Just when you figured it was safe to go in to the water comes word of not only one, but two, shark sightings off Massachusetts’ coast.
Nothing like a flesh-tearing great white (two, actually) to put a damper on Democrat Governor Janet’s pleas for Canadians to visit Maine’s pristine beaches.
Especially going in to the summer’s “hottest” weekend for Maine tourists – July 4.
Now, you’re thinking: “But it’s been 50 years since Jaws came out.”
Ah yes, the summer of ‘75.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.
Well, they haven’t.
The first Maine shark scare that memorable summer came on July 16, 1975, less than a month after Peter Benchley’s novel hit the silver screen, when Old Orchard Beach’s sands emptied at the mere mention.
Old Orchard’s town manager suddenly became the mayor of Amityville, doing all he could to tamp down the wave of fear.
But Jerome Plante wasn’t just an actor – he was the real-life chief executive officer of the southern-Maine version of Quebec.
So he was in no mood to laugh about sharks, real or unreal.
After all, a shark scare for Maine’s preeminent destination for Canadian visitors was all that would be needed for a tsunami of hysteria to turn Old Orchard into a ghost town.
“Jaws” was on everybody’s mind that summer.
Plante, affable and fluent in French but occasionally gruff, was in his town office when a reporter showed up to ask about the rumor that a great white was seen lurking offshore.
“Let me check my book of fishies,” an angry Plante shot back.
It was such a well-delivered, unrehearsed line it’s really a shame it came too late for the movie, released just a few weeks earlier, on June 20, 1975.
(Though born in Waterville, the short, stout Plante was right out of Hollywood, as they say. All you need to do is dissect that quick off-the-cuff reply to the question about a shark scare. He was fast enough on his feet not to say fishes but to say fishies. That word choice alone showcased the beauty of his ridicule.)
Over the years since, Maine has had not only shark scares but at least one shark-induced fatality.
Five years ago, Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, of New York City, died after getting bitten by a great white off Bailey Island in Maine’s first-ever documented deadly shark attack.
The shark bit Holowach while she was swimming with her daughter, who was unhurt.
Scientists said they were able to later identify the shark as a great white using a tooth fragment.
Great whites aren’t common in Maine, the northern tip of their range, but recent summers have brought more reports of sightings of the giant fish.
So this shark stuff is nothing to be taken lightly.
There had previously only been one recorded unprovoked shark attack in Maine, and it was 15 years ago off Eastport.
Then-Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher described that attack as “highly unusual.”
“The rarity of this event does not mean it’s not going to happen again,” Keliher ominously told reporters at the time.
That attack involved a porbeagle shark that attacked a diver’s camera.
“He took a couple of bites at the camera. I was petrified,” Scott MacNichol of Perry said at the time.”If you watch the video, you can hear me screaming underwater.”
In 2019 a great white was sighted a mile off of Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport.
After the famous film adaptation of Benchley’s novel, just the mention of the word – shark – is enough to clear Maine’s beaches.
With July 4 on the horizon, sources say Gov. Mills has ordered the word “shark” scrubbed from every executive memo – great white, porbeagle, you name it.
In Janet’s realm this isn’t “Shark Week,” it’s “Don’t Even Say The Word” week.
