Dinosaurs

I still remember my first trip to the La Brea Tar Pits. For those who don't live in the Los Angeles area, it's a place where, millions of years ago, tar bubbled up from the earth to trap (and preserve) various prehistoric critters. In modern times, the tar pits have become part of a natural history museum, and the remains of those unfortunate animals caught in the gooey mess have been carefully pulled out, cleaned and put on display.

From my first visit, I sympathized with the dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers and other beasts that hadn't made the Darwinian cut and were now reduced to skeletons for the survivors to look at. Now, I feel an even closer kinship to them.

From all indications, I have to conclude that evolution has passed me by. The life lessons I was taught, the beliefs I picked up, are as anachronistic as the dim thoughts that must have passed through the tiny brains of the various reptiles, mammals and other no-longer-living beings that museum-goers now stare at.

I share a common problem with those once-living things pulled out of the tar: I didn't adapt. Like them, I didn't know I had been rendered obsolete and superfluous until I began to sink into the muck.

With that in mind, I suppose I should not be upset with those who have turned their backs on me. They must have sensed my impending fossilhood.

I do hope they'll come to show their children my skeleton, though, and tell them stories of the days when I roamed the Earth.

If dinosaurs deserve that, I do too. They once meant something, and so did I.