Russie Lane

Raised in a fishing family on the Maine coast, Russie Lane understands what it means to be part of a tight knit community. Some of his fondest memories are of going to haul with his lobster-fisherman father on those thick-a-fog mornings. The pickup truck’s headlights could barely pierce the fog-drenched darkness, resulting in a painfully slow commute to the shore. Upon arrival, Russie would run ahead of his father to where the other fishermen were gathered. As described in his book, Snow Angels on the Moon, the mornings went like this:

Standing in a circle, everyone would step back, widening it to make room for me. . . I remember the top of my head barely came waist-high to most of them. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have a place in the circle. . . You could tell they were my family; they all looked the same. Their top half didn’t match their bottom half. They all had spindly little legs and tree-trunk torsos. Their hands were swollen from the sea, and their forearms were as big as most men’s thighs. They were my father, my uncles (Junior, Lonnie, and Al), with a few cousins thrown in for good measure. Most had the same last name as me, Lane. I once heard a joke about the Lane boys that was as much truth as it was humor. They say “You can always tell a Lane, but you can’t tell ’em much.”

Life Lesson #1 – Don’t take yourself too seriously. A life-long stutterer, Russie best describes himself as a reluctant storyteller. Although preferring to hide in the shadows, he continued to tell his stories. Then, at age forty-six, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease which threatened to silence him once more. But thinking back on those thick-a-fog mornings and the lessons he learned, he refused to give in to the disease.

Enamored with the art of storytelling, Russie enjoys writing and filmmaking. His film, Looking for a Hero, was voted Audience Favorite at the 2016 International Maritime Film Festival. And, of course, he never misses an opportunity to swap stories or speak to a crowd. It just helps if he pictures his audience down on the dock, dressed in foul weather gear and wearing sou’westers.