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November 20, 2009

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If you have read my columns before, you know that I very much like to tell stories which other people have told me. Stories about communities, schools, activities have been told to me and I have related them in these columns. I have always been very excited about retelling such stories. I would continue to tell them and be excited, if I had my way.

There have not been many stories about communities, towns and schools coming to me lately. I suspect most of these topics have already been covered. But I recently have been told two interesting stories about other subjects. I shall share them with you readers, if I have my way.

Marie Wood told me this story. Since it was about me, it obviously got my attention in a big way. Marie’s husband was Darrell Wood. He had been a professor here at ESU. We have known each other casually.

Marie told me that Darrell always referred to me as a “fun guy.” That was because I talked and taught about fungi. It is true that “fun guy” and “fun gi” sound very similar, is it not? Darrell certainly must have thought so.

I found this story very exciting when Marie told it to me. I had never heard anything close to it before. And, of course, it was very personal. Consequently, I just had to tell it to more of you via this column. Thank you, Marie, for giving me a thrill.

I have known Joan Gatewood for only a few months. Yet, during that short time I have written three of these columns on stories she has told me. When we first met, she told me how much she enjoyed my column. I thanked her, of course, and we chatted a bit.

I told her how much I enjoyed hearing from people about their communities, their activities, their thoughts, etc. Well! That did it. I soon began to hear from Joan about such things. That led to three columns.

The first one was about farmers, farms and farming. The Gatewood’s lived on a farm a bit south of Dunlap for about 50 years, so Joan knew a good bit about that subject. She also knew much about Dunlap and the information she gave me resulted in a column on Dunlap.

After I had written a column about a luncheon jaunt to Americus, another letter came from Joan. That was because I had said a good bit about using Road 200 between the end of Graphic Arts Road and the Americus Road to get there. It turned out that Joan had grown up in that area. Her story led to a third column.

Now I have another story from her. It is about something I have never heard and something about which I know nothing. I found it interesting. You would, too, if I had my way.

Before we get to Joan’s story, permit me to say a bit about mussels. That is because they are the center of her story. Mussels are a fleshy living mass inside a shell. Consequently, they are often called shellfish. They are generally about four or five inches in size.

The greatest diversity of freshwater mussels in the world is here in North America. There are about 300 species. Many of them parasitize fish. Hence, they cause problems in our lakes when some species of them become too plentiful. This has happened recently in Kansas.

Now to Joan’s story. A few years ago, when they were still living on their farm in the Neosho Valley south of Dunlap, two men stopped at their place. They wanted to know if the Neosho River was on their land. They were collecting mussels out of the river and sending them to Japan. In Japan, they were formed into tiny round seeds, inserted into live oysters and the oysters were put back into the water. There, they might form cultural pearls.

The men said that the Japanese preferred Neosho River mussels because they formed the best and prettiest pearls. Their procedure was to walk barefooted in the river and collect the mussels. They then expressed them to Japan, so they would arrive still alive.

The Gatewood’s gave them permission to harvest mussels from the river on their land. They would do it only every 10 years. One evening, the Gatewood’s drove over to the river to see how the men were doing.

The men were excited because they had just found a giant mussel. It was some eight to 10 inches wide and must have weighed 10 pounds or more. The men said it must have been 25 to 30 years old. They had never seen one so large.

Joan ended her story with two comments. One was that if my wife happened to have a string of cultured pearls, they might have originated out of our Neosho River. The other was that the Japanese are so clever. They can find ways to make money in ways that we Americans never thought about.

There, then, you have the two interesting and exciting stories I have been told recently. More of you would tell me stories, if I had my way.

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