12 – About the Smelt

RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 12

This is the popular Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog where you will learn of the plans of the Oregon coastal village of Yachats (YAH-hots) and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns) or Yahotties (yah-HOT-tees)—to obtain a Major League Baseball team. Each episode tells more about this era in the town’s history. To learn about Yachats, please go to this page or go to GoYachats.

Harrison Grutch, a journalist of the old school, joins us again, this time to give us background information about the smelt, an honorable fish recently chosen as the mascot and nickname of the up and coming Yachats baseball team.

About the Smelt
by Harrison Grutch

If you’ve been following the RS blog, you might well be asking, “Why was the smelt chosen to represent the Yachats team?” Why, indeed. So, I decided to put that question to the founding mothers and father of the Yachats Smelt—Bebe Broadbent, Phyllicida Thronk, and Big Forbes Crossbowe.

I found the trio sipping Yachatian lattes at the Green Salmon Café. It was early in the morning and the aroma of freshly baked sweet rolls and muffins wafted over the casual tables. The café was crowded and I was lucky to find a chair available. I carried it to the table of my quarry and asked my question.

Phyllicida was first to respond. “The smelt is a fish long admired for its sleek beauty, its silvery sheen, and its gracefulness, especially in water. A highly social fish with exquisite manners. Certainly a proper role model for other seafaring creatures.”

Bebe was quick to add, “Some have called the smelt the Esther Williams of the fish world.”

Phyllicida continued, “It’s long been treasured by royalty—for example, historians sometimes refer to Queen Elizabeth I of England as the ‘Smelt Queen.’ And the smelt is a traditional favorite for royal aquariums and for ponds in the magnificent gardens of the great certified public accountants of Europe.”

Bebe joined in again. “The smelt is so highly valued that smelt smuggling has been a problem for centuries—the rare, exotic species bring a pretty penny and many ugly ones, too. Premeditated smelt smuggling is still a hanging offense in Texas, especially if you’re black.”

Forbes, a former teacher, then brought up the relationship between smelt and baseball in his usual academic manner. “It’s certainly appropriate to have a baseball team named the ‘Smelt.’ In fact, just like baseball, in some cultures the smelt is worshiped as one of their major false gods. In the languages of many cultures the word ‘smelt’ is synonymous with ‘baseball.’ They might say something like, ‘I’ll go home and get my bat and smelt.’ In one ancient anthropological monograph carved in onyx there’s a description of a baseball-like game played between rival villages as a substitute for war. Apparently, a batter would hit a dead smelt with a canoe paddle and a base runner was out if he was slapped in the face with the fish. It seemed to satisfy all of the requisites and benefits of war.”

I should add that the encyclopedia will tell you that smelt are found all over both the Pacific and Atlantic. Our local smelt are about seven inches long and…well, here’s a picture of one in Figure 1. This is the Rainbow Smelt, Osmerus mordax, and is taken from an illustration in the Wikimedia Commons. In Figure 2 we see a photo (from Wikipedia) showing a man attempting smelt dipping without success.

Figure 1. The spectacular Yachatian smelt, Osmerus mordax. (From Wikimedia Commons)

When I mentioned the photo of the smelt dipper, my three interviewees went all teary eyed and sniffly. “Smelt dipping” brought back memories of the annual Yachats Smelt Fry, you see. I gingerly broached the topic. “Can any of you tell me about the annual Yachats Smelt Fry without going all liquid on me?”

Phyllicida was the driest of the trio. “Well, for many years the Smelt Sands State Park [on the north edge of Yachats] had great numbers of smelt coming there for their spawning ritual. When they did, Yachatians would dip them up with their nets, cook them, and eat them.” She blew her nose.

Apparently, the smelt grew tired of this tradition and wised up at last. Currently they are pretending to be extremely extinct. This strategy has worked well for them because the one necessary and sufficient component of a smelt fry is the smelt. Yachatians, forgetting the culinary delight of a mouthful of fish grease, have found other pastimes to occupy their minds, such as the annual Yachats Fish Fry (fish not being smelt in this case). But the smelt still occupy a soft spot in the hearts of Yachatians. In fact, the smelt occupy much of the whole circulatory system of some Yachatians.

And what are the consequences of killing all those smelt? We hear stories of huge shoals of ghostly smelt haunting the Pacific waters. Although almost no one believes these tales, the perplexed smelt dipper in Figure 2 has just attempted dipping smelt and watched them swim right through the netting, as you can see.

Figure 2. Smelt dipper dipping. (From Wikipedia)

Despite their checkered past, smelt still hold a grand and glorious place in the culture of our nation, symbolizing what we love most about America. Reason enough for us to honor and protect this delightful little fish. And besides, they weren’t all that tasty.

Next time: The Smelt Board of Directors must tackle the really hard questions sooner or later, and next time we’ll take you to their next meeting and watch them get down to business.

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NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin have offered a great many suggestions for the Rubbery Shrubbery blog in the past. As they reach deeper and deeper into the idea barrel, however, it becomes increasingly evident that this blog needs to find celebrity guest contributors fast. If your neighbor’s neighbor or your best friend’s best friend is a famous celebrity (say, Woody Allen or Kevin Kline), please let us know immediately. That’s the kind of celebrity guest contributor we are looking for.