Dinosaurs and Me

This picture is so interesting to me. It was taken earlier this year, on the way back to LA from Palm Springs. These are the dinosaurs from "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." And that is a fire in the mountains. The juxtaposition is the best part.

Dinosaurs, despite Ellie Sattler from "Jurassic Park", are still dominated by boys. Can't blame 'em. Dinosaurs are the closest thing to real monsters. But I was still pretty into them as a kid. I mean, I didn't spend all my time on them, but I did follow the whole "brontosaurs" / "brachiosauras" pretty closely.

When I was in second grade and we were learning about dinosaurs, our teacher told us that while scientists have fossils of dinosaur bones, they don't have any knowledge of what their skin looked like. She asked us what colors the skin could be. A couple of other kids shouted out "brown" and "green." I raised my hand and said "perhaps polka-dots or stripes!" My teacher said no, the dinosaurs didn't look like that. I remember that to this day because I was so disheartened to be shot down. Now, of course, with better technology, we have discovered that dinosaurs were much more colorful than we first believed. So I was right. But what's really awful is a teacher just shutting a student down like that. She was a terrible teacher, I think she had just been at it for longer than her heart was in it. Oh well. I had other teachers who were much more supportive of children's imaginations.

One of my favorite books is called The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley. It's illustrated by Brian Selznick, who wrote/illustrated the book "Hugo" is based on. It's about one of the first men to really bring dinos to the attention of western society, and it's fantastically illustrated. It's a super sad tale because of what happens, which is all true, but still a great book.

And of course I love "Jurassic Park."