Little did I know that the way to take my mind off of my shoddy career situation and ensuing lack of self-worth and personal identity was to go look at a bunch of twelve million-year-old animal skeletons encased in volcanic ash.
Perhaps this treatment would work for others?
When thinking about interests and hobbies, I list quickly reading and photography. Soccer and hiking used to be on there, too, but, alas, Nebraska is not for hikers and I haven't engaged in authentic soccer action in years. Also on that list of interests, neglected, usually, should be Science and Ancient History/Stuff. Or the best of both worlds, any of the paleo- sciences.
So I loaded up the car last Friday and drove four hours to the Ashfall Fossil Beds to gawp (really) at the remains of rhinos, horses, camels, cranes, various dog-like animals, three-horned rodents (!), sabre-toothed deer (!!), giant tortoises, and four-tusked elephants. Their hardened skeletons were perfectly arranged as if they'd just settled down for a nap. Intact.
How did this happen, you ask? (And you should ask!)
Long ago and a thousand miles away in the Rocky Mountains, there was a HUGE volcanic eruption that sent a giant ash plume shooting across the Plains. Some of the ash was so tiny it flew all the way to a certain waterhole in what is now Nebraska, where it floated and fell for weeks and weeks, coating everything in a grey haze and the ground in fluffy layers one/two feet deep. The animals breathed it in (volcanic ash is essentially glass; fun!), filling their lungs and collecting in eyes and ears and various body folds, nooks, and crannies. The decreased lung capacity led to oxygen deprivation and painful, rapid, abnormal bone growth. Wanting relief, many animals sought out the waterhole.
Birds and smaller animals died first, with rhinos and the like holding out the longest. Within a matter of weeks, no one was left. The deadly ash covered and preserved the bodies as they died--you can even tell that that crane's last meal was a lizard; its bones are in the bird's stomach. There's a pregnant rhino who never gave birth and a baby rhino that they estimate at one month of age. It was likely born at the beginning of the ashfall and never knew any other way of existence.
The big deal about this site is most of the skeletons are WHOLE, untouched by scavengers. They are left in situ, so you can see the rictus of the spine, necks turned up and back. You can see how they lay down next to each other.
I didn't realize until I got home and checked the website again that one of the paleontologists I talked to was the man who discovered the first fossil back in 1971, a baby rhino skull sticking out of an eroded hillside, that ended up being connected to an entire skeleton. They are still working at uncovering more skeletons, hoping for a large predator (sabre-toothed tiger!).
Because I was there on a Friday afternoon, the other visitors were mostly retired people, one or two of them a bit too talkative and wanting to know why I was so interested and snappy with my camera. My patent answer for this is "I'm a teacher." People understand this: oh, she's learning for her students. But it isn't really true. (Well, not true at all, right now, not having a classroom.) For all that we expect and encourage children to learn, adults aren't generally included. They are occupied with matters of career and family and directed purpose. Researching for an article or doing a bit of photography for a project is acceptable; it is work. (And here I am blogging about it, so: Purpose!) When adults have down time, they relax and vacation. Pick up some beach reading, go on a winery tour, ski Utah, whatever. How many adults go out and learn something new, unrelated to their career path? It is not common. If I'd told the nice chatty retired man that I like science and am exercising my Lifelong Learner muscles, it would have been weird. (And he might have gone off on a rant about how when he was my age he was busy threshing wheat by hand and saving pennies for his polio-stricken sister, not looking at a bunch of decrepit bones strewn about.) But I just really like knowing how things work and why they work and what happened and what that means. Fossils fascinate me, but so do so many other things: deep-space exploration, glaciers, string theory, heart valves, the evolution of written language and contrasts with spoken, telescopes and microscopes and lenses, caves, consciousness and the brain . . .
And when I got home (another four hour drive) I thought about my day spent looking at old dead things and wandering around the sunny hillsides of the park, and thought that one of the things that makes me a good teacher is my enthusiasm for MANY things. If you have an excited adult waving her arms about and exclaiming about the Epic of Gilgamesh and cuneiform writing and how AMAZING it is--and really meaning it--half the battle is won. The students are on your side, curiosity piqued.
This was comforting, as I have not felt successful as a teacher in a long while.
I don't know how much arm-waving librarians do. Maybe I need a job as curriculum and schools coordinator for a museum. Unless you have a better idea?
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