Basket Raffle

Going out to a park alone can be tricky and nerve wracking; every twig snap signals sudden death by raccoon or bear or sasquatch.  But going to the woods is one of the most energizing and restorative activities, for who doesn't like picking up acorns, hickory nuts, leaves, or just breathing the oxygen given off by the trees?  Your head clears, filled with dreamscapes of green.

So I don't go, but was looking for an outdoor activity I could do by myself if no one else was around.  Walking was okay, trotting down to the lighthouse at the end of the berm and back was a short half hour; going for a walk around the downtown buildings was spooky on the weekend, for downtown no longer has shoppers for the disappeared stores, and the only place open besides a few restaurants is the central library.

Last time I went there, it was pandemonium; quiet doesn't exist.  C'MERE, YOU GOTTA SEE THE BABY DO BEYONCE, SING LIKE BEYONCE, WAFFLE. Waffle got out of her stroller, held her bottle like a microphone, and yelled "PUH HARRING ONNIT" over 'n over as if the needle was stuck in the groove.  Staff are completely cowed, and if they try to conduct order, are told to go eff themselves.

Two years ago, my son and his wife wanted to give out fossils as wedding favors, which was a memorable idea.  Buckets, shovels and a vague vision accompanied us to the nearby Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Preserve, where we dug in the mounds of shale left from the days that it was a cement quarry, and found scads of brachiopods and horn corals.  I liked digging and banging rocks open a lot, became a member, and now have a go-to place for getting outside.

On weekends, the place is usually crawling with kids, which isn't a problem. Everything is a treasure, and you keep what you find.  They yell amazement and success, or if very small, cry when summer heat becomes a weight.  They don't bother me a bit, I can only hope their enthusiasm lasts into later decades.  This may not happen as easily as expected, for the elephant in the room is a certain brand of adult.

When in a big box store, and a kid is acting up in a tantrum, it takes every professional atom in my body not to go over and correct the miscreant, elementary teacher style.  But it's the same with adults.  If a parent is bullying, or threatening a consequence without enforcement, I am just itching to correct them as well.  

Parent:  "If you don't stop, you will have to sit in the cart."  No stopping.  "If you don't stop, you will have to sit in the cart, I mean it."  Behavior gleefully escalates.  "Please stop, that's not how you behave, you will have to sit in the cart if you don't make a good choice. Do you want a Slurpee?"  People stare at me because my head has turned inside out with the effort of non-involvement.

Or this, what I often hear at the fossil dig from a parent; Come here, let me show you, go in the water and you don't even have to dig anything, the fossils are right there.  See?  In the water.  (Kid goes to dig in loose rock). No no no, Pancake, in the water.  Come in the puddle, it's easy.  I'm telling you.  You have to look in the water.  AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME?  Get over here.  You aren't finding anything, stupid; look at what I have already.  You wanted to come here, why aren't you looking in the water??

Probably because the water is stale, smelly, dead, and the mountains of shale look like fun to climb.  Fossils are everywhere, you could fall down and find them.  Let the kid explore, just keep an eye on them.

Today, however, not the mother of the year made the visit a dramatic stage play, for which she should get an award.  "This isn't what I thought it would be."  Boy: "Look!  I found a fossil!  What is it?"  "YOU KNOW YOU AREN'T BRINGING ANY OF THIS INTO MY HOUSE!" Boy, wistful: "I know."  "THIS PLACE IS HIDEOUS. HIDEOUS!  I COULD BE AT A BASKET RAFFLE."

Wicked my brain: You want hideous, take a look at that blouse you're wearing. You should go to the basket raffle, maybe win a new one.  My serenity was being interrupted by this yowling.  The injustice of bringing a child to dig fossils when you could be at the finest basket raffle, getting more crap that you don't need!  What's in those baskets is dollar store hoo-ha, not a collection of china from Bergdorf's.  She wanted a medal for being at this forsaken, grey quarry, when dish sponges from Taiwan were disappearing under her nose because she wasn't there to claim her prize of prizes.

"We're GOING! There's a basket raffle going on, don't you want to be at the basket raffle?  This place is awful."  The term "basket raffle" was blasted ten times in two minutes, and I was ready to crawl into the subterranean muck and hide with the trilobites.  Or, ninja throw my rock hammer right center of her man bun.

The kid said nicely, "But I don't want to go, I want to find the one that looks like a shell.  Can we stay five more minutes?"  I will give her the credit of acquiescing for the five minutes, yet his plaintiveness broke a bit of my heart as it reminded me of myself when a kid, when my father would make me stay in the car as he took my brother out to toss a ball around at the park.  You don't deserve to go.

One last halloo of  "basket raffle" and they loaded up, I think the kiddo did find a few things from the chirps he made.  Then I had peace until the Cub Scout troop showed up, but they were excitedly great, their parents were happily great, and the spot I found to dig was Devonian awesomeness.  Accumulated was quite a pail full of various species of brachiopods, and the largest gastropod of one inch that the volunteer guides had ever seen.

I like finding things, it took me years to realize why I enjoy walking on beaches for shells, why digging for fossils is happiness, or why searching for wild mushroom species is exciting.  Becoming a research librarian would have suited me well, but the career outlook was poor; here I am, better a teacher.  But finding, it's discovery and recovery.

It puts things in place, familiar objects that have a noble stature in my mind.  My godmother gave me my first seashell, simple fossils lay about on the ground where I grew up, and the curiosity of mushrooms has enthralled me since being a child.  Talismans.  What are yours?  What gives you a place that is your own in this world?

Tonight there is a harvest moon hidden behind the remnants of clouds from the last hurricane.  We are due to have much rain.  It will run in rivulets through the loose gravel and stone, freshly dug this afternoon, releasing more fossils from the matrix of clay and shale.  The nights are cooler, deeper in darkness, which now comes sooner in October; tuck in the children, the cats, the dogs, and yourselves. Appropriate to shake out the winter blankets, our sails for bedtime dreams loosed from the anchors of time.  Dreams and wishes.

Good night, sleep well.  Everything will be fine, I promise.