Heh

 

A news report triggered a major flashback memory of my childhood.

The Hudson River Estuary Program fisheries staff reeled in a giant fish out of the Hudson River in New York last week.

The Atlantic sturgeon spreads six feet in length, weighing around 220 pounds, according to a Facebook post from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC).

It was caught near Hyde Park, about 80 miles from New York City.

. . .

The staff suspected the unique fish to be a female that had not yet spawned.

Atlantic sturgeons typically spend most of the year in the ocean, but the adults move in the Hudson during this time of year to spawn, the NYS DEC post said. 

Atlantic sturgeons are the Hudson River’s biggest fish, and New York State’s largest sturgeon species, the post said.

There's more at the link.

And the flashback?

Apparently, during World War II, American servicemen brought to the European theater a large number of songs from their homes.  My father, in turn, brought some of them home with him.  One of them, which my father used to hum (and, when my mother wasn't within hearing, sing), was "The Virgin Sturgeon Song".  The first verse is sort-of-suitable for polite company, so here it is:

Caviar comes from the virgin sturgeon.

The virgin sturgeon's a very fine fish;

But the virgin sturgeon needs no urgin' -

That's why caviar is such a rare dish.

There are many other verses, most less polite (and the lyrics at the link leave out all of the really "military verses" that Dad learned - he wouldn't sing those unless he was absolutely sure we kids were out of earshot!  I had to wait until I was in uniform myself before he'd share them.)  If you do an Internet search, you'll find several recordings of the song, some less... er... raw than others.  No, I'm not going to embed one here!  There are ladies among my readership!

It was weird.  As I read that report, I could literally hear my long-dead father's voice in my head, singing the Virgin Sturgeon Song softly to himself as he repaired a piece of furniture or worked on our car.  It was almost unconscious for him, a sort of meditative mouth music.  The song was also one of the less... ah... impolite pieces he brought back from the war, so if Mom caught him singing it (particularly in the presence of us kids), he wasn't in as much trouble as he would be if she caught him singing "The Rape of the Sphinx" or "The Old Bazaar in Cairo".  (An expurgated - highly expurgated - version of the latter may be heard here.)

Ah . . . memories!

Peter