The format and illustrations of this post were inspired by “Metropolitan Diary,” a feature of the New York Times that runs each Sunday. I love this weekly column which, over the years, has spoken to me in myriad ways, often prompting laughter, and, on occasion, tears. It offers five brief, true stories written by Times readers about life in New York City. These miniature essays, recounting some specific experience, capture the urban existence in tiny prose gems. The five stories in this past Sunday’s (December 25, 2022) column, were selected by readers as the best of 2022. They are quite wonderful. Still, I was disappointed that one of my favorites from 2022, written by Sharyn Wolf and titled Rock, Rock, Rock (included in the December 18, 2022 column), failed to make the cut. That one begins:
The explanation that Wolf provides in the ensuing three short paragraphs is unexpected and delightfully funny.“Rock, rock, rock,” I heard a voice repeating. “Rock, rock, rock”
I was walking up a trail into the ramble in Central Park when I came upon the voice’s owner: a tall, slender man with a twist of silver hair over one eye.
I waited, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was that he was doing.
“Rock, rock, rock,” he said again in a monotone. “Rock, rock, rock.”
These wee tales are hard to resist and their appeal has been enhanced over the past five years with deceptively simple drawings by artist Agnes Lee. These appealing illustrations have a timeless quality to them. Lee has written about her arrival in New York City and the process she follows preparing these drawings. Though she is now leaving the city for the West Coast, her artwork will continue to grace “Metropolitan Diary.”
The story which follows is somewhat modeled on the Times column; it includes two of my illustrations influenced by Agnes Lee's.
Some further context is needed. The setting is Purse State Park, a tree-lined Paleocene site on the Maryland shore of the Potomac River about which I’ve previously posted. The man named Mel featured in this account was a committed, consummate fossil collector who was a mainstay in a fossil club to which I still belong. A wonderful person, he has since passed away.
Here then is my fossil hunt diary entry:
Several days after joining a fossil club and attending my first meeting, I was hunting fossils at Purse State Park, wandering somewhat aimlessly and unproductively along the deserted shoreline. I struggled to climb over, or around, the fallen trees lying in the water.
I had no idea what I was doing.
Suddenly, though, I spotted something in the water at my feet. I reached down and picked it up: a beautiful fossil shark tooth. What kind was it? As I stood there puzzling over my find, a voice startled me.
“Hey, what do you have there?”
I turned around and there was Mel, whom I'd met at the club meeting.
I extended my hand to show him the tooth.
“Otodus obliquus. Nice one,” he said.
It was at that point that I realized what a truly amazing organization this club is: I go out into the field, find something I'm not sure about, and a club member immediately appears to give me the definitive ID!
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