The Dinosaur

Behold the mighty dinosaur,
Famous in prehistoric lore,
Not only for his power and strength
But for his intellectual length.
You will observe by these remains
The creature had two sets of brains--
One in his head (the usual place),
The other at his spinal base.
Thus could he reason "Apriori"
As well as "Aposteriori."
No problem bothered him a bit
He made both head and tail of it.
So wise was he, so wise and solemn,
Each thought filled just a spinal column.
If one brain found the pressure strong
It passed a few ideas along.
If something slipped his forward mind
'Twas rescued by the one behind.
And if in error he was caught
He had a saving afterthought
As he thought twice before he spoke
He had no judgement to revoke.
Thus could he think without congestion
Upon both sides of every question.
Oh, gaze upon this model beast,
Defunct ten million years at least.

--Bert Leston Taylor, Chicago Tribune, 1912

It's most apt that I stumbled across this poem just now, for I am abiding in Vernal, Utah. Vernal, as anyone who has driven through is well aware, is a town obsessed with dinosaurs, and not in the most laudable fashion. My manager and I were discussing today which plastic dinosaur statue deserves recognition as the most absurd. I feel that the long term champion is the green brontosaurus which entirely lacks hindquarters, excepting the tail; imagining its locomotion generates some fascinating imagery. But there's stiff competition right now from a tyrannosaur who's lately been dressed up as a senile fly-fisherman. And I was disappointed to see that the smiling pink beast on the edge of town no longer has a length of steel pipe through its thorax.

But it's not all so dismal. We went the other day to the grand opening of Vernal's new dinosaur museum, and it's really rather good, much better than the old one, (though the Vernal flavour's still there, embodied in the old shag-carpeted mammoth statue, still roaming free amidst the stegosaurs and deinonychus). They've got a splendid array of fossils, almost all of them local Uinta basin products, from many eras. Standouts: a towering wall completely tiled in lovely lithified leaves; some stunning sets of tracks; one of those bizarre spiral jaws sharks used to have, overflowing with teeth; and, representing the Cenozoic, a complete Uintatherium. We also bought, in a moment of civic pride, a button, the proceeds from which will go to keep the allosaurus statue in the yard from being sent to Salt Lake, a city that really ought to be able to afford its own allosaurs. The image on the button is meant, I suppose to look like a baby dinosaur eye seen through a cracking eggshell; the actual effect is very H.P. Lovecraft. It also reminds of the B'Zoar, the big squishy thing which Buffy killed in the high school basement with a pickaxe.

And in other news: everyone knows that there are two kinds of raft guides, those who have flipped and those who are still waiting. Thanks to Submarine Hole on the Illinois, I am at last a member of the first group. Success!