He said, ‘Huh?’ He said, ‘Where’s papa?’ I said, ‘He’s laying down.’ He never said a word; he turned the boat back and headed back towards Biloxi. He said, ‘Papa never lays down. He’s sick.’ – Corky Hire
Corky Hire may have had an inauspicious beginning to his shrimping career, taking over for his ailing father, but now 70 years later, his memories of working the Gulf are almost all fond ones. His time on boats, through the 30’s and 40’s, was during a time when Biloxi’s seafood industry was growing tremendously – sail schooners were being replaced by powered boats, and Croatian families were making the shift from immigrant laborers to cannery owners and professionals.
Corky, the child of immigrants himself, grew up during a time when all his neighbors on land grew grapes for their own wine, when he was hauling in shrimp nets by hand, when ice for the shrimp was in short enough supply that the canneries sent out their own boats to unload fishermen’s catch while still at sea. He retired from shrimping in 1955, before the Hurricanes Camille and Katrina, before government-mandated holes in the shrimp nets, before casinos bought up the waterfront, before shrimp importation all combined to threaten the state of the industry as it stands today. His work back then was hard, Corky says, but “there wasn’t nothing really hard.”
What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
Subject: Nick “Corky” Hire, Retired Shrimper
Date: July 28, 2008
Location: Slavic Benevolent Association, Biloxi, MS
Interviewer & Photographer: Francis Lam
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Francis Lam: This is Francis Lam for the Southern Foodways Alliance. It’s Monday, July 28, 2008. I’m with Corky Hire, at the Slavonian Lodge in Biloxi, Mississippi. We’re going to be talking about his days growing up in Biloxi and shrimping in the Gulf. Corky would you please state your name, your age, and your occupation?
Nick “Cory” Hire: Nick Hire, born [Laughs] 1921—tenth day, second month—I mean tenth month, second day, 1921. I’m 86 years old.
You don’t look a day over 82, Corky. You’re looking great. Corky, you were born in Biloxi?
I was born in the house I’m living in now—the house I’m living in now. Well it’s a cottage; it was a house [Corky’s house was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina; he lives in a cottage on the property].
And where did your family come from?
They call it Bobovisca in Yugoslavian and Croatian, my mama and daddy come from the same place. Oh hell, I don’t even remember when. They came separate. My daddy come on a ship. He stopped in Canada and they told him if he jumped ship—it was Gold Rush Days. But they told him if he jumped ship they’d shoot him. I think he went through Ellis Island and my mama came—her sister came first and was married to a Maronivitch and he sent for her. They met down here and got married here in Biloxi.
Everybody went fishing and went out on the boats, the husbands, and the women worked in the canneries. Well, my mother never did; she always had a bad leg, so she didn’t work in the cannery too much. But she fed four growing boys. And I guess we liked to eat, you know. She stayed home and cooked.
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I used to hear my mama say she was stronger than most of the men. She used to carry 200-pounds of grapes on her head going up a hill, bring them to the winery. It took two guys to put it on top of her head and she carried it on up the hill. My mama was a big lady, you know. She was strong. In fact, I think my daddy was the shortest one in the family. But we was all six-foot; all of us was six-five, six-four, six-three, and I’m six-two.
But you said your mother had a bad leg. Did she hurt her leg?
Yeah. Old-time stove, one of them pokers—the lid off and fell and it never—never would heal up. And then, well, they didn’t have the medicine you got now to treat anything you know? She limped around on it all her life.
It happened here. We was all born. In the house I was living in, that’s where it happened, in that shotgun house. I guess she was cooking and it was wintertime and they didn’t have heaters like you got now and air-conditioning so they all warmed around the stove they cooked in.
Have you ever visited where they came from?
No; never have been to Yugoslavia. In fact, I ain't never been to Europe. I’ve been all over the Pacific, in World War II. Fought in the Solomon Islands and main invasion was Bouganville, in World War II.
How would you describe your neighborhood? Were there a lot of Croatian families living there at the time?
Yeah, yeah it was a lot of Croatians. Well you know, when the foreigners come they all try to get together and a lot of French and a few Polish people—a lot of Frenchmen and a few Polish people with a lot of Slavish, a lot of Slavish.
