A Charmed Life Filled with Oysters

You may think it’s autumn, but for me it’s oyster season. I am always happy when the R months roll around, and always celebrate by eating as many oysters as I possibly can.

As I was contemplating this - and thinking about making fried oysters for lunch -I suddenly remembered this piece I wrote fifteen years ago.

January 3, 2010
On Twitter, someone's just sighed over my "charmed life." But everyone's life is interesting, and everyone's life is charmed; it's merely a matter of editing.

At 4 P.M. on New Year's Eve the FedEx man called to say that he had a box of perishable goods to deliver, but that he could not get up our road; would I please come meet him? The rendezvous was a 15 minute drive down icy, unplowed, unpaved roads, but the man was waiting with a huge box. He handed it over with gloved hands, waved a cheery "happy new year," and zoomed off to start celebrating.

At home I discovered that the box was filled with dozens of Kumamoto, Olympia, and Virginica oysters that Jon Rowley had harvested at Totten Inlet the day before. Modern life: oysters cross an entire continent in under a day.

When we set off for the party a few hours later the wind was howling, the snow swirling, but we drove through the woods utterly unconcerned, oysters snugly tucked in the back of the car. Do we not have snow tires? Even when we turned onto a virgin road in the middle of nowhere, we remained confident.

Halfway up this untracked road the car started to slip. And slide. And finally stall. Attempting to back up, we lost all traction and ended up one inch from a tree. Michael went out to investigate and promptly slid down a hill. Attempting to get up, he fell again. And again. And again. "Stay in the car," he called, from somewhere behind me, "it's a sheet of sheer ice. There's nothing you can do to help me, and if you get out you’ll fall down too, slide down here and we’ll both freeze to death."

I tried my phone. No service. We were ten minutes from home, and we were in some nightmare version of Milton's hell, stuck in the ice, probably forever. They'd find us, frozen, in the morning.

“Do something!” Michael called from the bottom of the hill. Desperate