Memory of Life
After we moved to Utah, as a young child, I had a difficult time fitting in with the local religious culture of the area. On my own a lot, I started working at an earlier interest, drawing, and I began to develop into a decent artist. I also fell in love with the landscapes of the desert and canyons of Utah. My father got to know a geologist and we would visit his house and marvel at his large collections of rocks and fossils. We also began to travel with him around the state and he showed us little known sites where we could do our own collecting. I became enamored of fossils, ancient animals and plants turned into stone, that were often lying on the ground, just waiting to be discovered by an eager young searcher.
For a fossil to occur, some sort of sediment must cover the organism fairly quickly to protect the remains from scavenging animals, decay and erosion. Fossils normally include hard tissues like teeth, bones, shells, wood and other hard plant matter, since soft tissue don’t often preserve. Footprints and other marks left behind by animals can become fossilized as well. Under the tutelage of our friend geologist, I began to learn to read the signs marking ancient remains. It was a giant treasure hunt and I was all for that. I learned about the many types of fossil wood located around the state. Also about trilobites, which are a very common type of fossil to be found as well. Fossil fish can be extracted from soft rocks in nearby Wyoming and shells of all types of ancient sea creatures can be picked up lying on the ground in many places. And of course, dinosaur bones.
When I got older and married, I dragged Lynne out into the desert. She had not been aware of this mania before, and it came as quite a surprise to her, but eventually she got to tolerate it, with mostly good humor(?) Going to gem and mineral shows, I eased her concern of my mental state by buying her jewelry fashioned from other people’s collecting and artistry. Over the years I have long since pared down my collection, which eventually grew to be something of a mess. The better specimens I donated to Treehouse Children’s Museum where Lynne is the director, for their dinosaur exhibit. I have also kept some of the good stuff and I occasionally get it out to look at it. I love the textures and and beauty of the stone remains, it is nowhere close to the real parts of the animals and plants, but the mere memory of life that once was.
(A very old photo of me doing my best Indiana Jones imitation, sitting in a pile of slabs with hopefully, fossils embedded in them.)
