Have you ever wondered what it must feel like to be very well known? Maybe you already are, so you do know. I wonder if it’s as fun as it appears to be. An awful lot of people have attained fame over the years, some good, some not so good. The fame, or really renown, I want to talk about in this column, is the not so good.

I’m not referring to the obvious infamous folks in history, your Hitlers, your Genghis Khans, your Joan Crawfords, your Ivan the Impalers, your Ma Barkers. I’m thinking today about the “ooops” kinds of famous people, the unintentional incompetents, the ones who made a huge negative impact on the nation because of a simple but well-meant mistake. I’m talking about the “guys who brought it over.” The people who brought something to America they thought would be good for the country that would help get rid of something they thought was bad for the country.

Take your kudzu. Kudzu is a beautiful, rich, dark green ground (and everything else) cover that’s literally begun to carpet the world. A vine, it came to Japan by way of China (or maybe that was the other way around) and then was brought to the USA first for forage and fodder, eventually to be used decoratively in American gardens. But it somehow it got loose and has now spread to absolutely everywhere, like an endless, ever-widening green stain. Much of the south is now blanketed with the stuff and it’s slowly choking trees and everything else in its path. I’m pretty sure it’s kudzu’s goal to turn the earth into one huge green ball, and it seems to be working. Now I read that an insect has been found that might kill the kudzu and that’s where another ooops might come in; what else will that insect kill? Do we know? We won’t until it’s gone and done it. The guy who brought the kudzu over is already notorious now, although I don’t think anyone knows his name, which is probably a really good thing because he’d be in very big trouble, especially from agriculturists and arborists. The unknown guy who’s bringing those kudzu-killing bugs over will make his mark on the world too, especially once they finish dining on the last kudzu leaf, and still famished and multiplying speedily, begin to chomp everything else that’s green and growing, quite soon turning entire continents into deserts. It could happen, right?

Rabbits were introduced to Australia over a hundred-plus years ago because “there were none,” and boy are the Aussies sorry. In short order there were literally billions and they stripped away thousands of acres of vegetation. Then worst of all, they turned into kangaroos. But didn’t people back then know what rabbits like to do best? It seems hard to believe they didn’t. Rabbits are not shy and they never care at all if anyone’s watching, and in fact like it better when they do. Whoever brought the first pair of cute little boy and girl bunnies to the Land Down Under has achieved his immortality, if immortality is actually granted to anonymous people, and I think it is.

Foreign fish have been introduced to lakes and rivers to kill off existing fish that were causing problems, only to have the imported fish thrive so well, they’ve grown to where they can now chomp the hind leg off a rhinoceros in one casual nip, making recreational swimming hazardous at best.

Bugs have been imported from other countries to kill bad bugs here, which they’ve done well, but have multiplied themselves to such a degree they’ve blocked out the sun as they’ve gone swooping about looking for new kinds of bugs to eat. Then the birds got into the act and suddenly found themselves gorged with so much bug au jus they began to multiply at a too rapid speed, and they grew and grew to where eventually people in some areas of mainland USA have begun noticing their family pets aren’t coming home when called. Ever. That guy with the original jar of saviour bugs is a major oops dude and even though unnamed i’s really famous, even if everyone only calls him “that guy who brought those @#$&*! bugs over here.”

I guess it’s hard to try to nail all the possible ramifications of the imported do-good things people have put into America to save America. Even the most far-sighted of us can’t imagine the havoc we can wreak when, with every good intention, we introduce this thing to kill that thing, not realizing that this thing often then goes on to kill a whole lot more other things. Good things. Things we like.

And as to being famous, I guess I wouldn’t mind being that, although I’d prefer to be famous for doing something noble, like curing a famous disease or inventing a diet pill that really does “burn up every drop of fat you eat and flushes it away by 8 AM,” or writing the most famous book ever written followed by the most famous movie ever made starring me of course, or even inventing a toaster oven that actually works. But I don’t want fame badly enough to settle for being one of those oops famous people.  I would want my name mentioned through future history in hushed, reverent tones, as “that remarkable and glorious woman who…….”  (You fill in the blank.) And about those poor guys who made those awful and colossal mistakes and got their fame? Quite simply put, it all boils down to one small question; who knew?

LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer. 

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