When we first moved here from the West Coast, the neighbors invited us to a "crab feast". Nina asked, "how many should I order for you." We both answered, "one is enough". She just laughed and said, "I'll get a dozen." We just shook our heads. That weekend we discovered the Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. What a lot of work. But with the local seasoning (which we discovered years later makes excellent french fry "salt") and good friends, the time flies by.
A year later Lily and Walt visited, so we took them to the most famous local joint, "the cracked claw". The tablecloths were brown wrapping paper. I will never forget Lily's jaw dropping as an arm came in from behind her and upended a big pan of crabs right on the table. Needless to say, if you are from the West Coast and only know dungeness crab, it is an alternate universe.
She picked up a bumper sticker, but those never grace our cars, so we stuck it on my weed collector. Now it is 25 years later. The sticker is where we first put it and the Cracked Claw is now merged with Peter Pan Inn up in Urbana because they put a highway intersection where the old shanty crab shack was. No wonder people have a hard time downsizing. Things come into the house, they get put some place, and they stay there for years! Accumulation, but good memories too.
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