Another story from my trip with the grandkids
The highlight of the trip was saved until the last day. I found a place called Trammel Park outside Cincinnati, where you could dig fossils and keep them. Anyone who knows a child between the ages of 5 and 8 has bought them a “Future Paleontologist” t-shirt. This park would be the crowning moment of our adventure.
In fact, my grandson told me with sincerity this had been his dream for years, digging fossils. I knew they would be excited. I also knew they would probably be bored. As the discussion about what this experience might be like progressed, it became clear they expected dinosaur bones, preferably large and preferably as part of a fully formed skeleton buried just under the surface of the dirt. In other words, that this would be easy.
Expectations Meet Reality
We arrived, pail of tools and gloves and brushes in hand. We climbed to a place that didn’t look like it had been recently worked. They started randomly clawing at the hard earth and were rather shocked when nothing happened. And then irritated. And then discouraged.
In the meantime, I wandered around picking through the thousands of rocks just laying there to be examined. I found bird skeletons imprinted in rock, sea creatures that had been captured somehow in the rock, all kinds of interesting things. I’d pick it up and show it to them. After affirming me, they would keep digging. You have great eyes Grandma, they would say.
We lasted about an hour. They divided up the few things they found and my ample collection and we headed home. They were satisfied and hot and hungry, so it was a good day.
There are many lessons and metaphors to take from this story. Here is mine: it isn’t that hard to find good things. You just have to look and be open to finding them. There might be some really great things that you don’t find but there is plenty of good out there. Sometimes you have to accept the smaller victories, appreciate the little things. You will essentially find what you expect to find. So expect good things.