Free Duane:  Lobster goes home to Maine

It was a Thursday evening when I got a chilling message from my office at the Miami Herald:  Somebody had sent me a live Maine lobster.
It was meant as a gift.  I was supposed to eat it.  But I do not believe in eating lobsters.  I do not believe in eating anything that looks like a giant insect and has 137 legs and claws and feelers and eyeballs waving around on stalks.  I believe lobsters are biologically related to that thing that is always chasing Sigourney Weaver around spaceships.
So I was not thrilled to get a live lobster.  I think there should be laws against interstate trafficking of lobsters.  I think that, as Americans, we should be protected from the danger of opening an innocent-looking box and finding ourselves confronting a crustacean the size of Mary Lou Retton.
The Miami Herald Business Section, located next to my office, offered to take the lobster off my hands and eat it (the Business Section will eat anything).  But I was uncomfortable with that.  In a strange way, I felt responsible for this lobster.
So I decided to release the lobster-- which I had started thinking of as "Duane"-- in Biscayne Bay, a body of water that is located next to the Miami Herald building so the editors will have something to look at.  On the way in, I called the Herald's outdoors writer, Sue Cocking, who gave me some bad news:  Duane was a cold-water lobser, and if I put him in the warm South Florida water, he would quickly kick the bucket,or whatever it is that lobsters kick.
So now I had a problem:  I was taking custody of a lobster, and I had no idea what I was going to do with him.  And then it hit me.  I could send him to Tom Schroth.  Tom is my old friend and journalism mentor.  He and his wife, Pat, live in Sedgwick, Maine, and are veteran lobster wranglers.  I figured if I could get Duane up there in time, they could release him into his original stomping waters.
So I put Duane into a cardboard box with some kind of cold thing, where he could still move his claws in small, sad gestures.  With Duane on the seat next to me, I raced to the shipping place in Coconut Grove, where the proprietors, Rod and Judy Heflin, to their credit, did not question the concept of shipping a live Maine lobster back to Maine.
Next I called Tom and Pat in Maine to alert them.  They were not home.  Fortunately, Tom got my message and called back to say he'd release Duane, assuming Duane-- who by now was qualifying for frequent-flier benefits-- arived alive.
The next 24 hours took forever.  The business Section assured me Duane would arrive in Maine as dead as Lamar Alexander's presidential campaign.  I was a mess.
And then it came, an e-mail from Tom that filled my heart with joy.  It described how Tom and his daughter Jennifer took Duane to the sea:
"The Sedgwick Town Dock is about a half-mile from home.  The snow was falling hard.  It was getting quite dark.  We took Duane to the edge of the water.  I took him out of his box and placed him tail-first into the water.  As you had predicted, he waved to us as he, with a quick flip of his luscious tail, pulled deep into the dark waters."
I'd say more about this, but I am too choked up.
Booorn free!  As free as the wind blows...