February 2009 Archives

I'd just like to take a moment to humbly thank everyone who made my Oscar possible.  For those who haven't heard, Sunday night I took home the award for best screen adaptation by a crustacean.  That is, as my claw has grown back, it has adapted so that I can type this blog onto your screen.  I couldn't have achieved this adaptation without the help of everyone here in the lab.

Naturally, there are a lot of organisms to thank.  Foremost, cyanobacteria, for all of the nitrogen fixation that they do, day in and day out; polar bears, for their work in signaling climate change to humans; honey bees--though they're terrestrial--for the critical role they play in pollination.  I'd also like to thank Clint Eastwood.

Please excuse the lengthy interlude that has elapsed since my last correspondence.  I have only just begun the inspiring tale of my life, and already am I wrought with interruptions and annoyances.

If you would, please observe the included video.  Note how inconveniently placed are my food particles!  What fun is there in captivity if one cannot obtain food without having to forage and scrape for it?  This is supposed to be the easy life.  I'm up there clawing at the surface all day for a scrap, and thus and therefore have I scarcely a moment to sit and write, and to entertain my faithful readers.

Naturally I would thank the cameraman for catching this humiliating injustice on video, and for exposing it to the world.  Alas!  He is the very same who has perpetrated this crime upon me!

While I have, as you can plainly see, become quite adept at collecting my food in this most difficult manner, I must begin to ponder a means of subversion.  This action will not stand.  I will endeavor to continue my blog entries, so as not to disappoint my dutiful fans.  Yet mark my words.  All the while I shall be planning my escape.

(Note: If the video appears choppy, try replaying it.)

I, having been raised in a fashion typical of white swamp crayfish, spent my youthful days meandering about my home town, foraging, avoiding predation, and making idle conversation with the fathead minnows, those brainless swimabouts.  Life had all the simplicity that nostalgia deepens and that aspiration laments.

Many generations ago, my family had grown tired of the cultural habits of the southern reaches of the USA--in particular, humankind's taste for crayfish--and they gradually made their way northeastward, where my kind are passed over in favor of larger, more glamorous crustaceans.  They settled in a place known as Beddington, Maine.  While it won't pass for what folks refer to as "quaint-essential Maine," it has its charm, and the lakefront property that we crayfish cherish is in good, affordable supply.

We lived in Pleasant River Lake.  Life was much like an old New England caricature: icy winters that clung to the soul, muddy springs and museful autumns ... small-town values ... grumpy, frigid school marms ... plaid flannel lighthouses ... or perhaps my memory exaggerates.

At any rate, I never knew my father, and despite my family's long history in Maine, other less "invasive" crayfish species still referred to my kind as "from away".  One summer, I had found myself growing grim around the mouth, and methodically clipping the fins off minnows.  I decided it was high time to head seaward.  Determining whence the water flowed, I embarked that very moment in the direction of the ocean, little knowing how many miles lay ahead...


My humble origins in Washington County, Maine.