A Lot Abalone

The middle of August, 1984. The roar from the beat-up orange International Harvester forklift drowns out other sounds of new construction on Monterey’s Cannery Row. Sitting straight up at the controls of the forklift, his curly white hair contrasting with a deep tan, George Lock- wood, 49, shouts orders as he loads abalone tanks aboard a two-section flatbed tractor-trailer. His sweating crew watches the boss intently, quickly responding to each command to align the grey fiber-glass tanks piled one on top of the other in the wood-framed shipping crates. At each movement, the old forklift belches another blue cloud into the air.

The truck Lockwood is loading will haul the 24 tanks in this shipment north to Oakland. There another giant forklift will transfer the entire platform onto a sea-going barge. Lockwood is leaving Monterey. A decade before he had set out to create a new industry. He would raise abalone, one of the world’s most expensive shellfish, on a mass scale “like chickens and turkeys.” It was a risky proposition, but he succeeded, at least with abalone. But the state of California and the 55 different government agencies that claimed the right to interfere in some critical way in Lockwood’s business proved too much of a challenge. So today he is heading for the Kona coast of Hawaii, where he has been promised a more hospitable reception.

LM

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L. Moore

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The middle of August, 1984. The roar from the beat-up orange International Harvester forklift drowns out other sounds of new construction on Monterey’s Cannery Row. Sitting straight up at the controls of the forklift, his curly white hair contrasting with a deep tan, George Lock- wood, 49, shouts orders as he loads abalone tanks aboard a two-section flatbed tractor-trailer. His sweating crew watches the boss intently, quickly responding to each command to align the grey fiber-glass tanks piled one on top of the other in the wood-framed shipping crates. At each movement, the old forklift belches another blue cloud into the air.

The truck Lockwood is loading will haul the 24 tanks in this shipment north to Oakland. There another giant forklift will transfer the entire platform onto a sea-going barge. Lockwood is leaving Monterey. A decade before he had set out to create a new industry. He would raise abalone, one of the world’s most expensive shellfish, on a mass scale “like chickens and turkeys.” It was a risky proposition, but he succeeded, at least with abalone. But the state of California and the 55 different government agencies that claimed the right to interfere in some critical way in Lockwood’s business proved too much of a challenge. So today he is heading for the Kona coast of Hawaii, where he has been promised a more hospitable reception.