My family, at home, we all spoke Slavish you know? I guess the French people the same way; most of them came from Louisiana; the Polish from Pollock. They all came down to the seafood industry—fish and shrimp and oysters and we got along pretty good. We fought like kids, you know; kids fight—they all fight, and got along pretty good—really did, among the neighborhood. Everybody knew everybody.
Everybody tried to speak English. You’ll get along. You meet a stranger you’ll gradually communicate one way or the other. So we started—we all started talking and I guess they had to start speaking English, my mama and my daddy because they couldn’t speak nothing but Slavish. And the French people was the same. And as the kids grew up, probably most of us went to St. Michael’s School and plenty of them went to Howard too. But we all got along great—I thought so anyway.
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We had grapes in the backyard by the house I’m living in, them little white grapes. I seen my daddy and my oldest brother stomping grapes, you know like in the movies, sometimes you see them stomping grapes in Italy. And you put it to brew.
The whole bunch, all them Slav people. A lot of Polish made the wine too. Now they didn’t make it to sell; they made it for personal use.
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You had mentioned that you had worked on the shrimp boats from a pretty early age.
Yeah, I was 15 years old. I didn’t want to go to school. My oldest brother said if you don’t want to go to school he said, “I’ll give you spending money but if you ain't going to school you’re not going to run the streets.” So you’re going to take papa’s place. Papa is going to retire and you’re going to work.
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When I got on a boat, the sail schooners were sort of running out, you know, and then they’re starting to let Mississippi schooners have power, big schooner boat. I seen a few of them—ain't too many of them left now. My daddy and them were stockholders a little bit in Mississippi Coast and he kind of drawed his money out because he needed to pay off the boat. We built us a boat in 1932 during the Depression, right before Roosevelt beat Hoover and named it—President Roosevelt. He knew we had to go to work. That’s all they did here; there wasn’t too many jobs you know—what little seafood you did. Most of them worked seafood and had a few stores up here.
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My oldest brother was the Captain all the time. My daddy and I were—my daddy was the cook and cleaned up. And we was going out one morning and we was heading for Louisiana Marsh shrimping. Always the second week in August the shrimp season opened up in Louisiana. We was going out. And my daddy was always in the back, always doing something, patching holes, the net would have some holes or something, so he’d patch. And so I walk up the front. We just went through Ship Island and my oldest brother says, “Where’s papa?” And I said, “Laying down.” He said, “Huh?” He said, “Where’s papa?” I said, “He’s laying down.” He never said a word; he turned the boat back and headed back towards Biloxi. He said, “Papa never lays down. He’s sick.” So my daddy—I don’t do it either. When I’m running a boat I don’t lay down; I sit. I sit and watch—just look, you know, looking at the sea. That’s the last trip my daddy made on a boat; he was sick. After that he never did go back on the boat and I took his place. I went because I didn’t want to go to school. Like a nut. I could have went to high school. The coach come and got me and wanted me to go play football. I was pretty big for a kid; I was always about six-foot and stuff and I played around and I used to catch a football pretty good when I was a kid. I didn’t want to go; I wanted to go to work. I thought I was too dumb to go to high school like a nut, like a nut—you hear what I said—a nut. You know I regret it now. But I didn’t want to go.
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Could you explain to me what a day going on the boat was like?
[Laughs] Standing! Standing. You know, picking out the shrimp out of the trash fish and stuff and icing them down, cooking, whatever you did.
You’d get on the boat. Put the net out— there’s what they call trawl boats—and you let out 40—50 fathoms of line and you drug it around for maybe a couple of hours and pick it up. And picked them up; at first they didn’t have all these hoisting rigs. You had to scoop everything; it was done by hand when I started. We had to pick up the trawl lines by hand and leave about four or five of them out. A man on each side would pull the rope by hand so he could get the trawl boats and then get it straight up and down, one—tie one end up, come help you pick the boat up, and then get the other five and put it on and bring it around and scoop the shrimp out. Scoop the shrimp out, put them on deck and you clean the shrimp from the bad—well not bad fish; just trash fish. You couldn’t sell them. Or if you had some good fish in there like flounders, crown mullets and white trout, you know, you’d kind of save them aside because you can eat them, but the croakers and stuff—oh Lord. Sometimes you’d have 10 barrel of croakers and just shovel it overboard; it’s not good for nothing and it’s bony. It wasn’t bad; you just have so much trouble eating them like a freshwater bream or something. It’s just full of bones.
