While visiting the Children’s Discovery Museum located on 171 Capitol Street in Augusta, Maine,  Touch Tank learned several things about Touch Tanks for Kids executive director, Mike Martin. Mike loves his family, discovered his passion for the ocean while serving in the Navy, and graduated from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2004.

While discussing how aquariums create awareness about pollution and ocean acidification, Mike explained how more aquariums in homes, classrooms and business motivate people to reduce their contribution to the problems that our waterways face. Between 1751 and 1994 ocean pH has decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104, the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, is a major threat to human existence.

Mike’s community service serves as a platform to bring more awareness to the issues that threaten the waters of the world, so when the members of the University of Maine at Augusta’s Alumni Association needed contributions for the creative section of their next news letter, Mike offered to share his first aquarium experience as a way to bring additional awareness to the cause.

Dan the Turtle

Below are some exerts, the story in its entirety can be read in the next edition of the UMAA newsletter found on the University’s web site by clicking right HERE and checking back often.

My First Aquarium

When I was young, I had no interest in attempting to keep fish alive in an aquarium. I had better things do-like spying on my teenage sisters and their boyfriends. They hated my intrusions so much that they would bribe me with cash and adventure often sending me down the road to Wortman’s Store to buy them cigarettes………..

As I remember, we had about an hour to make the two mile round trip up the Leisure Life (a local restaurant that we called “Loose Your Wife”) Road, through the woods and back home……………….

Jon spotted Dan the Turtle first and yelled at Daigle, “Hey Dan did you write your name on that rock?”

I shouted, “That’s no rock, it’s moving, it’s a turtle!”……………

When we arrived at my house, our fathers were standing on MacAfee Street, both of them mad has hell, red faced and ready for discipline. We knew instantly that we were in a dire situation