Tootin' My Own Horn

A few weeks ago, a former student of mine, and a Kent Islander, shot me an email -- the kind any teacher wants to get.  Charlotte Rutty, an extraordinary young writer and producer, said she had a "maybe-strange" proposal for me -- to appear on Maine Calling, the state's public affairs call in show.  She went on to say some nice things about me (blush, blush), and said the show was about Maine's "sea critters", and that I'd be a good fit for the show.

Well, who can refuse a lovely person like Charlotte, who flatters me and says I get to babble on about Maine's oceans to, well, at least a dozen listeners (not including my parents)?

So I said yes.  I spent about a week doing some quick research on what I might want to tell people about ocean organisms in Maine, and some key information about conservation concerns.  This included Mola mola (of course), basking sharks (which I'm going to do a post on very shortly, as they are nearly, but not quite, as cool as molas, whales, copepods, tidepools, and many others.  Damon the night before saying -- you'll probably get a question about blue lobsters, as one was in the news this week.  My good friend Anja took the day off to come down with me, to cheer me on and have someone to celebrate with afterwards.
     
I got a good night's sleep the night before show, headed down in the morning, and met the other guests in the lobby beforehand -- Adam Baukus of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Joe Payne, who is the Casco Baykeeper for Friends of Casco Bay.  Both were incredibly knowledgeable and personable -- amazing people.  Jennifer Rooks hosted, and was great at asking questions and leading us through answering.  We had some great questions, and Damon gets bonus points for suggesting I do some research on blue lobsters -- someone did indeed ask a question about them!  (Hmm, sounds like a future blog post to me!)

The hour flew by, they started to play the theme music, then we were out of there!

What do you do after appearing on a talk show?  Well, eat a lobster roll, of course!  We headed downtown to Portland Lobster Company, and although we melted eating out on the deck, the lobster roll went down pretty easy!  Overall, a terrific day -- one I will remember a long time.

Now I will say, there are some things that I'd like to talk more about, or I'd like to address better than I did on the show.  I'll squirrel those away to write about in the future!  But if you're interested in listening to the show, check it out here. 

Anja grew up in East Berlin -- behind the wall -- and spotted this monument from a mile away.  This year is the 25th anniversary of the wall coming down!  Hooray!  MNP -- Mir, Peace.  A timely reminder.