Lobster Finds Safe Haven at Smithsonian

WASHINGTON — If he hadn’t been rescued from a dinner date, “Ralph,” a. k. a. “Big Boy,” could have ended life in a puddle of butter. Maybe clutching a bit of parsley.

Lobster stories don’t often end happily. And Ralph--an unusually large and appetizing morsel at 2 feet, 10.5 pounds--was already residing in a Safeway lobster tank in Potomac, Md., when in strolled his benefactor, David Ash, a Bethesda, Md. dentist.

Thanks to Ash, the Maine lobster will spend the rest of his already considerable existence as a ward of the Smithsonian Institution. Seafood experts with an eye for lobsters estimate that based on his weight, Ralph predates World War II.

A Big Mistake

Ralph actually was a shipping error who arrived on the East Coast late in August. He came in a box labeled “Big Boy,” to a store that thought it had ordered five of the usual two-pounders, instead of one 10-pounder.

Priced at more than $130, the lobster drew incredulous crowds to the fish counter for weeks.

At that price, he hung around so long the checkout clerks gave him a name, began to think of him as part of the Safeway family, and said they worried when hungry-looking customers headed toward the tank.

“A lot of people felt sorry for him,” said seafood manager Charles Demmons.

Enter Ash, who last ate lobster on his anniversary three years ago and considers it much too expensive for regular fare. He had already heard about Ralph from his two children.

‘Bigger Than a Football’

“They came home telling me about this huge lobster . . . but I thought they meant three to four pounds,” Ash said. “This one was bigger than a football. . . . I said to the checkout lady, ‘It’s a shame it has to end up on somebody’s dinner table.’

“She said somebody a couple of years ago had bought a six-pounder and had taken it to an aquarium. I thought about it on the way home. It took 10 to 15 calls to finally get to the invertebrate house at the National Zoo.”

Ralph went on display recently at the Reptile House’s invertebrates exhibition area, in a 3,000-gallon tank shared by two weightier but less impressive contenders. The other two may be 12 pounds each, but much of their meat is in their claws, Peters said.