A volunteer panel on the pier answers the question Cebu vendors have been fielding for years: why does the squid have no bones
Seal Beach Pier Fishermen Explain Squid to Foreign Retirees
Local anglers hold a Sunday seminar on cephalopod anatomy after reading that retired foreigners in Cebu keep asking for the bones to be removed
SEAL BEACH, Calif. – At 9 a.m. on Sunday, in a gazebo halfway down the Seal Beach Pier, seven men in fishing hats sat behind a folding table covered in paper plates, a thermos, a laminated diagram of a squid and a hand-lettered sign reading: “Ask Us About Squid. We Have Been Waiting Forty Years.”
The panel, called “Squid 101: What It Has, What It Does Not Have, and Why You Need To Stop Asking,” drew a crowd of eleven, including a boy on a scooter, a retired dentist and a woman who thought it was a bake sale.
Panel chair Vernon “Skip” Tolliver, 77, tapped a microphone that was not plugged in and opened with the sentence the group had rehearsed in the parking lot. “Squid has no bones,” he said. “It has a pen. The pen is not a bone. We will cover this.”
The Origin of the Seminar
The seminar began with an article. In Cebu, a grilled-squid vendor outside a Lapu-Lapu City condominium told Manila News that foreign retirees keep asking for the squid with no bones. “It is squid,” she said. “There are no bones. I have explained this.” Skip read the quote aloud at the Thursday bait shop meeting and, according to witnesses, “stood up so fast his chair fell over.”
The same vendor’s remark appeared in other coverage. The London Prat quoted a Cebu sari-sari store owner who said British pensioners ask for a proper cup of tea, and she sells Milo. The report is at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/. The panel thought this was just as sad.
The context is serious. Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as reported by the Guardian. No charges have been filed, and the allegations are unproven. Skip said the pier panel takes no view. “We fish,” he said. “We leave the investigating to people with badges.”
The Presentation
The seminar covered the following points, in order:
- A squid has a mantle, eight arms and two tentacles. “It does not have a spine, a rib cage or an opinion about HOA fees.”
- The inside of a squid contains a thin, transparent structure called a pen. “Think of it as a ruler made of plastic. Not a bone. Please stop saying bone.”
- A squid has three hearts. “That is more hearts than most Congressmen.”
- Squid blood is blue. “Which makes it the most aristocratic thing on the pier.”
- A squid will ink when frightened. “This is the sea’s way of saying ‘I would like a reference check, please.'”
The retired dentist, Hal Brinkman, 72, asked whether the Cebu retirees might simply be confused about fish. “A fish has bones,” Skip said. “A squid is not a fish. A squid is a mollusc. Those are different. The way a vicar is different from a landlord, but both of them may ask for your paperwork.”
The Retiree Problem
The panel took a keen interest in the broader Cebu story. Bohiney reported from a Mactan open house on a corn vendor who tells American retirees “it’s corn” when they ask if it is organic. Skip nodded. “Same thing. We could do a seminar on corn. We’d need a bigger gazebo.”
He believes retirees abroad share one problem with fishermen: they assume the thing in front of them is more complicated than it is. “A squid is a squid,” he said. “A condo is a condo. The sea is the sea. When people start asking if the sea did something, they have missed the whole point of the sea.”
Researchers say the confusion is typical. In their paper on the availability heuristic, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman showed that people judge a thing’s importance by how easily an example comes to mind. A single vivid headline about Cebu, in other words, is the equivalent of a squid looking suspiciously bonier than it is.
Seal Beach Comics Hit the Gazebo
- Roy Cavanaugh: “My uncle asked a Filipina vendor for squid without bones. She looked at him for ten seconds, handed him a plate and said ‘Sir, God made this.’ He has been quiet ever since.”
- Marge Wilkins: “Skip says a squid has three hearts and blue blood. I said that sounds like a Kennedy. He said no, the squid is more private.”
- Dwayne Ortiz: “Cebu realtors say the sea did nothing. Seal Beach fishermen say the sea did everything. It gave us squid, it took our lures and it drowned a kayak in 1999.”
- Gwen Tallis: “I live in Seal Beach. There’s a pier, a seal and one traffic light. If the seal wrote a reference letter I’d take it.”
The Property Market Is Fine
The squid seminar’s host organisation, the Seal Beach Pier Preservation Society, insisted it is not offering real estate advice. Still, it noted that the Cebu market appears sound. Colliers called the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot in July, and foreigners remain bound by Republic Act 4726, which lets them own condominium units but not the land beneath them, with a 40 percent cap for foreign ownership in any project.
Retirees who prefer a long-term stay may apply for a visa through the Philippine Retirement Authority. Skip says he has considered it. “I’d go if they had a pier,” he said. “They have a pier. They have a lot of piers. They have squid. I’d be the happiest man in the Visayas.”
The Seminar Ends
At 10:30 the panel closed with a Q&A. Questions included “Is it organic?”, “Does it have gluten?” and “Can the squid be vouched for by a vicar?” Skip answered all three with the same sentence. “It’s squid.”
The boy on the scooter asked whether a squid could vote. The panel took the question under advisement. It was not resolved by noon.
Attendees left with a laminated squid diagram, a paper plate of fried calamari and a card reading: “If it has no bones, it’s squid. If it has bones, it’s a fish. If you are still asking, it’s a Tuesday.” Skip says the card has been a hit and that the panel will return next month to discuss crabs.
The Cebu story that launched the seminar is told in full at The London Prat and Bohiney News, and British readers looking for equally patient explanations of obvious things can try NewsThump. For why a squid diagram is funny, see this guide to Philippine humour.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/