The Paleontologist
an original story
I can remember when I decided to be a paleontologist. I was 5 or 6, and my parents drove me and my brother to the LA Country Natural History Museum. I’d seen the dinosaurs in Disney’s Fantasia before and indeed I’d probably seen Jurassic Park, but something about seeing those bones right there in front of me just stuck with me. That summer I must have checked out every single book about dinosaurs in the local library.
Now I’m a grad student and I’m teaching Introduction to Geology to freshman. I know they’ll probably be bored out of their skulls if I just take roll and read the syllabus on the first day so I’m bringing some samples with me. That’s what Professor Nomura advised me to do. It’ll be like a mystery - they have to identify rocks by performing scratching tests, determining their place on the Mohs scale, looking up descriptions in the textbook. So I’m in traffic, the case of rocks on the passenger seat next to me, coffee in the cupholder. I look up at the hillside and read its story of erosion. Men in reflective safety jackets assemble on the other side of the median.
I arrive at campus at about 9:30 and drive through the parking lot looking for a space past chrome glaring in sunlight. Rows of cars packed as close together as bricks in a wall. Some kid playing on his cell phone walks right in front of me. I find a space, at the back of the lot, and walk past the rows and rows to the Earth Sciences Building.
As I pass the Life Sciences Building I see the aquarium glass glint in the sun and a memory comes back to me. At PhD orientation I met a girl and failed to get her number because I got roped into a conversation with a former classmate. After I finished with him I tried to find her again but it seemed like she disappeared from the face of the art that night and for the next few days. And then one day I walked by that building and saw hands manipulating a net in the aquarium. I looked up and saw her face through sunlit water. I saw her again, a few times after that, but something about that image has always stuck with me. Something about the light, and the surprise, and looking up at the surface like I was sitting on the ocean floor.
The students file into the classroom, headphones on. No one looks excited to be here. Fluorescents glare overhead. I have arranged the desks in groups of four and with a rock on each, and a handful of the students pick up rocks and look them over. I introduce myself and my work, and the task at hand. Most get to it but a few students continue to play on their phones. I don’t want to have to be that guy, the one who calls them out on it. I remember, back in high school, when the teachers would confiscate from students if they used them in class. The kids’ parents would have to come pick them up after school from the vice principal’s office. These kids, here, are adults, and I guess they should be able to make their own decisions. And, besides, I need to focus on the students who are interested in learning, so I let it go for today.
Afterwards I spend a few hours in the library, working, going through old issues of Fossils and Strata, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Cretaceous Research. Multiple students are sleeping, in chairs or in the aisles. Two are having a heated conversation in a language that I do not speak.
I eat lunch on campus, at the cafeteria, and then attend the weekly department meeting. Professor Smith gives his commentary on the recent changes in state learning outcomes. Outcome C.II.3 in the intro course, one of the fundamental geological skills that students must demonstrate competence in, has been changed from “identify differences between rocks and minerals, including hardness, elemental composition, geological history, and place in the geological strata” to “analyze differences between rocks and minerals, including hardness, elemental composition, geological history, and place in the geological strata.” I listen as the professor speculates about the implications of this change.
After a few more hours in the library I walk back to the parking lot past a handful of students sitting smoking on a bench. As I drive back home I pass the workmen on the side of the road and their open trench and wonder about the day when I will be allowed to dig up bones.
Author’s Note: Another slice of life story, inspired by my time at Orange Coast College and starring a character a lot like myself.