Bones
The worms don’t have an easy time with bones. Bones last a long time. I know because I’m an anthropologist. I worked with the Florida state archaeologist, Calvin Jones, as an undergraduate. He’s gone now, too, a good man, in amongst his own worms. We excavated Spanish missions and Native American sites. While excavating San […]
Holly, Joanne, Edd, Nettie and Bill
The Sixties was about NOTHING if it wasn’t about SEX. You know, one of our anthems of the period by CSNY, “If you’re not with the one you love, then love the one you’re with!” And we did. And the derivation of a human estrogen analogue from a South American yam freed us all up to do so. The Pill!
Gator Wrestling
“You’re Not Afraid of a Little Old 8-foot Alligator, Are You, Phil?” Think what you will, but this really happened… One of our research techniques was sampling the biomass from ten traps (see Appendix for illustration) and from these 500 square feet of net extrapolating the entire biological mass of the Glades! These […]
The African Queen
I was part of a research team in the Everglades National Park from 1967 to 1969 doing the first overall study of the ecology of the ‘Glades. This is one of those stories. During my first visit to Cottonmouth Camp I found out what it was like to be both the new guy on the […]
Henry Beston – The Outermost House
In my professional practice I do not send out the printed Season’s Greeting cards. I think they are hideous and cold. Do the people who send them really think the client thinks they are being remembered? I was an anthropologist. A major subject in the study of cultures is the Rite of Passage. Some people […]
The Opening Act
Welcome. Where does one start?