Montauk & Wielding Live Lobsters

Subject: Montauk & Wielding Live Lobsters

Date: Thursday 6/29/06 4:10:00 AM

Mood: happy

Tags: blog: tag me, blog: edit me, true life: private

There are times, especially when it’s rainy, than I’d like nothing more than to be in Montauk with a good book, a nice cup of black coffee, sitting on a screened in porch, half reading while watching a storm come in over the water and of course on rainy days since I think about Montauk, I enjoy letting my mind wander…and of course, this wandering is what inspired this post (forgive the ADDness in the post…my mind is just all over the place today).

I learned to swim at Montauk but that’s not actually important to the story at all; so file that away for sometime later (I also had my first ice cream cookie sandwich there).

However the back story: My Uncle Reed is wonderfully deranged. We have blamed him for things going wrong when he wasn’t even in the state. He owns a successful stationary and business supply store in Midtown Manhattan (The City) and has done things like made ‘slight changes’ on pads for my Uncle Neil (a doctor) such as replacing “Family Pediatrics” with “Youth and Family Euthanasia.” My Uncle Reed and I get along quite well.

Now, on this warm summer night, long long ago (well, I was a kid back then, so if you’re over 40 it wasn’t long ago, if you’re 21 like me, it was) my Uncle Reed, running, picked up a lobster (from the box that was on the floor) and with his right hand started wielding it at me, my twin brother (Sam not yet born) and my cousins Alison and Anna as we shrieked into the night.

This is on Video Tape. Fun was had by all.

After our Montauk Years the Schwartz-Glassman Ski trips began (and continue to this day). I Snow Shoe (I used to Ski and Snowboard, but rotated hips stopped that) and in recent years my snow shoeing has given way mostly to reading and enjoying the scenery and going antiquing and visiting The Vermont Country Store and other bookstores and the like (Shire Books, is wonderful by the way). I’m in Buffalo,I have more snow than I know what to do with…my snow shoes now live in the back of my car…I don’t need to go farther than my Apartment Complex’s driveway to use them so now I just relax =)

Anyways, back to our story. We (until very recently) used to spend every New Years in Vermont (we’ve since moved this annual date to the Fourth of July since that’s also Calvin Coolidge’s Birthday and he was Born in Vermont) so one year our family friend Brandie was with us celebrating new years…all was calm and quiet…the fire place in the pot belly stove was going, hot chocolate abound…and suddenly, the ‘adults’ heard shrieks…

Dave, Sam, Alison, Anna and Myself all chased our friend Brandie (who was 16) around the house, each of us wielding a lobster in our right hands, some shouting “IT’S GOING TO EAT YOU!!!!” and whatever else we found entertaining at the time….the Adults, realizing what was going on did what Adults should do in a situation like that. Uncle Reed grabbed the Video Camera, Dad Grabbed a Lobster, Mom laughed so hard she almost cried and I think Aunt Nancy was oblivious to much of what was going on and probably went to check on the Coyote Pee she hung up outside (Coyote Pee, for those of you who don’t know, apparently keeps Deer Away and is incredibly expensive to obtain…I think it’s because they have to train the Coyote to Pee in a Cup…I’ve offered to pee in a cup for her and sell it to her at half cost, she hasn’t taken me up on the offer).

Some family traditions just stick. We figured that Brandie should be able to deal with the site of a lobster by the time she was sixteen and couldn’t, for the life of us, understand why she hadn’t previously had a lobster wielded at her by one of her own family members, but since they lacked in their lobster-wielding responsibility it was incumbent upon us to make sure she didn’t miss out on an integral piece of her childhood.

There should be no question in your mind of why I am the way I am.

Lobsters made me this way.