And how would you store the shrimp on the boat?
Well they had special made boxes in the hull of the boat. You had the pilot house and then you got the engine room in an old Biloxi lugger, cabins were in the back. In front they had a hull, and they made special compartments called boxes, and you put a little bit of ice, layer of shrimp, layer of ice, layer of shrimp, okay? Well, then you fill that up and start another. And some of the boats—how big it was—some of them had two or three compartments. Some of them was more.
How long would you go out for at a time?
Well when I first started you went out, eight—ten days, twelve days.
You had enough ice to last that long?
No, when we first started they had a lot of freight boats—boats that come out with loaded ice. Each boat—each cannery had a different color flag, would say this one worked for Southern Shell, this one worked for Sea Coast, this one worked for Kuluz Brothers. You see the flag flying, you know that that’s who the cannery they’re working for. So you go there and you unload the shrimp and they give you a little receipt, so you had three barrels shrimp, they give you a little receipt for three barrels of shrimp, you know? And we didn’t carry too much money.
And you stay about 10—12 days, but this time of year you couldn’t keep the shrimp on that too much because they’ll spoil. You had a lot of times the boats would come alongside and pick up the shrimp while you’re dragging. They had scales on the boat. Say you had three barrels at 600 pounds—630 really; it’s 210 pounds to the barrel. They said 10 pounds was the trash. And they’ll give you a receipt, and when you came in you went to each cannery. If your [cannery’s] boat wasn’t there, a guy will come ask if you want to unload your shrimp. They’ll pick it up—they all sort of worked together but you always tried to save them for the cannery you worked for. They bought you the shrimp license. See, we worked for Southern Shell a lot. They bought the license for us—wasn’t much but they paid for the license so you tried to save the shrimp for the cannery you worked for.
My brother Eddie, he went around and collected from each cannery. They give him a check and he’d come up to the bank, give you cash for it, and he would go around and pay the bills and what’s left he brought it home. And what’s left he put it on the table—understand? He come home and he put it on the table. My daddy was sitting there; my daddy picked up that money. You said, “Hey, I worked for that.” My daddy picked up that money—not only my daddy now; this whole generation of them old people. He picked up the money, and after the bills was paid for he’d maybe give my oldest brother, Paul, $10-bucks or $5-bucks. Well $10 in them days goes a long way [Laughs]. Me, I was the baby; I didn’t get nothing.
Then later on in life he figured, well my brother is old enough so he started giving them half of what they made. If we made, $50 he’d give my other two brothers—if you’re 21 he’d give half—he’d give them $25 and he kept the $25 for eating and sleeping and washing clothes home for expense you know.
Was that typical? Did other families do that too or was that just your family?
I think most of them did it. I know one thing, they was mad at my daddy for doing that because when he realized my brothers was getting old enough, they needed money of their own. And a lot of them old men was mad at my daddy for giving them boys half. Now I don’t know how the Frenchmen did it, but I know plenty of Yugoslavs when they came from the Old Country. Daddies kept all the money, you know. It ain't like it is now. They said, “Hey, that’s mine,” but your mama and daddy said, “Well who is going to pay for the food you’re eating?”
“Well I don’t know; I worked for that and that’s mine.” I got a grandson that way right now. [Laughs] He wants to go somewhere or he wants to go eat, he asks my daughter, “Give me a couple bucks. I want to go get a sandwich.” She said, “You just got paid.”
“That’s my money,” he says. You know that’s the difference in generations now you know. I’m talking what—70 some years ago to now.
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Back then you said you had all white shrimp. You didn’t—you didn’t see any brown shrimp? [Brown shrimp are now the primary shrimp caught in the summer.]
No; you see one in a white shrimp you’d take and throw him over. You thought he was sick, you know. It was an odd looking shrimp so you didn’t know if he was bad or what. And then all at one time—I don’t know when the brown shrimp come into the Gulf of Mexico but right through the passes out into the Gulf and hell it was plenty—plenty—plenty.
Do you like eating shrimp?
Oh why yeah; I’ve been raised on shrimp, fish, and oysters. How do you think my pa—my daddy used to work by himself trying to raise—well two girls had died—four boys and he’d make $5—$6 a trip.
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Did you enjoy the work on the boat?
