JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

After reading a number of Robert Scoble’s links to the Blog of Death, I decided to subscribe to it myself. Perhaps this may be an example of how to convince others to read a certain blog: link often to it, and ensure that the blog has unique and valuable content. Death may be a morbid theme, but the posts educate me, not only regarding the death but also the life, giving me a greater appreciation of the time and place the two of us shared.

Thursday’s post described some of the life of the lobster Bubba:

Bubba, a 22-pound lobster who survived the 660-mile trip from the coast of Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, died on March 2 at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. His exact age was unknown, but marine biologists estimate he was between 30 and 50 years old.

After avoiding fisherman his entire life, Bubba was finally caught in the waters off Nantucket, Mass. The huge crustacean spent a week on display at Wholey’s Market in Pittsburgh, where he became a star attraction and media celebrity. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to the store’s owner, and offered to release the lobster back into the Atlantic Ocean. In contrast, a group known as People Eating Tasty Animals requested the opportunity to purchase and eat him.

The post also included a link to a video of the lobster on display in a store; my kids enjoyed seeing it. Huge claws! We joked that Bubba was about as big as our Elisabeth. It is sad for such a creature to die in captivity but I am encouraged that he was able to live as long as he did.

I remember visiting Plimouth Plantation years ago and hearing that the first Europeans to arrive in the New England area saw enormous lobsters, ones that they could capture with their hands in shallow waters near the shore, huge and old.

Forgive my insensitivity, but learning about Nantucket native crustacean gave Ted and me opportunity to practice our Rhode Island accents, which would phonetically spell “lobster” to rhyme with “mobster”…ending with the same last letter as the first name of “Bubba” .

R.I. P. Bubba.