i’ll admit that it feels a little odd to be celebrating father’s day which is observed on the third sunday in june in the united states. but there’s certainly no doubt that i can now participate in the holiday on which states that, “Retailers encourage the giving of hardware, tools and other stereotypically male gifts…”

well, i didn’t get any power tools or spare parts for the galaxie 500 but i did get a card from kris with odin’s very first scribbles with a pen ( and why didn’t i think of that for mother’s day? )!

on the front of the card was written, “because you’re my husband, i wanted to give you something really special and our the ordinary for father’s day…” if you look close you can read the punchline. kris might normally not go for that type of humor, but she claimed the pickings were pretty slim at the local store.

i decided that a heaping pile of one of the best foods on earth would make the perfect father’s day meal – fresh, soft-shelled steamed clams.

odin isn’t entirely sure what to make of the humble clam, although he had been patiently observing me as i somewhat sloppily ate dozens of them; but he learns one thing from me, hopefully it’ll be that lobster is overrated and you can almost never go wrong with a big pile of “steamers”.

amusingly, some very nice locals came in and sat down in the booth next to us and struck up a conversation. somehow it didn’t seem odd at all that they had heard about odin’s adventures on the internet!

some might think i’m being a little brazen eating a pile of clams when a species of algae has been tainting clams with record levels of toxin, resulting in bans on clamming from maine to cape cod. but i did some sleuthing and locals didn’t think that the “red tide” had come this far north and east on the coast.

so, we headed off to helen’s restaurant for a bowl of steamers that cost a whopping six dollars. helen’s has long been beloved by locals and even if it might be a myth that stephen king likes the pies, you should probably consider leaving room for dessert of you ever have a chance to visit.