Oh yeah; oh yeah—shrimping is great. I love to shrimp. I love shrimping. Wide open spaces, you just—you just enjoyed it. Most of the time the weather is nice and the Louisiana Marsh is very seldom rough anyway, in bad weather or rain and stuff. You might go out like oystering about four days and shrimping like eight—ten days. You’d stay home three or four days and then you’d go back out, you know. But that’s what was good about it—you was more or less independent.
There wasn’t nothing really hard. Oh, drudging oysters was the hardest—oystering, oyster catching. You had to stoop, bent over. You’d get up before daylight, you’re picking and the sun is up and you pick all day long. And at one time, you wouldn’t even go eat. One man would go eat at a time. We would take a coffee break about 12:00 and then we ate supper after dark. By that time we had to store all the oysters and get them ready for the next morning, because when you work you just throw them down there with a shovel. At night—took them and stacked it like. But shrimping was—shrimping was great. Oystering was all right because you only stayed out four days see, but shrimping was easy. Them two hours you’re dragging you just sit and read a book, sit around; you might pick up a try-net and see if you got any shrimp. You know, it was easy.
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I was Captain of the President. I wound up being the Captain. My other brother bought a little boat. My daddy always said brothers can't work together, so we had different boats. Brothers always argue. You can't have too many Captains. You can't have too many bosses. Too much conflict. My daddy was smart enough.
You mentioned earlier that you cooked on the boat a lot. And now you cook a lot for the lodge. [The Slavonian Lodge, the social club where Corky spends much of his time.]
Well the whole family is cooks. My whole family can cook—all of us. All fishermen can cook, you understand? You had to or you wouldn’t eat. Sometimes you’d work a boat by yourself and you ain't got any canned goods—you got to cook something. I can't say we’re gourmet cookers but we cook enough that you can get your stomach full. As long as you got your stomach full you’re happy, okay? If you ain't hungry you’re happy. You get what I’m talking about? You might not have everything in the world but at least you ain't hungry.
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What kind of food would you eat on the boat? What—what kind of supplies would you bring?
Everything; what you cook home you’ll cook on the boat. Now, hell everything is like home on a boat, but them days—. The onliest thing, when you went out you had a slab of bacon and you had a slab of salt meat and salami. Then it didn’t spoil; they used to hang it under the awning where it’s shady and stayed there. You’d just cut that black part off and you’d eat it. Salami was good but you’d cut some bacon off; you’d fry the bacon down. Sauté some onions and stuff and make a little gravy, rice, spaghetti on the side, or you can throw shrimp in there and make Shrimp Creole or whatever, you know?
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So how has the industry changed over time?
Oh Lord; this town is gone for its seafood. Looks like there’s no more canneries, no more nothing. Hell, there must have been like five or six big canneries on what we called Back Bay Biloxi, Point Cadet, let’s see there’s Antisich’s, Marvar, Dee-Dee’s, Tejean, Victory, Kuluz Brothers, Sea Coast—that’s what I’m saying; there must have been 12—14 big canneries here at one time—handled oysters and shrimp, you know. And little by little they kept phasing out and phasing out, and then there ain't too many shrimp boats left. The Vietnamese almost got them now—that’s all them big boats all the way in here; ain't too many white people got shrimp boats anymore. They got small ones and they’ll go out and work maybe when the season opens up but most of them has got an extra job somewhere.
It’s just—at one time we depended on—summertime it started getting hot and you couldn’t catch no more oysters, you used to close down. The boats used to stay tied up. And then every year, like I say in the summertime they didn’t have nothing to do. They had schooner races; each cannery would put one or two boats in there and they’d fix it all up and paint it and make it look pretty good and have races for the Yacht Club around—especially around the Fourth of July and stuff you know. They had bragging rights—bragging rights is all. The guys had a little money so they all rigged up and one would rig up, one would rig up, and they would have about five or six. You’ve seen pictures of them schooner races haven’t you? Didn’t you see pictures? We had them all over the lodge—the old lodge, but—.
So earlier, you mentioned that you regret a little bit not going to school. Why do you have that sense of regret? It seems like you were really happy with the work you did.
[Laughs] Well, like everything else I guess you regret not doing something you wish you’d have did. That’s all I can say.
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I’ve had a good life—real good life. My kids are fine; my kids—they’re okay. I’m okay; I’m healthy; I like to fish.
To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.