Column: Stuck in the chuck

JEFF LUND/Juneau EmpireI tell my students two main lies.1. I don’t know how to have a bad time.2. Even my bad ideas start out good.The second one isn’t really a lie, and I justify both because obviously I have bad times, but the point is to be able to capture all moments with an element of perspective and optimism. The world is negative and cynical enough. Yeah George shoots Lennie and Jack goes crazy and Johnny dies (none of my students probably read my column) but real life isn’t all that bad with a positive attitude.

These things didn’t occur to me when I pointed my 15-foot Boston Whaler toward the salt chuck that was running at a docile pace with the incoming tide. My girlfriend Abby and I had captured exactly 0 crab on a 12-hour soak in an area that is notoriously filthy with crab. We’d set the pots, camp, pull them, then go home ready to feast.Nope.I was panicked, desperate, not thinking, something, so we reset one pot in front of the chuck, then I nosed down and glided through the swirling waters to the other side.

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