Digging Dino

©Jill Posener/Berlin, 2007

True to my word I'm talking dinosaurs. Especially in light of a comment that I might look good in digging gear. I'm really not sure about this. The image evokes the color khaki, and I have to tell you - I don't believe in khaki except when worn by Hollywood, or by the French Foreign Legion. It also brings up weird hats with corks hanging from the sides, and sweat leaking through the fabric at the armpits. Do you think I could still go digging for dino in my 501's and a T shirt with a slogan about animals on it? I do have the boots though. That's good.

But all this got me thinking about the famous palaentology family, the Leakeys. And of one Leakey in particular. The wildman, Richard. I found a BBC description of him which had me aching with laughter and, dare I admit, a slight envy. But, you tell me, is there anything, anything at all that remotely sounds like me?? Nah, I don't think so....

'Imagine an ageing Indiana Jones - ruthless, unwell and still itching for another adventure - a man with powerful enemies, huge talents, and an almost insatiable appetite for controversy.
Dr Richard Leakey may not carry a bullwhip or look much like Harrison Ford, but Kenya's most famous white man sometimes seems like a character from some implausibly wild comic strip.

"He is a wild man, a fighter," says a former colleague who'd rather not give his name. ...." well, he can be difficult - an egomaniac."
He has been beaten up, threatened and badly injured in a plane crash which took away both his legs. "I think pressure probably suits me," Leakey said once with urbane understatement.
He's been called energetic, ruthless and seemingly incorruptible, Leakey told his rangers to shoot poachers on sight and organised the public burning of a huge cache of ivory.'

I had forgotten, and this little discussion reminded me - how filled with drama, how many incredible battles, ego driven explosions, thefts, sinister conspiracies the world of archaeology has seen. Add in the innate danger of being in a strange place, a sunken or hidden, often undiscovered place, with indigenous people who resent the presence of outsiders, 'foreign experts' often rich and powerful white men, and the nasty streak of imperialist  posession that characterised the pursuit of archaeological 'discovery' in the 20th century....and hey, it isn't so surprising that I would ache to be right in the middle of it.

That this desire was etched in my brain at a very early age was partly because I spent my really young formative years delving among the ruins of colonial Dutch fortresses in Malaya, before they were tourist attractions, and walking behind a villager with a machete slashing at huge plants to ease the walk to a temple with snakes crawling from every pot and surface, hanging from timber roofs, and that unforgettable heavy scent of rain and steamy forest all around me. Mud, insects, secret places to discover, anticipation and revelation, the idea that we were the first, in a long time, to see something.

It may be that having experienced something so filled with colour, sense, sound, smell and danger so young, yet never really fearing for myself - that it all seems a little pedestrian after that. Who knows? I still look, everywhere I go, for that special moment, that unique treasure. These days I make do with finding the discarded pieces of a former time at my beloved Albany Landfill. A shard of broken pottery, a piece of a dining plate,  an as yet undiscovered  chunk of tile, perhaps from a demolished 1930's emporium. I can dream, right?

Comments

[gwnn]

" Do you think I could still go digging for dino in my 501's and a T shirt with a slogan about animals on it?"

Well, most definitely – no khaki. Ah, the photographer digging for busted plate scraps at the landfill. This is something that I can admire about you . . . albeit from afar (I am not a east bay dweller).

I have a taste for old bottles myself. And I would love to excavate some if only I knew where to point my shovel. Something about the way the morning light hits the glass and that rainbow-ish sheen that some of the older glass has. But please, don’t misconstrue that for a love of rainbows. I am not a rainbow lover. Something far too unicorny about rainbows for me to dig (ha, I made a pun!). And though I am mad for horses, that little rainbow tail on the ‘my pretty pony” toy from the 1980’s has me hearing the sound of fingernails of a chalkboard.

Ah, but I digress . . . this is about you and your 501s and yes, I still want to bring you that cool drink . . .

[Deborah]

I can dream right? Absofreakinglylutely! The only digging I do is in the front, it yields few surprises. Just a lot of weeds and Mcdonald's debris.

[Deb in Minnesota]

I love Khaki, hah! Khaki reminds me of being a tomboy and playing outdoors all day and pretending I was in Africa instead of the midwestern state, Nebraska.

We all need our imaginations and to follow our dreams. Even in our middle years. Keep the desire and quest for that unique treasure.

As for me, I found a unique treasure in your blog.