This is my post for the #memoirmonday prompt In your opinion, when is the right time to retire? hosted by @ericvancewatson
I grew up on the south side of what is now called Sebastian Inlet State Park, My parents started the campground in 1952, it was called Henry's Fish Camp but in 1969 the state took the land and we had to move in 1971.
Before moving here my father was a commercial fisherman in the Florida Everglades but they closed the Everglades to commercial fishing and he moved to the Inlet and started the campground. My grandfather was a commercial fisherman here, and I am now a third-generation commercial fisherman.
When I was a child I was either fishing or swimming, that is how I spent my days when not in school.
40 years ago I started dating a commercial fisherman, we have been married for 38 years.
We fished together for a few years, then one day he had to attend a fisheries meeting on the west coast and told me to take the boat and catch the jacks that we had been fishing for. I did it and caught 1500 pounds, from that day on, that was my boat.
He built himself another boat.
This is the boat that he built.
There were still times when we fished together.
But for the most part, I ran my boat.
Times have changed in the last 40 years, there are no more fish houses on the waterfront and no place for commercial fishermen to tie their boats. We now have to trailer them, and we have to drive to an inland fish house, they have banned our way of net fishing and now we have to use a cast net or rod and reel. They have banned fish that we used to sell and put closed seasons and size limits on others. It has gotten harder and harder for us to make a living fishing. The only good thing is now our kids are grown.
I never thought about retiring at 68 years old but I hurt, arthritis has set in my hand and I have torn 3 of my discs in my lower back, but I keep trying to fish.
My body is telling me to give it up but my heart says to keep fishing. So, In your opinion, when is the right time to retire?
