I have always been a dorky little person. When I was a kid this was manifest in my fascination with rocks and minerals. I had a field guide and would pore over its pages in fascination and wonder. My dad gave me a piece of pumice he'd found in the pocket of a new pair of jeans. I spent a lot of time thinking about how cool rocks were.
I would beg to go to the Discovery Channel Store, and once there my dad would give in to my sad eyes and let me pick a polished stone to add to my collection. Obsidian, amethyst, quartz, tigers eye, I had it all.
I would come in from playing outside with a handful of rocks for the collection. In hindsight they were probably chunks of concrete or macadam, but they were exciting nonetheless. I remember one in particular that was triangular and had three layers :white, brown, white. It was my peanut butter sandwich rock.
During these early childhood years I spent all of my playtime with the twins across the street. We would play in The Jungle (a cluster of trees in their yard), which was down by The Crick (often ran neon orange from runoff from the University).
I remember vividly the actions leading up to my first betrayal.
I found a stick in their yard that was Y-shaped and perfect for a slingshot. They weren't happy that I took it, but I did. "Finder's keepers!", I said.
The next day when I went outside to take inventory of my rock collection, my clear plastic bin of rocks was missing. They were GONE.
Later they told me, smugly, that they had stolen them in the night and dumped the entire collection in the crick. A revenge dump of all of my dreams because I took a stick. I was devastated and was never able to rebuild my collection to its former glory. Still bitter, and not a geologist.
No comments:
Post a Comment