted, we entered their world in order to do them bodily harm, but my God man, some things just ain't fair. LEAVE THE SQUID IN THE WATER!! David