Seen any lobsters???

I have a lobster trap

     This is a bonafide, used in Maine, dipped in the ocean with barnacles attached, hump backed, wooden lobster trap.
     Truth is, I used to have two, but I gave one away to dear friends Renee and Wendy who fixed it up, cleaned it up and have a great looking trap.
     Mine is not so great looking.  Parts have fallen off.  I may have lost the door.
     Why do I have a lobster trap?   Better yet, why did I have two??
      It all goes back to my fascination with New England and Yankee Magazine.
     Years ago there was an article in Yankee about a gent in Eastport, Maine, who sold lobster traps.  People mailed him the money, he sent them the trap.
     So I wrote him and asked him how much I needed to send.
     Never got an answer.
     We went east for a family wedding.  We were only a couple of inches from Maine, and Eastport was only a couple of inches north of the border, so I suggested we make a trip there and buy a lobster trap.
     Every part of the country has their characteristics.  Californians are weird.  Floridians are old.  Midwesterners are friendly and welcoming.  New Englanders are taciturn and blunt.
      This was in the days when drivers used maps to get places.  No fancy GPS or Google maps, just Rand McNally.  That should have been a tip off.
      I found Eastport on the map.  Surprisingly, since its population was maybe 50.  I had the man's name and address, and drove toward where I thought he lived.
     I even stopped and asked for directions.  And when a man gave me directions, I listened.  Not often do you hear a man say that.  And they new the man as the guy who sold lobster traps.
     Eventually we pulled up in front of a house.  The number on the house matched the number in the address I had.  A man was sitting on the front porch.  The conversation went something like this:
     "Hello.  I'm from Illinois.  Are you Josh Smith?"
      "Yep."
     "I wrote you about 8 months ago about getting a lobster trap but I never heard back from you."
     "Nope."
      "I guess you didn't get the letter."
      "Nope.  Got it."
      "But you never answered."
      "Don't have any more traps.  Why answer?"
      We then had a brief conversation about my driving all the way from Illinois to buy a lobster trap.  I told him I just drove  Pennsylvania, because we were at a family wedding.  I asked him how he shipped the lobster traps.  I know he thought I was an idiot.
      "Just put a label on 'em and mailed 'em at the post office."
      So I walked back to the car.  I don't think Jackie and Emily were particularly happy.  Julia had gone back to Illinois because she had to be at work.
      As we were driving through the small town, I spotted some lobster traps in a front yard with a sign that said:  For sale.  $3.  And like a sign from heaven, the house was next to a post office.
      I pulled over and got out of the car.  There were three traps, a rectangular one, a humpback, and a metal one.  I picked up the humpback, knocked on the door, paid my $3 and went to the post office.
     You have not been stared at, and talked about, until you walk into a post office and attempt to mail a lobster trap.  You can't.  Despite what Mr. Smith told me, you can't mail a lobster trap.
     I returned to the car, trap in hand, and took out the luggage from the trunk and put it all in the back seat.  It was tight, but it fit.
     Unfortunately, the lobster trap did not fit in the trunk.
     At this point I could have abandoned the $3 trap, but I am nothing if not stubborn.  This baby was going back to Illinois.
     I pushed the driver's seat up as far as it would go and shoved the trap in the back seat.  It fit, but the seat was up far.  There was plenty of room in the back seat for Emily.
     Luggage back in the trunk, we made it about two miles down the road when Emily started screaming.
     "There's moving things on this!  There's moving things on this!!"
     Stopped the car, pulled over, pulled the $3 trap out, discovered there were worms, and assorted bugs that were making the trap a home.  I wiped them off and put the trap back in the car.
     Emily would not budge.
     "I am not riding next to that trap!"
     I looked at Jackie.
     "I am not riding next to that trap.  It's your trap, you ride next to it."
     And that's how Jackie drove home from Maine.  Pressed tight against the wheel, Emily on alert status for creepy crawly things, me jammed in next to a lobster trap.
      But we got it home.  We made the trip safely.  The trap arrived undamaged.
      One week later my brother Dennis and his wife Joan rolled up to our house with a surprise.
      Strapped on the roof of their van was a humpbacked lobster trap, brought back to Illinois all the way from Maine.