All About the Lobsters . . .

One time Erin and Sean and I were up in Rhode Island staying at a rented beach house near Sand Hill Cove for a week. July, I think.

Hot around Narragansett. But the ocean gave us a steady cross-breeze thanks to all the windows in the kitchen.

As soon as we were back from the beach on our first day there, my dad showed up with a bucket of sea water full of lobsters.

On the dock down in Galillee that afternoon, he met his friend's boat coming in after an early run checking the lobster pots. "We should eat these sooner than later," my dad said. "The fresher the better."

Sean peered into the bucket, stuck his finger in the water, and managed to get himself pinched. For a 9-year-old who usually lives 3 hours from the ocean, he was shocked and couldn't stop shaking his hand in the air to ease the pain.

"That's nothing," said his grandpa. "You should feel the claws of a five-pounder!" To illustrate, my dad clamped down on Sean's other hand.

"Ha, that doesn't hurt," Sean said, grimmacing over to me at the table in the middle of shucking another ear of corn.

Then his grandfather tied the cook's apron around Sean's waist. I knew we were in for it now. The water was at a rolling boil.

"Come on over here on the step stool," my dad said, coaxing Sean to step over to the stove. "Now it's time to cook the crustaceans." He said it in his science teacher's voice as if the room were filled with a classroom of high school kids.

"Ah grandpa," Erin said moving from her reading chair over towards her brother. "I don't think Sean's ever done that before."

"You're kidding me," dad said. "Well, there's always a first time for everything." He winked at me. "Maybe you should all have a lesson. Just remember pick them up behind their claws. And lift them high so they get a last look around before you drop them in the water."

I wish I had a movie camera . . . :)