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Editorial
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 4
December 2005
Thanks for the memories: Mac McKinley retires
Back in 1973, when this newspaper was called Maine Commercial Fisheries, we got the idea that readers would appreciate some editorial humor to balance the typically serious and weighty words of our editorial page.
About that time, the work of a particular cartoonist for a local paper caught our eye, and, in a stroke of incredible luck, William “Mac” McKinley agreed to take us on. Commercial Fisheries News has been the better for it ever since.
Mac, who is now 83 years old, let us know recently that the time had come for him to lay down his pen. So, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank him for the wit, wisdom, and cartoonist’s perspective he has shared with us on a monthly basis for the last 32 years.
We have a rich archive of more than 300 of Mac’s cartoons. With a few skillfully inked lines and very few words, each drawing manages to capture a dilemma and offer an on-the-mark opinion. He possesses what must be the gift of every cartoonist – the instinct to translate the thousand-word description of a situation into a single picture.
The main characters in Mac’s fishing world are tall, slender Caleb and short, round Elmo. These two “Everymen” have looked at the often chaotic world around them and said what all of us wanted to say – if only we were that brave or clever.
While we knew the gravity and truth of their message, their antics never failed to bring a smile. Remember, for example, August 1997: Elmo stands on deck reading the latest news of closures on Georges Bank. Caleb stands at the stern, trying to whack the fish leaping out of the water all around with a baseball bat. Elmo says, “Keep swingin’, Caleb, it’s the only gear approved for this area.”
Over the years, we all came to recognize Mac’s cast of characters, many of them perfect caricatures of the archetypes that have come to be associated with fisheries management – fishcrats in gaudy plaid suits, lab-coated scientists, fish-first environmentalists, well-dressed recreational fishermen – depicted as either capable or foolish depending on how their stock with the industry rose and fell.
There were also the many faces of fishermen, always framed by a baseball hat or wool watch cap, with the turn of the mouth and look of the eyes to tell industry’s situation. There were Coasties coming to the rescue; lots of boats; and the fish, lobsters, and scallops that offered their own view of things.
Mac brought vast and varied life experiences to the task, which he detailed in an article for CFN in 1998.
Raised in Venice, CA of all places, Mac made his way to the rocky coast of Maine after a 27-year career in the US Navy. Enlisting in 1940, he was a lowly “deck ape” on the battleship Nevada stationed in Pearl Harbor when fate intervened in the form of the infamous Japanese attack. That experience changed his life by pointing him towards torpedo school, which resulted in service at the battle of Midway aboard the submarine Nautilus, and, ultimately, graduation from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1947.
During his Navy years, he learned to fly Navy planes off aircraft carriers, worked at the Pentagon, and commanded several ships, including the destroyer Fiske in Vietnam.
After retirement in 1967, Mac and his wife decided to settle where they wanted to live rather than get a job and live where some big conglomerate wanted to send them. They chose Maine and never regretted it.
In the ensuing years, Mac got his unlimited masters license from the Coast Guard, shipping out on merchant tankers large and small. He taught navigation at the Maine Maritime Academy, and retired again in 1997 after 20 years and was honored as a professor emeritus. There were also side roads to it all from part-time reporter to lawsuit expert witness, and adviser to the Latvian Maritime Academy.
From all of this, Mac developed the following personal philosophy: “If it is legal and moral and looks interesting, do it.”
We are so fortunate that the job of creating editorial cartoons for Maine Commercial Fisheries and Commercial Fisheries News met his criteria.
One of our favorite cartoons is from our New Year’s 1996 issue. As Caleb and Elmo stand on the quiet, snow-covered pier, they toast each other with sparkling champagne-filled glasses and observe, “Not exactly a vintage year, but we made it through …” In the background is a lighthouse, casting its beam through the darkness to illuminate the fish house.
For the last 32 years, Mac’s cartoons have been like that: a light, in good and in dark times, a nugget of truth that puts things into just the right perspective and makes us think. Thanks for everything, Mac. Fair winds and tides. We’ll miss you. /cfn/
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