DESIREE: “Maybe you should have used an apple for comparison.”
ME: “You
think? But a beer is more me.”
DESIREE: “I
just wonder what people will think.”
ME: “Maybe
an apple would be better.”
The conversation above occurred
after I showed Desiree the photographs I took of the bones and petrified wood I
gathered on our dinosaur bone hunting excursion. I placed a can of Cold Smoke beer alongside
the fossils as a reference for size. In
my hometown of East Helena, Montana, most everything is measured against a can
of beer. But I do take Desiree’s point
on this. Sadly, not everyone is from
East Helena.
A few words about subjects in
my photographs:
First of all, petrified wood
lay strewn about almost everywhere in the badlands area we meandered. I am not exaggerating when I say you could
fill a wheelbarrow with the stuff. I
collected only a handful of specimens I found especially intriguing. Additionally, I needed to limit the weight in
my backpack.
Insofar as dinosaur bones are
concerned, I collected only bits and pieces of no great value to the serious study
of the “terrible lizards”. But the fragments
mean a lot to the seven-year-old boy still found within me. Looking at them, touching them, fills me with
wonder.
My Collected Petrified Wood
Specimens
My Bone and Tendon Fragments
Did anything go up in smoke?
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