Oysters, dancing in our heads

It is after five in the afternoon and I am sitting at my desk killing time until I go home and let the dog do his business, the only question being which part of the yard do I let him create in. Right now, I am thinking about oysters. When I was young, my contact with oysters occurred on Christmas Eve when my father would have his annual bowl of oyster stew for his birthday. For my brother and I, Christmas Eve was the day when we ate pot pies from Swanson and watched our dad open up the packages containing the items my mother had picked out for him. It always seemed a little sad. Too many shirts and ties, not enough toys.

My dad always had oyster stew for his birthday. It has come to my attention that the injesting of oysters on Christmas Eve is an Irish custom. This would make sense in context. My paternal grandmother's family was from Dublin (the Cooley side, anyway). Her father was a groceryman, who could get oysters even if no one else could. He had the connections. So, if anyone in Montgomery County, Tennessee was going to eat oysters on Christmas Eve, and continue the Irish custom, it would be my family.

For several years now, my parents have been renting a house in St. George Island, Florida for the week of Thanksgiving. From the first year, when everyone was together on Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, we would drive in to Apalachicola and eat at 'Boss Oyster.' Boss Oyster has a large seafood menu; however, their main menu item is the oysters which are harvested in Apalachicola Bay, just inside St. George Island. In the first year, I ordered a menu item called "Roasted Oyster Feast." When everyone else's order arrived, my oysters were nowhere to be found. The waitress realized that they hadn't put in my order. She went back into the kitchen, got my order fixed and came back and pulled up a stool next to my chair and shucked oysters for me until I had finished the four dozen on my tray. Ever thereafter, I have been the show, eating several dozen oysters while everyone else ate their piddling meals.

I always feel better after that first night's meal. I really don't need turkey the next day. Truthfully, after that first meal, everything else is just surplus.

So, tomorrow night, Kate and I will drive down in my trusty Toyota Solara to the Redneck Riviera, and sleep a good sleep, with visions of oysters dancing through our heads. Dancing oysters.

I do love oysters, but it still boggles my mind to think of the first guy who ate one, back in pre-history. He was either very hungry or very loaded.