Carp on a Hot Tin Roof

Yes, I take requests, and here's a good one from Gina in the Big Easy: "What's the deal with all the Washington carp?"

Had the question come from a less serious person I would have assumed she was being cheeky about Helen Thomas and the rest of the White House press corps. However, this is a subject about which I happen to know quite a bit.

Those aren't carp you see in every other Beltway water feature, be it at a hotel or a restaurant or an office building or wherever. Those are actually coi, a far-East cousin of the mighty American carp (which is considered a nuisance fish by anglers on this side of the pond).

Long prized as beloved pets in the Orient, a batch of them were once given to Teddy Roosevelt by the Emperor of Japan. Unfortunately, without the necessary prior knowledge of their significance, TR had them smoked and served to his staff - but then it's the thought that counts.

Another great civilization, Rome, used the carp to protect their nautae (Latin for "sailors") while they were in foreign ports. Selective breeding allowed the Romans to raise these majestic creatures to nigh half a ton, making them imposing guardians of the Empire. It was at that time that they coined the expression, carpe diem, or "seize the carp".

Even in the wild, more than a few people been saved from drowning, with stampeding schools of carp carrying them on their sleek backs to the shallows. Tales of man-carp associations (often of an intimate nature) are sporadically noted in early American lore, but that was back in the day, when they roamed our navigable waterways the way the buffalo once covered the Great Plains.

My own experience comes from my misbegotten youth up in Michigan, where we would venture into streams in the Springtime, hunting for suckerfish (very similar to carp) with nine-tine spears. The miracle is that nobody ever got speared in the foot by a drunken fishing buddy.

See, Gina? The only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. Wait... What? No, I saw the e-mail, and it said "carp". Yes, I can read perfectly well, thank you. So you really wanted to know what's the deal with all this Washington crap? Why didn't you Spell-Check it?

(Oh. You did.)

I'm afraid there's not really time enough in the day for that one. I'll get to work on it, though, and hopefully I'll have an answer by Inauguration Day. Carpe Diem.

pH 1.14.o9