It is a sort of nasty day out there. Hope these help pass the time for you.
Reaux
There are pivotal moments in everyone?s life, not many, I would wager, that have a lobster as their catalyst. I was reminded of such a moment this past weekend when Reaux and I settled down to a lobster dinner. Paula and her sister had gone off for the weekend, a girls weekend? sort of thing, and for some reason I decided to have a lobster for dinner. Now Reaux loves lobster, he especially likes lobster roe, and I have to be careful to keep him from the lobster shells which given the chance he devours. Unfortunately for Reaux, and myself since I'm the one that gets to clean up, lobster shells are indigestible and invariably cause a case of the urka gurkas where Reaux barfs up a voluminous mass of partially digested red chitin. This time Reaux got a little lobster roe and some lobster juice but no shells, everyone was happy. And as Reaux and I settled into a digestive stupor I remembered another lobster that caused a seminal change in my life.
It was a time between wars, and dad had just returned to civilian life after serving the previous three years as a dentist in the armies occupation forces in Germany. After being mustered out he set up a private practice in Marthas Vineyard, where he was born and raised. His practice proved to be successful as he had lots of patients, but there was a problem and that was in getting them to pay their bills. It wasn't that his patients were dead beats as they paid as best they could and often paid in unconventional ways . . .a barter arrangement if you will.
It was the practice in those days for trawler crews to rotate the crewmen who would receive all of the incidental catch, lobsters being amongst the most prized. Dad had just billed Augustus Silvia for whom he just done a lot of bridgework eventually Gus?s turn came up as recipient of the incidental catch, and amongst his take was a monster lobster. I remember this lobster, all thirty or so pounds of it. It is one of my earliest memories.
Gus had left the lobster in the sink; nobody locked doors back then, with a note that this lobster was in partial payment for the work my dad had billed him for. I remember standing there, watching the bedlam as my parents prepared the lobster for the cooking, since no pot was large enough they used an oval galvanized wash tub instead. The tub was large enough to stretch across the width of the stove and rested on a burner at each end. It was nearly my bedtime as they but the lobster in the tub. In awe I stood there in my gray brier rabbit suit which was minus its tail; the beagles had gotten it; holding my beloved stuffed brier rabbit which was minus an ear also courtesy of the beagles I could see that they were having trouble fitting it into the tub. My last recollection of the lobster was of one enormous claw lolling out of the tub. I later learned that that one claw had fed four people.
The lobster proved to be the last straw for dad, despairing of ever receiving payment in money for his services he soon returned to the army. I grew up an army brat as a result of that mega lobster and have no regrets. Still I wonder what might have been had dad stuck it out and had actually purchased those two hundred acres of waterfront in Chilmark that he had his eye on.
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