"You boys about ready with your Science Fair experiment?" snarled Mr. O'Beeker. "I hope to heck you guys aren't going to embarrass me with this project. You know, Old Miss Keaster, the Chairwoman of the Non-athletic Discretionary Spending and Sidewalk Maintenance Committee of the School Board, will be judging today. Do I need to remind you two leg-holders that this is the same committee that reviews my pay?"
"We're finished with the project and able to demonstrate quite clearly one of the most significant contributions to the Science of Fishing in the 20th century," I answered, in a reassuring yet understated sort of way.
Mr. O'Beeker spent most of his life on the Brooks Range in Alaska as a trapper and hunter. Marriage and a new teaching certificate forced him to move to Northern Wisconsin just two weeks before the start of our seventh grade science class. It took some time for him to become acclimated to his tame surroundings. His wife, we were told, exhibited great patience as he learned to eat and bathe indoors. Surprisingly, he adjusted rather rapidly to trapping the only game around his new home - muskrat.
As science teachers go, Mr. O'Beeker was one of the best. Tracker John and I typically received nearly passing grades and actually excelled in the Wildlife and Biology portion of his curriculum. In fact, he considered us his very best students. We achieved this ranking during one of the first classes as he demonstrated the proper techniques for skinning, stretching and curing a muskrat pelt. It was later determined that most of the random fainting and sickness experienced by the other students were largely due to their inexperience with such things and also having never smelled a bloated muskrat. O'Beeker was most grateful for our glowing testimonials during his indictment by the School Board.
"Looks pretty good boys, what's it supposed to do again, I mean, incase anyone asks?" We couldn't understand why O'Beeker was so painfully slow in grasping the obvious and imminent scientific contribution awaiting mankind.
The theory was quite straightforward. Fish communicate with each other, often relaying messages to their brethren that fisherman were upon them and to avoid biting the hooks and such. All we needed was to record their fishy commands and break the fish language code. We hypothesized that this would be very useful in determining things like when and where to fish, if the fish were big, small, hungry, and such. Afterwards, we could sell our invention to a well known outfit like Zebco Corporation and make a great deal of money. We might even be able to skip the whole middle school thing.
The experiment was fairly simple and required mainly an aquarium with a trout, some wire, a microphone, an amplifier and an oscilloscope. We had nearly everything except the oscilloscope. Mr. O'Beeker was surprisingly eager to lend it to us from the school's science locker. We were merely instructed to return it "in one piece", noting he made no lofty demand for it to be returned in working condition.
“Okay Tracker, we are going to need plenty of power for the audio amplifier." With a nod of self-assured affirmation from Tracker, we were "okay-to-go".
"Tracker, you just hold the microphone in the water while I plug the amplifier cord into the electric socket. According to our theory, we should be able to see the sound waves on the oscilloscope", I explained. "Miss Keaster, if you would be so kind as to adjust the amplifier knob? Ready? Here we go!"
Not even NASA got the first unmanned space flight off the ground on the first attempt. Setbacks should be anticipated in all great experiments. It was quite a surprise to learn that the microphone wasn't waterproof. Equally unpredictable was the fact that it took the paramedics nearly fifteen minutes to arrive. If it hadn't been for O'Beeker's mouth-to-mouth training, Old Miss Keaster may have suffered even more brain stem damage than resulted from the initial electrocution. For reasons unknown, O'Beeker was quite upset.
Tracker still feels that with a few adjustments, more competent supervision and a little better insulation, the fish would have survived.
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