Some years ago I dated a woman whose parents were hippies. They lived down the street from a responsible alcoholic, a gentle and kind man who could never quite conquer his demons but always cared for his cats and had enough sense not to drive a car. So when he visited, he did so on his riding mower, puttering the quarter mile or so along the side of the road.
One summer day I was over there hanging out when the neighbor rode over. He came inside and had a mumbling conversation with the mother for a few minutes as I listened, amazed that she could understand any of the words. Eventually they decided to go down to the nearby creek for a swim and I tagged along to play with their new puppy.
When we got to the creek they took off all their clothes and got in. The mother asked me if I wanted to swim but I hadn't really prepared myself psychologically for skinny dipping with my girlfriend's 55-year old mother and an alcoholic neighbor. Fortunately, Ohio was covered by a shallow sea 450 million years ago so I was able to excuse myself from the situation by looking for fossils in the creek bed.
I didn't find anything there, but I did find the cool rock below on a hike in the woods last weekend. It seems like there is a little bit of everything in here... based on my thorough research (i.e. looking at some pics on this page), I think there may be brachiopods, snails, clams and cephalopods, and maybe more.
2 comments:
It's even more amazing that you can find concentrations of fossils just as dense as that in pretty much any run of the mill retaining wall around town. It's a great excuse to use the word fossiliferous. I see what looks like Crinoid stems and perhaps a few Bryozoans too.
fossiliferous... damn, that's a great word.
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