Throughout history, there have been a lot of easy jobs. Saddam Hussein's college genocide professor, for example.
Or coaching the Dallas Cowboys' team that won Super Bowl XXX. If Barry "Yeah, I'll Carry That Handgun Through Airport Security" Switzer can do it, the job can't require too much heavy lifting, intellectually speaking.
But both of those occupations pale next to that of the Army Corps of Engineers' fish population expert on the Ohio River in 1956.
The actual mechanics of obtaining a fish population sample 49 years ago on the Ohio River was relatively simple. Close down both ends of a lock — the Montgomery Lock near Shippingport just on the Pennsylvania side of the Ohio state line in this case — inject the water with a chemical that retards the fish ability to absorb oxygen, then wait for them to surface.
But that wasn't what made the job so easy.
It was the result. The guy from the Army Corps of Engineers could have counted the fish population sample on one hand.
In fact, he could have done it on one finger.
Wouldn't that have made the Bassmasters fishing tournament simple — "Hey, I caught the fish! I win! Let's get drunk!"
Or, since this is fishing, "Let's get drunker!"
A lot of things have changed in a half-century, not the least of which being the fish population near the confluence of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers in downtown Pittsburgh, site of the Bassmasters Classic July 29 to 31.
Even though the Montgomery Lock is about 30 miles downriver from Pittsburgh, the Corps of Engineers' 1956 population count took place at a time when only garbage fish such as carp thrived throughout the southwestern Pennsylvania's watershed, including this year's Bassmasters' venue.
By the way, a fisherman friend of mine has a recipe for cooking carp: first, take the carp, remove its head and tail, and nail it to a piece of lumber. Put the whole thing in the oven for 35 minutes at 400 degrees.
Then, take it out of the oven, throw away the fish and eat the block of wood.
Carp is an anagram for the word crap, which is fitting because until well into the 1980s, there was plenty of both — as well as other types of pollution — in the rivers that will play host to this year's Super Bowl of competitive fishing.
The sewers had, and in many cases still have, release valves that release untreated human sewage into the streams during heavy rainstorms. Factories throughout the Ohio River watershed, which includes about 50,000 square miles in Pennsylvania alone, dumped raw nitrates, oil, and other liquid pollutants directly into rivers and streams.
The Clean Water Act of 1972 and the collapse of southwestern Pennsylvania's heavy industry alleviated some of the water pollution.
But even then, the problems didn't go away, with one of the biggest being acid runoff from abandoned mines ran into the streams, which made them uninhabitable for most game fish.
Regardless of the outcome of this year's event, the real standout performances in this year's Bassmasters won't come from circuit leaders Kevin VanDam or Michael Iaconelli, or any of the other guys dipping their lines into the water.
Those efforts have already come from people like the members of Turtle Creek Watershed Association, a citizens group that has worked on projects such as limestone filters that treat runoff from abandoned coal mines to reverse its acidity. Turtle Creek runs into the Monongahela near Braddock, only a few miles from Pittsburgh.
Or the hundreds of volunteers who scoured the riverbanks near the point in preparation for the Bassmasters tournament.
Or the kids who have gone through Alicia Dwyer's sixth-grade classes in recent years at Riverside Beaver County Middle School in Ellwood City, PA, who began monitoring water conditions on the Connoquenessing Creek half a decade ago when it was named one of this country's five most polluted waterways by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
The Connoquenessing runs into the Beaver River, which flows into the Ohio about 20 miles downstream from Pittsburgh, which might be one of the target areas for this year's Bassmasters.
And the involvement of Dwyer's pupils is indicative of a southwestern Pennsylvania community that now values its waterways. Thanks to their work, and that of like-minded people throughout the region, fishing in the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers have become the sports comeback story of the half-century.
And to those who look forward watching the ultimate backwoods competition held in an urban setting, find an environmentalist and say thanks, if only because cleaning up the rivers has been a lot tougher than counting one fish.
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