Alone With the Fur-Bearing Great Whites of Big Quimfire Lake
(notes from the Estate of Dr Quadde, all rights reserved)
Alone With the Fur-Bearing Great Whites of Big Quimfire Lake
By Roccardo “Dick” Quadde, Rfp, SoQ, AmF.
Early in the summer of 1969 I was taking a summer sabbatical trip through the Rhümpe-Wrangeling foothills. The slopes were a verdant riot of majestic trees, which extended from their roots through their wooden trunks all the way to the tops. As we wound up the scenic George Murphy Highway, I was listening to the resonate static of the Hellmouth (Amalgamated) PolySci radio station KGFY. Between sibilant hisses of static one could enjoy the melodic strains of Thomas Schnabel’s Divertimento in D Minus For Brazilian Nose Flutes, opus 9 1/2, which I had seen performed live when I was an undergraduate back in my sunny tropical years at the H. Wallace Beddoes Institute.
Today however, I was on a different ichthyological errand. Reports had come filtering out of the chop-sleeved, snuff-dipping, chain-sawed uplands that had caused a major stir in the rarified academic circles I swam with during my stay at Hellmouth.
The cause for this excitement was the persistent sightings of the rumored and fabulous Giant Fur-Bearing Freshwater Shark. Normally we would have not paid the slightest attention but for the sworn depositions filed by local members of the State Highway Patrol. Officers Hammer and Sheetrock had been on the shores of Big Quimfire Lake at dusk one at the end of a hot summer day. The main tourist traffic had died down, with the majority of the 18-wheeled RVs safe in their snuggly campgrounds in Wildweasel, the last town on Highway 86 to the Coprolyte National Monument.
As the mountain light cast it's golden glow on the still shores of the lake, they were startled to see the surface break as as trio of the largest albino fur-bearing sharks they had ever seen course gracefully through the air, whistling an eerie refrain through their characteristic overbite.
The shock was total. Freshwater sharks (s. aquafrescum) had been rumored but not seen in at least a generation, and the fur-bearing sub genus (s. hirsuticum) had not been adequately documented. Prior specimens had been exceedingly rare due to rampant poaching and over-hunting in the last century when the High Dorkoliths were submitted to the ardent foreplay of the relentless steam-driven throbbing-pistoned Industrial Age.
Giant Fur-Bearing Freshwater Sharks had been well documented on the Upper Agua Mojado further to the eastern edges of the Coprolyte National Monument, where the Agua Mojado drainage meets the confluence of the Chorizo Altiplano as it descends through the porous rugosities of the Stoeff-Topp strata. Specifically they spawn and frolic in the perpetual roar of the still-remote and spectacular Bigg-Ayre Falls, the headwaters of the Upper Agua Mojado. I had been most fortunate to have witnessed this remarkable event, albeit through my glasses, darkly. The resulting images were sufficient to cause an uproar at Hellmouth College, as it was known in those days.
I promptly made copies of my report and photos, bound them into a kidskin folio and sent them post-haste to my mentor and savant in matters natural and otherwise, the renowned Dr Thaddeous Malpissant, care of his Well-Endowed Chair at Big Midwestern University far away in the East, well east of the Mississippi.
In the fullness of time an answer came back, which I interpreted as enthusiastic approval. Events were later to prove both of us correct, but far from even close to apprehending the awesome majesty of this remarkable aquatic giant.
Next: Adrift and Amazed: The Quadde Legacy
Alone With the Fur-Bearing Great Whites of Big Quimfire Lake
By Roccardo “Dick” Quadde, Rfp, SoQ, AmF.
Early in the summer of 1969 I was taking a summer sabbatical trip through the Rhümpe-Wrangeling foothills. The slopes were a verdant riot of majestic trees, which extended from their roots through their wooden trunks all the way to the tops. As we wound up the scenic George Murphy Highway, I was listening to the resonate static of the Hellmouth (Amalgamated) PolySci radio station KGFY. Between sibilant hisses of static one could enjoy the melodic strains of Thomas Schnabel’s Divertimento in D Minus For Brazilian Nose Flutes, opus 9 1/2, which I had seen performed live when I was an undergraduate back in my sunny tropical years at the H. Wallace Beddoes Institute.
Today however, I was on a different ichthyological errand. Reports had come filtering out of the chop-sleeved, snuff-dipping, chain-sawed uplands that had caused a major stir in the rarified academic circles I swam with during my stay at Hellmouth.
The cause for this excitement was the persistent sightings of the rumored and fabulous Giant Fur-Bearing Freshwater Shark. Normally we would have not paid the slightest attention but for the sworn depositions filed by local members of the State Highway Patrol. Officers Hammer and Sheetrock had been on the shores of Big Quimfire Lake at dusk one at the end of a hot summer day. The main tourist traffic had died down, with the majority of the 18-wheeled RVs safe in their snuggly campgrounds in Wildweasel, the last town on Highway 86 to the Coprolyte National Monument.
As the mountain light cast it's golden glow on the still shores of the lake, they were startled to see the surface break as as trio of the largest albino fur-bearing sharks they had ever seen course gracefully through the air, whistling an eerie refrain through their characteristic overbite.
The shock was total. Freshwater sharks (s. aquafrescum) had been rumored but not seen in at least a generation, and the fur-bearing sub genus (s. hirsuticum) had not been adequately documented. Prior specimens had been exceedingly rare due to rampant poaching and over-hunting in the last century when the High Dorkoliths were submitted to the ardent foreplay of the relentless steam-driven throbbing-pistoned Industrial Age.
Giant Fur-Bearing Freshwater Sharks had been well documented on the Upper Agua Mojado further to the eastern edges of the Coprolyte National Monument, where the Agua Mojado drainage meets the confluence of the Chorizo Altiplano as it descends through the porous rugosities of the Stoeff-Topp strata. Specifically they spawn and frolic in the perpetual roar of the still-remote and spectacular Bigg-Ayre Falls, the headwaters of the Upper Agua Mojado. I had been most fortunate to have witnessed this remarkable event, albeit through my glasses, darkly. The resulting images were sufficient to cause an uproar at Hellmouth College, as it was known in those days.
I promptly made copies of my report and photos, bound them into a kidskin folio and sent them post-haste to my mentor and savant in matters natural and otherwise, the renowned Dr Thaddeous Malpissant, care of his Well-Endowed Chair at Big Midwestern University far away in the East, well east of the Mississippi.
In the fullness of time an answer came back, which I interpreted as enthusiastic approval. Events were later to prove both of us correct, but far from even close to apprehending the awesome majesty of this remarkable aquatic giant.
Next: Adrift and Amazed: The Quadde Legacy
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