Yesterday's story about what makes toddlers cry reminded me of a funny story . . . about me and your Auntie M.
We were pretty skittish kids sometimes . . . if you'd been raised by my dad, you'd be skittish too . . . monsters of all sorts were the center of his bedtime stories . . . sea monsters figured into them quite often since he was a sailor.
Living in Key West was cool . . . always at the beach . . . never cold . . . lots of kids around . . . pretty laid back place in the late 60's.
But living there came with its own brand of dangers too! Once time we were playing football in the back yard, and I was playing center . . . at 4 years old, that's pretty comical since the ball barely fits between your knees! I remember squatting down, and then suddenly feeling a very sharp pain where the sun doesn't shine! Turns out I was sabotaged by a wasp . . . wasps were prolific down there!
Of course, Key West is an island . . . Mile Marker 0 . . . surrounded by the beautiful blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico! The ocean is full of remarkable creatures . . . remarkable AND sometimes frightening! We'd seen octopus and jellyfish wash up on the shores . . . sand dollars . . . seaweed. Mom and Dad had a curio cabinet full of objects and animals Dad had collected from his ocean dives: starfish, conch shells, coral . . . some REALLY cool stuff. Obviously my sister and I were quite familiar with ocean life.
And then this happened:
We were over at Mr and Mrs Pedersen's house . . . they lived on one of the many canals that snaked across the keys . . . for dinner. We'd arrived early, so my sister and I wandered outside to play. Nobody really seemed to worry about kids much in those days . . . wandering around by themselves . . . around water . . . with dangerous creatures lurking. The Pedersen's had a boat launch below there house . . . where they could pull their boat out of the water into a lower garage. We were on the concrete . . . right outside that garage door . . . playing near the edge of the water. And then THIS wandered out of the water . . . up onto the concrete . . . mere feet from where we were!!!
It threatened with feelers and claws . . . looking at us with black, beady eyes! Death only steps away!!! Neither of us had seen such a deadly creature before, so we ran screaming . . . alerting my parents and their friends to the impending doom!
Since you have no point of reference on this photo, let me just tell you this . . . the THING that crawled out of the water that day was HUGE!!! Big enough to eat us alive I tell you! Okay, maybe not quite that big, but remember, we would have been about 4 and 5 at the time, so to us, it was ginormous!!!
Of course, all of the adults came rushing in to save us, and upon finding the "monster of nightmarish proportions" to be a simple Key Lobster, laughed at us. We were nonplussed. To make matters worse, my dad picked the thing up, took it upstairs to the kitchen where Mrs Pedersen prepared it a warm bath. Yesssssssssss!!! They cooked AND ate it!
If you look closely at the Key lobster, he's not nearly as frightening as his North Atlantic counterpart, the New England Lobster . . . those suckers have huge claws that could snap a finger off!
As all kids do, I eventually grew up . . . found what my parents loved about lobster: when cooked, they're rather delicious! There's a huge difference in the taste as well, and I do prefer the New England lobster.
I've even been back to the Keys to actually catch lobster; that's something else! You have to put your hand into their hidey holes and drag them out. Nothing beats the taste of freshly caught and cooked seafood!!
"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." ~ Jaques Cousteau
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