Whence come the highest mountains? so did I once ask. Then did I learn that they come out of the sea.
That testimony is inscribed on their stones, and on the walls of their summits. Out of the deepest must the highest come to its height.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Frederick Nietzsche
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A Beginning
When I was a teenager, I worked in my father’s automotive machine shop, during the summer and after classes in high school, rebuilding engines. I learned the mechanics of the engine, but I found the precision and systematic work of rebuilding engines suited my personality. I also had a strong connection to nature, going on many camping, canoeing and hunting adventures with close friends in Boy Scouts.
My family lived in the country along the edge of a conservation area, so I often walked with my dog and went fishing in the Grand River. In high school, science and math came easily to me, but I was also strongly interested in visual art, drawing, and photography.
My father had scientific training, having studied metallurgy at graduate school. While I was growing up, he maintained his interest in science with a regular subscription to Discover Magazine. I looked through several issues. I remember the issue about chaos, and string theory, and would have certainly been captivated by the March issue of 1987, “What Were Dinosaurs Really Like?” and featuring a Hadrosaur feeding its young hatchlings.
For me, in that time before the first Jurassic Park movie, I would have been captivated about dinosaurs as ancient living animals. They cared for their young, traveled in large herds and communicated complex information among the social groups. As I observed nature that surrounded me in my youth, I understood we were all just a small part of a very ancient planet.
How could I have known, that ten years later – I would be exposing the bones of one of these ancient Maiasaur dinosaurs and its young hatchling. But first, I had to learn about how mountains formed, and to search for the reptiles that once swam in ancient oceans.
…. this writing is ongoing, check in again in the future to read more.
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