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In praise of my faithful old walking stick and why I carry it fossil hunting: · To clear cobs’ webs from my path · To serve as a third leg on slopes and uneven ground · To clack on boulders advising the residents (especially snakes) that I am about · To extend to a friend helping him get up that last few feet of cliff · To probe among stones where I’m leery of putting my hand · To hold aside the leafy foe – poison ivy · Or the spiny foe · To help carry my bag of rocky treasures, suspended from the “handle” · To look very slightly less defenseless than an empty-handed old man · To act as a crutch when I have just stepped wrong and cracked my tibia and fibula above the ankle Here’s the story on the last one. Yesterday, I went with my friend, Mike, to a favorite fossil hunting spot. It’s a rock face (Winterset) about 100 yards of brush, small ditches, mud, rocky-rubble, and tangley-vines off the road. I was delighting in a couple of newfound trilobits and some cephalopod pieces as we gathered our finds and backpack and headed toward the car. A few yards later I stepped into a small ditch where my foot slipped and stuck at an odd angle between two large rocks, while my body continued forward. I felt my ankle wrenching. It’s an odd sensation and I knew I had done something nasty to it. Mike helped me get up and gave me a hand as he could along the way while we spent the next five years getting back to the car. My mainstay for this journey was my old walking stick. Imagine a single four-foot crutch – not ideal but worlds better than nothing. The doctor commented later that afternoon, “Well you really did it!’ I had. Tibia and fibula were cracked above the ankle. So, you may understand my sentimentality. It’s just a nicely shaped limb of osage orange, straightened a bit, with a metal cap on the bottom. My son (he’s forty) made it for me. But I’ve used it a hundred times in the last few years and it’s a sort of faithful companion. If I lost my 10x Belomo loupe, my Estwing rock pick, my phone, my backpack, or even (gulp!) a bag of newly-found fossils, I would kick myself; but loosing my old walking stick would sadden my heart. Russ

I think that most of us carry a walking stick or staff into the field at some point or other to help turn over rocks without bending, pry rocks up and just to steady ourselves as we walk. This is a work in progress... The high today is below zero and the extended 7 day forecast is for nights all below zero - last night my thermometer read -20, so I am stuck in the house. I needed a creative break from the stress of attempting to put together this seminar and kids activity booth. This bitter cold is throughout most of the United States right now, so I'm thinking this may inspire other fossil hunters to take a little winter break and create memories with their junk fossils. What I have found is that I like to work in memories. Each fossil evokes memories of the hunt - the smell of a dry wash after a summer's rain, the slippery feel of clay on my hands digging a brachiopod out of the dirt, the excitement of finding that broken Silurian horn coral where it shouldn't be... And the leather and feathers are from an old hair piece that I loved dearly but has seen its better days. The colors being my favorite warm rich gold like my Collie dogs. The bit of ivory I had carved into a necklace pendant when I was just 19 years old, but haven't worn since my mid-20s, but kept it all these years. And what do you do with a single segment of crinoid stem that was so unexpected and thrilling to find as I walked that road cut? The colors of turquoise seem to give me strength and always make me smile. I love color in rock. The rich browns of the Tiger's Eye and the subtle greens of those tiny stones all speak to me in a personal way. And now I am playing with a bryzoan that reminds me of Jim - Old Dead Things - and our hunt. And how do I get that first trilobite I prepped (It was a January hunt during an unexpected thaw.), and butchered, out of the matrix to embed perhaps in the top of the stick. And all the hunts this stick has been on... All memories... Junk fossils... Every one a memory... My hope is that you will take your memories and create something that has meaning for you. Bev :-)