The thing that struck me the most today was the Mososaur. Most of the other bones and fossils that we looked at were from various places in Texas that I’ve never seen or heard of. The Mososaur, however, was found just four miles from Austin. The idea that something that huge and (presumably) that majestic once lived here, where I sit now, amazes me.
Now, the only remnants of the vast ocean where the Mososaur lived are the bones, fossils, and a few lakes and rivers. Instead of seaweed and sea urchins, we have big deciduous tress and albino squirrels. This is a completely different world now. I wonder how it will be in another few million years.
The other meaningful part of today’s class was visiting Waller Creek. There is a creek much like this one behind my house, complete with fossils, fish, and trash. I remember playing there when I was younger. My friends and I would explore and see how far we could go in either direction. We picked up cool rocks and fossils and brought them home. We felt like we were in a completely different world. It was so primitive and wild compared to the road a few yards above us. Waller Creek reminds me of my creek, only it’s much farther below the street level and has more rock surrounding it. It’s been years since I’ve been creek-walking or ice skating behind my house and this brings back a ton of memories. I now want to go back to my creek and take another look at all the fossils that I never paid much attention to before. This has made me much more aware of my surroundings.
Place in Time and Space (9-25-03)
Right now, on the morning of September 25, 2003 C.E., I sit on a limestone rock in the middle of Waller Creek in Austin, Texas, United States of America, North America, Planet Earth, the Milky Way. But what, really, does that mean? Where am I? “O Earth, what changes hast thou seen?” (143)
This “small, lazy creek” (163) has been here for hundreds of years. It didn’t start as a creek running along San Jacinto Boulevard in the middle of a busy campus. In fact, not much more than a century, ago, there was no campus, just the developing city of Austin. Not long before that, there were no Americans here. Before that, no America. Just since the existence of mankind, many different people, many different types of people, have lived here, traveled through here, admired this creek, bathed in or drank from its waters, or trod across this land before there even wasa creek. Prehistoric Asians, American Indians, Spanish, English, French, Americans, and (more recently) people from virtually every other country and ethnicity have lived here, from 2 million years ago (128) to today, to me. That is an incredible number of people who have changed and marked this place, whether with just a footprint (like most) or with the dedication of “many years (now approaching 50)” (170), as Joe Jones did.
Would this place be vastly different if one or two (or even 100 or 200) of those people hadn’t been here? Probably not. But the combined change caused by all those people would add up over time. But I have not even considered anything before humans. All of the animals—the fish, squirrels, birds, dinosaurs, “Mososaurs, Dimetrodons, Quetzalcoatluses, shellfish, Plesiosuars, Pteradactyls,” (135-136) beetles, ants, mosquitoes, snakes—have caused at least as much (if not more) change as humans. This is their land’ we’re just borrowing it. They were the ones who created (although inadvertently) the limestone upon which I sit, the predecessors of the fish that dart beneath my feet and the mosquitoes which suck my blood. They were here for millions of years before us and will probably be here for millions of years after us. We must care for it while we are here or else it won’t be ours for very long.
This still doesn’t really answer where I am, though. I am in a place that has a rich history, yes. But aren’t all places like that, if you dig deep enough? I know very little about where I am geographically. I know I’m in Austin, on the UT campus, etc, etc. I also know where I’m not: this is not Ohio; I’m quite far from home. This is not Spain or Costa Rica or New York. This isn’t even Dallas or Amarillo. This is “central Travis County…in Austin…The creek is an area characterized by a rolling terrain and expansive clay soils. Although situated in an urban area, the creek is near a variety of vegetation, including oak and juniper trees” (162). So I’m in a sort of natural preserve, a place that “has survived the abuse and neglect of town” (163). I’m sitting with my feet in a creek in a university with over 50,000 students. I’m at UT. I’m in Texas. I’m in nature and civilization at the same time. And yet, strangely enough, I’m home.