This is an odd story of humanity at it best and at its worst. It is the story of a mermaid. Not the Disney deep sea kind, not the trident wielding Greek or Roman kind, but the kind that live in the muddy rivers of the Midwestern United States kind; the kind that are not colorful, but designed to fit in with its environment: shallow slow-moving creeks and rivers. If you fish, think catfish; and now you got the picture.We, us, the very curious humans that live for spectacle, find this miracle in a muddy creek that is mostly dried up. We speculate that she is a she and that she was in hibernation waiting for a flood to wake her. We take her to an aquarium. We study her. We try to teacher her English.
The world wants to see her. We open an exhibit where hundreds of people walk by her tank every day. Soon, groups form, as they always do. There is the group of us that want to continue to study her further, which mean cutting. There is the group of us that want to protect her and love her. There is the group of us that want to set her free.
Time and time again, it seems that when we, humanity, does not understand something, we screw it up. We are like cats. We have to know what is around the corner, even if it kills us, even if we have to kill what is waiting.
You have to read this story!
Conroy, Alicia L. “Mud-colored Beauties of the Plains.” Lives of Mapmakers. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2006. p 11 - 36
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