The Remarkable Plans for Captain Travis O. Evans

It didn't seem practical for someone who lives in the Texas Panhandle to commit to writing the memoirs of a man who lives in California. But, I did it anyway. Someone needed to write all those wonderful stories he tells  of his life on the ocean.  

There were many challenges along the way, but my good friend Captain Travis and I have a few things in common. We're both pretty old, we're both kind of stubborn, and we've both had plenty of experience with challenges. It took us eight years, but we did it! The Remarkable Plans For Captain Travis O. Evans  was published in 2021.

The text that follows is from the dust jacket. It gives you facts, but it doesn't tell you anything about his amazingly sharp memory at the age of ninety-seven. He is a great storyteller and  has plenty to tell and absolutely loves doing so. From Grandma's "baccy habit" (dipping snuff,) to learning to read, his family's moving to California in a pickup, his first fishing boat, coming up with a plan to jump start a boat out on the ocean, surviving a horrendous storm in 1962 and a fishing story to end all fishing stories he experienced with his fourteen year old daughter and on and on and on the stories go. If you'd like the details, you can find them in the book.   

THE REMARKABLE PLANS FOR CAPTAIN TRAVIS O. EVANS

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE OCEAN

In 1937 fourteen year old Travis Evans' family became a part of the 

migration from the dire poverty in Oklahoma to California, the "promised land," as it was called. It was a long, hard trip. Referring to the book. The Grapes of Wrath, Travis stated, "John Steinbeck made a story of it, and he told it pretty much like I remember it." It took more than three months for the family to  arrive in Tulare County, California where they heard  there were farm jobs. Travis' father, Willie, found a job  easy enough, but there was a problem in the "promised  land." Wages for farm workers were not sufficient to meet  a family's basic needs. Willie set up a tent that would be  their home for years. The family members who could worked whenever and at whatever they could find. It was  a matter of survival.      

At seventeen, Travis was living and working in the coastal town of Watsonville. A friend introduced him to commercial fishing. After a weekend fishing trip with him, Travis wondered if he might someday be able to make a living that way. Later, when his friend offered him a job, he took it and his seventy-five years as a mariner began. He became a successful commercial fisherman and eventually, a representative for the industry. He also worked as a tugboat captain and an offshore drilling ship's captain, and in his spare time, built three fishing boats. He has a strong faith and as a disciple of Christ has served as a ship's chaplain, a counsellor at prisons, and he is a lay preacher.  The boy who wondered if he could make a living as a fisherman couldn't have begun to imagine what the future held for him. It was much, much more than just making a living, Captain Travis believes that God had His hand in all of it and that He had plans for him - remarkable plans.