Of Catfish, Corn Bread, Courtesy and the Capital : Transitions: Now that Bill Clinton and the Arkansawyers have taken up residence in D.C., the folks inside the Beltway are trying to figure out what makes the newcomers tick.

It happens with every new Administration, much like a courtship.

Washington takes on the tenor of its new chief occupants. A regional blush warms this city’s cheeks; it embraces new customs, dons new robes, nibbles new foods and whispers sweet nothings in a new argot.

But despite the predictability of the ritual, the arrival of citizens from Bill Clinton’s home state--Arkansans or, alternatively, Arkansawyers--has been a source of puzzlement for many Washingtonians.

The last few Administrations have not been geographically upsetting. Capital residents knew that Georgia was where peaches come from. California was big, and in constant danger of falling into the ocean. Texas or Maine--George Bush had the peculiar distinction of having two home states--were famous for things like oil wells and lobsters.

But the very location of Arkansas mystifies many people here.

“I can’t tell you how many people have asked me where Arkansas is,” said Jimmy Fowler, a real estate broker from Harrison, Ark. “I tell them it’s south of Canada and north of Mexico.”

Rather than reveal their ignorance about Clinton country, some Washingtonians have been circulating a mock application for Arkansas citizenship. Catherine Cooke, who works in the department of education, said the single-page spoof was faxed to her office just before the Clinton contingent pulled into town for the inauguration.

“When and where were your last Elvis sightings?” it asks.

And, “How many kitchen appliances on front porch?”

But Washingtonians can expect Arkansas to leave a major stamp on the capital. And in honor of the new President, that imprint is destined to be shaped like a “C.”

C as in colors --red and white, to be precise.

“Razorback colors,” said Sharon Morgan of Camden, Ark.

Morgan, wearing a red and white sweater with her red pants, explained that the Razorbacks are the University of Arkansas’ football team. “ Every body loves the Razorbacks,” she said.

C as in catfish, the new entree of choice.

For the unindoctrinated, a catfish is a large, scale-less creature equipped with what ichthyologists refer to as barbels. (The rest of us call them whiskers.)

A catfish likes to lurk near the bottom of a river, stream or lake. It eats whatever swims by. As a result, the “flesh is not of the finest quality,” according to Webster’s Third Unabridged Dictionary.

But a plaid-shirted Arkansan, Ted Grimsley, was untroubled by this assessment. “You just haven’t had it cooked right,” he insisted.

C as in corn bread, the de rigueur culinary accompaniment.

“A light, but slightly gritty bite,” the “Joy of Cooking” contends.

“I believe a lot of people here will be eating corn bread,” predicted Edward Massey of Camden, Ark.

C as in cookies.

No one will say for sure that the new President carried them in his childhood lunch pail, but it seems that many children in Arkansas grow up munching on a sandwich cookie called Jackson’s Old-Fashioned.

Jackson’s Old-Fashioned--the full name is important--comes in an assortment of flavors, but purists prefer to stick with the chocolate and vanilla sandwich.

“We’re an economy-type cookie,” said Vince Comerford, a vice president of Jackson’s Old-Fashioned. “I’ll compare it to the Oreo.”

At a hospitality room set aside for Arkansawyers here last week, visitors were scooping up Jackson’s Old-Fashioned cookies to accompany late-afternoon libations. Edward Massey, for one, said saucer-sized sugar cookies made by Jackson’s Old-Fashioned were among his fondest childhood memories.

These days, said Massey, who stands perhaps 5 feet, 5 inches tall and allows to weighing 235 pounds, his taste has become more refined.

“If you want something good,” he said, “you put butter on top of one of those Jackson’s vanilla wafers.”

C as in courtesy.

Bill Clinton is so polite that he almost got up to help the military aide who was in charge of seating on the inaugural stand in front of the Capitol last week. He is so polite that while shaking hands with visitors to the White House on his first day in office, he paused to comment on one guest’s outerwear.

“Hey, I like your jacket,” Clinton told the man.

This, Arkansans maintain, is standard behavior in their home state.

“We’ve always thought that it was easier to be nice than not to be nice--and I guess we thought that’s the way everybody else thought, too,” Jimmy Fowler said.

But in Washington, cab drivers and others continue to express amazement at the kindly ways of people from the President’s home state.

“They’ll tell us, ‘You folks are just so nice!’ ” Fowler said.

Gloria Hicks McFadden, a funeral director in Clinton’s hometown of Hope, expressed confidence that the warmth of Arkansans might rub off on the rest of the country.

“I think aloofness and impersonality have been devastating to America,” McFadden said. “If a little bit of our state’s cordiality were to spread, it couldn’t do anything but improve things.”

Often, the congeniality of Arkansans is reflected in a tendency to make jokes when others might complain, said Cynthia Chambers of Little Rock.

“People had to wait outside for two hours to get into the Arkansas State Society party here the other night,” said Chambers, a computer artist. “It seemed like we’d been waiting in lines all week. So I just told everybody that if we moved to Washington, we could become professional line-waiters.”

This jocular quality is intrinsic to “a way of looking at the world,” said Little Rock attorney Tom Donovan.

“In Arkansas,” Donovan said, “we figure that it’s a serious world, but if we can’t have fun while we’re here, there’s no point in being here.”

C as in casual.

“The culture of Arkansas may just relax Washington a bit,” said Terry Lemons, a Washington correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“We’re coming out of the Bush years, which were very stiff and preppy.” By contrast, Lemons said, “Bill Clinton is very much a blue jeans kind of guy. He and the people he’s bringing with him may just make this a less rigid place.”

C, finally, as in Clinton.

“Maybe he can do what George Bush promised to do and didn’t,” Lemons said. “Maybe he can make this a kinder and gentler place.”