August 20, 2018 — Around 70 people who attended the annual Fishermen’s Memorial Service were held rapt by the words of local author and filmmaker Ron Gilson as he shared the stories of friends he has lost, fishermen who were taken by the sea.
Gilson was the keynote speaker at the service Saturday, which was held on the second floor of the Capt. Lester S. Wass American Legion Post 3 hall because of inclement weather. Painted oars that would have been carried to the Man at the Wheel statue and its accompanying cenotaphs at Stacy Boulevard had it not rained were propped up against either side of tall windows in the hall.
Family, friends, and community members drove down to the statue to place floral arrangements and toss flowers into the harbor in memory of those they lost after the service.
“When an accident happens and you loose someone, you’re hurt, but you put them to rest,” Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said after the service. “For those who have not returned, there is no closure. I feel every year, it’s a little closer to that closure. It’s just hard.”