The following showed up in my mail and although it has nothing to do with fly fishing
I thought it was worth a good chuckle. It shows that some people have more insane hobbies
than chasing fish with a fly rod at all hours of the day and night.
>The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in Newport,
>RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of his backyard and sends the
>stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific
>names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds. This guy really
>exists and does this in his spare time! Anyway...here's the response from
>the Smithsonian Institution. Bear this in mind next time you think you are
>challenged in your duty to respond to a difficult situation in writing.
>____________________________________________________
>
>Smithsonian Institute
>207 Pennsylvania Avenue
>Washington, DC 20078
>
>Dear Mr. Williams:
>Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D,
>layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull." We have given
>this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you
>that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the
>presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago. Rather,
>it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the
>variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be
>"Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought
>to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of
>us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to
>contradiction with your findings.
>However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the
>specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:
>1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are
>typically fossilized bone.
>2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
>centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified
>proto-homonids.
>3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with
>the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene
>clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.
>
>This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you
>have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems
>to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let
>us say that:
>A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog
>has
>chewed on.
>
>B. Clams don't have teeth.
>
>It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to
>have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our
>lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon-dating's
>notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of
>our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and
>carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we
>must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation
>Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the
>scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino. Speaking personally, I, for
>one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but
>was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was
>hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin. However, we
>gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the
>museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless,
>yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to
>accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has
>reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens
>you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff
>speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site
>you have discovered in your Newport back yard. We eagerly anticipate your
>trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and
>several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly
>interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the
>trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous metal in a structural matrix that
>makes the excellent juvenile tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered
>take on thedeceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive
>crescent wrench.
>Yours in Science,
>Harvey Rowe
>Chief Curator-Antiquities
>